Flight Centre Travel Group

Considering Raising More Capital, Expensify Capitalizes On Silicon Valley’s Fervor For FinTech

Expensify’s new payment product is not what comes to mind for most people when they think “corporate card.” While technically it’s a credit card, effectively it’s a debit card with the controls of a pre-paid card. It doesn’t seem to be an idea that could replace T&E cards at large companies. For small firms, it…

Serko Tries To Go Where No Corporate Online Booking Tool Has Gone Before

No independent, non-U.S. corporate booking tool provider has ever really succeeded in this market. Serko is trying to be the first. The New Zealand-based software provider, which also offers expense management, is spending significantly to grow its presence in Canada and the United Kingdom as well. The company expects travel management company reseller partnerships in…

Startups Beat Varied Paths On ‘Balancing Act’ Of Travel Management Company Partnerships

Business travel startups face tough choices as they mature. TripActions and TravelPerk remain independent as their investors raise stakes in what is not a get-rich-quick industry. Others could be acquired by existing travel management companies. Then there is a middle ground. Some new entrants are attempting to leverage TMC partnerships even though that means sharing…

Discovery Inc. Saves With SAP Concur’s TripLink, Sans TMC Support

Since its inception, SAP Concur’s TripLink program has drawn concern from policy compliance-minded travel managers. They were well aware that lacking inventory in preferred travel management companies or online booking tools created program integrity issues. With some content, especially conference hotel rates, simply not in those channels, many said yes to the TripIt-style email parsing…

IBM Gets Patent On Travel Planning

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office last week issued a patent to IBM for “intelligent travel planning.” The patented process covers receiving a user’s trip requirements and preferences, searching travel options, building an itinerary based on “relative weights for preference information” and purchase history, obtaining a response from the user to the proposed itinerary and…

WhereTo Wants To Be The Large Enterprise’s Business Travel Startup

A newish company with a not-so-new travel manager, Snap Inc. may invite new corporate booking tool WhereTo to bid on its business this summer. Just being in the conversation is a boost for WhereTo, which has been working behind the scenes for a few years with a large, press-shy corporate patron. For big U.S.-based companies,…

Withering On The Vine? Sabre’s TripCase Slips In Managed Business Travel While TripIt Keeps Adding Features

The United States Patent and Trademark Office in February granted Sabre a patent on “post-booking travel assistance and organization.” This covers some key functions in the Sabre TripCase mobile app. It came nearly a decade after Sabre applied for the designation and despite more recent comments about its lack of desire for patents. Sabre was…

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