A travel advisor can spend three to seven hours on a quote for someone who was never going to book.

I think the planning fee is the most revealing number in the trade, and not for the obvious reason.

It is usually around $250, scaled by how complicated the trip is. But almost nobody who charges one describes it as payment for their time. They describe it as a filter. It exists to make the people who were never going to book go away, and it gets set at whatever number does that.

Which means it is not priced against the work. It is priced against the odds.

That is a strange thing to have to build a business around. You are not charging for expertise. You are charging a deposit against the possibility of being used for free, and the number has to be high enough to sting and low enough not to scare off someone who would have booked anyway.

Architects bill for the design whether or not the building ever gets built. Travel ended up somewhere else entirely, where the most skilled part of the job, working out what a trip actually costs and whether it holds together, is the part done on spec.

I do not think the fee is the problem. I think the fee is a symptom of work that stays invisible until it is finished.

So, genuinely: does your planning fee stop it happening? Or do the people who were always going to use you for free just pay the $250 and use you for free anyway?