Altour

Altour acquired my company in 1995. I am still there 19 years later. I worked as an independent contractor, and as a consultant before being offered a position on the management team. I can say from first hand experience that this company is extremely well run. I have always had access to top management and they were receptive to new ideas, always focused on improving the environment for agents. When you join Altour you get all the support that comes with $1.2B in buying power. They've expanded every year I have been there and emerged better and stronger each time. Agents get technical support, international rate desk, commission chasing team, 24/7 emergency desk, hotel team, community email for inquiries and to share suggestions, HUGE perks and recognition from vendors, opportunity for personal growth and travel.

My agency group Westside International Travel has been affiliated with Altour since 2002. We used to be a stand alone agency but realized one must align itself with a larger host agency partner in order to maximize our yield and I’m very happy we did! The initial process took some time migrating and implementing the tracking of commissions and change in invoicing with the accounting department but things gotten in balance in a short period of time and Altour was very honest throughout the entire process. Our group has been very pleased and not only have I retained my original staff I’ve also been able to add additional agents to our agency group because of our affiliation with Altour. 11 years later we’re still going strong at Altour.

My orginal host agency was purchased by Altour/ The Travel Authority in summer 2010. Any one who has a host knows that when new owners come in things will/may change. At first I thought I would have to switch immediately, fellow hosted agents and myself were assured "independant agents are important to our growth" yada yada. Invoicing and getting paid acurately was difficult and still is. The invoice system is long and needs dozens of little tid bits of infor to identify (such BS when you see how other hosts do it.) They seem to misplace commission alot but always paid when you did all the research to find the payment they recieved. Spring of 2012 (about 18 months later) out of the blue hosted agents get a email letter commission across the board will go to 60/40% split. Most of us were at 80/20 or 70/30. I left, unfortunatley 30,000 of commission is still in limbo because I could NOT transfer owner ship to new host Nexion, which is a vendor issue. I was orginally told I could take ALL my bookings. When we figured out that would not be possible (again a vendor/ MLT system issue) thats when real trouble started! Becuase the split was going to be huge (20% less for me) I wrote to the coordinator told Altour I would not be making NEW reservations and here is the list of travelers (MY clients) for the remainder of the year (last group travels Nov 2012) I expect to have access to my log ins and client files until they are done and get paid 80% these where made prior to the announcement. The next month my log in ID was DELETED with MLT.... TOTALLY NOT COOL. They could have put my log in ID on hold (as admin) but decided to delete! Hours to try and fiure out how to correct. The "work around" is to make a new log in ID with ad min rights.... meaning I could DELETE thier log in ID's.... I would NOT do that but really people. Stay away! Go with a REALY host agency Nexion and Travel Planners are HOSTs and dont own brick and mortar like Altour and Travel Authority.