Panvoya Review: Retail volume without retail sales?

Panvoya describe themselves as ‘the most unique and exciting travel program available today.‘

The company are based out of the US state of Texas and identify Paul Koury as President and CEO.

Paul has over 25 years of experience in the travel industry, having started his own travel agency at the age of 16.

He has also founded or served at the executive level of multiple retail and service companies, including three with network marketing based affiliate compensation plans.

One of those companies was Viradyne, reviewed here on BehindMLM back in 2011.

Viradyne attempted to enter into the crowded niche of search, hoping to generate revenue from users using its search engine, Link 180.

Viradyne flopped shortly after launch, with Koury (right) complaining it was only able to attract “very low-quality users“.

Despite what’s claimed in Koury’s Panvoya corporate bio, I was unable to tie him to any other MLM company.

Read on for a full review of the Panvoya MLM business opportunity.

The Panvoya Product Line

Panvoya has no retailable products or services, with affiliate only able to market affiliate membership with the company itself ($297-$997).

Once signed up, Panvoya affiliates can then access third-party travel discounts.

The discounts offered by Panvoya are through the third-party company RCI and a travel portal they themselves run, “A Smarter Way to Travel” (“asmarterwaytotravel.com”).

Who provides the travel savings accessed through A Smarter Way to Travel is not disclosed.

The Panvoya Compensation Plan

The Panvoya compensation plan sees affiliates paid to recruit new affiliates. Commissions are paid out directly on recruitment of new affiliates, as well as residually via a unilevel and several performance-based bonuses.

Panvoya Affiliate Ranks

There are eight affiliate ranks within the Panvoya compensation plan.

Along with their respective qualification criteria, they are as follows:

• Local Travel Promoter – sign up as either a Leisure Lifestyle or Luxury Lifestyle affiliate and continue to pay monthly fees
• Area Travel Promoter – pay monthly fee, generate at least $150 a month in sales and have a total downline of at least 12 affiliates
• Regional Travel Promoter – pay monthly fee, generate at least $200 a month in sales ($50 must be retail and no more than 60% from any one unilevel leg) and have a total downline of at least 30 affiliates
• Managing Travel Director – pay monthly fee, generate at least $200 a month in sales ($50 must be retail and no more than 50% from any one unilevel leg) and have a total downline of at least 90 affiliates (three of which must be personally recruited Area Travel Promoter ranked affiliates)
• National Travel Director – pay monthly fee, generate at least $250 a month in sales ($100 must be retail and no more than 50% from any one unilevel leg) and have a total downline of at least 500 affiliates (three of which must be personally recruited Regional Travel Promoter ranked affiliates)
• International Travel Director – pay monthly fee, generate at least $250 a month in sales ($100 must be retail and no more than 40% from any one unilevel leg) and have a total downline of at least 3000 affiliates (two of which must be Managing Travel Directors and one a National Travel Director)
• Global Travel Director – pay monthly fee, generate at least $300 a month in sales ($150 must be retail and no more than 40% from any one unilevel leg) and have a total downline of at least 10,000 affiliates (two of which must be National Travel Directors and one an International Travel Director)
• Executive Travel Director – pay monthly fee, generate at least $300 a month in sales ($150 must be retail and no more than 40% from any one unilevel leg) and have a total downline of at least 20,000 affiliates (two of which must be International Travel Directors and one a Global Travel Director)

Note that retail volume is mentioned as a qualification criteria from the Regional Travel Promoter rank, but there’s no mention or clarification of retail sales on the Panvoya or “A Smarter Way to Travel” websites.

Recruitment Commissions

Panvoya affiliates are paid to recruit new Panvoya affiliates.

How much of a commission is paid out is determined by how much a newly recruited Panvoya affiliate spends when they join the company:

• recruitment of a Leisure Lifestyle affiliate ($297) = $75
• recruitment of a Luxury Lifestyle affiliate ($997) = $250

Note that the above is a base recruitment commission, withe amount paid out able to be increased via Panvoya affiliate rank promotion:

• Area Travel Promoter – extra $10 for a Leisure Lifestyle affiliate and an extra $25 for a Luxury Lifestyle affiliate
• Regional Travel Promoter – extra $20 for a Leisure Lifestyle affiliate and an extra $50 for a Luxury Lifestyle affiliate
• Managing Travel Director – extra $25 for a Leisure Lifestyle affiliate and an extra $70 for a Luxury Lifestyle affiliate
• National Travel Director – extra $30 for a Leisure Lifestyle affiliate and an extra $90 for a Luxury Lifestyle affiliate
• International Travel Director – extra $35 for a Leisure Lifestyle affiliate and an extra $110 for a Luxury Lifestyle affiliate
• Global Travel Director – extra $40 for a Leisure Lifestyle affiliate and an extra $130 for a Luxury Lifestyle affiliate
• Executive Travel Director – extra $45 for a Leisure Lifestyle affiliate and an extra $150 for a Luxury Lifestyle affiliate

These are “differential bonuses”, meaning they are paid out incrementally until a maximum $45 for a Leisure Lifestyle affiliate and $150 for a Luxury Lifestyle affiliate has been paid out.

The Panvoya compensation system first searches the immediate upline and checks their rank. If they are at the Area Travel Promoter rank or higher, a bonus (as per the amounts above) is paid out.

The system then continues to search higher in the upline for a higher ranked affiliate, until eventually an Executive Travel Director is found and the remaining balance of the bonus is paid out.

Note that if the immediate upline affiliate is an Executive Travel Director, the full $45 or $150 bonus is paid out.

Finally a referral matching bonus is also paid out on the bonus commissions above, starting at the Managing Travel Director rank.

If a Panvoya affiliate qualifies at the Managing Travel Director Rank, they earn a 50% matching bonus on and bonus recruitment commissions earned by any of their personally recruited affiliates.

Coded Bonuses

Panvoya’s Coded Bonus serves as a recruitment incentive, rewarding an affiliate when their downline recruits new affiliates in sets of three.

Two qualifiers are available to generate a Coded Bonus:

1. a personally recruited affiliate recruits three new affiliates within 60 days of joining the company or
2. a personally recruited affiliate recruits three new affiliates at the same level (either three Leisure Lifestyles or three Luxury Lifestyles) within a rolling 60 day period

If either of the above qualification conditions are met, the Coded Bonus pays out as follows:

• Area Travel Promoter – extra $10 for a Leisure Lifestyle affiliate and an extra $25 for a Luxury Lifestyle affiliate
• Regional Travel Promoter – extra $20 for a Leisure Lifestyle affiliate and an extra $50 for a Luxury Lifestyle affiliate
• Managing Travel Director – extra $25 for a Leisure Lifestyle affiliate and an extra $70 for a Luxury Lifestyle affiliate
• National Travel Director – extra $30 for a Leisure Lifestyle affiliate and an extra $90 for a Luxury Lifestyle affiliate
• International Travel Director – extra $35 for a Leisure Lifestyle affiliate and an extra $110 for a Luxury Lifestyle affiliate
• Global Travel Director – extra $40 for a Leisure Lifestyle affiliate and an extra $130 for a Luxury Lifestyle affiliate
• Executive Travel Director – extra $45 for a Leisure Lifestyle affiliate and an extra $150 for a Luxury Lifestyle affiliate

A 100% matching bonus is also available, paying out a maximum 100% match on any Coded Bonus earnt by personally recruited affiliates.

Residual Commissions

Residual commissions in Panvoya are paid out using a unilevel compensation structure.

A unilevel compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a unilevel team, with every personally recruited affiliate placed directly under them (level 1):

If any affiliates on level 1 go on to recruit new affiliates of their own, they are placed on level 2 of the original affiliate’s unilevel team.

If any level 2 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 3 and so on and so forth down a theoretical infinite number of levels.

Panvoya cap payable unilevels at eight, paying out $1 a month per recruited affiliate placed in a unilevel team.

A 50% matching bonus is available on residual commissions paid out to recruited affiliates.

Generation Bonus

The Generation Bonus pays out a percentage of residual unilevel commissions paid out to a Panvoya affiliate’s downline.

A generation in Panvoya is defined when a second affiliate of the same or higher rank is found in any given unilevel leg.

For the purpose of commission qualification, every individual unilevel leg is analyzed separately.

Commissions in the Generation Bonus are paid out according to a Panvoya affiliate’s rank:

• Managing Travel Director – 10%
• National Travel Director – 20%
• International Travel Director – 30%
• Global Travel Director – 40%
• Executive Travel Director – 50%

Note that if no second same or higher rank affiliate exists in a unilevel leg, then the generation bonus is paid out to the end of the unilevel leg (no cap).

Leadership Lifestyle Bonus

The Leadership Lifestyle Bonus is paid out using new monthly sales volume in a Panvoya affiliate’s unilevel team.

For the purpose of commission qualification “blocks” are required, with one block consisting of $5000 of new monthly sales volume in three individual unilevel legs.

Every time the above qualification criteria is met a block is created, with commissions in the Leadership Lifestyle Bonus paid out as follows:

• Area Travel Promoter (2 blocks a month required) – $1000 a month
• Regional Travel Promoter (4 blocks a month required) – $2000 a month
• Managing Travel Director (10 blocks a month required) – $5000 a month
• National Travel Director (40 blocks a month required) – $20,000 a month
• International Travel Director (100 blocks a month required) – $50,000 a month
• Global Travel Director (200 blocks a month required) – $100,000 a month
• Executive Travel Director (300 blocks a month required) – $150,000 a month

Note that these payouts may be restricted so that no more than “$100 for each new $997 package sold and $30 for each new $297 package” is paid out.

Joining Panvoya

Affiliate membership with Panvoya is either $297 for Leisure Lifestyle or $997 for Luxury Lifestyle.

The primary difference between these two options is what travel discounts can be accessed and income potential through the Panvoya compensation plan.

An ongoing $59 a month fee is also charged, irrespective of which membership is signed up for.

Conclusion

Like pretty much every other travel-related MLM opportunity out there, Panvoya’s MLM business opportunity has nothing to do with travel.

Under the guise of the usual travel-related marketing spiels (“see you on the beaches of the world etc.”), all Panvoya do is charge affiliates a fee to sign up, and then pay those affiliates to recruit new affiliates.

Commissions are paid based on how much is spent on affiliate membership, with there being nothing tied into the actual use of any travel-related services offered by third-parties.

Of note is that there is a separate compensation plan available on the “A Smarter Way to Travel” website, which does mention travel. This compensation plan however is matrix-based, and differs from what is presented on the Panvoya website.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it’s a remnant of a previous opportunity the Panvoya travel portal was attached to (Panvoya marketing videos were first uploaded to YouTube a year ago).

In any event, Panvoya as it’s currently represented on the company website (specifically the compensation plan), is just another cookie-cutter “affiliate fees used to pay out commissions” scheme.

There’s a strong “pay-to-play” element to Panvoya too, with how much an affiliate spends on their membership directly affecting income potential through the compensation plan. Ditto how much those recruited, seeing as a large amount of commissions are paid upfront when a new affiliate is recruited.

How the retail volume for affiliate rank qualification works is a mystery, as there’s no mention of retail sales anywhere on the Panvoya website or in their compensation plan.

The only thing a visitor to the Panvoya website can currently do is sign up as an affiliate.

If, and I hope this isn’t the case, the idea is to introduce retail access to the travel savings at a later date, I feel compelled to point out this never works.

Affiliates join and focus on affiliate recruitment, as that’s what was initially marketed to them and that’s where they generate the bulk of their commissions from.

If retail is going to be offered at all within Panvoya, it needs to be made available right from the start and offered as a focus, not an afterthought.

As with all recruitment-driven schemes, once recruitment of new affiliates dries up those at the bottom of the company-wide unilevel team will stop paying their monthly fees.

Once that happens those above them will cease getting paid and they too will stop paying their fees.

Over time this effect trickles up the Panvoya affiliate genealogy, until eventually a company-wide collapse is triggered.

At that point anyone who hasn’t made more than they’ve paid for affiliate membership and monthly fees, loses out. Statistically in recruitment-driven MLM opportunities this invariably winds up being the majority of affiliates.