Sandals Calls Emergency Meeting With Top Agents

Sandals called an “emergency” meeting of its top-producing travel agents this week after travel sellers reacted angrily to commission cuts and new restrictions under the company’s Soon Come Back program for return stays.

Members of the Chairman’s Royal Club reported receiving phone calls on Thursday from their Sandals reps inviting them to a hastily scheduled three-day meeting to discuss the changes. The expense-paid invitation to Sandals’ Emerald Bay in the Bahamas, March 5 to 7, included roundtrip air.

10% commission cap
In February Sandals informed agents that, effective March 1, it would cap commissions at 10% for return bookings made by clients while on property under the Soon Come Back program. It also prohibited agents from transferring such bookings to their tour operator partners.

In addition, Sandals stipulated that for agents to receive credit for such bookings, their clients must first send a written request to Sandals’ booking rep, Unique Vacations. Agents were asked to sign an agreement detailing the new terms and conditions.

Invited to meeting
Travel seller Kira Solomon, a member of Sandals’ Chairman’s Royal Club, was among those who received a phone call Thursday evening from her Sandals’ BDM with an invitation to this week’s meeting.

“They said they were going to schedule an emergency meeting, and club members were encouraged to come speak to the chairman [Gordon Butch Stewart],” said Solomon, owner of My Paradise Planner in Tampa, Fla. Solomon plans to attend.

‘Huge deal to me’
Like many other agents who sell Sandals, she was unhappy about the policy changes. “I was really upset when I first read it,” she said, adding that the cut in commissions on Soon Come Back bookings – from 16% to 10% – “is a huge deal to me.”

But Solomon said she was also trying to see Sandals’ point of view. “As a business owner, I think I can understand why they need to make these changes.”

Solomon said she respected the fact that Sandals’ moved quickly after agents reacted to the policy change. Not many other travel companies would see that there’s a problem and call an emergency meeting a week later, she said.

“I really hope that we can come to an agreement and make it work for everybody.”

‘Stealing our clients’
Amy Benson Jarvis, owner of the Travel Store in Fayetteville and Liverpool, N.Y., and also a member of the Chairman’s Royal Club, was not so accommodating. “I am furious,” she said of the policy changes.

Even before the new rules were announced, Jarvis was unhappy with Sandals on the issue, and she told Gary Sadler, Unique Vacations’ senior vice president of sales, as much at a retreat last fall for club members.

“You would have to fight for your Come Back Soon commissions,” said Jarvis, who books about 100 Sandals vacations a year.

In one instance, she said, a client booked a Millionaire Suite through the Soon Come Back program, at the same time giving Jarvis’ agency information to Sandals, so she could take over the booking. The booking transfer never happened, and Jarvis only learned of her client’s return trip when the client called to ask why she had not yet arranged the air.

Jarvis sounded irate. “I’m cultivating these clients, and I’m sending them to you, and you try to steal them from me, and now you’re cutting my commission. But you want to tell me how you support travel agents?”
 
Jarvis was not invited to this week’s meeting.

Fears future cuts
Mark Hennigan, owner of Dreamers Travel in Hampstead, Md., will be at this week’s meeting. His agency sells about 150 Sandals vacations yearly, though only a few result in Soon Come Back bookings.

Hennigan said he was less upset about the current policy changes than about what Sandals might do next. “If they’re cutting this 6% off Soon Come Back, what are they going to do in the future to take things away from us?”

He planned to tell Sandals that if they’re looking to trim costs, they should consider scaling back on consumer incentives as well. “They should cut it all the way around.”

Hennigan was optimistic about the meeting. “Mr. Stewart listens to us. I think they’ll find a way to balance this out and make it fair again to agents. There’s such a ruckus that’s been raised.”

‘A true partner’
Hennigan spoke favorably of Sandals as a supplier partner, as did other top-selling Sandals agents contacted by Travel Market Report.

“Sandals does so much for us,” said Kim Caudill, CTA, owner of K&S Travel in Fort Wayne, Ind. “If you list all the things they do – all the resort trips they offer so we can see their product, all the marketing funds, the co-op dollars – I don’t know of anybody else that does what they do.”

Cindy McCabe, owner, of Bethany Travel/Dream Vacations in Millsboro, Del., shared a similar sentiment. “I think Sandals is a true partner. They have always treated us with utmost respect,” said McCabe, whose agency does about 35% to 40% of its volume with Sandals.

As for the new Soon Come Back rules, she said, “If they had to change it, there must be a need.”

Tells clients to wait
Still, while Sandals encourages agents to tell their clients about the Soon Come Back program, McCabe said she advises her clients to wait until they get home to book a return trip, and most do.

Caudill said, “I don’t go out of my way to explain the program to my clients before they go.”

Another agent, who asked not to be quoted by name, said that after she learned of Sandals’ policy changes, she emailed her clients advising them not to book at the Soon Come Back desk.  

About a third of her Sandals’ customers are repeaters who book Soon Come Back stays. “They’re my money-makers. Luckily I have very loyal clients,” she added.

Increasing restrictions
Sandals has been progressively clamping down on its Soon Come Back program over the last few years.

As recently as 2009, the company automatically credited agencies for Soon Come Back bookings, according to agents. Then it began requiring agents to call to transfer such bookings. A few years ago, Sandals also stopped paying commissions on Soon Come Back bookings made by guests who had booked initially through a Sandals co-branded link on agency websites.

Sandals did not respond to Travel Market Report’s request for comment. Travel Impressions and Air Canada Vacations, two of Sandals’ top wholesaler partners, declined to comment.