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Article Excerpt
The hype of the $5 fee has galvanized executive interest in travel management transaction prices, but add-ons mean a truer target lies between $10 and $20. Even still, benchmarking agency fees and costs remains muddied by less visible factors, including whether the agency collects commissions and global distribution system incentives and the costs of full-service phone bookings, en route assistance and exchanges and refunds.
Following 2002 initiatives by the likes of American Express and TRX to formalize single-digit fees within a pricing menu, Carlson Wagonlit Travel last month helped illustrate the fee structure's complexity, when it announced a new program known as ISelect. Featuring CWT's first-ever $5 fee for touch-less transactions, the new structure gets messy as it enables customization.
The basic $5 includes "core" services CWT described as "the online booking tool, an implementation package, Web reporting, safety and security, a Web portal, profile management, policy manager, customer support, pre-trip authorization, ticket fulfillment, communications package, account representative, and analytics and point-of-sale travel management preference reports."
Offline domestic and international bookings cost $15. CWT charges $10 for each call to service an existing reservation, capped at $20. As with virtually all of its major competitors, CWT's program charges additional fees when buyers choose such components as upgrades, VIP services, account management and consulting packages.
"The average should be...
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