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Planners: airlines getting stingy W/meeting discounts.

Article Excerpt
Airlines during the past 12 months have been far less willing to discount their meeting fare packages, according to an exclusive Meetings Monitor survey of corporate meeting buyers. As a result, use of the carriers' standard meeting products has increased, while use of most negotiated meeting fares has withered.

According to the new Monitor survey, only 7 percent of corporate meeting buyer respondents indicated that their meeting airfare discounts are greater now than they were one year ago. About 26 percent said discounts are smaller, with the rest indicating that they are about the same. In 2002, about 20 percent said their meeting discounts were better than they were in 2001, and only 11 percent said they were worse.

Airline officials said it's no accident.

"We're not offering greater discounts at this time," said an airline sales executive who requested anonymity. "We're very competitive on meeting discounts in the lower buckets, so we don't have to."

Although...

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