Travelocity Business Automates Split Ticketing

Travelocity Business today announced it is offering travelers the ability to automate split ticketing, a process sometimes warranted to fulfill reservations with multiple carriers, particularly for international trips.

The new mid-office process identifies when contracted rates are involved in an itinerary that may call for the creation of a split ticket, applying the appropriate segments to a corporation's prenegotiated contracts and completing the transaction without involving an agent. Additionally, the system cross-checks the combined cost of the separate tickets to ensure neither exceeds company-specified policy.

"That is something new and it's something online travel agencies have been struggling with for quite some time," said Tom Wilkinson, senior vice president at Princeton, N.J.-based Partnership Travel Consulting, adding that it has also been a frustrating limitation of online travel agencies for many corporate customers with international travelers. "Previously, you'd have to write a really awkward subroutine to send a split ticket to an agent. To yank the itinerary out of the automated process and back to an agent is difficult to do."

Wilkinson, a veteran travel management consultant who worked for Travelocity Business for a couple of years and returned to consulting one year ago, said the biggest value of automated split tickets is seen on the agency side, but corporate customers also may see an economic benefit, as well as overcome any reluctance to using an online agency with a multinational program.

"The general thought is that online tools are great for domestic travel, but not international travel because of their inability to recognize when split ticket savings are available," he said. "The benefit to corporate customers is they're more likely in an online travel agency environment to get the savings from a split ticket."