Regent restricting TA discounting in UK?

[flossie009]

We understand that Regent have told their UK Travel Agents that they are now only allowed to offer their customers a maximum 5% discount on RSSC fares. 

If true, this new price cap is bad news for UK customers; previously a good UK TA would offer up to 10% discount on the commissionable elements.

 

Has anyone else in the UK heard about this new Regent pricing restriction?

[liptastic]

Susan thanks for posting this information. We have been with our TA for over 20 years and have always had a good discount of at least 10%  and excellent service and support. 
This is not good news at all for the TA and client. We haven’t heard anything about this change , but we are due to sail

on Voyager in April and will be in contact with her to pay balance If the cruise is going ahead, so she may mention this to us. I tried to post this earlier today but seems to be problematic for some reason.

Jean. 

[Jonoro7]

Illegal.

Competition law prevents such restrictive practices.

Report it to uk government, even if you have no proof.

https://www.gov.uk/cartels-price-fixing/types-of-anticompetitive-activity

 

[Timeflies]

Very interesting, thanks for that post.  We are not planning to book any cruises as we have quite a few already scheduled, or in most cases re-scheduled, but when I next need to speak to our TA I will ask!

 

I suspect Regent could pass on additional costs if they wanted to, but to force a TA to reduce its discount I would thought is illegal, especially as that discount applied is part of the contract between TA and you the client.  Its up to the TA to apply what discount it wants to apply to be competitive.  I can see one way around this and that would be simply for Regent to reduce the commission given to all TAs, so that in futrure bookings TAs can no longer afford to offer more than 5% to clients on bookings.

 

I also think it would be highly illegal if this was applied retrospectively to existing bookings!

 

 

Edited January 13, 2022 by Timeflies