Thank you to our presenters and everyone who joined AmTrav’s Supplier Sourcing Insights webinars.
The video recording of Part 1 featuring Southwest Airlines, Wyndham Hotels and Enterprise-National Car Rentals (plus content on United Airlines and American Airlines) is here:
The video recording of Part 2 featuring American Air Lines, Choice Hotels, Omni Hotels and Enterprise-National Car Rentals is here:
All slides are in the recordings above.
Sydney from Southwest Airlines covered Rapid Rewards Business and SWABIZ (and the difference between the two!), along with the Partner Benefits program that started in 2023. Southwest also shared their special 25,000 Rapid Rewards Business bonus points offer for new Rapid Rewards Business accounts that book and fly two roundtrips within 90 days of account opening.
Teri from Wyndham Hotels shared Wyndham’s chainwide and property-level offers at Wyndham’s 25 brands and 9,200 hotels worldwide. Teri also shared Wyndham’s new and popular strategic growth program with cash rebates on annual spend over $1 million. And beloved by Teri and customers, Wyndham’s new folio retrieval program allows Wyndham staff like Teri to easily retrieve folios from any Wyndham hotel on your behalf – no need to call the hotel!
Teri also shared some of what she's seeing in the market. While dynamic (percentage discount) rates were popular 3-4 years ago, clients are now opting to mix fixed rates at properties in with dynamic chainwide rates. (AmTrav is seeing this too: property-level fixed rates can deliver great savings.) RFPs are becoming less frequent, and companies are interested in giving discounts for their travelers' leisure travel as part of their corporate agreements.
Tom from Enterprise-National Car Rental shared Enterprise’s programs that provide discounts plus valuable perks like guaranteed car availability. Tom shared how Enterprise Emerald Club works at both brands. One key insight that Tom shared about Enterprise and National: Enterprise and National share cars across brands, have the largest combined fleet because they continued buying in 2021 and 2022 in COVID. Overall Enterprise-National cars are very new with less than 15,000 miles on average.
United Airlines was unfortunately unable to join the webinar, but they shared slides on their new United for Business Blueprint program offering fare discounts and amenities funds with just $50,000 in spend, plus additional discounts and benefits with value adds like an OBT banner. We also discussed United PerksPlus and PassPlus, AmTrav encourages every AmTrav account to sign up for at least PerksPlus (along with Rapid Rewards Business and every other great SMB program) to start earning rewards and allow airlines to track your speed.
AmTrav shared a quick update on American Airlines’ AAdvantage Business. While AAdvantage Business was launched as only earning credit through American direct bookings (AA.com, American’s app), AAdvantage Business is now available on TMC bookings too, including AmTrav. In addition to points for free travel and upgrades, AAdvantage Business allows free name changes on bookings (AmTrav can help!) and gives travelers bonus Loyalty Points towards AAdvantage status, the only business program to offer that.
Steve from Delta shared Delta's new SkyMiles for Business program, along with its Mid-Market Sales Agreement and full Corporate Sales Agreement. (Want to know the spend thresholds? Drop us a note.) Steve emphasized that SkyMiles for Business is free to join and grows with customers: customers start at the Member level with no spend, get to Plus with just $5,000 in spend and Elite at $300,000 (additional information on SkyMiles for Business). Then because Delta can see the company's spend, Delta can easily consider the company for a Mid-Market Sales Agreement and full Corporate Sales Agreement program with discounts and additional benefits.
Choice Hotels was represented by Carlo, Carlo shared the offers available across Choice's 6,000 properties. Choice offers both chainwide agreements (including an offer through AmTrav) and property-level agreements, property-level agreements can include additional perks like parking, wifi and breakfast. In the market Carlo's seeing programs consolidate hotels, picking one or two preferred hotels and encouraging travelers to stay at those properties (with online booking tool badges and travel policies) to maximize savings and service for travelers.
Frankie from Omni shared Omni's unique position: privately-held Omni owns and closely operates all 50+ of its hotels, instead of using franchising and management companies. This gives Omni additional opportunity to tailor sales programs, and 55% of its corporate sales are to small and midsize travel programs. Want to get the best deal with Omni? Omni loves working with travel programs who will use preferred badges for Omni hotels, sort Omni hotels to the top, and even require travelers to stay at the preferred Omni hotels, allowing Omni to deliver the best experience and deal to your travelers in that market.
Finally Greg from AmTrav shared the sourcing services that AmTrav Relationship Managers and Supplier Relations provide to every client for airlines, hotels and car rentals.
Greg included a key insight from car data: the keys to maximizing savings are to 1. negotiate those savings, and 2. then encourage travelers to use your preferred vendors. (Using preferred badges and travel policy to guide booking choices counts as "encouraging.") With car rentals, customers who use their preferred suppliers on 80%+ of bookings save 40% on average, while customers who use preferred suppliers on less than 50% of bookings (or don’t have preferred suppliers) save only 23%.
As you embark on the 2025 sourcing season, what questions can we answer? Please reach out to your AmTrav Relationship Manager, or to AmTrav Sales if you’d like to start saving like AmTrav customers who enjoy expert sourcing assistance.