Thank you to everyone that attended January 16th’s coffee break featuring VIP Seats. Nick Giammusso gave an informative presentation that I hope you enjoyed as much as I did. We received some great questions, which I have posted below along with Nick’s answers. If you have additional questions please leave a comment or e-mail me at smiller@mailpound.com.
Q. Do you handle the airfare?
A. At times we handle the airfare. For the Super Bowl we were handling the airfare up until Monday when we cut it off. It just becomes way too difficult for us to do the tickets wholesale and the airfare portion of it. Usually 2 weeks before an event we will cut off the airfare. We also do packages, for example, corporate groups that include airfare, hotel, tickets and transfers. But again, usually 2 weeks before an event it gets too crazy and difficult for us and we cut off our airfare reservations.
Q. Is the 5% commission for all of your services?
A. Specifically the 5% commission is for the Super Bowl. The rest of our commissions are at 7%, however for some of the major events where our margins are a little lower, like the Super Bowl or Final 4 Basketball, those types of events are 5% commission. Anything else you do through us would be at 7% commission.
Q. Can we book on the website? Can one add commission on the website?
A. You can definitely book on the website and you can also become a travel agent affiliate with us. When you become an affiliate with VIP Seats, you can put our banner on your website. If any business comes from that banner, it automatically gets tracked coming from your company and a commission check is generated for you. You can call us and we would be more than happy to go over how to become affiliated with us. Just click on Travel Agents at the top of our website and fill out the easy form to become affiliated with us. Once you fill in and submit the information, you will receive an e-mail from us that will provide you with our tracking code and information for you to put on your website. This allows you to link directly to us. You will have access to our inventory and our database directly on your website. If any of your clients order from your website, we will receive a unique tracking code letting us know it is your client. So it is easy to track any business from your company and again the commission is automatically added.
Q. Are all event tickets non-refundable?
A. Yes, all tickets are non-refundable. Once you place an order with us, we purchase the tickets for you. Once the tickets are purchased, we cannot get our money back, so we do not offer a refund. It is just like if you were to purchase a ticket on Broad Way or through Ticket Master. Once you buy your ticket, or your client’s ticket, there are no refunds. With that said, we are in the business of buying and selling tickets. So we would be more than happy to try to sell the ticket for you and get as much of your investment back as possible.
Q. Are we able to add a service fee to increase the commission above 5%?
A. Yes! You can add whatever service fee you want; however, you would not be able to do it online. You would have to call in your order and tell us exactly how much to charge. We would then charge your customer’s credit card and make sure you get a bigger commission check. We can add the service charge right into the cost of the tickets or package. We have done a lot of them this week with the Super Bowl.
Q. Do you need to have your host agency register with you to sell?
A. You can register yourself or your host agency can register with us. It does not really matter to us. Just know that whatever name your registering, will be the person receiving the commission check. If you register with us as your host agency your host agency will receive the commission check. If you register with us as a Travel Agent under your name, then you will receive the commission check. Anyway you want to work it we can do it for you. You just have to call us once you register to let us know who you would like the check made payable to.
Q. Do you pay commission on the tickets and hotel?
A. Yes, of course. Any business you refer to us, we are going to give you commission on. That is already built into our pricing structure when we provide you our quotes. Again, if you want to add a service charge to that you are more than welcome to. Please just let us know before hand so we can charge your client’s credit card accordingly.
Q. Do you do jazz cruise tickets?
A. No, we do not really get into the cruise entertainment.
Q. When will you have Super Bowl 2010 information for sale?
A. We are upfront with you and we tell all of our clients that for the 2010 Super Bowl, just like any other event, tickets will go on sale through the NFL. You have to go to the NFL website and register your name. About 99.9% of the time you are not going to get tickets. You can try to put your name in and get access to the tickets and maybe you will get lucky. We will not have specific 2010 information until this Super Bowl is over. We will start putting our packages together for the 2010 Super Bowl probably in a couple of months. I would say check back with us in a couple of months, and we should have our Super Bowl packages ready to go for 2010.
Q. Do we have to register with you?
A. No, you do not have to register with us. Most agents that register with us offer a link on their website to our website so their commissions can be tracked. But no, anyone is welcome and we would be glad to help you in anyway that we can.
Q. Are Super Bowl tickets e-tickets?
A. No. There are no e-tickets for the Super Bowl. Super Bowl tickets are very, very detailed and have holograms on them. A lot of our events will have e-tickets but the Super Bowl is definitely an event that does not have an e-ticket associated with the event, especially since the tickets have an $800 face value.
Q. Where are your offices located?
A. Our office is located in Buffalo, NY. We assist all of our clients from there. We are also on site for some of our major events, so we do take care of our clients on site as well.