American Express has upgraded its Business Travel Account
product via a partnership with Conferma that allows American Express to centralize
hotel, low-cost air carrier, full-service carrier and rail bookings into one
statement. Amex is calling the updated offering enhanced BTA and it is
available in Australia, the U.K. and the U.S., with plans to add new markets.
Amex already offers its own virtual card product, vPayment,
which a client can use to pay for hotel and LCC bookings. This option, however,
results in a billing statement separate from the client's BTA statement that includes full-service air
and rail transactions, Conferma commercial manager Nick Reid explained.
Sometimes central account-type products are challenging to use with LCCs
because of card verification value (CVV) codes, he added, but with Conferma any
LCC that can accept a regular corporate card can accept Amex’s enhanced BTA.“Enhanced
BTA amalgamates virtual card capability with BTA, meaning Amex clients can use [the]
single product across multiple travel types. Over time, virtual cards will start
to be used for other service types too, like scheduled air,” Reid said,
implying that the enhanced BTA could be a bridge product.
Enhanced BTA works with Conferma’s “hundreds” of travel
management company clients around the world and integrated booking tools, like Concur
Travel, said Conferma director of strategic relationships Paul Raymond.
While companies now get a consolidated statement of their travel spend from the
enhanced BTA, the booking process remains the same. A TMC agent books an LCC
flight or hotel for a traveler using the enhanced BTA and Conferma will
generate a virtual card number to pay for the transaction. The agent forwards
the itinerary details to the traveler.
Additionally, Conferma adds some mobile traveler support to
the Enhanced BTA offering. Conferma automatically faxes or emails the card
authorization to the hotel, depending on the hotel’s preference. Travelers can also
download the Conferma TripPay app to display a digital image of the virtual
card on their mobile phones to show at check-in or to resend authorizations to
the hotel if needed. The Conferma partnership also brought mobile display and refax support to American Express vPayment, which did not previously include it.