<FONT SIZE="+3"><B>Letters</B>
<B>Linking Buyers To Hotels</B>
Thank you for "Hotels To Bypass CRS" (BTN, Nov. 25), highlighting the latest technology offering from Pegasus Systems. We appreciate your enthusiasm over our industry first, linking corporate travel buyers directly to thousands of hotels' internal reservations systems.
Please allow me to clarify that HCC, a Pegasus company, has more than 50,000 travel agencies around the world enrolled in its consolidated commission payment and reconciliation service, versus the reported hundreds.Also, I'd like to respond to the quotes from Carlson Wagonlit Travel's Dick Smith about how companies should create their own direct links to the hotel res systems, versus using THISCO. Dick, of all people, should understand the hefty costs and time involved in creating direct links. I might note that in Dick's prior position at Holiday Inn, he attempted to create direct links, but dropped this costly idea after two years and returned to depending on a common switch for distribution of hotel products.
Through THISCO, we already have a direct link in place to thousands of hotels worldwide. Why reinvent the wheel? It makes no sense for any corporate travel agency to make its own connections to each and every hotel chain¬unless, of course, they are ready to invest the time and money to duplicate THISCO.
<I>John F. Davis III
President and CEO
Pegasus Systems Inc.
Dallas</I>
<B>Nix On E-Tix</B>
I must comment on the article, "E-Tix Accord Set" (BTN, Oct. 28). I was preaching about ticketless travel more than 30 years ago, and I'm unhappy with what is going on. Here is why:
In a ticketless environment, refunds don't have to exist. Maybe it will take a little programming, but there is no reason why an airline cannot set up its passenger name record system to deal with ticketless transactions on a truly real-time basis. At the time of reservation, a fare is agreed upon and is entered in the record. The record is accessible at passenger checkin, so that a swipe of the charge card at the gate can match the name and charge card number in the PNR and generate not only a boarding pass but on it the printed prorated value of the itinerary leg being boarded. If the passenger fails to complete the journey as booked, the record can be retrieved after the time the trip was scheduled to end so that penalties can be applied on restricted fares.Swiping the boarding pass can transfer a charge transaction to the charge card company. If needed, the system can be directed, with a multiple-leg itinerary, to wait until the end of the trip.
Another gripe: While many are touting advantages of smart cards, they all seem to be either banks that want to turn all charge cards into debit cards and save on money costs, or charge card companies that want to replace wallets with their little plastic store of money, relatively unchallenged by competitors' plastic because you won't want to carry four or five cards loaded with your funds. I, for one, don't want my plastic to carry any funds or personal financial information in it. I also don't want to depend on any charge card company as my sole resource for purchasing services when I travel. As for embedded information on my trip, if I can't read it, I could miss a lot of flights.
I think most airlines (excluding Southwest and Alaska) and charge card companies have given scant thought to consumers' needs or convenience in their efforts to build new systems. When is the travel industry going to stop gouging and start attracting new customers again? The only marketing effort around is in international business-class service, which is uniformly overpriced and thus limited to a relatively small group of buyers.
<I>Rolfe Shellenberger
Senior Consultant
Runzheimer International
Palm Desert, Calif.