GE Capital Offers A MasterCard For Top Executives
<B> GE Capital Offers A MasterCard For Top Executives</B>
By Lynn Woods
With the release of the first MasterCard Executive Corporate Card, GE Capital Financial Inc. is offering companies a tool that can help them build loyalty to their corporate travel programs while also better managing their travel expenses.
So far, 85 percent of GE Capital's customers are opting for the new card, said vice president of product marketing Mitch Gross. Clearly, the firm has hit a chord with this latest product, aimed at midsized and large companies.
The Executive Corporate Card offers users a number of enhancements over an ordinary corporate card. They include travel accident insurance of $1 million, lost luggage coverage of $5,000 (including carry-on baggage, but not laptops), an electronic special-occasion reminder service, and a concierge service that can be accessed either through a toll-free telephone number or MasterCard's Website. The concierge can reserve a limo or hotel room, or order flowers, gifts or tickets to events.
The "kid-glove treatment" is extended to collection, with late-paying cardholders never called at home, said Gross. Instead, "we go to the administrative assistant."
Travel managers also can have special messages--such as announcing a new carrier signed on as a preferred supplier--printed onto cardholder statements. "This is a good example of how the card can support your policy," Gross said.
The annual fee for the card is $50, although Gross said a certain number will be offered free to large corporate customers.
But perhaps the most valuable aspect of the card from the travel buyer's perspective is at the back end. All data flows through Synergy 2000, GE Capital's desktop payment system, enabling travel managers to integrate their top executives' often significant spend into the total travel spend of the corporation.
Gross said expenses charged on Executive Corporate cards also can be broken out for the group as a whole, enabling travel managers to better track the spend and payment patterns of their top executives.
Currently, many traveling executives use premier personal cards instead of corporate cards, Gross noted, making it difficult if not impossible for travel managers to keep track of their expenses.