Industry debate over Non-Commissionable Fees (NCFs) still rages on today – just over a decade after this Travelweek story ran.
The headline for this edition of ‘It Happened This Week’ is: ‘Cruise line executive has a ‘Let them eat cake’ moment on NCFs: “It is what it is”’
At a time when Canadian travellers were booking cruises in record numbers (and they still are, of course), travel advisors were becoming increasingly frustrated with the way major cruise lines were cutting their pay.
More cruise lines were moving more of the final price into the NCF column, meaning less commission for agents. As the Travelweek story notes, Royal Caribbean International’s Vicki Freed, asked about NCFs, said “it is what it is. It is the portion of a cruise fare on which we don’t pay commission.”
When this story ran, NCFs were a contentious issue even among cruise companies, with some cruise lines moving more of the price into the NCF column, while others including Viking, Uniworld and Avalon, made sure agents know that they pay commission on all aspects of a cruise.
Fast forward to 2023, and the industry is still talking about NCFs. In 2022 NCL announced its new pro-agent NCF policy. And new cruise lines like Virgin Voyages eliminated NCFs from the get-go.
Did the headline appear in Travelweek in 2010, 2015 or 2022?
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