For U.S. travel advisors
Some advisors
work for free.
Others know better.
Quote your fee out loud. Without flinching, apologizing, or losing the client.
Bri Hill charged her first planning fee in 2014. It was $75, and she picked that number because she half-hoped it would make the client go away. The client said yes. Today her average planning fee is over $500. This is the system she built in between.
10 modules · 7 resource guides · Lifetime access · 30-day guarantee
The part nobody puts on the invoice
You already did the work.
You just didn't get paid for it.
Four hours on a quote. Three revisions. A side-by-side of two resorts the client asked you to build. A dining plan mapped to a park schedule that changed twice.
Then the client goes quiet. Or books it themselves. Or calls back one month later to say they went with a cheaper option, and could you just double-check the flights?
None of that shows up anywhere. Not in your commission, not in the number you tell yourself you earn per hour. The research is invisible, so the value feels invisible, so charging for it feels like asking for a favor.
That's the actual problem. It was never that your clients wouldn't pay. It's that nothing in this industry ever taught you how to ask.
The idea the whole course turns on
Commission is not compensation.
Commission is merely a “thank you” from a supplier for the booking. It pays solely at the supplier’s discretion, and you have no control over how much, when, or even if they’ll continue to pay commission in the future.
It does not pay you for the qualifying call. Or the six-hour comparison. Or the client who researches with you for a month or two and books nothing. Commission is a sales incentive that you have been treating as a salary.
A planning fee is different. A planning fee pays you for your expertise, your time, and your judgment, whether or not a supplier ever cuts a check. It changes who books with you. It changes how they treat your calendar. And in most cases, it changes what they end up spending.
Same work. Different agreement.Meet your instructor
Meet Bri.
Bri has been a working travel advisor since July 2012. She isn't a coach who left the industry to sell coaching. She still has clients, still runs discovery calls, and still quotes her fee to every client.
She started charging planning fees in 2014, mostly by accident, and spent the next decade figuring out what actually works, which is why this course is built on her own numbers rather than on theory.
Receipts
I'll show you my numbers first.
Most fee advice comes from people who won't tell you what they actually charge. Here's mine, including the part that isn't flattering.
Every figure below is Bri's own, from her own book of business. Each year is the total planning fees charged that year divided by the number of clients charged.
The full thirteen-year record, with the methodology and the caveats →
Higher average income reported by travel advisors who charge fees, compared with advisors who don't.
Source: Host Agency Reviews industry survey data →
What you get
Ten modules. Seven guides.
An assignment after each one.
This is deliberately compact. It is not a semester. It also isn't something to rush: the advisors who get the most out of this are the ones who stop and do the work before moving on. The video teaches the thinking. The resource guides are what you'll come back to when you're building a real proposal.
Meet Bri
Who's teaching this, how she got here, and a straight answer about how these videos were made.
Welcome to the Playbook
How the course is built, where each resource guide comes in, and how to work through it.
Commission vs. Compensation
Why the economics of this industry stopped matching the work, and what that means for the number you set.
Why Fees Don't Scare Away Good Clients
The objections you'll actually hear, why most of them are questions in disguise, and how to answer without getting defensive.
Guide · Overcoming Objections Guide · What Your Travel Advisor Actually DoesPrinciples & Consistency
Why charging for one destination but not another confuses clients and costs you money. Building one policy that holds everywhere.
Guide · Setting Your Base Rate FeeTurning Principles into Numbers
Setting the actual dollar amount, and handling family, friends, and the genuine exceptions without breaking the policy.
Guide · Exceptions, Family & FriendsDeep Qualifying and Connection
The discovery call that earns the fee before you ever name it. Question mapping you can run from a printed sheet.
Guide · Qualifying & Discovery Call MappingLanguage Shapes Perception
The wording that makes a fee sound professional instead of apologetic, and the service proposal that carries it.
Guide · Creating Your Service ProposalBecoming a Choice Architect
Structuring options so clients choose forward instead of stalling, plus how retainer relationships actually get built.
Guide · Securing Retainer ClientsYour Next Step Forward
Turning the framework into your first quoted fee, and what to expect the first three times you say it out loud.
Before you buy
Who this is for.
Who it isn't.
This course is not right for everyone, and a refund six weeks from now helps neither of us. Read both columns.
This is for you if
- O You're a U.S. travel advisor at any host or consortium, first booking or twentieth year.
- O You're brand new, and you'd rather start with a fee policy than tack one on later.
- O You already charge, but you've hit a plateau and want to sharpen what you're doing.
- O You've never charged a planning fee, or you charge one inconsistently and quietly.
- O You know your research is worth something but the words come out wrong.
- O You're willing to say a number out loud and sit through the pause after it.
- O You want a policy you can hold, not a one-line script you'll abandon in a month or two.
This isn't for you if
- X You want to be handed one number to charge. This teaches you how to set yours; it doesn't pick it for you.
- X You want lead generation, marketing funnels, or how to find clients. That's a different course.
- X You're looking for tax, legal, or licensing advice about charging fees in your state.
- X You want someone to promise every client will say yes. Nobody can, and the ones who do are working a sales angle.
From advisors who took it
What the beta group said.
“It’s one thing to understand the need to implement fees and encourage your team of advisors to jump on board, but another thing entirely to communicate it effectively. This is where Bri’s hard-earned wisdom and resulting success are a gift. She’s speaking to fellow advisors from experience and communicating through both an internal visualization and a tangible view. Bri’s insight and real-life examples, including actual processes and suggested numbers, are exactly what many experienced travel advisors need to feel confident taking the leap. I recommend Bri’s course for all ages and experience levels.”
Carol Beth Scott, Owner, 3D Travel Company
“The Travel Fee Playbook was exceptional in expanding how you think about operating your business and gives concrete help to do so! We are professionals, so why not be paid for our worth and expertise. I am so glad I took this course!”
Joni Nilson, 3D Travel Company
“This course was incredibly thought-provoking and gave me a much better understanding of the history of travel advisor compensation and how our industry has evolved over time. It challenged me to think differently about the value of the professional services I provide and helped me see why incorporating professional fees into my business model could be beneficial. The course was engaging, informative, and included excellent resources that I know I’ll continue to reference.”
Joy Oufnac, 3D Travel Company
“The Travel Fee Playbook is your instruction manual for building a structure for success and longevity in your travel business! You will feel prepared and confident in creating an intentional and thoughtful game plan for your work serving clients.”
Elizabeth Johnson, Off to Neverland Travel
Every advisor quoted here received free access to the course in exchange for their honest feedback, and each gave permission to publish their words and agency name.
Enroll
Travel Fee Playbook™
Self-paced. Yours for good. Start in the next five minutes.
Everything included
- O Ten video modules, each ending with an assignment
- O Seven downloadable resource guides: scripts, question maps, proposal templates
- O Lifetime access, including future updates to the guides
- O Watch on any device, at your pace
- O 30-day guarantee: complete the work, and if it doesn't land, we refund you
Secure checkout · Instant access · Sales tax applied where required
Add a 60-minute strategy call with Bri for $150 more
One hour, one-on-one, to work through your own numbers, your wording, and the sticking points specific to your business. Add it at checkout for $150 more, or buy it separately later for $247. Optional. The course stands on its own.
The guarantee
Do the work. If it doesn't land, we refund you.
Within 30 days of purchase, if you have:
- Completed all ten modules, and
- Built a service proposal using the template in the Creating Your Service Proposal guide
Present it, and tell us what happened. We'll review it with you and help you rework it. Most of the time something specific and fixable went wrong. If your second attempt doesn't land either, email us and we'll refund you. No further questions.
We ask for the work because this only functions if you use it. We don't ask for a client's yes, because that part was never fully in your hands, or ours.
Requests must be submitted within 30 days of purchase. Refunds are not available after that window. Full terms at checkout.
Straight answers
Questions advisors actually ask.
I'm with a host agency. Does this still apply?
Yes. Nothing in the course depends on which host, consortium, or franchise you're under. The framework is about your relationship with your client, not your back-office arrangement.
One thing to check on your own: some hosts have policies about how independent advisors charge and collect client-facing fees. That's between you and your host, and we'd rather you confirm it up front than find out later.
How long do I have access?
Indefinitely. This is a one-time purchase, not a subscription. There is nothing to renew and nothing to cancel, and updates to the seven resource guides are included.
If we add other products later, a membership or ongoing coaching or anything else, those would be separate purchases you choose or don't. Nothing you buy today turns into a recurring charge, and nothing we launch later takes away the course and guides you already have.
Will charging a fee cost me clients?
Some, yes. Usually the ones who were treating you as a free search engine. The course spends a full module on this because it's the fear that stops most advisors, and the honest answer isn't “no”. It's that the clients you lose and the clients you keep are not the same people.
Do I need to buy the strategy call?
No. The course is complete on its own and the guarantee applies whether or not you add the call. The call is for advisors who want a second set of eyes on their specific numbers and wording.
It's an hour with Bri, one-on-one, spent on your business rather than the general case. Advisors use it to get direct feedback on the fee they've landed on, to troubleshoot a conversation that went sideways, and to ask the things that don't fit neatly inside a module. Fourteen years of doing this produced a lot of judgment that no course covers in full, and an hour is where you get at the part of it that applies to you.
The course provides the knowledge. The call helps you put it into action.
Add it at checkout for $150 more, or buy it later at $247.
Was AI used in the creation of this course?
Yes, in two places, and we'd rather you hear it from us than notice it in module three. The video is a generated likeness of Bri delivering her own material, and the voice is her own voice, cloned. The resource guides were formatted with AI.
In both cases every word is hers. She wrote and approved all ten scripts, and the guides are her language and her judgment, laid out. Nothing in this course was written by a machine.
We did it that way on purpose. Producing this as a traditional filmed course would have taken months and pushed the price toward four figures. This way it exists now, and it costs what it costs. Module one addresses it directly, before you watch anything else.
Is this tax or legal advice about charging fees?
No, and we won't pretend otherwise. Depending on your state and your business structure, charging service fees can carry registration, seller-of-travel, or sales tax implications. The course covers how to set, present, and defend a fee. It does not cover your compliance obligations. Talk to a CPA or attorney licensed in your state about those.
What's the founding student price?
The first 20 advisors pay $347 instead of $497. It's not a launch gimmick with a timer that resets. It's 20 seats, and when they're gone the price goes to $497.
You're getting the discount because you're taking it before there's a long list of other advisors' results to point at. In exchange we'll ask you for honest feedback and, if it works for you, permission to share what happened. No obligation attached to your purchase either way.
I'm brand new. Is it too early for me?
It's the best possible timing, and newer advisors are often the ones this works fastest for. You have no clients to grandfather in: no family you've booked free three times, no repeat client who'd notice the change. Your first fee conversation is just how you do business, not a policy reversal you have to explain.
Advisors who wait until year five have to undo five years of precedent first. You don't. Start the way you intend to keep going.
I've been doing this twenty years. Is this too basic?
The mechanics won't surprise you, and we won't pretend they will. Most veterans we've talked to already charge something, just unevenly, and only when the trip feels hard enough to justify it. The consistency work in modules five and six is usually where that gets fixed.
If you're past that and already hold one policy everywhere, the parts built for you are further in: the deeper qualifying in module seven, the layered wording in module eight, and the choice architecture in module nine, which is about structuring the options so a client chooses forward instead of stalling. That's the material that moves a number that's already decent.
Can my whole agency take it?
Each purchase covers one advisor. If you're a host or agency owner looking to license this for a team, email us at contact@travelfeeplaybook.com and we'll talk through it.
Not ready yet
Start with the free guide instead.
Some Advisors Work For Free. I Used To. Six pages, four questions, and the exact points where advisor income leaks. Fill it in, see where you land, decide later.
No spam. Just the playbook.
The fee doesn't ask for itself.
You already know your work is worth paying for. What's missing is a policy you can hold, words you can say without your voice going up at the end, and one client who says yes.
Some advisors work for free.
Others know better.
Founding price, first 20 advisors · Lifetime access · 30-day guarantee · Optional 60-minute call with Bri