THE KNOWLEDGE 2 buyer perspective
The Avios debacle... WHAT BA SHOULD HAVE DONE
Support from key suppliers is crucial to the success of a managed travel programme, says Chris Reynolds, who believes British Airways fell short with the recent Avios air miles debacle
A
lot of time and effort is put into creating a managed travel programme with negotiated deals and preferred suppliers.
At present an almost equal amount of time
and effort is spent in defending this managed programme and the preferred suppliers from perceived cheaper or better options. Not to worry, we can count on our preferred suppliers for support, can’t we? Well, if that preferred supplier is British Airways, then on this occasion the answer in no! As many travel managers and even more
travellers are aware, British Airways took the unilateral decision to allow corporate bookings to be upgraded using Avios (formerly Airmiles). On the face of it, it
Chris Reynolds Senior Partner, 3Sixty Global
Chris is a senior partner and
co-owner of the specialist travel
consultancy 3SIXTY Global. It offers
extensive experience in travel programme optimisation, TMC
performance, tender, selection and
implementation, and travel procurement strategy and
negotiation. He has over 20 years'
industry experience, including fi ve
successful years as travel manager for Siemens. Chris is a member of the
Chartered Institute of Purchase &
Supply and a former board director of the Institute of Travel & Meetings.
does not sound an unreasonable thing to do. If done properly this is great for both the traveller and their company which benefits from increased traveller satisfaction and the fact an employee is using personal points for corporate travel. The problem is that this
unilateral decision has a significant impact on the managed travel pro- gramme. In order for a traveller to upgrade the ticket paid for by their employer, using their employer's appointed travel management company requires them to utilise
ba.com or contact the local Executive Club service centre. The next step of this process is the element that causes the most concern. To upgrade the booking involves
British Airways ‘claiming the PNR’ or, in other words, taking ownership of the booking from the travel management company. Any subsequent changes to the booking
will not be visible to the travel management company and, more importantly, to the traveller tracking provider or indeed to the out of hours service. To add further insult, on the British Airways
website the airline says, “Please contact your travel agent to check if you have an eligible booking before visiting Manage My Booking to upgrade your flight.” That’s ok, the corporate can pay for that too as part of their travel management fees. So, what could British Airways have done
better? To start with they could have engaged in dialogue earlier with a vast array of buyers or organisations. For example, the ITM Industry Affairs working party engage in regular dialogue with British Airways and have always offered their support on matters like this that affect not only their members but British Airways’ customers as well. This working party have some extremely
knowledgeable individuals who as soon as they heard about this (the day before a mail shot was sent to the card holders) realised the impact. With earlier engagement they could have worked with British Airways to come up with a solution that met everybody’s needs. British Airways has an excellent relationship
with many buyers who for the most part believe the airline is a very good supplier – myself included. A conversation with any one of them would have brought to light the impact this has on our managed programmes. Having the confidence that your key suppliers
are working with you and supporting your goals while remaining profitable is critical. We understand that suppliers have every right to make commercial decisions that may benefit them but when this undermines key customers’ travel strategy, the price is too high. We hope that British Airways, as well as
other suppliers, will learn from this episode which some are referring to as a debacle. To British Airways I have to say that for an airline that gets so many things right, you have got this wrong. Please work with us to remedy this issue and commit to engaging with us in the future.
THE JARGON BUSTER
ACRONYMS: sadly you just can't get away from them in the dynamic world of business travel. So to help you out we've listed some of the most commonly used ones below, just so you don't get your Global Distribution Systems confused with the Government Decontamination Service.
ACFO Association of Car Fleet Operators ACTE ADR APIS
Association of Corporate Travel Executives average daily room rate
Advanced Passenger Information System ATOC Association of Train Operating Companies
BAPCO British Association of Professional Conference Organisers
BAR BTC
best available rate business travel centre
CDW collision damage waiver CRM CRO CRS CSR DDR ETES FFP GDS
hotel booking agent
customer relationship management central reservation office central reservation system corporate social responsibility daily delegate rate end-to-end solution
frequent flyer programme global distribution system
GTMC Guild of Travel Management Companies HBA
HBAA IATA ITM KPI
LRA MI
MIA MPI
OTM PNR RFP ROI SBT SLA SME
Hotel Bookings Agents Association International Air Transport Association Institute of Travel & Meetings key performance indicators last room availability
management information Meetings Industry Association
Meetings Professionals International online travel management passenger name records request for proposal return on investment self-booking tools
service level agreement small and/or medium-sized business/es
SMMP strategic meetings management programme TEM TMC
travel and expense management travel management company
8 THE BUSINESS TRAVEL MAGAZINE
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92