06/17/2026
This is so true, and I didn’t realize any of this until I became a travel agent—so consider this your friendly FYI. Travel agents aren’t salaried “middlemen”… we’re experts who are paid after you travel, and we’re actively invested in making sure your trip goes right from start to finish. There’s a whole layer of value most people don’t see until they experience it.
Confession time...before I became a Travel Agent back in 2014, I had a great experience with an agent when planning my honeymoon. She gave my soon-to-be husband and me amazing advice and suggestions we had not even considered...which we then ran with and booked on our own.
I had NO idea how travel agents were paid at that time. I figured she was paid salary, she did her job, and that I "could do better" ... no harm, no foul, right? Oh, silly 2005Aileen.
It wasn't until I started working as a Travel Agent that I realized that I caused this woman to work for free, as I did not understand then that Travel Agents are paid commission after their clients travel. So I basically committed the number one cardinal sin of working with a travel agent...I took her knowledge and her potential business from her. Not my finest moment.
Other trips in my adulthood were also booked on my own before I knew better. Whenever I had issues, I was at the mercy of a call center or of a faceless, alias-sporting live chat rep. I never had anyone advocating for me or looking out for me to make sure that I had the best trip possible. Disney trips? I booked resorts without knowing how convenient (or not) they would be to parks and I read travel guides that were out of date almost as soon as they were typed by their author. Our trips were great, yes. But mostly because I didn't know what I was missing. You never know what you're missing until you experience it for the first time.
When you book with Just Add Magic Travel, you're supporting a small business, not paying for a corporation's third private jet to add to their fleet or for a CEO to buy yet another vacation home in the islands. You're getting an advocate who is here to make sure that your trip is amazing. You're getting the expertise of an agency that has planned thousands of trips for thousands of extremely satisfied clients. You're entrusting your precious moments with someone who is here to make them magical.
When it's time for you to start thinking about a trip, I'd love it to be with Just Add Magic Travel®.
