As many companies sit on hundreds of thousands of dollars of unused air tickets, most of that credit is set to expire this year—and a sizeable portion will expire in a matter of months, according to analysis by TripActions.
The travel management company analyzed unused ticket credits at the end of January and found that 55 percent of those had expiration dates in 2021, with the rest expiring in 2022. Of those expiring this year, most of them—57 percent—expire at the end of the year, but 28 percent expire sometime in the current quarter, according to TripActions. Such expiration dates can shift over time, TripActions noted.
On average, U.S.-based TripActions clients are holding 26 unused credits or partially used credits, such as a roundtrip ticket in which the return flight was not used. Each credit has an average value of $482, which means that companies with $5 million in annual air spend is typically more than $400,000 in unused tickets, according to the TMC.
TripActions recently has added an automated process to identify and use unused tickets, which is typically a manual process that requires a phone call. The TMC is recording credits from canceled tickets and then alerting travelers of their availability when booking, automatically applying the credit when a traveler books. The TMC also has expanded availability of that function for global use, after it was first available only in the United States.
TripActions estimates that 8 percent of all flight bookings currently are being made with credits.