Abby Rose joined InteleTravel after growing frustrated about missing landmark events in her four-year-old daughter Harlow’s life due to work commitments.
She launched her Platinum Voyages travel agency nine months after she was made redundant by a Birmingham-based law firm The Wilks Partnership in February 2021, ending her 16-year career as a solicitor.
“Losing my solicitor job was not really a negative – it was more of a positive,” said the 41-year-old single mum. “It was weighing heavily on me that I was not seeing my daughter enough.
“I became a travel agent because I love travelling and I did lots of bookings for my friends and family anyway. It just kind of made sense and I wanted to see if I could make money from selling holidays.”
This year Rose has booked £1.2 million of travel, including almost £700,000 of business with luxury operator Carrier.
“I get around 10% commission roughly – some suppliers pay more and some pay less,” she added. “I’m earning a six-figure sum, which is double what I earned as a solicitor.
“I am very lucky because I sell a lot of holidays to a small group of people who are high-net-worth individuals. The largest commission I’ve been paid for one trip was £13,000 which took around half a day to sort.”
Asked why she books Carrier’s products so often, Rose said the tour operator is “always on the ball” and its high-end holidays appealed to her clients.
“A lot of suppliers will say they don’t have availability, but Carrier will say ’we’ve not got this, but have you thought about this?’,” she explained. “They’re good like that.
“I’ve got a client going to Dubai for Christmas with their family and Carrier said they had spoken to the hotel to get a Christmas tree in the hotel so it’s “Christmassy” for the children. That makes me look good.
“With another booking, the Carrier team have sorted out all the transfers – I didn’t even have to ask.”
She said her high-net-worth customers were “very specific” about travel dates, flights and hotels they wanted.
Rose said she had been to Florida, Dublin, Maldives and Crete on holiday this year with friends and family.
She posted about each holiday on her personal Instagram account, sharing details about the resorts she was staying in.
“On my personal Instagram account, I talk about what I am doing, show off the resorts and then a school mum will walk up to me and ask about the holiday,” she said. “I really don’t have a pushy sales technique.”
This means she doesn’t have to do a “lot of the donkey work” and find different options before she makes a booking.
Last year, Rose won an InteleTravel award for the single highest booking, worth £273,234, for a holiday to Dubai with Major Travel.
Before launching Platinum Voyages, Rose would often work seven days a week during the pandemic despite being on a part-time contract.
“Even though I was doing three days a week I had the same case load as a full-time solicitor,” she said.
“I changed careers because I could manage my time better as an agent. Being a solicitor, I worked long hours and it did not fit in my lifestyle.
“I care about what I do and therefore I felt I had to answer these calls when I was not at work, especially when it was Covid when I was working seven days a week to keep on top of things. It was not working.
“I don’t miss being a solicitor one bit. I can’t see myself returning.”
