Wyndham Hotels & Resorts has released a new booking, billing and payment solution that employs unique identification numbers to corporations and allows for transactions without the use of a credit card on the part of the traveler, the company told BTN. Dubbed Wyndham Direct, the product includes virtual card payment through direct channels and real-time access to individual traveler folios, according to Wyndham.
"There is billing and payment, but what makes it even better is the fact that either the traveler or travel arranger makes the reservation through our direct connection, either through the website or call center with the Wyndham Direct number, and it automatically flows through their reservation," said Wyndham SVP of global sales Carol Lynch. "When they go to check in, they just walk in, give their name, and don't have to give any type of credit card. It's easy for the front desk person to identify the fact that they are a Wyndham Direct traveler."
When guests check out, they don't receive a folio; it goes directly to the company. Incidentals also can be included. "It's up to the corporation whether they want to include all charges in the payment system or just room and tax, but the platform allows for all charges to be charged to that Wyndham Direct ID," Lynch said.
How the payments work is through using integrated virtual credit card technology from financial tech firm Corporate Spending Innovations. All the data sits in one place. Travel managers can then access folios in real time through a portal, allowing them to see where their travelers are staying as well as individual spending data. Travel managers also have custom reporting features.
Wyndham introduced the product March 30 at its La Quinta by Wyndham hotels in the United States. It rolled the product out to its Super 8 and Days Inn hotels on July 20. Wyndham plans to add Wyndham Direct to all its U.S. properties by the end of the year. "Today, it's accessible to 4,000 properties, three of our largest brands," Lynch said. "Once it's rolled out to the rest of the brands, we will have over 6,000 hotels in the U.S. alone that have the capability."
The company plans eventually to roll it out internationally, but has no specific timeline to do so.
Wyndham Direct came about when Wyndham in 2018 acquired the La Quinta brand, which had offered a direct-billing option, Lynch said. "Our customers talked about La Quinta direct billing more than anything and what a benefit it was, not just to clients but to the hotels themselves. It was something we knew we would adopt once the brand migrated to our reservation system. We also knew we had to have a technology platform to do that, whereas La Quinta really did it back of the house, manually. We couldn't scale that for 6,000 hotels. We found the technology provider CSI, who helped customize the solution for us."
Wyndham Direct is available to any corporate client, and could benefit in particular small to midsize businesses that might not have a formal travel program or may not use a streamlined booking platform, Lynch said. She cited as an example a logistics company working through the pandemic, a segment she recently told BTN was among the few still booking business travel.
"The company deploys crews to build warehouses, and all these companies started shipping and they couldn't handle the inventory and had to build warehouses," Lynch said. "These crews would go out and they might be driving from city to city to city. It was a huge benefit for this organization to be able to set up a billing solution at multiple hotels where they never had to worry about those actual travelers themselves having to pay for their rooms. It became a really streamlined process from booking, to billing and payment."