Classic Vacations reviews

1) Seasonality – Business is fiery hot in the first quarter and leading into the second quarter. There is mandatory overtime, based on the business needs of the call center. Additionally, no, there is no vacation in the first quarter; the company is too busy to spare anybody. Then, later, in the fourth quarter, business may slow to the point of reducing hours. 2) Restrictive – Agents are expected to maintain their sales goals, call goals, and maintain a minimum quality level without a script. 3) Advancement – One may only increase their portfolio of products to sell by succeeding in the three core destinations (Hawaii, Caribbean & Mexico). Management will not train an agent on additional products, as they may be more challenging, leading to more errors. Additionally, because so many agents and lower management have been working with the company for so long, there are not many opportunities to advance within the department outside of selling new products. 4) Travel – While Classic may send agents on business trips (Familiarization trips) to provide their agents with a first-hand account of the products, an agent may only be able to take one these trips every couple of years. This is due to the number of trips possible versus the demand of the number of agents in the call center. 5) Training – There are difficulties training the staff on every destination they sell, without having seen every destination. The management team, at times, will only be able to provide enough information to sell the destination, without necessarily making its agents feel as knowledgeable as the areas the trainers have sighted.

The sales goals are practically unattainable. It wouldn't shock me to hear that upper management sits in their overly long weekly meetings just to ask themselves “how do we pay our reservation agents even less money?” They raise the sales goals every chance they get. This if of course a projection based on “last year’s numbers,” but since the majority of the wealth is spread between a special, elite, group good luck with that. Think you can rack up at a bare minimum $152,000 every two weeks in vacations? If so, go for it. Keep in mind that during “busy” season this number will be raised, there will be mandatory overtime of 30 min – 1 hour that gets factored into your sales per hour so on top of a higher goal you have to make even more, and you will not be allowed to even request time off for the first quarter. That $15 an hour base pay you’re getting now won’t be there forever. Once you’re on the floor for a few months they drop it to minimum wage, and since this company could care less if you can afford to live or eat they even try to skirt around even paying that! Once San Jose raised the minimum wage to $10 an hour, and let’s face it even that doesn't really cover things, Classic thought that was unfair. So if you do not make your commission or other incentives you will get your $10 an hour, basically $800 for two weeks. Because Classic is only responsible to pay you $10 an hour, if your incentives on top of $8 an hour equal $800 they drop your base pay to $8. So yes, if you make an additional $160 your pay gets dropped. There’s very little payout for all the hard work that you put in. This job will work you to death. Literally to the death. They tell you if you work hard, you may get to leave Reservations for a higher paying department. If working hard doesn't pay off I suggest joining the softball team. If you need to kick it up a notch sleeping with someone in upper management or one of their family members… that seems to have worked well for people in the past.