Once you have familiarized yourself with Host Agencies, their various business models, our check lists etc, you should have narrowed your choices to 3 or 4 Host Agencies. You now should call or email each of your choices and ask the same questions of each that are specific to your needs.

Here are a few generic questions that may help you in your decision. It is important, that whether it's a phone call or email, you note the time the Host takes to respond and how courteous and helpful their response is to you. Most often this is an indicator of how that Host Agency will work with you.

Questions to ask:

1) Would you forward to me at least three email/telephone contacts of your affiliated agents? You would then contact those agents and ask the same questions and hope they match.

2) How often do you payout commissions to your agents? One a month is good, twice is better.

3) Do you have any unresolved issues concerning your business licenses, IATA or CLIA? Most likely they will answer "no" but you need to ask the question.

4) Which States do you have a Sellers of Travel license? Minimum would be Florida and California.

5) Please provide me with an overview of your training programs, whether they are live or online. This is just a preference question for you. Either works.

6) How do you track my commissions? Do they require you to fill out a commission request or can you enter the info  online into the company intranet?

7) Do you also sell travel to the consumer? If so ask how they keep separate their Host operation from their retail operation. This is a problem for smaller agencies that don't separate the operations.

8) Ask to review their Independent Contractor's Agreement. Most Host Agencies have them on their websites.