Welcome to the first roundup of the topic of business travel distribution and technology, as discussed on social media channels. Insiders have been discussing these topics for the past few weeks.
Business Access with Marriott Bonboy
Corey Garner, a former American Airlines executive and head of his Garner consulting company, provides Marriott International’s Automatic Silver Status to Bonvoy Royalty members and links personal accounts to the company’s business access through the Marriott Bonvoy account. Additionally, Gold Status will be provided to members booking night thresholds in their rooms via a platform equipped with Spotnana for corporate bookings.
It’s a loyalty program play for corporate travelers to “promote channel preferences by supporting their website,” Garner said. He asked if the airline was paying attention.
The product highlights the potential for #travellasaservice to strengthen loyalty and promote channel preferences. In an exciting time for the travel industry, I wrote Ruben Leal, who worked in strategic sourcing and global travel and expense management at companies such as Netflix, Walmart and Pfizer.
“There’s a lot of space on this opportunity,” writes Oracle Director, Global Travel Sourcing & GPO Rita Visser. “We have some (don’t worry about everything!) partners that will help travelers jump over the hoops and raise their status.
“Please call me a deny. But as a Marriott loyalist, do we like this?” asked Paul Volcheff, strategic account executive at Financial Services Analytics at Salesforce. “It’s true that more silver and gold elites don’t necessarily infiltrate the benefits of titanium and the ambassadors.
Garner/Accelya White Paper
Garner collaborated with Accelya to write a white paper, “Unlocking the NDC: Early Results of Corporate Travel.” Garner from LinkedIn said in the report he buried “Easter Eggs” and asked readers to see if they could find it. He eventually shared the answer in the comments in the post (you have to go there to find out what it is), but below are some speculations from readers.
Nicolapin, global manager of travel distribution for flight centre travel groups, said, “I was wondering about the comments on relative speed when obb& airlines are in the same technology stack compared to when they are not. The biggest alumni have no airline technology.
Garner replied that it was good but not the answer. “If #TMC has a single cohesive technology stack that is internally developed or provided as a turnkey service by third parties like Spotnana, then NDC will move forward faster,” he said.
Was it “deduping”? We asked Neil Blaauboer, president and founder of TRVL Upsource. “I found it interesting to look at applications related to content options presented across multiple channels.”
Garner said no, and although he didn’t avoid it, the topic was “probably the most important non-Easter egg new insights in the white paper.”
Amtrav, United Airlines, NDC
Amtrav CEO Jeff Klee wrote on LinkedIn that the agency will choose NDC if the airfare prices are exactly the same through legacy connections and new distribution capabilities connections. He calls it “NDC Day from Tie.” It happened about a month ago for Amtrav and United Airlines’ “all North American trips,” Cree writes. “United’s latest release included some long-standing enhancements that we’ve put on hold on behalf of our customers.”
The global travel leader at Google Robert Bray asked, “Determine the decision criteria for turning the logic of a tiebreaker.” Cree said, “Would a traveler likely have a better experience if he becomes one of the NDC tickets or an Edifacts? That question will be in two parts. First, is there an “extra” available only for NDCs that are attractive enough to move the needle? If a traveler needs to change, do you think he or she will spend a simple time with one ticket type, etc.? ”
Andersun CEO Felix Hernandez Perez asked if United could now issue ‘NDC tickets’ when flights depart within the next 24 hours. Cree replied yes, it was supported. “It was actually always supported through the direct API. It was restricted to having bookings immediately pay/tickets required within 25 hours. This was an issue for customers with approval flows, or customers whose bookings are sent through a QC process that could take several minutes. Thankfully, that limit has been lifted.”
1 order and RBD
Travel technology strategist Anseder Hall asked if one order was “a conversion to a true customer-centric system and how will RBD disappear?” (RBD stands for the code used to identify booking appointment recipients, flight booking class or fare type, and one order is an XML-based standard aimed at phased out current booking passenger name records and ticket records, according to the International Air Transport Association.)
Cederhall said that conversion to one order is “very necessary, but there are concerns that this is just a PNR transformation and not an actual change.”
Saber Lead Online Customer Performance Engineer Hyowon Kim said that she was all for change, but “But the problem is that buzzwords and marketing often come before something specific. What does that look like?
Cederhall agreed, adding, “What does it look like? How can people contribute? How can we hear about our outside industry?
Chief sales officer at Atriis Technologies Kai-Gordon Weiland also nurtured the NDC and said that what was promised was “personalized offers, simple supplementary bookings, and after-sales changes.” reality? “What has been changed is mainly the booking channel from Edifact to the NDC interface. … There are only a few airlines offering accessories or services available only at NDC. All systems for innovative change.
