Pros
- It can be fun using the computer systems -I had some really nice co-workers
Cons
The job interview is long & tedious with many tasks that some may deem difficult and with a lot of participants as well. They also advertise/sell the job to you as something amazing you don't want to miss out on. If you don't get the job, count yourself as lucky. If you do get the job, you're going to feel very special at the start BUT DO NOT BE FOOLED. Why? You are not a travel consultant. You don't get to learn about the world in the depth, you don't get to learn about different cultures, and you certainly don't get to learn about "opening up the world for those who want to see" as they advertise. You are nothing but a SALESPERSON. Firstly, the pay is below the minimum wage; in your first year as a novice they "top up" your salary each month as you're not expected to make as much commission as those who have been with the company for awhile, but once it's past your first year, you're forced to slowly start paying the company back. It's like HECS-HELP you never asked for if you choose to stay on. Seriously, even with the "top up", look at your monthly pay then divide it by the number of hours you work - including the abundance of overtime THAT YOU WILL DO. Secondly, we're taught that even if the salary is bad, we get to make this up with commission. Don't forget, as a salesperson, this job is all about commission! It is pretty much impossible to make a decent living without ripping people off - this means people that are old & bad with technology, people that have money to blow because they're too lazy to book the trip themselves and/or people who are just plain uneducated & think they're getting a good deal! In training, you're taught to add a markup of $49 to each flight but once you get in-store, you learn that this literally makes you peanuts and none of the experienced consultants actually do this. Let me break this down for you, with some figures - Let's say you're lucky enough to book a flight that's $2,000 return to Europe. You add the $49 mark-up. Each long-haul flight you book has a ticketing fee of $28 that you need to pay to the ticket center. $49 minus $28 leaves a $21 mark-up for yourself. Then let's say you get a standard 5% commission from the airline on the airfare itself (not the taxes) - let's say the airfare is $1500. So 5% of that = $75. Therefore, $21 + $75 = $96. Congratulations, you just made $96 commission. That doesn't sound too bad! Hang on.. wait.. that's the store's commission. Yup, in training they always refer to the store's commission to distract you from what actually goes in YOUR pocket. What goes into your pocket is 15% of the store's commission. So 15% of $96 is $14.40. Then don't forget your commission is always taxed, so I always calculate 10% of my commission for any accurate figure. Based on 10%, this would mean that from selling a $2,000 return airfare with a FAIR mark-up, I get a lovely $9.60 in my pocket. So basically if you make $3,000 worth of commission, you only get $300 in your pay. You literally can make more working at McDonald's flipping burgers. Now do you see why people are adding on $200+ mark-ups on airfares? Because our monthly salary is so terrible and we have to rely on commission, we have to rip customers off to make ends meet. Not only is this unfair to the customer, it makes you feel guilty. Leaders and co-workers will try to teach you that there's nothing wrong with this, as you're just "valuing your time", but it's quite deceptive considering that Flight Centre markets themselves to have the lowest airfare guarantee! On top of this, you constantly are pressured to reach your targets and are asked what you can do differently to make more sales, when majority of the time it's based on luck- in regards to who walks in, what store you're at, what time of the year it is, etc. Oh, and if you do reach your target and become #1 on the area's leader board - which I've done - you will be rewarded a certificate and a cheap bottle of wine at one of the compulsory, monthly buzz nights. I worked REALLY HARD to make that much commission but then realized it was totally not worth the hours I put in nor ripping customers off with ridiculous margins. Afterwards I googled the wine I was awarded and it was $13 at Dan Murphy's... Anyway, back to the topic of "lowest airfare guarantee" - customers actually have the right to ask us to price beat a WAY cheaper fare they saw on the Internet. It's not their fault; they're just doing what Flight Centre advertises. What the customer DOESN'T KNOW, however, is that 99% of the time, price beating actually puts our commission into a negative and it comes out of OUR paycheck. YUP, the innocent consultant's pay, not the billion-dollar company! This causes us to hate the client and say terrible things about them when they leave, call them cheapskates, etc, when actually we should be hating the people on top of this greedy corporation. On top of all this, we're also taught to lie to the client! In training, we're taught to attach to each airfare a "Captain's Value Package" priced at $49, which gives them Price Drop Protection (if they see the same fare at a lower price within 30 days of purchase they will be reimbursed in the form of a gift card P.S. literally every customer would be getting a gift card if they actually checked afterwards), as well as 24/7 Customer Care and Visa & Passport Checks - WHICH THEY GET REGARDLESS IF THEY HAVE THE PACKAGE OR NOT. What's funny is that we then apply a discount of $49, that is shown clearly on the quote, to show the customer that they have received this package for free. Wow, amazing! Little do they know is that the $49 is instead secretly added into the airfare as a mark-up. How is that not deception?! And those who actually try to sell the Captain's Value Package to customers, still add the mark-up the airfare anyway, regardless if the client chooses to purchase it. Selling it usually fails because who wants to pay 50 bucks for service they get anyway? And if the consultant manages to somehow sell it because that customer values the Price Drop Protection, that's just a bonus $49, on top of the mark-up already in the fare! Alright, enough about how greedy this company is - another annoying thing I'd like to mention is that you're forced to do a Diploma of Tourism whilst working. You literally have to do projects and workbooks throughout your entire career there - the questions are long (at least 10+ pages per workbook and you get A LOT of workbooks), stupid (7th grade standard, if that) & tedious and it's the last thing you want to be doing when you're trying to organize trips for customers and are dealing with walk-ins. When you don't complete the school work on time, the Flight Centre Business School representatives issue warnings and threaten to report you to head office, no matter how well you're actually doing on the job. Because when you're at work you're actually WORKING.. this means having to stay back after work hours to complete the projects (as most of them require the computer systems). I have a Bachelors degree, I don't need this extra stress on top of the pressure of meeting targets! Yes, "free" education, but it's likely that they force us to do a diploma so they can pay us at lower rate, through some loophole as you're sort of like an apprentice! TL;DR, This job sucked the life out of me, I only stayed this long because it looks bad on a resume if you stay at a job for a short period of time (otherwise I would've quit within the first month), I was left feeling empty at the end of every working day, the pressure to hit your targets is ridiculous, the pay is TRAGIC considering the amount of hours you put in, the buzz nights are a torturous waste of time unless you are an alcoholic and if you're passionate about travel like I am you will hate this job because all you are is a salesperson. There's also a poor amount of annual leave considering that this company claims to be all about the love for travel - more like all about the love for MONEY!