How to Lose Your Travel Advisor in 10 Days

When Melissa Welytok Parrish, owner of Real World Travel, a member of Travel Leaders’ Luxury Leaders Alliance, stumbled across a social media post about how to lose your interior designer in 10 days – at a time she was dealing with an impossible client – inspiration struck.  

“99% of my clients, I love working with them… But this particular client drives me absolutely bonkers,” she told TMR.  

Parrish spent a week working on her version of the viral post, fiddling with it each day until it was “perfect.” 

Her Facebook post, which has more than 100,000 views, details the 10 ways a travel client can push their travel advisor to the edge – and possibly get themselves fired.  

“Normally my posts get maybe a couple thousand views, but this one really hit buttons,” she said.  

TMR asked Parrish if she was nervous about alienating any current or potential clients – a concern her husband had raised with her, as well, she told us.  

“Honestly, I don’t care because I’m speaking for all travel advisors. I’m speaking for my friends because we all go through this, and I feel like it needs to be put out there,” she said. “I’m not going to sit here begging for people to work with me.”  

 She added, if something from her list upsets a potential client, “They’re not a match… I’m at the stage in my life where I would rather have a day off and spend time with my family and not make any money than deal with headaches.” 

Day 1: Become the “AI Fact Checker” 

“I’ve been noticing this trend, that ChatGPT keeps getting brought up into my client meetings,” Parrish said, telling us about a recent client.   

“This guy sounded like he had been highly trained on Chat. Every single piece of information that we would talk about, whether hotel, logistics, he would be like ‘Well, I asked Chat…’” 

A trip that would normally take two weeks had already reached 30 days of planning when she finally told him he should probably plan it on his own. 

“You’ve done the research. You know what hotels want. He wanted to book with points. He wanted to use Chat. He wanted everything itemized. I was like, I can’t do this for you.” 

Ultimately, she explained, “I don’t want to work with people who think Chat is smarter than I am for that Chat has better decision-making skills versus me who has been to Italy 10 times.” 

Day 3: Ask for a “Committee Vote” 

Parrish said it hurts her ego when a clients reach out to others for feedback on her proposals. 

“I’ve literally been to Italy 10 times and you’re sending it to your neighbor who was there 15 years ago. It just irritates me.” 

Similarly, she’ll see clients go to Facebook – after she’s sent them her proposal – asking for other people’s favorite places.  

“I’m like, we just had a meeting together and I told you all the places that I think are the best match for you.” 

“Decision fatigue is a real thing. Don’t invite more noise into your vacation planning,” she wrote in her Facebook post.  

Day 5: Do a 48-Hour Pivot 

Related to the committee vote is the client who comes back to Parrish after a strategy meeting with “a page full of brand-new ideas from TikTok.” 

It’s something that she said happens a lot, because of the social media algorithm.  

“Once you start saying the word ‘Italy,’ then your phone starts feeding you travel-related things and then people start getting new ideas,” she said. 

At that point they call Parrish up, saying, we should incorporate this and that.  

“Whereas, I’m already 48 hours into the design and I’ve gotten my Italy team involved, my assistant involved.” 

The result, she and her team have to start all over and they’ve wasted hours of time.  

“I tell people, stay off of social media. Just for a few days until we get this done.” 

Day 7: Bring Up Your Amex Points 

In her post, Parrish writes: “Amex is a booking agency; I am a private advisor. You can’t have both…” 

It’s something, she said, she’s seeing more of, particularly in the past year.  

“It’s difficult for me, because one they book that part of their trip, I have no control over it. If something happens, like that that hotel reservation gets canceled and then I have to change other parts of their trip… it’s not profitable for us to take out a huge chunk.” 

She told TMR abut how her impossible client – the one that inspired her Facebook post – went behind her back in the middle of the proposal process and booked one of the hotels that she had recommended with his Amex points. That accounted for about $10,000 of the overall trip, on which she didn’t get any commission.  

When this happens, she usually confronts the client, telling them that she can get better amenities at the client than Amex can and that, usually, she has a personal relationship with the GM at the property, so she can handle any issues directly with the hotel. She asks them to cancel their Amex reservation. Some do. Some don’t. (That one client? He didn’t care and he didn’t cancel.) 

“Most people are respectful and they understand,” she said.  

If they don’t, she might choose not to continue working with them. She added that going forward, if a client wants to use Amex points, she might start charging a hefty fee (above and beyond her planning fee) in order to continue working with them.  

While a new fee is something she might do, she has updated her terms and conditions to say that Amex points and hotel rewards are not something she will accept for payment.  

“I’m not earning a living based off my planning fee… If they think Amex points are more important than staying in the right hotel, then I don’t want to work with them.” 

Day 8: Put Me in the “Big Trip” Only Zone 

Another client behavior that Parrish said pushes her buttons is being ignored – by current clients – for smaller trips.  

She has clients who regularly book a $40,000 or $60,000 vacation, but then over the holidays spend five nights in Hawaii without booking through her.  

“They’re like, ‘I don’t want to bother you. I feel bad,’… and I’m like, please do.” 

She emphasized this only applies to current clients and not to prospective clients that want to stay at a Hard Rock All Inclusive, or something similar.  

For the rest of Parrish’s ways to lose a luxury travel advisor in 10 days, visit her Facebook post.