Search

Q: In last week's Legal Briefs column, you noted that a Texas federal judge temporarily stopped the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) noncompete rule from taking effect and that the judge [...]

Q: In your May 20 Legal Briefs column ('Noncompetes are about to become illegal'), you noted that the Federal Trade Commission's new rule prohibiting employee and independent contractor noncompete clauses [...]

Q: Our agency recently won the business of two large corporate accounts. Each of them wants us to sign its standard master services agreement, or MSA for short. The first [...]

Q: recently left my longtime host agency and joined a new host. I have bookings, including high-end cruises, extending out another two years. My old host is refusing to transfer [...]

Q: I want to sell my travel agency, and the potential buyer wants to pay me on an 'earnout' basis; i.e., the payments would be set as a percentage of [...]

Q: I run a host agency, and I am always concerned about how our ICs identify themselves on social media and what they say about us. May I legally require [...]

Q: Our agency sells travel insurance. We have no license to sell it, but the insurance company we use tells us that neither our company nor our staff needs one. [...]

Q: I am interested in acquiring travel agencies. I am represented by one of the nations leading mergers and acquisitions law firms. However, our attorneys have never been involved in [...]

Q: My agency received a very large airline debit memo (high five figures). Using ARC's Memo Manager, I have tried to explain that the debit memo is a mistake, but [...]

Q: I am with a private equity firm that is interested in acquiring travel agencies. One task that always comes up in due diligence is an examination of the seller's [...]

Q: With NDC bookings becoming more prevalent, I have to assume that the airlines are paying the GDS vendors somewhat less than they used to. I also assume that GDS [...]

Q: In last week's Legal Briefs column, you answered a bunch of questions about the DOT's new refund rule that will go into effect on Oct. 26. I have few [...]

Q: I have a bunch of questions about the DOT's new rule requiring agencies to make ticket refunds out of their own pockets in certain cases. When does it go [...]

Q: I am an independent contractor of a large host agency. Being an aging baby boomer, I am concerned about my mortality and what will happen to my loyal clientele [...]

Q: Did the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ever adopt its proposed rule banning noncompetes, which you covered in a February Legal Briefs column ('Noncompete clauses could be going away')? If [...]

Q: My agency may have violated the DOT's full-price rule, which requires that we advertise and quote the full price of an airline ticket or a package that includes air [...]

Q: Back in August 2022, when the DOT issued a proposed rule requiring agents to be responsible for refunds when an airline delays or cancels a flight, you wrote that [...]

Q: A client of our agency wants to take a cruise that begins in Canada. He has read on the Internet that Canada can refuse entry at a border, airport [...]

Q: Our agency has an independent contractor who we would really like to get rid of. We suspect him of depositing client funds in his own bank account, which is [...]

Q: What's your legal and business view of Amex GBT's acquisition of CWT? Will it pass muster with the antitrust authorities? Will it be good for corporate TMCs and travel [...]

Q: American Airlines is requiring that a large portion of our AA bookings must be made via NDC in order for our agency to remain a 'preferred' agency, as many [...]

Q: It seems as if every single airline decision affecting smaller agencies has hurt us since the first commission cuts in 1995. The most recent example is American's decision to [...]

Q: If I buy a nonrefundable airline ticket and do not cancel or change it before the flight, I get no refund whatsoever if it's not used. How come the [...]

Q: A year ago, you wrote a Legal Briefs column focusing on the increasing 'verticalization' of the retail travel industry. Appointed agencies need to join hosts, consortia or franchises. Downstream, [...]

Q: Can I require my agency's independent contractors (ICs) to work exclusively with my agency? A few prospective ICs have told me that exclusivity is not allowed by law. Is [...]

Q: Travel Weekly's sister publication, The Beat, recently published an article about the major U.S. airlines' increasing trend of listing their lowest fares only through nontraditional GDS channels. The article [...]

Q: In last week's, Legal Briefs column, you covered some red flags that prospective ICs should look for in host agency contracts. What about green flags; i.e., clauses that indicate [...]

Q: Because you have written or reviewed a lot of contracts between host agencies and independent contractors, I wanted to ask you some questions: First, are all host agency contracts [...]

In last week's Legal Briefs column, I covered the first steps for any travel agency owner who wants to sell their agency and retire. This week, we continue with a [...]

Q: As a baby boomer, I would like to retire soon, so I'm thinking about selling my agency. I have never sold a business before, so I am quite in [...]

Q: In your Oct. 11 Legal Briefs column, 'FAQs on the federal vaccine mandate,' you answered several questions about whether and when President Biden's vaccine mandate for federal contractors would [...]

Q: Our agency's standard corporate account contracts do not seem to be keeping up with the times. Specifically, our corporate clients keep requesting new kinds of services that aren't covered [...]

Q: I have read many of your columns over the years about state seller of travel laws, but I have never read one that mentions Illinois' Travel Promotion Consumer Protection [...]

Q: Our agency wants to organize a small group tour to Bali. We have been in contact with several local companies that call themselves destination management companies, or DMCs. They [...]

Q: Adventure or expedition travel is increasingly popular. I notice that all tour operators that organize these trips have extensive waivers that participants must agree to. Do these documents protect [...]

Q: An employee and an independent contractor of a competing agency want to move to our agency. I know that there are restrictions on moving clients, especially those with bookings [...]

Our agency has several groups of clients going to Israel in the next few months. The clients will be on tours operated by well-established tour operators with good reputations. As [...]

Q:We recently started a tour operator company. We plan to place client deposits in a bank account that we will call our 'trust account.' Checks payable to our company will [...]

Q: Our small agency has a website. Potential clients cannot make reservations or otherwise interact with us through the website, but they can fill in a form to request more [...]

Q: We handle meetings and incentive business for some of our corporate clients. For any meeting, typically, we get a net price from the hotel and then mark it up. [...]

Q: I have a very troublesome client who is threatening to sue me, complain to government agencies and post derogatory comments on social media. We booked air and hotels for [...]

Q: I am very new to the travel business, and I have a few questions about whether certain legal formalities are really necessary at the outset or whether I can [...]

Q: Do independent contractors (ICs) like me have any bargaining power with their hosts? If I terminate my relationship with my host, is the host obligated to pay me my [...]

Q: Our corporate-oriented agency needs its GDS service, so we cannot realistically start booking on supplier or third-party websites like many leisure-oriented agencies may now be doing. During Covid, we [...]

Q: You are on record as stating that the real purpose of NDC is a tool to circumvent the vendors' fees that the carriers have for decades resented having to [...]

Q: I recently read the white paper, 'How we're striving to make new distribution capability work for business travel,' that American Express Global Business Travel made publicly available. That document [...]

Q: Our agency hosts a number of independent contractors (ICs). We do not offer the most favorable commission split to our ICs because, unlike most hosts, we offer a large [...]

Q: In your June 5 Legal Briefs column, 'Advice from ChatGPT is advice from you,' you stated that a travel advisor has 'a legal duty to disclose reasonably obtainable, relevant [...]

Q: For many years, my travel agency has had an errors and omissions insurance policy, aka an E&O policy or a professional liability policy. The premium has increased each year, [...]