Travel Leaders is using Rearden Commerce's Personal Assistant online booking platform under its own brand, making it the first travel management company to fund development for a private-label version of the tool other than American Express Business Travel's Axiom, Rearden announced today.
The agreement also allows the hundreds of Travel Leaders franchises to resell the Compass version of the Personal Assistant. Travel Leaders now also is a reseller of the Rearden-owned ExpenseWire. Travel Leaders also resells Concur's online booking and expense management tools.
The transition of Travel Leaders clients on the Rearden platform to the Compass version began in October, according to Rearden vice president of worldwide sales Tony D'Astolfo.
The Compass version had been implemented with 80 clients as of early December, according to Travel Leaders Corporate president David Holyoke.
Unlike the Amex relationship, Travel Leaders made no ownership investment into Rearden, nor does the TMC have representation on Rearden's product council. According to D'Astolfo, features Amex pays Rearden to develop cannot be used by the three other mega TMCs for a year after the feature release date. Amex first bought into Rearden in late 2006 and has since upped that investment
(BTNonline, Dec. 4, 2006).