When Web Fares Are Fair Game

<B>When Web Fares Are Fair Game</B>
<I>Online Booking Systems Will Locate Low-Price Internet Rates</I>

By Jay Campbell

At least two online booking vendors are responding to corporate travel manager concerns about travelers who think they can get the best value on consumer Internet sites, even if that is more a matter of perception than reality.

Buyers want to retain booked data and support preferred suppliers, but some appear to be content with losing some of that data if travelers find substantial savings.

Key for vendors is helping buyers make Internet options available to travelers while still controlling their behavior by policy.

The next version of TRX Technology Services' ResAssist product, due out by the end of this month, will allow travelers to search fares on both the Internet and GDSs in a single display. They then can click through to one of 12 airline Web sites if they find fares that are a specified percentage or dollar amount lower than the available negotiated rates. Res-Assist now is beta testing the service with airline sites, but also will look into car and hotel.

Meanwhile, GetThere.com is working on integrating Internet fares through its recently announced Supplier Network (BTN, June 12) and Worldspan has something "in the works" for its TripManager product.

Sabre BTS vice president and general manager Scott Smith said, "We still plan to do it, but we've pushed it down the priority list based on customer input. It's not a burning platform."

Smith said BTS could expand on Sabre's Clearance Fare Outlet program, which gives buyers access to fares previously available only on the Web. That service has four airline customers, including Aerom&eacute;xico, ATA and National Airlines. "We don't want to scrape Web sites," added Smith. "We would really like to get the airlines to participate at the host level."

E-Travel and Xtra On-Line said they are not developing such functionality.

Just about every travel manager has heard from frequent business travelers that they can find better fares on the Internet--and sometimes they can. Those requests likely will increase as the airlines post distressed-inventory fares on their new consolidated Web sites, such as Orbitz.com and Hotwire.com.

But travelers often forget that those fares are typically business-unfriendly, with tight restrictions and strict change policies. Further, by booking such fares, travelers lose the 24-hour support of a travel management company.

"It's such an unknown," said Patrick O'Halleran, manager of travel reporting and communication for Honeywell. "Sometimes these fares have tremendous restrictions, not only nonrefundable but also not reusable." Nonetheless, travelers want to know what's out there.

Many corporations have told their travelers they simply cannot use such Web sites. If they allow travelers to buy tickets online outside of corporate systems, travel managers would risk the leakage of such bookings from travel agency-provided booked data and preferred supplier usage.

One caveat to ResAssist's offering is that if travelers book on, say, www.aa.com, travel managers still lose their data. Along those lines, E-Travel president and CEO John Ackermann noted that the option to search consumer sites doesn't fit well with the concept of end-to-end travel management solutions.

GetThere agreed: "The concept of a robot going to other sites is not a good integrated solution for reporting or purchasing," said spokeswoman Noel Bilodeau. "You may be able to see a fare on a site, but then you have to purchase the ticket on that site, outside the reporting system, not taking into account contractual commitments, and requiring more employee time. By feeding Internet fares directly from airlines into our system it will be much more efficient."

But TRX Technology Services general manager Steve Reynolds said some companies are willing to take a hit to their data if the consumer fare offers big savings. "They're saying, 'Look, if it will save $300 and you're willing to go on your own--you can't call the travel agency for help--then that's fine,'" he said.

Further, said Delta's manager of agency and corporate programs Steve Scheper, airlines can help corporations track Web site usage--something Delta already is doing. Companies that want to allow travelers to buy directly from Delta can give the carrier a list of their travelers' names and frequent flyer numbers for tracking purposes (BTN, March 20). But not all airlines have developed such capability.

Regardless of the threat to data integrity, some travel management departments have policies that let travelers book elsewhere. IBM employees, for example, can buy domestic flights under $200 and international flights under $400 anywhere on the Web. "It has definitely quieted things down," said IBM manager of employee disbursement and control John Rosato, referring to traveler claims that they can find better fares on consumer sites. "We found it's not disruptive." IBM is "in negotiations" with booking providers for a corporate system, but Rosato was unsure of whether the Internet policy would remain after a vendor is selected.

The federal government, meanwhile, is required to show travelers any fares that are lower than contracted rates. The U.S. Department of Transportation's David Kleinberg, deputy CFO, said the agency will go live with ResAssist by the end of the month and will display both designated contract fares and other fares that meet traveler requirements.

Though traveler complaints about lower Internet fares is a major frustration among travel managers, research sponsored by DuPont's travel management department has shown that, overall, the Internet can't beat a travel management program (BTN, May 15).

That's another reason why some other tech vendors don't see the option for connecting to consumer sites as a major need.

"We're pretty much in agreement with DuPont's study," said E-Travel's Ackermann. "The majority of them are not finding fares that are lower than the negotiated discounts. The other factor that's lost here is the productivity issue of having people out searching the Web."

Block Drug travel manager Dan Baillie agreed. Asked about Internet fares, he said: "They don't exist. I ignore them.

"There's the huge fun factor that comes into play with someone trying to beat the system, surfing the Net," said Baillie during a roundtable discussion with BTN (BTN, June 26). "Every time someone says, 'Well, I can get this fare on the Internet cheaper than what you guys get me,' I say, let me see the ticket. But when we look at it, I'm like, 'Well, you said you wanted to leave at 10 a.m. and come back at 2 p.m. Now you're leaving at 6 a.m. and coming back at midnight.' "

In terms of connecting to vendor sites, Ackermann said, "there's also a question of whether or not we should be out there pulling fares off other sites without proper attribution."

TRX did not arrange a relationship with the sites it will hit, because "we just go hit the site like any user would," said Reynolds. "As usage grows, they might think we're being abusive or something, so prior to us going crazy with it we'll set up relationships. The few sites we've talked to are all fine with it."

Galileo's Trip.com site for independent business travelers and smaller corporate buyers set up partnerships with 13 airlines to allow its users to search carriers' sites for special fares. Though Reynolds insisted the carriers would not want to anger large corporations by preventing them from accessing special fares, pressure on yields make it unclear how long the airlines will tolerate it.

"Many of the Internet fares are there because the airlines want to sell them to the leisure traveler," said Deloitte & Touche travel management consultant David Hillman. "So, for those Internet fares, if all of a sudden systems incorporate them in the corporate travel world, you could make a case that the airlines would then think twice, so it might be a short-lived approach."

But Delta's Scheper said traditional yield management controls ought to satisfy the airlines in keeping leisure fares for leisure travelers. Still, he said, "We would prefer to have a discussion and an understanding" with sites that want to hit Delta's. "We would want to make sure whatever was being done is in the customer's best interest.