Academy Travel Inc

Got my start with this agency, and then left and got my REAL start with another FAR BETTER organization. Start-up manual is basic start up for any home based business. It is not travel specific. There is no training aside from College of Disney Knowledge. If you call or email with a question, the response is, "just call the supplier." Commission checks always seemed to be 'off'. When I was with them, their instructions were that you could NOT have an email with the company name in it, which made it impossible to use some of the Disney tools. Have had others contact me to hear if my exeprience was the same as theirs. Sadly, it wasn't a good experience. This MAY be a good host for a seasoned agent, but for someone starting out, it's a non-supportive money pit of stress.

I am definitely not looking to slander Academy Travel for any reason, I just wanted to provide honest feedback about my personal experience with the agency. Of course, other peoples' experiences are different. Academy Travel was the first agency I worked with, and I got my first booking while affiliated with them.
The pros:
-They host regular webinars which were extremely educational and helpful! I enjoyed the Q&A after the actual webinar, because people asked great questions and I learned a lot just from that part of the webinar!
-During my time with them, they were working on making improvements to provide more resources and opportunities to agents
-You could have your name listed on their website with contact information for potential clients
-Jayne was very responsive any time I emailed her with a question
The cons:
-like other reviews have said, there really wasn't a lot of opportunity for training, outside of obtaining access to the Disney Travel Agents website and the training on there. As someone brand new to the industry, I got "hired" and then basically left alone
-again, as others have said, they did have a book available that seemed helpful, but they charged $100 for it, which presented a barrier to learning instead of providing a boost
-if you had any questions about anything, you had to send individual emails, or comment on the only blog post in their blog, and hope someone would answer it and that you would be able to find the answer among all the other comments from agents doing the exact same thing
-you had to pay to have your name listed on the website, or to have them create you an extremely generic website of your own.
Overall, my impression was that the agency was so big that they didn't really have to care if any one agent succeeded or failed because they had so many other successful agents... Not to mention revenue from all the products they were selling to agents themselves. It's probably a great agency to work with if you are already experienced and have your own clients already, but maybe not the best to start out with. Just my opinion!

I really wanted to love this agency. But nothing made it easy. While they don't charge a startup fee, they nickel and dime you for business cards, guide books, and any additional support you'd like to promote your business.
Commission checks were always late- and some not accurate.
Communication was often slow, incomplete, and not answered properly.
You also never received an ounce of recognition unless you were a part of the "in crowd"
This is the puppy mill of Disney travel agencies.

This team of Agency owners is the most educated and helpful group of individuals I have come across in the Travel Industry. They provide all the information needed to help my business grow, they make a point to stay in touch, keep me updated and are always there to support!

I was with Academy for a little less than a year...I am very thankful they gave me my start as Disney Vacation specialist, but it didn't take me long to realize that this was not the agency for me. The communication was horrible, it would take days and sometimes over a week for Jayne to call you back if you had a question. There were was no support or training other than some books that you had to purchase. I also learned very quickly that their percntage to agents was extremely low....I also had asked if I could book other than disney and their answer was we would rather you didn't but if you feel you need to then purchase the book to tell you how...Commission payment was very slow in coming...it was usually 2 months behind...I am thankful that I found an agency that I LOVE...I know at least 6 agents that have left Academy to pursue another agency, most of us ended up together and are so happy!!

I was with AT for long enough trying to "give them a chance" but in the end I learned I am way too nice and should have left long ago.
Pros- No Monthly Fees to get started which is why I chose them to begin with
Cons- Horrible Communication, they charge you for EVERYTHING! They have 3 different Guide books that cost money, to get your bio on their website it costs $40. They pay a extremely low percentage and make it extremely hard to increase that. In my 3 years with them I never got a higher commission percentage even though my sales went up by quite a bit. No support but very controlling, and Jayne is not knowledgeable about things that she should be as a manager.

To top all of this off, they offered to make agent websites (and bios) which would have been great. Pay a little extra and have someone work with each of us to design what we want(if we are only doing Disney or if we want to concentrate on cruises, etc.) so it would be personalized to each individual agent and not worry about if the pictures are legal. Nope, It was $400 and everyone had the SAME page, the only difference was your name picture and bio at the top. Oh, and it was Lisa Givas's (Owner) Husband making the pages. I was able to get a friend of mine to build a very personalized page for half that and I can change things on it, add things to it as I grow in the business, and it can be moved with me if I ever decide to change agencies again.

I would do your research before joining with AT, there are so many great Host Agencies out there than are much more supportive, have better communication, and pay higher commissions.

I was excited to being working with this host agency that specialized in Disney Destinations. I'm still thankful that this agency got me started as a Travel Agent, but as a host agency - they are nothing but lacking. I had no support, no training, no nothing. Anytime I did have a question I was told to contact Disney directly - not my host agency. The only payment I received was months late, and less than I expected it to be. I did not have a good experience with this agency.