New York — It’s easy to make fun of the traditional “green” screens that travel agents use, but it’s really hard to replace them. Executives with large travel management companies deposed for the US Airways v. Sabre lawsuit, now in trial here, pointed to tens of millions of reasons. “It was a money pit,” said…
Price assurance has taken root in corporate travel. TripBam and Yapta, especially, have made serious inroads. Another airfare reshopping firm, FairFly also is building a business on travel price volatility. These specialists are compiling huge data repositories. For travel managers, this may represent newfound power. They can watch (and maybe influence) traveler booking behavior. In…
New York — “Business people are very excited about competition in every sector except their own.” With that quip, Columbia University professor Joseph Stiglitz opened his testimony here this month in the US Airways v. Sabre antitrust trial. Called by the plaintiffs, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Time magazine once named among the 100 most influential…
New York — As they consolidate and grow, travel agencies earn more incentive money from global distribution system providers. Just how much has been hard to ascertain, since incentives are not specifically teased out in GDS company financial reports. With the US Airways v. Sabre case underway here, some interesting numbers are emerging. According to…
As with hacking, if it hasn’t happened to you yet, fraud will. Travel management companies can be unwitting participants in deceit. In one unsettling but increasingly common scenario, scammers search the Internet or buy hacked information to find out companies’ travel agencies and other details. They masquerade as executives from those companies in calls to…
Informing clients of its new “high-cost” supplier expense recovery program, American Express Global Business Travel indicated $10 per transaction would apply not only to non-global distribution system participants, but also to airlines that are not in billing settlement plans like ARC. What’s ARC got to do with it? Booking managed corporate travel on airline websites…
Though some understand the rationale, corporate travel buyers don’t like the new American Express Global Business Travel surcharge on certain airline bookings. Concerns go beyond the amount of the fee, which client communications indicate is $10 per transaction. Customers raised several other financial and operational questions. Speaking anonymously due to the sensitive nature of supplier…
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