When Should You Migrate to A New Consortium?

If you are an existing travel business looking to migrate to a new consortium, you may be struggling with plotting out when the best time to actually do this is. Perhaps you have a fixed time-scale to stay with your current consortium, or maybe it just always seems too busy to go through the complicated and time-consuming process of switching.

We get it, you already have enough stressful decisions to make on a daily basis without trying to plan a huge change like switching to a new consortium. In saying that, you also know that a lot of your daily stresses might be solved if you do move. It’s not an easy choice to make, and an even harder one to schedule. So then, when should you finally take that step?

When is a Good Time to Switch?

You’re going to hate it, but there is never going to be a completely perfect time to switch. However, there are definitely better times to make the move to a new consortium, and some of that will be affected by your specific business.

Peaks is the worst time for any business to switch. In saying that, when your peaks season is will depend a bit on your business. If you’re selling ski trips to France, your peaks will be a different time of year to someone selling trips to the New York Pride Festival, for example. Once you are confident in what time period this season covers, however, it’ll be easy to avoid it for any major changes to your business. That is the time when you need to be focused on your customers.

Ideally, you want to move consortium at the right moment between peaks. You need enough time between joining and future peaks to make sure any wrinkles are smoothed out. But, you should be careful not to rush into something too soon after your last peaks, to ensure that you’re not still recovering from the season and you’re in a good, settled position to move.

All of this is to say, that we would recommend moving maybe 2 months prior to peaks starting for you. This can fluctuate depending on what the onboarding process is like for your new consortium, but it should leave you plenty of time to settle in, set up everything you need to, and ensure there won’t be any hiccups before you start prepping for the big season.

Fortunately, time isn’t as big of an issue when you choose to become a member of PTS. You could be all moved over to PTS in less than a week. While many things in the travel industry take time, getting high quality, flexible support at a price you can afford isn’t one of those things. PTS is here to help you get things done, not make you wait for things to come to you!

Why Should PTS Be Your New Consortium?

PTS offers a trust account solution not just to meet the Package Travel Regulations, but to uplift your business and your clients. We also offer merchant services without the astronomical prices (after all, space travel isn’t even in your repertoire yet!). PTS is also an ATOL franchise, and therefore, once you are a PTS member, you can apply for an ATOL for as little as £942 without a need for bonding or additional insurance.

Ultimately, because PTS centres around our sturdy trust model, a myriad of vital tools for your business come at much lower prices without sacrificing on what your business needs to thrive. This means that once you migrate to PTS for your business, not only could you see a rise in profits, but lower costs to gain those profits, so you can do what you love without making unnecessary changes for the sake of necessary tools.

In essence, the PTS solution operates on a cost per transaction and not on a percentage of your profit, therefore allowing you to retain 100% of the profit made on each booking whilst only paying for the transaction charges/admin that you require. You are able to release the profit from the trust account to your company once all suppliers have been paid, even if this is prior to the consumer starting their booking or trip.

Included in membership when you are migrating to PTS is a complete travel and tour operator system allowing members to manage funds in trust, manage new enquiries, manage and book suppliers (either through live API feeds or your own database of suppliers). The PTS system also includes an online client itinerary for your clients to securely log into and monitor payments made into trust and attendee details on their bookings.

The card payment services that PTS offers are in your company name meaning you have a direct relationship with the merchant provider. All card payments are deposited in full within 1-3 working days into the trust accounts. PTS also offer multiple currency trust accounts and merchant services allowing you to take card payments in other currencies and retain these payments in those currencies without the mess of exchange rates to battle with (Euro, USD, CAD, CHF etc).

Finally, PTS operates with independent trustees. This means that PTS are purely the administrators of the account on the behalf of you, the PTS member. The independent trustees, without a stake in your business or profits, are then able to securely ensure that all payments going in and out of your account are not only safe and properly organised, but efficient. All of this is for your confidence, and the confidence of the consumer when placing a booking with you, knowing that they are both 100% financially protected.

If you’d like to discuss migrating to PTS further, please get in contact with one of Protected Trust Services’ (PTS) lovely staff members by calling 0207 190 9988. Or, you can visit our member support and travel trust account pages to learn more about how we protect you.