USDT's E-mail Address: divetrip@bitstream.net

Web Address: www.usdivetravel.com

Please provide us with the following client info to help streamline your booking.

Just a quick typewritten note is fine:

• Name of person making referral, & name of your dive shop or dive club.
  
  
• Phone & fax numbers of referring dive shop or dive club.
  
  
• E-mail & air-mail addresses of referring dive shop or dive club.
  
  
• Full names of all clients, with middle initials (as printed on passports, please).
  
  
• Preferred phone number of group leader (home # or cell phone).
  
  
• Dates clients wish to travel.
  
  
• City & airport of clients' departure.
  
  
• Clients' destination (country, island, resort or vessel).
  
  
• Do you need air tickets? If so, how many persons, & from which departure cities?
  
  
• How many days of scuba diving needed? Any other side tours?
  

2. USDT will check air & land space A.S.A.P. for you. We'll e-mail you with preliminary facts that same day (with nearly all bookings).

3. If the prices & itinerary meet with your travel teams' approval, please phone or e-mail us with your OK. Or you may turn the booking details over to your clients directly. When either your dive shop, or the clients themselves, contact USDT with final trip instructions, this is a formal booking & you've earned your commission. Commission amounts vary with size of group & frequency of your bookings with USDT. Call us any time for details.

4. USDT then will e-mail back to your dive shop our Booking Verification Letter, confirming the clients' arrangements in accurate detail, including reservation numbers, invoice & commission structure. Once you receive our verification letter, your dive shop's referral is automatically logged into our reservation & accounting system. You are therefore guaranteed a commission, which in most cases will simply be deducted from the net balance due on your trip's account. Group leaders may keep the commission to defray their own personal travel costs, or they may split the discount evenly among all team members, as you wish.

5. Here are the rules by which your commissions are paid:

• Clients may pay your dive shop & then you relay a cashier's check or wire transfer to USDT. Or you may ask clients to pay USDT directly.
  
  
• If your dive shop receives the client payment first & then relays it to USDT, you may deduct your commission up front, then send us the net balance due.
  
  
• Clients may pay USDT directly in three ways: via wire transfer or cashier's check for hotel, diving & vessel costs; or via Mastercard or Visa for air tickets only. Please note that USDT will not accept personal checks nor checks drawn on any private business. The reason is a simple matter of logistics. We are required to remit your payments immediately to resorts & vessels, on your behalf, & our local banking system does not clear non-certified checks in fewer than 6-8 days.
  
  
• We are conscientious about paying our commissions on time. We know if we are reliable on our end of the agreement, we can count on your continued loyalty as well.

6. U.S. Dive Travel will negotiate your commissions for all lodging, diving, vessel & side tour referrals depending on group size & number of services you book.
(Please call us at 952-953-4124 for details.) If your dive shop or dive club is a regular contributor of referrals, we have a generous sliding scale of commission over-rides (bonus points above standard commissions) that depend on USDT's contract relationship with the resort or vessel booked; & also on your dive shop's annual volume. This bonus system rewards our best allies for frequent referrals. This is an easy way for you, as busy professionals, to collect hassle-free cash for a few minutes of phone calls or faxes.

You also can earn even more generous over-rides for first-time booking of a group larger than 12 clients, each of whom books at least five nights lodging + at least three days of diving or side tours + add-on air tickets overseas.

7. If USDT books regular retail air tickets for your clients, this service is never commissionable. However, check out the good news about wholesale air tickets.....

8. If your dive shop or dive club books wholesale air through the bulk-fare contract our partnership holds with Continental Airlines -- for international flights from most major cities in the Lower 48 states to Belize, Honduras, Costa Rica, Hawaii, the South Pacific or Micronesia -- we'll sell your groups (small & large) the air spaces at low net rates, sometimes $70 - $250 per ticket below the lowest discount retail price available.

Then your dive shop can mark these air tickets up to clients as you see fit, observing our prime requirement -- that markups never exceed the lowest retail price available for that airline, that destination & those specific travel dates on the day the client commits. We ask our affiliate referring companies to exercise good judgment, & give your clients healthy discounts, so these bookings reflect well on our shared reputations for integrity & customer service. To better see how our system for wholesale air tickets works, please click back to our Home Page, then click on the hot-link for "Want to be a Guide?" & navigate to Index letter 'B.'

9. In cases when you might refer customized land bookings to USDT (for example, vacation packages for which USDT does NOT hold a wholesale contract with a given hotel, resort, vessel, dive operation) then USDT will pay your commission in this manner: one half the set dollar amount per person for normal commissions. This is because service providers with whom USDT does not hold a wholesale contract will pay us a much smaller commission amount, from which we then pay your dive shop or dive club.

10. Before USDT can cut a commission statement to any dive shop or dive club, we respectfully request that the following documentation be mailed to us for our permanent files:

• Photocopy of the dive shop's current business license.
  
  
• Photocopy of the dive shop's current PADI, NAUI or SSI affiliation papers.
  
  
• Names, mailing address & office phone numbers of your shop's owner(s).
  
  
• One copy of the introductory brochure or fliers your dive shop gives new clients.
  

If you need more information about U.S. Dive Travel, please feel free to phone John or Susan Hessburg, USDT general managers, at 952-953-4124 in St. Paul, MN.

Our regular business hours are: Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. Central Time.

Our E-mail address is: divetrip@bitstream.net.

Thank you for your interest. Blessings, & Cheers!

Susan & John Hessburg
Founding Partners, Managers
The U.S. Dive Travel Network

© Copyright U.S. Dive Travel Network.