Triangle Travel is celebrating after taking a £42,000 booking with operator Latin Routes just months after joining one of its fam trips.
The booking, one of the Wallingford agency’s biggest of the summer, earned Triangle just over £5,000 in commission.
Manager Sarah Payne, who made the booking, went on a Latin Routes fam trip to Argentina and Brazil in June, which featured in Travel Weekly (July 14).
She sold the holiday to two couples looking for a three-week trip to South America, to include the Galapagos Islands and Peru.
“They had never booked with us and I was quite excited about their trip as I have been to Peru and recently went on the fam trip to South America so I showed them where they could go on the map,” she said.
Check out this week’s @travelweekly – the full lowdown on the #LatinRoutesFAM! See pg 44-46 https://t.co/dh4uUAHccfpic.twitter.com/TXJZxGy5vS
— Latin Routes (@latinroutes) July 13, 2016
“Latin Routes was at the front of my mind because of the trip.”
Payne put together a tailor‑made itinerary, including a Galapagos cruise, a stay in the Amazon rainforest, a train up Machu Picchu and a Belmond rail journey into the Andes.
She said: “I saw on the fam trip the relationship Latin Routes has with ground handlers so I felt confident that if there were any problems they could handle it.”
Sarah completed the final details of the booking over the phone from her kitchen table with Jess Bain, head of trade relations and co-founder of Latin Routes.
“It was 6pm on Saturday and I rang Jess and she did it there and then. I was on my mobile at home with a glass of wine, but she was still at the office,” added Sarah.
Latin Routes director Martin Johnson said the operator was “totally trade-focused”, adding: “This booking is certainly one of the highest value ones from the trade and working closely with partners such as Triangle Travel allows us access to a market we’d not otherwise get to on our own.”
Triangle has three shops in Berkshire and Oxfordshire.