Continental With Airplus To Provide More Powerful Card

In an attempt to lower distribution costs and make its Universal Air Travel Plan account more attractive to the large market, Continental Airlines this month announced a co-branded payment and billing system with Frankfurt, Germany-based AirPlus International, UATP's largest issuer.

The Continental Airlines AirPlus Company Account provides clients a centrally billed account with which to purchase tickets on more than 200 airlines. The corporate account also can connect to travel agencies, through which "anything that can be charged at the travel agency can be booked on this card, such as service charges, prepaid lodging packages or prepaid rental car," said Scot Bealer, Continental Airlines national account sales manager. "It is an improvement over our current card, which is good for air only."

While the core functions of the relationship already are in place through its issuing relationship with UATP, Continental is building upon the framework with AirPlus. "The current product has grown significantly in the small to midsize market," Bealer said. "As corporations get larger, they need more sophistication to manage data. We could not provide that in our current environment because of the difficulty to build that in. We decided it made sense to look to outsource" to AirPlus.

AirPlus is UATP's "largest and arguably most successful issuer," said Richard Crum, UATP president and chairman. It also has become the most advanced issuer through bolstering UATP's framework in international reporting and data processing. As a UATP issuer, Continental runs its program on an "internal platform," where it acts as the "bank and the tech vendor," performing all services and providing the data feed. "The new card uses AirPlus technology. It is a much more sophisticated platform," Bealer said. "It allows us to provide new features to corporate customers."

"The main enhancements beyond the standard UATP offering is our data delivery," said Patrick Diemer, CEO of Lufthansa-owned AirPlus International. "It's twofold. There's one set of data that enable a corporation to integrate the UATP payment information into its own booking data systems, general ledger and things like that. The other set provide management information system data for the travel manager, which integrates all air, all train—which is not that relevant in the states but is over here in Europe—-car rental and hotel data. We can combine UATP information with corporate card data."

Bealer added that while its current UATP offering only can offer billing and collection in U.S. dollars, AirPlus' enhancements provide a more global reach—making the option more appealing to large multinationals.

The realization of a fully functional co-branded card between AirPlus and Continental "will take a few months," Bealer said. Meanwhile, "there is an AirPlus product out there. We will piggyback off that for now." There also is the opportunity to expand the program to cover more than air travel and agency-related purchases. Bealer said Continental may consider signing a bank issuer to provide a walk-around card option in conjunction with the traditional corporate card offerings, which will give travelers a card they can use at hotels, restaurants and other establishments—which AirPlus has implemented in Europe.

"Our UATP product is offered in 23 countries and in 10 of these countries we combine it with a corporate card, issued by a bank in cooperation with us," Diemer said. "We're looking forward to adding the U.S. to that list in 2004."

Crum said UATP has relationships to provide such a walking plastic offering with MasterCard and Visa on the corporate level, but it still needs to be endorsed by an issuer. "UATP has a contractual relationship with both Visa and MasterCard," he said. "The network level relationship is in place. Now it's at the actual issuer level where one UATP issuer and one Visa or MasterCard issuer partner for a combined product offering."