travel consultant

travel counselor

call center representative

data entry clerk

If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. I went to college for Tourism and Hospitality Management and was actively seeking a job as a Travel Agent when I stumbled upon a job posting for HRG. I should have taken the numerous postings as a red flag but I was so full of hope. Just a heads up: they are constantly hiring FOR A REASON. 
I survived there for about 5 months before I threw in the towel. The stress was high and the pay wasn’t nearly enough to compensate for the poor quality of life due to the job. Here are a list of reasons of why I quit:
-shifts are typically 9 hours a day unless they tell you:
    a) you’re being held for an hour overtime
    b) they cut your hours because it’s the slow season

-you get called down to the dirt by upset clients. I’ve been criticized, yelled at, and hung up on. Other agents have been told to go “kill themselves” by clients. And if you hang up on them or say you refuse to help them until they calm down and speak to you respectfully, you will lose your job. No joke.

-adding on to the above statement, there is zero protection for the employees from the company. Emotional abuse and harassment from customers is just a daily routine and considered part of your job to sit there and take it. The company DOES NOT have your back - only the bottom line (ie. money) matters.

-much of the time, you spend the calls on hold waiting for a support team to help you with an issue or waiting for an airline to resolve something. It’s frustrating for both the client and you. 

-the company is ALWAYS changing policies and procedures. Emails are always coming in with new directives and it’s aggravating for the clients when you don’t know how to do something or something has changed.

-STRESS. There’s loads of it. You are not allowed to take breathers in between stressful client calls, as you are being recorded and monitored. Every call you take or make, and every word you say is being carefully scrutinized by “the powers that be” which are not even in office.

-Higher Management, support teams, schedulers, payroll, etc. are ALL located outside of the office. And in my case, outside of the province. If you need to call in sick, you don’t contact your immediate in-house supervisor, you have to call a “hotline” and speak to someone (usually in Ontario) to let them know, then they email your supervisor. Seems kind of silly.

-new recruits come in monthly because many people don’t last very long in the high-stress call centre environment. The turnover rate is ridiculous. 

-the systems are always glitchy. For the clients AND for employees. When the site goes down, clients call the centre, but the FLAs run on the exact same system so the office system will be be down as well. Customer complaints ensue. 

-if you hope to advance in the company, good luck.

-the stress of the job plus sitting all day long caused me to gain a lot of weight. I had headaches almost every day. I was also miserable and cranky - even at home. Job related stress affects every part of your life.

-the last straw for me was being humiliated in front of my service training class because I was 2 minutes late (because my bus never showed up). My trainer chewed me out in front of everyone even when I tried to explain my situation. That just added to my already overflowing stress level. Not very professional AT ALL.

-BUT HERE’S THE KICKER - after 3 months you get vacation time. If you don’t plan on being there at least a year, DON’T TAKE THE VACATION TIME, IT’S A TRAP. Seriously. I took a week vacation in July and a week in August. I resigned in September. My last pay was taken by the company to cover the vacation pay I was paid out previously. Never mind that I needed that $400 to pay my bills. They clawed back ALL OF IT. 

So there you have it. All the reasons why I left this job that sounded too good to be true. Even though they stole my last paycheck, I have a MUCH better quality of life and my stress levels have lowered significantly.  Applicants beware.

It was too good to be true, having college training for a career in travel and a job at hand with decent benefits.  But, you are locked in for 9 hrs of your day working from home.  No commute time, but nevertheless, you remain stuck indoors for much of the day.  Often times, you are required to put in overtime which could extend past an hour. The travel industry is becoming more challenging than ever, and, as a FLA you must deal with clients who hate banks and airlines and you are there taking the brunt of their frustrations every day.  You  are trapped between impatient clients and long waits for agent support due to lousy training, constant procedural changes, and poor help desk availability.  Management tries to show they are doing their best to assist, however, a lot of responsibility is shouldered on the FLA while unrealistic expectations keep rising.  Even with pay raises, it does nothing to alleviate stress that ruins enjoyment of life.  In the end, you feel like an 85 year old.  You stay awake at nights, worrying over or any numerous things you will be dragged over the coals for.  You are never at peace to find any sort of enjoyment or job satisfaction  When management detects weakness, they go in for the slow bleed, or resort to cruelty to get you to quit.  Management consists of a cliquey high school mean-girl types.  To cover their own backsides, they put on airs that they are classy and caring.  Some have no other experience in the work world other than HRG and have sold their souls to the corporation. Combine immaturity plus unjustified egoism and you get quite the lovely assortment of trainers/supervisors. Low rent bullies poison the employee well but remain with the company, doing dirty work that upper management avoids.  Every month, HRG churns out a grou of new suckers taking the bait.  It will be hard to find a worst job going forward.  You must either be desperate or insane to stay on.  Know that, when it comes to packing it in, your quality of life will vastly improve as well as your health.

We were bought by Amex GBT. We were from a company where we worked in small teams, we were valued employees, our higher ups respected work life management, leaders who were one on one with the agents, amazing training, superior support, and out of this world technology…. 
To a big box company who could care less about the front line agents or even their clients. There is little to no communication with employees or clients. 
No hands on training, we are just tossed things and told do it. No support from leaders. We are tossed new technology that is constantly down or doesn’t work the same for every group of people as the other (think heart shaped cookie cutter and expect a snowman shaped cookie to fit without breaking). 
Instead of having a team back end, the agents are now having to use tools that add more steps to a reservation/ exchange process, and what should take 10 min start to finish takes at least 30, assuming all the tools are working properly, all the while having to keep call times low, keep our lines open, answer emails, and soon to be working chats. 
We are also tossed on to other accounts with little to no training on those accounts and are expected to handle them flawlessly. At the same time we are messaged by our ‘team mates’ to take our ‘dedicated account calls’ 
There is no rhyme or reason at all to how the company is working. 
We spent a year training on different tools (basically tossed links and told to start - with no support) and accounts (joke training) , only for implementation to always be delayed and we were expected to keep up the skills on our own time. 
On top of that, unless you are the first to pick, forget any vacation time with family. Our merge caused us to lose seniority that we had within our teams, since we were all merged to one big team. The first three people to pick will actually get what they want. And no exceptions will be made, even with young kids at home. 
I literally went from being super exited to log in to work in the AM’s to feeling sick to my stomach at the thought of it. 

THE WORST COMPANY I’VE EVER WORKED FOR!
Let me explain... I came to HRG with a degree in travel counselling and a year and a half into the job, I never received a raise, I was never able to book package vacations or cruises even though my education gave me experience in all areas of travel. You will end up staying after your scheduled shift almost every day and work unwanted over time. You’re scheduled for nine hour days, when it gets busy management will cut your lunch hour to allow for more agents to be on the phone. You’re only given five sick days for the year, the least I’ve ever been allotted through other jobs I’ve had. To management you will only be a number to them and “easily” replaceable. Most people only get paid $12 an hour to start, as mentioned before I was never given a raise in my time at HRG but some employees did get raises last year, some only a mere $0.06-0.10 an hour increase. Every time you get a new skill set, like schedule changes, exchanges, international flights, packages or cruises you don’t get a raise even though you’re given more tasks and more responsibility. The system they use for the Scotia account is very hit and miss, sometimes it will work, other times it won’t for both the agent and customer. This makes customers frustrated and angry, you will get yelled at on the phones. There isn’t much flexibility with scheduling, they don’t care if you have other obligations or children in school or childcare. 
If you plan on applying to HRG, please proceed with caution. From speaking with many of my now former coworkers, they’re all looking for new jobs. 

GOOD LUCK!

I worked at HRG on the RBC account. I had worked there for over two years. It was very stressful for the amount of money I made. However because I got my job through my college, I was paid a little higher than some people who had been there for 15 years and had a heavier work  load. 


A lot of people found it hard to advance. Many of the people who worked there for years were in the same positions, even though they repeatedly applied for better ones. 

You have to kind of bid for holiday time off. 

Shifts were based on call volume so it wouldn't be unusual to to have shifts repeatedly cancelled in the summer. (With no pay)

You can get up to  8 weeks of vacation time but that takes years. I only knew of one person who had it and she had been with the company for 15 years. They usually start you with 2 weeks but you have to make sure it's when no one else in your office booked it off.

Every manager wants the call script to flow differently. 
Managers don't really help you advance.
They don't pay for you to go back to school to advance yourself, like American Express does. 


MY BIGGEST REASON FOR NOT RECOMMENDING THIS COMPANY:

They are notorious for refusing to give references or just ignoring you when you reach out. Doesn't matter if you worked there 5 minutes, 10 years, worked overtime every week. They aren't likely to give out references.  Therefore don't waste years there that aren't going to benefit your future.

Working here was a deeply frustrating experience. The company has unrealistic expectations and constantly pushes employees to meet KPIs without providing adequate support or resources.

This company is a textbook example of how not to manage people. Employees are consistently overworked and underpaid, with impossible KPIs and zero tolerance for mistakes. You're expected to deliver miracle results under constant pressure, yet asking for help is frowned upon. When something goes wrong, management is quick to criticize but never offers support or solutions.

Mistakes, no matter how small, are met with harsh criticism, yet there's no room for growth or constructive feedback. The environment is high-pressure and demoralizing, and management seems more interested in blame than solutions.

The leadership is disorganized and disconnected, with poor communication and little regard for employee wellbeing. There’s no encouragement, no growth opportunities, and certainly no recognition for hard work—just a culture of fear, blame, and burnout.

If you're looking for a healthy work-life balance, fair pay, and a supportive culture, I strongly recommend looking elsewhere.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Interesting work, booking and changing flights mostly but also cars and hotels. My manager wasn't great, but the rest were. Good environment, lots of training and help, hours from 7 a.m.-9 p.m. every day including weekends. I worked from home for 17 months. OK employer.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
When it's busy, second level support can take more than an hour to help. The callers are generally wonderful - no kidding - to deal with, with my ability to handle most of their requests myself. Fewer than one per cent of callers I would consider stressful, just for the most part people looking forward to their trips. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
OK, supportive. If you have a bad experience with a manager, there were always options to resolve any situations. Good employer, in general.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Login for start of shift, take calls nonstop.

A typical day at American Express Global Business Travel was fast-paced and client-focused, involving booking travel, solving problems, and ensuring smooth customer experiences. I learned to manage time effectively, handle high-pressure situations, and develop deep knowledge of global travel systems. Management was supportive and encouraged professional growth, though sometimes slow to implement changes. The workplace culture was collaborative, inclusive, and driven by a strong customer-first mindset. The hardest part of the job was handling unexpected travel disruptions and tight deadlines, especially during peak seasons or crises. However, the most enjoyable part was helping clients plan meaningful trips and building long-term relationships with returning travelers. The job honed my attention to detail and gave me a strong sense of accomplishment through problem-solving and teamwork.



A typical day at HRG as a Ticketing agent was sending travel documents to clients via email, regular mail and courier.  I also has a resend Q that I monitored where agents would place files that had documents that needed to be resent.  This was sometimes very full and a lot of work for one person.  I also had a Q for travel tickets that would not issue.  The agents would place these files there to be issued manually by me or if I could not issue it, the file would give me the error message so I could send it back to the agent to fix.  I also answered the phones and greeted guest and couriers if needed.

The most enjoyable part was my co-workers and that the office was very laid back and casual.  I also got some discounts on travel arrangements, example one free day at Disney.

The hardest part was that I was responsible for the whole ticketing department and it was vey busy and sometimes a challenge to keep up. Despite how busy I was, I always managed to keep up.

- standard inbound call center job but from home
- you assist clients with booking and altering their travel needs
- process is complex at first but makes sense as you go along
- initial job training is done in classroom
- any uptrainings are done by phone
- regular shift is from noon to evening
- save a few difficult calls, most of the time is relaxed and stress-free
- supervisors are supportive, aren't breathing down your neck
- lots of voluntary time-offs offered during slow days
- company provides equipment, covers internet bill, you provide the space
- great job if you need to or enjoy working from home
- not great if you like having co-workers, going outside, dressing up
- few bonuses or incentives, little room for growth
- company breakfast meetings happen thrice a year, the rest of the time you work alone
- average pay but you save a lot on commuting

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Travel consultant 5 salaries reported	$49,980 per year
Travel counselor 7 salaries reported	$18.93 per hour
Call center representative 3 salaries reported	$18.25 per hour
Data entry clerk 1 salary reported	$1,500 per week

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