Month: February 2015

What Does Expedia’s New Power Mean For Lodging Rates?

Hotels had to reckon with Expedia before it acquired Travelocity and proposed the same for Orbitz. If it’s able to enhance its negotiating power, Expedia could reinforce the notion that online travel agencies offer lower lodging rates than traditional managed travel sources. In a Feb. 13 research note, Oppenheimer analyst Manish Hemrajani wrote that Expedia’s “Hulk-esque proportions in the U.S. travel landscape”…

Amex May Face Tougher Competition Following Court Decision

A federal court in Brooklyn, N.Y. on Thursday ordered American Express to revise its merchant agreements. Provisions that bar merchants from preferring another form of payment need modification or elimination, the court found. Absent a winning appeal, the decision seems likely to hurt Amex’s competitiveness. It appears merchants such as airlines would be free to promote alternative payment platforms, perhaps by…

Performance Issues Plague Concur Travel

[UPDATE, Feb. 27: Concur indicated the service was back to normal operation.] Concur is working to identify the cause of errors and slow processing in its Concur Travel web application. “Over the weekend, the engineering and operations teams identified key areas where transaction performance was negatively impacted and implemented configuration changes that significantly improved transaction processing times,” according to a Monday message…

Just As Egencia’s Fusion Begins To Bear Fruit, Expedia Buys Again

Egencia three years ago said it would begin building technology globally rather than regionally, and now it’s on the verge of some real accomplishments. Although the endgame is beginning to emerge, the 325 software engineers working on Egencia’s Fusion project need not update their résumés. Parent Expedia on Feb. 12 announced plans to buy yet another corporate travel platform in Orbitz for…

With A Bit Of Strategy, Airlines And SMEs Can Find Value In Small Business Programs

When organizations don’t have enough air volume to earn negotiated discounts, many find small business programs are better than nothing. But they can be a bit more than that. They can, for example, fill gaps for midsize companies averse to contracts with multiple carriers. For airlines, these programs offer access to a fertile segment at costs below those of traditional discount programs. Several carriers now are…

U.S. Market Challenges KDS

A leading provider to European companies and multinationals, 20-year-old travel and expense automator KDS is a new entrant in the United States. Some are pulling for it as an alternative to Concur. It has opportunity, but KDS also faces a lot of challenges. KDS CEO Dean Forbes in a Feb. 5 interview acknowledged that the Neo door-to-door travel booking product so far has no U.S. corporate clients. “I’m…

United Seeks ‘Four-Star’ Service With Employee Behavior Standards

In need of an image makeover, United Airlines opened the year by holding employees accountable for lagging customer service. New baseline standards developed last year measure frontline workers on courtesy, graciousness and consistency. United had been working with Forbes Travel Guide on standards for each of the carrier’s work groups. The idea is to get impartial input from outside the…

End of content

End of content