Across the industry, more than a fifth of commissions are never paid and more than 40% arrive with some discrepancy (Travel Weekly, quoting Trvlr and Sion). Commission is more than 80% of an agency’s revenue. The gap between those two facts is the money this page is about.
Cruise lines
Cruise lines pay on published schedules, usually tied to final payment or sailing rather than booking. Travel Market Report keeps a table of fourteen lines’ payment timing; some pay weekly after full payment, others a set number of days before departure. The commission is usually right; the shortfall comes from the base. Port fees, taxes and non-commissionable fares (NCFs) are deducted before the rate is applied, and promotional fares can carry a lower rate than your tier. If the line’s statement shows a smaller commissionable amount than your booking, ask for the fare breakdown before you claim; the answer is often a promotion code you did not know was reduced.
Tour operators and wholesalers
Operators pay after travel, and after they have been paid by you. The common failures are the override that was agreed for the year and not applied per booking, a change of package after deposit that reset the rate, and remittances that cover many bookings in one payment with a statement you have to request separately. Ask for the statement first; reconcile it line by line; claim the lines that are short.
Hotels
The largest volume of small amounts, and the longest tail. Hotels in a clearing network average five to six weeks after checkout; those outside can take around 140 days (Onyx CenterSource). The hotel case has its own page: what to do when a hotel does not pay.
DMCs and independent suppliers
No clearing house, no portal, no schedule. Commission is whatever was in the contract, paid when the DMC’s bookkeeper gets to it. Here the claim is only as good as your record: keep the signed rate sheet with the booking, and reconcile against the invoice, not against a statement that may never come.
If you book through a host agency
The supplier pays the host; the host pays you, on the host’s cycle and after the host’s split. Two things go wrong. The supplier short-paid the host and the host passed the shortfall on without noticing. Or the supplier paid in full and the split was applied to the wrong tier. Either way, the number to compare is the supplier’s gross commission on your booking against what the host statement shows for that booking. Host Agency Reviews explains how the splits are usually structured (their commission guide). Most hosts leave commission chasing to the advisor, so the reconciliation is still yours to do.
The claim that gets paid
Whatever the supplier, the claim is the same shape. One line per booking: the supplier’s confirmation number, traveller name, travel dates, the commissionable amount, the rate, the amount you expected, the amount and reference of what you received, and the difference in the booking’s currency. One file per supplier. A covering note that names the period and asks for payment or the reason for each line. Send it to accounting, not to sales.
Then track it. Filed, acknowledged, paid in part, paid. A claim without a status is a claim you will forget.
Finding the ones you have not noticed
You are on this page because of one booking. The method for finding the rest is to compare expected against received for every booking, every month, per supplier and per currency, and to work from your own bookings rather than from the statements that happened to arrive. The full guide sets it out. The calculator shows what the industry’s leakage rates imply for an agency your size. MarginShield does the comparison from the export you already have.