The client came home happy. The commission didn’t come. It happens to every advisor eventually, and the ones who recover the money tend to work through it in the same order. Here’s that order.
1. Know when the money was actually due
You can’t call a payment late if you don’t know when it was due, and pay timing varies widely. Some suppliers pay before departure; many pay weeks after the client travels. Hotels are the slowest. Onyx, which pays commission on behalf of many hotels, told Travel Weekly that its average payment came 42 days after checkout, and estimated 140 days for hotels that don’t contract Onyx to pay. Onyx’s Q2 2026 report put its average at 41 days.
So chasing on day 10 wastes everyone’s time, and not chasing on day 90 can cost you the money. For the suppliers Canadian advisors book most, see when suppliers pay commission.
2. Rule out the boring reasons first
Before you email anyone, check your own file:
- Was the booking cancelled or changed in a way that reduced the amount commission is worked out on?
- Was the rate actually commissionable? Marriott, for example, says in its agent FAQ that it pays only on room revenue actually earned at commissionable rates, and that late-cancellation and no-show fees aren’t commissionable.
- Was your agency’s ID on the booking? As a hosted advisor, that’s usually your host’s IATA, CLIA or TRUE number. Hotel commission depends on it.
If it’s one of these, it’s far better to find it yourself than to have a supplier point it out.
3. Ask your host before you ask the supplier
As a hosted advisor, your commission usually goes to your host first and then to you. Check your host statement, then ask your host’s commission team whether the payment came in and simply hasn’t been paid out to you yet. If it did, the problem is a timing or allocation question for your host, not the supplier.
4. Build a claim packet before you send anything
One complete email gets further than three partial ones. Include:
- The confirmation number, guest name and travel dates
- The rate booked, and the agency ID used
- The amount you expected and how you worked it out
- The supplier’s published commission terms
If several bookings with the same supplier are late, put them in one message.
5. Follow up on a schedule, not on a feeling
Decide when you’ll follow up before you send the first message, and put it in your calendar. A week or two is a reasonable gap for most suppliers. Keep it polite and factual: the person on the other end usually didn’t cause the problem. Note who you spoke to, when, and what they said, so every follow-up builds on the last.
6. Escalate deliberately
If a hotel still doesn’t pay, there are formal routes. Marriott, for one, takes commission enquiries through its portal once more than 45 days have passed since departure. In late 2025 ASTA launched a tool for its members to report hotels that haven’t paid commission 45 or more days after a stay; hotels that don’t resolve it can end up on its Hotel Watch List. By September 2026, ASTA said the programme had recovered nearly $60,000 for members (TravelPulse). It’s a member tool, so ask your host whether they belong.
Make late commission impossible to miss
The common thread in every recovered commission is noticing early. Give every booking an expected pay date the day you make it, and check what’s overdue weekly instead of at tax time. That habit is what Arrivals is built around: each booking gets an estimated pay date from the supplier’s terms, and anything late goes onto a chase list with a follow-up email ready to send. See chasing late commission: a checklist for the short version of these steps.