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Wayland Travel
308 Commonwealth Road
Wayland, MA 01778
Phone: 508.653.4600
Toll Free: 800.552.0300
Fax: 508.655.5672
We are a proud member of Signature Travel Network; a co-operative of the travel industry's leading retail travel agencies serving thousands of clients from around the world. The network, generates sales in excess of $4 billion.
How We Get Paid
Ah... The good 'ole days... once upon a time, everyone (airlines, hotels, cruise lines, tour companies) paid travel agents at 5-10% to sell their products and we could provide our time and expertise to the traveling public for "free". Those days are long gone.
In most cases, travel agencies are still compensated by hotels, tour operators and cruise lines for handling client bookings so we don’t have to charge fees for those services IF the trip goes forward as planned. For other services, we have to charge to cover our professional services just as an accountant, lawyer or doctor would. See a partial menu of our fees here. We have several kinds of fees:
AGENCY FEES
as of July 01, 2010
| Airline transaction fee (issues, re-issues, upgrades, refunds, voids) | from $30.00 |
|---|---|
| Hourly rate for itinerary planning & consultation | $75.00-$100.00 |
| "Concierge" fees (tee times, spa services, dining etc) | from $25.00 |
| Mileage booking and research fees – per person | $50.00-$250.00 |
| Night and weekend agent assistance | from $50.00 |
| TESS 24-hour emergency telephone service calls | $25.00 |
- "Ticketing/transaction fees"
Generally, airline and rail tickets and car rentals are now non-commissionable to travel agents so we have to charge to cover the time required for research and processing these transactions and the overhead (lights, airline system access etc) attributable to the booking. Sometimes such bookings are “quick and easy”. Often they turn out to be more complicated than expected and higher fees are needed.
- "Plan to go fees"
These are deposits that are applied towards your trip cost if all goes as expected but are retained by our agency to cover our time and expertise if life throws a curve ball and a trip never comes together or has to be cancelled.
- "Consultation fees"
Some clients prefer not to pre-book all their arrangements or like to stay in little B&B's that can’t or won’t pay an agency commission or want to redeem “points” or miles for their trips but they still need or want our planning services. In these cases, we’re happy to provide destination knowledge and expertise in itinerary design at an hourly rate.