A fee prices your time, not the trip

Commission pays you for a booking. A fee pays you for the work that happens whether or not the trip is booked: the research, the options, the revisions, the holding.

Set it against the work, not the trip value

A complicated two-week multi-country itinerary is more work than a week in a resort, regardless of what either costs. Price the work.

Say it early and without apology

The fee comes up in the first conversation, before any work is done, stated plainly. A fee introduced late reads as a surprise charge; a fee stated up front reads as a professional engaging on terms.

Expect to lose some inquiries, and let them go

The inquiries a fee filters out are mostly the ones that were never going to book. That is the fee doing its job.