The Conversation: March 2025

Welcome to our first round-up of business travel distribution and technology topics as discussed on social media channels. Insiders were debating these topics in recent weeks:  

Business Access by Marriott Bonvoy 

Former American Airlines exec and head of his Garner consultancy, Cory Garner brought up Marriott International's offering automatic silver status to Bonvoy loyalty members who link their personal accounts to their company's Business Access by Marriott Bonvoy account. Further, gold status will be offered for members who book a threshold number of room nights through their Spotnana-powered platform for corporate bookings.  

It's a loyalty program play for the corporate traveler to "drive channel preference in favor of their own website," Garner said. He asked if airlines were paying attention.  

The offerings "highlight the potential of #TravelasaService to enhance loyalty and drive channel preference. Exciting times ahead for the travel industry, [e]specially for the still underserved SME market!" wrote Ruben Leal, who has worked in strategic sourcing and global travel and expense management at companies including Netflix, Walmart and Pfizer. 

"There is so much room for this opportunity out there," wrote Oracle director of global travel sourcing & GPO Rita Visser. "We have some (not all mind you!) partners who make our travelers jump through hoops to get elevated status. If it's really that important to them, make it easy!" 

"Call me a naysayer, but as a Marriott loyalist do we like this?" asked Paul Volcheff, strategic account executive, financial services analytics for Salesforce. "Sure more Silver and Gold elites aren't going to necessarily encroach on the benefits of those with Titanium or Ambassadors, and this might move some lower frequency business traveler share which I'm sure is the whole point, but I keep anchoring back to "if everyone is elite, no one is elite" as I continually see more and more "elites" crowd the space." 

Garner/Accelya White Paper 

Garner teamed up with Accelya to write the white paper "Unlocking NDC: Early Results in Corporate Travel." Garner on LinkedIn said he buried an "easter egg" in the report and asked readers to see if they could find it. He eventually shared the answer in the post's comments (you'll have to go there to find out what it is) but below are a few guesses from readers. 

Global manager of travel distribution for Flight Centre Travel Group Nicola Ping wondered if it was about the comment on "relative speed where OBT & airline are the same tech stack compared to where they aren't. The biggest OBT has no airline tech. The biggest airline NDC provider has no OBT!"  

Garner replied that it was a good one, but not the answer. "When a #TMC has a single, cohesive tech stack that's either internally developed or provided as a turnkey service by a third party like a Spotnana, NDC moves forward more quickly," he said. 

Was it "deduping"? asked Neil Blaauboer, president and founder of TRVL UpSource. "I found it interesting to consider its application regarding content options presented by multiple channels."  

Garner said no, it was not deduping, but that topic was "perhaps the most important non-easter egg new insight of the white paper." 

AmTrav, United Airlines and NDC 

AmTrav CEO Jeff Klee wrote on LinkedIn that when the price is exactly the same for an airfare through a legacy connection and a New Distribution Capability connection, the agency will choose NDC. He calls that a "Tie-Goes-to-NDC Day." That happened about a month ago for AmTrav and United Airlines for "all North American travel," Klee wrote. "United's latest release included several long-sought enhancements which we've been holding out for on behalf of our customers." 

Global travel lead at Google Robert Bray asked what is the "deciding criteria to flip the tie-breaker logic?" Klee said they ask, all things considered, "is the traveler likely to have a better experience if they end up with an NDC ticket or EDIFACT one? That question comes down to two parts. First, are there 'extras' available only in NDC that are compelling enough to move the needle? (In the case of the United, that is prepaid bags, Wi-Fi passes, lounge passes, and more reliable preferred/Economy Plus seating). And the second question is, if the traveler needs to change, do we think he or she will have an easier time of it with one ticket type or the other?" 

Andasun CEO Felix Hernandez Perez asked if United now allows issuing of an "NDC ticket when the flight departure is within the next 24 hours of booking?" Klee responded that yes, it is supported. "It actually was always supported through the direct API. The restriction was that bookings within 25 hours required instant payment/ticketing. That was a problem for some of our customers who have approval flows or whose bookings are sent through a QC process that might take a few minutes. Thankfully, that restriction has been lifted." 

One Order and RBDs 

Travel technology strategist Ann Cederhall asked if One Order is "a transformation to a true customer centric system and how will RBDs go away?" (RBD stands for reservation booking designator, a code used to identify the booking class or type of fare for a flight, and One Order is an XML-based standard intended to phase out the current booking passenger name records and ticketing records, according to the International Air Transport Association.)  

Cederhall noted that the transformation to One Order "is very much needed, but I have a concern that this is just a makeover of the PNR and not real change." 

Sabre lead online customer performance engineer Hyowon Kim said she's all for change, "but the problem is that buzzwords and marketing often come before anything tangible. … I often think and talk about the 'Order standard.' What will it look like? It won't be easy to make it work, and without it, development can't truly move forward. So who is working on it, and what progress has been made?"  

Cederhall agreed, and further asked, "What will it look like? How can people contribute? How can we make sure that we listen to industries outside of ours? … Like I said, it is a repeat of NDC and you should learn from your mistakes." 

Chief sales officer at Atriis Technologies Kai-Gordon Weiland also brought up NDC, saying that what was promised was "personalized offers, easy ancillary booking and after-sales changes." The reality? "What has changed is predominantly the booking channel from Edifact to NDC interfaces. … There are only very few airlines offering ancillaries or services which are only available in NDC. Everything I see could have eventually be[en] done also in Edifact. No revolution here. It feels like a move from CD music records to streaming: NDC is the MP3 player, it is just bridging the period to something much bigger. Airlines were not and are still not ready to change all their systems for a revolutionary change. We all hope to see #OneOrder will bring to us what the streaming of music and TV brought us: a truly personalized and seamless experience."