Flight Centre Travel Group Reviews

Cons

Low base but there is every opportunity to make decent money

Cons

Mistakes costing money to fix come out your wages. Their policy is that if you make money you can also lose it.
Some managers behaved like dictators and treated people awfully.
Unlike lots of sales jobs where you can move on once the sale is closed, you have to do the aftersales care so you are still working for the commission you earned 6 months ago.
Weird policies like there being a 'One Best Way' to do everything. They actually employ people called One Best Way Experts who's sole job is to ensure everything is done the same way. Also the cult like nature comes from their Family, Village, Tribe policy. There is even a book about it - Google it, I'm not making it up!
Decisions and markups are rarely in the best interest of customers. Senior management turn a blind eye to customers taken advantage off. This has got better but still not where it needs to be.
There was zero management training until very recently so you basically make it up as you go along. The 2 day course that now exists is of limited use.
Almost everyone who works in the company are former frontline travel agents. Marketing, IT, HR, recruitment, senior leaders, the MD - everyone. It's good that they promote within but this does lead to questions about suitability for certain roles. They would rather recruit from within for a head office role and pay people less than hiring someone external who actually knows about the field.
The IT is terrible. When I started you had to make your own e-tickets and invoices on Microsoft Word - so amateur. 2 years ago they replaced very good quoting software 'drag and drop' with awful awful software that doesn't work.
Some of the software is terrible. The accounting software 'Omnis' looks like a throwback to the 90s.
Although the commission structure is good, the basic wage of 20k is not enough considering they recruit degree educated people working in Central London.
There are no basic wage pay increases at all. People there 10 years are on the same as those in their first week. No room for negotiation. They lose a lot of people because of this.
If you're doing exceptionally well, they raise your targets - bad policy
The job becomes boring and repetitive after a while. I would never have stayed had it not been for promotion and earning more each year
You have to stay for 6 months after educational trips. This kind of thing made me stay longer than I'd intended
Too much change, although change can be good it was sometimes unnecessary and made things worse. I remember they changed one policy back and forth about 4 times during my time there.
Ironically for a travel company, there were lots of rules about holiday. Blackout dates, only one person per store on holiday at any one time, no holiday in January and 2 weeks maximum.
I'm not sure how many transferable skills I'm come away with. At Flight Centre, you get trained to do your particular job and that's it. There is good opportunity to progress within but to my knowledge many people who leave end up with undesirable jobs.
The UK MD lost interest in the leisure side of the business and only focuses on the corporate side. This is because the leisure side basically broke even whilst the corporate side made a big profit. That's where they invest the money.

Cons

Long hours
Bad team leader
No career prospects

Cons

Very set in their ways. No review on very low base salary and no reward for length of service

Cons

Constant sales pressure to achieve targets. Supportive team environment

Cons

Bullies.. the whole company are bullies. If you are not performing well .. well they are not interested in helping you they just want you out! It really affected my mental health! All well and good if you’re good at sales but they barely give you a chance! Horrible company to work for! So glad I got out when I did!

Cons

Expected to work hours of overtime without overtime pay (I ended up having to work a minimum of a 50 hours per week). Extremely poor team leader and HR support when a coworker is abusive. Expected to attend all events outside of work hours (averaging minimum of one a week). Expected to be too exuberant, almost obsessive, about the company.

Cons

can be slow enquiries sometimes

Cons

Long hours
Hard work
not much progression
manager had favourites
Pay

Cons

I dont agree with their approach to Fast Tracking people, this is based on where you went to university, not your actual ability or potential. Also, working in Product Support/Infinity was one of the worst experiences. The head of Product and Air constantly cut our wages and changed our targets every 3 months blaming things like Brexit. Basically they were capping our wages constantly. Also hiring non experienced people and the workload falling back on us. Stay away from Product, especially Air. You are treated like dirt and spoken to like a child.