New travel management service adjusts flight, hotel and rental car bookings in response to travel plan hiccups

Travel management service adjusts flight, hotel and rental car bookings in response to travel plan hiccups

BCD Travel minimizing frustrations caused by missed connections

ATLANTA, June 19, 2012—BCD Travel, the world’s third largest travel management company, has rolled out a new Disruption Services offering that lets travelers avoid lines at the counter when trips get disrupted by things like late departures, flight cancellations and missed connections.

With Disruption Services, BCD Travel agents step in quickly to adjust flights, hotels and rental car bookings affected down the line by trip disruptions, often before travelers are even aware of the need to take action. Beyond its ability to eliminate traveler anxiety, the new service also keeps trip data intact, ensuring accurate reporting.

“Helping travelers gracefully hop over hurdles lets them stay focused on the business at hand – or get straight home after a successful trip.” said April Bridgeman, BCD Travel senior vice president, Strategic Marketing. “We think the proactive assist service will be very popular, because every business traveler occasionally faces some kind of disruption, and it’s a great service at a reasonable cost.”

Once travelers opt in to the service, BCD Travel begins monitoring their trips to identify problems. When an event occurs leading to a trip disruption – such as a delayed or cancelled flight – travel consultants quickly move to “re-accommodate” travelers on alternate flights. For simple disruptions that can be easily fixed at no cost, travelers are notified by email or text message that a problem has been ironed out and sent an updated itinerary. If a more complicated fix is required, travel consultants first contact the traveler to discuss and confirm options.

During a seven-month pilot program for the service offering, BCD Travel monitored more than 4,600 itineraries for Carestream, a healthcare imaging and IT solution provider. More than 1,200 flight disruptions were identified, and travel consultants arranged alternate flights to support 37 percent of those affected. BCD Travel found that more than half of the disruptions were caused by significantly late departures.

“We knew our travelers would inevitably encounter delays and wanted to find a way to ease the pain,” said Sue Burke, Carestream operations manager – travel. “With proactive re-accommodation, we can keep our travelers on the move and on mission.”