Travel Trust Association vs Protected Trust Services

Neither of these takes a share of your commission. Both record 100% of it staying with the member, with the money made on fees instead, and both protect customers’ money through a trust account rather than by bonding you. The difference is how much hand-holding comes with it.

In short: Travel Trust Association suits an agent who wants a membership body with a recognised consumer-facing trust scheme, and who is willing to go through an enquiry to find out the price. Protected Trust Services suits an experienced agent who wants infrastructure and nothing else — trust account, payments, software — and can price that decision from published figures.

What each one actually is

Travel Trust Association was established in 1993 and is part of The Travel Network Group, the group that also runs Independent Travel Experts and The Global Travel Group. Our record describes it as A route to running a fully independent agency without bonds.

Protected Trust Services is described in our record as A pure infrastructure play: trust account, merchant services and software, with no training or leads. It records ~400–502 members; Travel Trust Association records 450+ agent members.

Both are closer to a consortium than to a host agency, which matters for what you own: you trade in your own name, build your own brand and keep your own client list. The models guide sets out how that differs from working under somebody else’s licences.

Costs, and one unresolved conflict

Travel Trust Association publishes nothing: joining cost and ongoing fee are both recorded as on enquiry, with enquiries going through the group. That is a real drawback when you are trying to compare, and it is why the cells on our master table read as they do.

Protected Trust Services records £149/mo and from £6 per booking. On the setup fee, our sources disagree: £999+VAT per TG#108; PTS’s own site mentions no joining fee — sources conflict, unverified. We publish both readings and treat neither as settled, which is also why no numeric joining figure is used when sorting the table. Ask PTS directly and get the answer in writing.

Because both charge fees rather than taking commission, the sums work differently from a split-based host: your cost is fixed and your income is not. The fees guide shows how to work out the point at which a fixed-fee model beats a percentage one.

Protection: the whole point of both

Travel Trust Association: Its own trust account model, described as giving 100% consumer protection, in place of bonding. Protected Trust Services: Its own trust account, plus ATOL support for members.

A trust account holds customers’ money separately from the business’s own funds and releases it as the holiday is delivered. It is a different mechanism from a bond and from an ATOL, and the three are frequently muddled in sales material. Read ABTA, ATOL and trust accounts explained before you take anyone’s summary of it, including ours, as the last word. Neither company’s ABTA and ATOL details have been checked against the official registers yet.

Who they will take

Travel Trust Association is recorded as open to newcomers: yes. Protected Trust Services is not: no — minimum two years’ experience. That single line decides this comparison for a good number of readers.

The honest differences

One publishes prices and one does not. That is a genuine difference in how easy each is to assess, and no more than that — plenty of well-regarded companies in this market quote on enquiry.

“100% commission” never means free. Both keep the whole commission with you and charge you in other ways: fees, per-booking charges, and in Protected Trust Services’s case a monthly that runs whether you sell or not.

Support is the real variable. Protected Trust Services’s own positioning is that it provides no training and no leads. If you need either, that is a reason to look at a commission-split host instead — the Independent Travel Experts and Vertical Travel Group comparison covers two of the cheaper ones.

Our figures for Protected Trust Services contain a conflict we have not resolved. We would rather show you that than average two numbers into a false one.

Who each one suits

Travel Trust Association if you want an established membership scheme behind your own agency, and you are relaxed about asking for a price.

Protected Trust Services if you already know how to trade, want the plumbing and not the teaching, and want to see the monthly cost before you commit.

Full detail on both: the Travel Trust Association profile and the Protected Trust Services profile.