Lufthansa has signed a deal with expense specialist Concur to capture data from corporate bookings made directly with the airline’s website.
The move comes as Lufthansa prepares to introduce a €16 fee for all bookings made through GDSs from September 1 – this has been widely criticised by those working in corporate travel.
Lufthansa’s new deal with Concur will see the use of the latter’s Triplink system to allow travel managers to track, view and manage bookings made directly on Lufthansa.com.
Joerg Hennemann, Lufthansa’s senior vice president of automated sales, pricing & distribution, called the Concur deal “a major step for us in addressing new-generation needs for modern business travel”.
“By partnering with Concur, we are giving business travellers additional and unprecedented convenience: the choice to book their flights where they would like to receive negotiated corporate discounts, and still easily fulfil expense and reporting requirements,” added Hennemann.
Tim MacDonald, executive vice president of travel solutions for Concur, said: “Adding Lufthansa to our growing networked economy of Concur Triplink partners enables us to give our customers a transparent view of their spend, greater visibility into their travel plans and an effortless road to compliance for employees.”