Small Agency Develops Potentially Big Technology

St. Louis-based Innovative Travel on Friday introduced fare searching technology that makes available through the managed channel fares from more than 40 sites, along with traditional published and corporate discounted rates available in GDSs.

Attempting to solve ongoing concerns among corporate buyers that travelers are viewing and buying Internet-only fares, which are not bookable as part of managed travel programs, the Fare Weasel search mechanism "handles compliance verification to the corporations' travel policy guidelines and includes a unique fare restriction and reconsideration pause in which a traveler or travel planner is given the opportunity to rethink the restrictions tied to a selected fare and reconfirm prior to final purchase," according to a statement issued by Innovative.

Innovative books under $50 million in air travel for less than 100 small to midsize corporate clients.

A product two years in development, Fare Weasel currently cannot book multi-leg trips, only one-ways and roundtrips. At the moment, a half-dozen of the agency's clients are in "a late-stage pre-launch test."

The service now is offered only to Innovative clients--at a competitive price of $5 for strictly online bookings and $10 for agent-assisted ones, without set-up, implementation or other administrative fees. Innovative Travel president Howard Klepser said he would consider licensing the software to other agencies or travel technology vendors. Innovative Travel is in the process of seeking intellectual property protection of the name and underlying operating system.