Rules for agencies and advisors

No traveler is ever paid for a review, and no advisor can pay to rank higher. Ever.

1. Who can leave a review

A review can only come from a real client: someone who took a trip that the advisor planned or booked for them.

These people can't review an advisor, even if they really did take a trip with them:

• The advisor themselves, or anyone writing on their behalf.
• Family members, including anyone the advisor lives with.
• Anyone who works for or with the advisor or their agency: employees, co-workers, contractors, business partners, or other advisors at the same agency.
• Anyone else the advisor does business with outside of planning their trip, such as a supplier or someone who refers clients to them.

Friends are fine, as long as they really took a trip the advisor planned or booked. If you're not sure whether someone counts, don't ask them for a review.

2. How to ask for reviews

You can:

• Ask any real client to leave a review, using your review link or the "Ask for a review" button.
• Remind a client once or twice.

You can't:

• Offer anything in return for a review. That includes money, discounts, credits, refunds, upgrades, gifts, gift cards, contest or raffle entries, or anything else of value. It doesn't matter if the review is positive or negative.
• Only ask happy clients. Don't screen clients first and only invite the ones you expect to leave a good review. If you ask for reviews, ask all your clients, or choose them in a way that has nothing to do with how they felt about the trip.
• Write, edit or submit a review for a client, or tell them what to say. A client can share their own words; the words must be theirs.
• Pressure a client to leave a review, change one, or take one down. This includes threats, repeated requests, or asking for a better rating.
• Buy or sell reviews, trade reviews with other advisors, or post reviews about a competitor.

3. What happens after a review is written

Every review goes to the agency for 15 days. If the agency does nothing, the review is published automatically.

An agency can only remove a review for one of four reasons:

1. It's off-topic: not about the trip or the advisor.
2. It's fake, or can't be verified.
3. It shares personal information, or contains threats or hate speech.
4. It's a duplicate of another review.

• A review can't be removed because it's negative, critical, or unfair in your opinion.
• Nobody can edit a review, including the agency, the advisor and TravelAgentReview.
• Every profile shows how many reviews the agency removed in the last 12 months.
• If you think a review breaks these rules and it isn't one of the four reasons, email us. We decide.

4. Keeping your profile accurate

• Everything on your agency and advisor profiles must be true: names, locations, years of experience, specialties and contact details.
• Only use photos you have the right to use.
• Keep your CLIA or IATA accreditation current. If it expires, tell us; your credential badge comes off until it's renewed.
• When an advisor leaves your agency, tell us or remove them from your dashboard.

5. Money

Agencies only pay for access to the platform. Paying never changes which reviews show, how an advisor is rated, or where an advisor appears in a list.

6. If the rules are broken

We look for signs of fake or unfair reviews, such as several reviews sent from the same place, reviewers connected to the advisor, or reviews that read as if one person wrote them. We may ask you questions about a review.

If we find a problem, depending on how serious it is, we may:

• remove the reviews involved;
• pause the advisor's or agency's profile;
• remove the advisor or agency from TravelAgentReview for good.

Breaking these rules may also break U.S. law. The Federal Trade Commission's rule on consumer reviews and testimonials (2024) bans fake reviews, buying reviews, undisclosed insider reviews, and hiding negative reviews.

7. Changes to these rules

We may update these rules. If we make an important change, we'll email agency owners and ask everyone to agree to the new version the next time they sign in.

Questions: pros@travelagentreview.com