Luckily I was still living at home while working at a commission only position, because out on my own I couldn’t have made it. I spent about a year at Travel Fantasies, all the while watching the newspaper for help wanted ads for travel agents. With a years worth of experience I just knew it wouldn’t be long before something would open up…. and sure enough it did! I interviewed for yet another eccentric travel agency owner. His name escapes me now, but this guy had big dreams with most of his plans seeming unrealistic to me, however that didn’t stop me from saying yes when he offered $3.50 (a little above the current minimum wage for the early 80’s) an hour plus override commission if I hit a certain volume per month. Within two months of working at this new place I knew it was just a stepping stone to getting on with a reputable travel agency so I continued to scan the Times Picayune for travel agent openings while getting more experience under my belt. By the second bounced pay check from this guy I was lucky enough to land an interview with an agency was located on the West Bank of New Orleans called Travel Consultants. Charlie Jones was the owner and it seemed like a really established family owned business, one that I could grown with. Yes my commute across the Mississippi River using the Jackson Ave/Gretna Ferry was grueling, considering my sister and I were sharing a vehicle at the time and she would drop me at the Jackson Ave ferry landing at about 6am every morning, but hey it was what we had to do.
While at Travel Consultants I got a better foundation of how an agency was really run. I learned the business end and also had several seasoned agents with years of experience around me for guidance and were more than happy to answer my questions. Travel Consultants allowed agents to take as many FAM trips (trips that cost very little and were sponsored by destinations and or tour companies to promote their destination or product) as they cared to as long as the agency could still handle things while they were gone. I spent a week in Japan, 6 days in Central America, a long weekend in the Yucatan of Mexico way before the boom of Cancun and 3 days in the Orlando area visiting what seemed like 1000 hotels, let’s just say Travel Consultants was a really good step forward for me….. but things were about to change as Charlie Jones decided he needed to retire.