The roundtable debate was hosted in the Cucina Restaurant at the newly-opened Renaissance Doha City Center Hotel, located in Doha's new business distr
Agency Debit Memos (ADMs) have been highlighted as a major problem for travel agents in this region — is this a problem you face here in Qatar and how are you tackling this?
Darim: It is a practice that’s abused by airlines. I think the question is — are they justified?
If you look at the proportion of some of the ADMs compared to the actual issue that caused the ADM, some have been completely out of proportion. When you look at the mistake that’s been made the value of the ADM is completely exponential compared to what the actual cost of the ticket originally was; or what the re-issue of that ticket originally was. There are certain airlines out there that are just abusing that ADM process.
Purakot: This has happened to me. I received a debit memo from British Airways for US $5,492 (QAR 20,000) and the reason for it was that the deal code was mentioned in the wrong box. The value of the ticket was $1,373 (QAR 5,000).So I entered a code into the wrong box and for that they fined me four times the amount.
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And there was no room for dispute. I just had to pay it. I even went to Dubai to meet the British Airways trade sales manager but she refused to see me. Since 2006 it has been debited from my salary and I am still paying it now.
Are these kinds of situations common in Qatar? Is it standard practice that airlines would refuse to communicate with the trade on such issues?
Purakot: Yes these situation are quite common here.
Khurshid: A minimum of three months to three years is what we normally see it taking to resolve issues with airlines.
There are some issues we can resolve in three months, but some time they go up to one year, then three years, and some things like this they just close the door and we cannot do anything. Normally if there is an ADM you have 15 days to find the cause and dispute it with the airline. But airlines take their time to get back to us and inform us — can it be resolved or not solved and what their response will be.
How would you like to see the ADM system be made fairer for all parties concerned?
Darim: Having worked in the UK for over 10 years and going on my personal experience with ADMs there, agents have been screaming about this for years and British Airways in particular was the biggest culprit because it is the flag carrier in the UK.
But the main issue that I think we’d all agree on as the travel trade is that airlines definitely abuse the process of ADMs whether it is in Qatar, whether it’s in the UAE, whether it’s in the UK, or elsewhere because they have the ability whereby they can issue an ADM and it’s up to them whether they accept your reasoning behind the justification of cancelling it or not.
It is a completely one-way street and it is unfair on travel companies who are saying — hold on a second airlines can’t just issue an ADM as and when for amounts which can be extremely unreasonable just to help their bottom line.
But agents have been screaming about this for years, saying it’s unfair and IATA should change the rules but at the end of the day who does IATA really work for — the airlines or the agents?
Khurshid: We don’t get enough room to dispute the ADMs initially because they go through the BSP [Billing and Settlement Plan] and we can’t default on the BSP or we will be blacklisted. We just have to let the amount go and then start communicating with the airlines. We are on the receiving end. We have to accept whatever the airlines say and whatever they say goes.
Purakot: But in my case now I have waved my debit note to all my colleagues and nobody sells BA. BA is actually losing. For QR 20,000 I can say they have lost more than QR 2 million because my colleagues all ask me have they cleared your debit note yet? I say no.
So they say okay we don’t say BA. They have lost, they are still losing and they will continue to lose.
What changes would you like to see introduced to the industry in Qatar to improve standards in this market?
Purakot: We should have some sort of discussion like this but bring in the airlines too, to help improve standards overall. This would benefit the agent and the agency. We don’t have a travel agents association here in Doha unfortunately.
Khurshid: I would like to see a lot of changes in this market. There are a lot of situations where the money ends up coming out of our pocket just to keep up the customer and keep up our brand.
ADMs are one side of it which comes from the airline but we also have to bear the cost when it comes to mishandlings; visa issues; problems at the airport. Short collections are very, very common — if you quote the wrong fare you cannot go ask the customer again. The minute you have something quoted in black and white you cannot go back to the customer. So just to keep up our regular customers you need to honour them.
The idea of having a professional travel consultant insurance is a very good one. If the company was able to insure and protect its agents for a particular amount they would certainly see the value in this.
Darim: They have this in the UK, it’s called professional indemnity insurance. It’s not just for travel agents but for other industries too. Basically it covers staff when they make an error. If it’s a legitimate error the company can then claim back the costs for that and recover those. Most companies that are covered are those such as lawyers and accountancy firms — they have to have professional indemnity insurance otherwise they can’t trade.
Do you think travel agents here would be willing to pay for such an insurance scheme?
Khurshid: If the company receives a lot of ADMs I definitely think the company would be willing to pay to insure their individuals against these errors.
Purakot: There are many other situations where we might have to pay out of our own pocket. I have a colleague who made a reservation at the RitzCarlton in Bahrain, and after one month got a massive debit note.
What happened was he got the quote in Bahraini Dinar, but he thought it was Qatari Riyal. The quote was for US$ 87,518 (BHD33,000) but he collected just $9,062 (QAR 33,000). The customer said sorry if I had known it would be such a big amount I would not have stayed in the hotel. So he had to pay $46,686. He flew to Bahrain and met the owner of the hotel but they said they would not waive such a big amount.
Darim: It shows that in the Middle East as a whole we don’t look at putting in the quality controls that could reduce the number of errors — whether it’s on flights or accommodation etc. If those QCs were in place, then the number of errors would definitely reduce.
What else can be done to improve standards in the market?
Darim: The biggest burden we all suffer from is that our clients don’t know our value. The majority still see the agent as an order taker and they cannot see the added value that we bring so it’s educating the corporate — the person who is within that travel department — as to what we can bring to the table, what value we can bring, what savings we can bring.
A lot of corporates will negotiate directly with an airline, a hotel or third-party vendor but as an agency we can book those services and it saves them a lot of negotiation time. Unfortunately corporates in this market don’t see that, they are very, very blinkered.
Khurshid: But to some extent I don’t know if we can blame the corporates. The airlines and the hoteliers approach them and offer them a greener picture, and the corporate community sees the benefit. Sometimes I think we try our level best to educate them but they are resistant, they don’t want to bring those standards up. And we are dictated to most of the time as an order-taker.
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