Corps. Snap Up Sabre's Fare Pricing Technology

<B> Corps. Snap Up Sabre's Fare Pricing Technology</B>

By Mary Ann McNulty

With negotiated fares growing at a rate Sabre estimates to be 15 percent month over month, it's no wonder that corporations are clamoring for better technology to help manage the complexity.

Pushed by its corporate users--particularly those looking to deploy its online booking tool--Sabre has developed a product called Snap! Negotiated Pricing. Now in use by 38 of the 45 corporations that have implemented Sabre's Business Travel Solutions, Snap is being released to a limited number of other companies. Currently, Sabre is in negotiations with several multi-national agencies who want Snap! for their corporate customers.

For pioneers like General Electric that have been driving development and refinement of Snap over the past year, the technology finally offers a means to quickly and accurately determine the lowest fare in a market and book it.

Using the new system since last August, reservationists at the General Electric Travel Center in Phoenix have found that the product really automates what heretofore was largely a very manual process, said Bob Feltre, GE manager of global supplier management. Agents might have been able to secure the lowest published fare from the CRS, but usually had to calculate and then evaluate whether an even lower negotiated fare existed.

Although GE has tried various negotiated fare pricing technologies over the years, most worked separately from the host system and thus required a person to evaluate options to truly determine the lowest fare. Sabre loads negotiated fares directly into its host system, permitting access only to the corporation and agencies an airline designates. BTS customers must use their own pseudo-city code for all bookings, thus assuring airlines of proper use of the discounts.

"We found we could improve our accuracy and pricing, eliminate debit memos and assure travelers that we had the lowest fare," Feltre said. In the GE philosophy of "six sigma," or eliminating defects at the source to prevent re-work later, eliminating debit memos is almost as important as finding the lowest airfare.

The need for such technology has intensified over the past year, Feltre said, as some low fare options have disappeared with rising load factors and both the airlines and GE sought more complex negotiated fares.

Today, negotiated fares might offer higher levels of discounts off full fares depending on volume thresholds, hub connections or any number of other factors. With a 1997 global air spend of $375 million, GE focuses a considerable amount of attention "working with the airlines, as that's where the big buy is," Feltre said.

But the technology was critical for GE to deploy Sabre's BTS booking tool to its travelers, a process that began this month. Snap automatically applies all discounts to published fares and offers travelers the three lowest fares in a market, whether published or negotiated. Beyond that, it inserts ticket designators into the itinerary, reducing the number of keystrokes agents must enter to process bookings made through the online system.

Deploying BTS, Sabre executives quickly recognized that corporations had to have a more robust negotiated pricing tool at the point of sale. Sabre's Classified Fares offering operates on a separate subscriber managed database.

"We knew in the corporate model that there are more negotiated deals out there and we drove to get it first in the corporate channel," Pete Stevens, Sabre director of marketing and business planning said of the CRS' efforts to prioritize Snap development for BTS customers.

For these customers, the cost of Snap is included in the transaction fee. Sabre has developed a pricing matrix for other corporate and agency customers and is currently working on pricing for its airline subscribers.

At GE, meanwhile, the technology appears to be working.

"We audited our process of offering the lowest fare with part of the process being Snap," Feltre said. "The auditor found 100 percent accuracy. We did time and motion studies and it also improved their efficiencies."

Now all GE needs is a version that will handle international faring, which Feltre expects to see in coming months.