What belongs in a travel advisor's client agreement

A client agreement is not paperwork for paperwork's sake. It is the document that decides what happens when something goes wrong: a supplier cancels, a client wants a refund they are not entitled to, a trip is disrupted by something nobody could have planned for. Advisors who skip a real agreement, or use a generic one copied from a template site years ago, usually find that out at the worst possible moment: mid-dispute, with nothing specific in writing to point to.

A good agreement does not need to be long. It needs to cover the right things, in language the client will actually read and understand, so it functions as a real understanding between you rather than a document signed and forgotten.

Scope of services

State plainly what you are and are not doing for this engagement: are you planning and booking the entire trip, advising on part of it, or providing planning services only with the client booking directly? Scope should also cover what happens after booking. Do you provide support during travel, and if so, what kind and through what channel? A client who assumes 24-hour concierge support exists when it does not is a client who will be frustrated at exactly the wrong moment.

Fees

Every fee needs its amount, what it covers, when it is charged, and whether it is refundable, written in the same document, not referenced vaguely as "standard fees apply." If a planning fee credits against a future booking, say exactly how and by when. If cancellation fees or service fees apply on top of supplier penalties, list them separately so the client can see what you charge versus what the supplier charges.

Supplier terms and how they bind the client

You are not the only party with terms and conditions. The hotel, the tour operator, the cruise line and the airline each have their own, and those terms govern the actual travel even though the client booked through you. The agreement should say clearly that the client is bound by each supplier's terms, including cancellation policies, deposit schedules and any exclusions, and that those terms are supplied to the client (attach them, or link to them, do not just gesture at their existence) before final payment is made.

Insurance

The agreement should state that travel insurance was offered, note whether the client accepted or declined it, and make clear that the advisor is not responsible for losses that insurance would have covered had it been purchased. This is not just a formality. It is the single clause most likely to matter if a trip is disrupted and a client later feels the advisor should have insisted more strongly. See the companion article on documenting insurance decisions for how to record this properly at the point of sale, not just in the agreement's boilerplate.

Document handling

If you will be collecting passports, visas, insurance certificates or other personal documents, say how they will be stored, who can access them, and how long you keep them after the trip. This matters both for the client's comfort sharing sensitive documents and, in an increasing number of jurisdictions, for your own data-protection obligations around personal information.

Liability and limitations

This is the section most templates get vague on, and it is the section that matters most. Spell out that you are not liable for acts or failures of third-party suppliers, such as flight delays, hotel overbooking, or a tour operator's cancellation, beyond your duty to act reasonably in selecting and booking them. Include a reasonable limitation on your own liability tied to fees paid, not the total trip cost, and be explicit about force majeure: events outside anyone's control, from natural disasters to government travel restrictions, and how refunds are handled in those cases (generally: according to the supplier's policy, since that is what actually governs the money).

Electronic signature consent

If the client will sign electronically, and almost every client will by preference, the agreement needs a proper consent-to-electronic-signature section. In the United States, this is not optional decoration: the ESIGN Act and the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (adopted, with some variation, in nearly every state) recognise electronic signatures as legally binding, but they specifically require the signer to consent to doing business electronically, and that consent needs to explain the signer's right to a paper copy, their right to withdraw consent, and what hardware or software they need to sign and keep a copy of the record. Outside the US, similar principles apply under frameworks like the EU's eIDAS regulation, but the specific consent requirements vary by jurisdiction. Check what applies where your client is signing from, since e-signature law is genuinely different across borders even where the underlying idea is similar.

Seller of travel disclosures, where they apply

If you are registered as a seller of travel in a state that requires it, California and Florida both have specific, mandatory disclosure language. That language needs to appear on the agreement itself, not just somewhere on your website. See the companion article on seller of travel registration for what different states currently require, and verify the exact current wording with your state's regulator before finalising your agreement: this is one area where the exact phrasing is not optional.

Putting it together

None of these sections needs to be written from scratch by you personally: a qualified attorney familiar with travel-industry contracts is worth the cost here, because the liability and disclosure sections are exactly where a generic template falls short. What you can control directly is making sure the agreement is actually presented and signed before work begins, not after, and that it is specific to your business rather than a document that reads like it was written for someone else.

WaypointsX auto-fills a client agreement from the trip details and collects the signature through the client portal, sealed with an audit certificate that records consent, timing and identity for every signer. See how signing works on the signing page.