AirPlus and MasterCard today launched a co-branded corporate card that helps companies track air spending and enables travelers to pay for non-air expenses while on the road.
The product--the first walking plastic card issued by AirPlus in the United States--builds on AirPlus' traditional centrally billed payment vehicle for air expenditures and adds to it all the accoutrements of MasterCard's commercial card offerings.
"The one thing that people always said--if there was a negative to AirPlus--was, 'It's just air.' MasterCard is our way to address that," said AirPlus U.S. division president Richard Crum. "MasterCard has the most acceptance globally. MasterCard in my opinion is leading the way in folio data. We're going to take all that data from MasterCard and combine that with data from UATP in our Information Manager."
Crum added that travel managers can use the single sign-on platform, Airplus' Information Manager tool, to access data from the traveler's card as well as centrally billed airline expenditures.
The partnership mirrors a similar arrangement AirPlus put in place with British Airways in February through a partnership with Visa International
(BTN, Feb. 9, 2004). While the corporate card in the United Kingdom specifically is targeted to British Airways customers, the U.S. version can be used in conjunction with any airline partner of AirPlus, which includes all of the major airlines in the United States. GE Capital Financial issues both the U.S. and U.K. card.
Crum said that while the companies are positioning the card option to be used with MasterCard's standard commercial T&E card, it also could be used in conjunction with any MasterCard commercial card offering, including its MultiCard one-card product and meetings card.