It’s likely you’re already using a travel program solution that searches for lower rates on an already booked flight and hotel reservation. If you are, are you squeezing the most savings out of it?
First, let’s start by looking at the capability of the tool itself. Price optimization services automatically work behind the scenes to find you the best possible price on your reservations, without causing any disruption to travelers or changing the quality of a booking.
So what kind of solutions are out there? Our new pre-ticket price optimization is an AI platform that can predict airfare volatility, helping save you money by optimizing the time of ticketing. If a pre-ticket identifies a fare that is likely to decrease in price, it places a temporary hold on the booking in order to ticket at the most optimal time.
There’s also post-ticket price optimization which automatically searches for price drops using the same flights, hotel properties, and travel dates as the original booking. When it finds net savings, the flight or hotel is rebooked at the lower price – with no traveler intervention required.
Now, the question remains: Are you getting the most out of your program? Here are some tips on how you can increase your savings:
- Fill in the gaps - Are you currently searching for lower rates for flight and hotel reservations with your price optimization solution? If not, you can easily add up to 2% in savings by adding hotel or flight reservations to your program
- Look outside the void - By price shopping outside of the void window, you can increase your savings on flight reservations. Features like price optimization could increase your existing price shopping, air savings by 25%
- Don’t withhold volume - Send as much volume through a price optimization program as possible (don’t omit travelers and keep minimum savings thresholds low). This will allow you to achieve the maximum level of savings.
- Expand globally - Are you using your solution in all possible markets? We’ve seen an average savings of 2% on travel spend in every market our clients did business in.
- Search for lower rates after booking but before ticketing - In addition to searching for lower fares after ticketing, you can also search for lower fares before ticketing. Expand your search and lower rates may follow.
Armed with these tips and tricks, you can push the limit of your travel savings. The power's yours.