British Airways' integration of ba.com with Concur TripLInk has gone live. This partnership, which was announced at last year's GBTA conference, means that anyone who is a customer of BA and Concur can now access the BA booking data via Concur regardless of whether it is booked through a preferred channel, such as an online booking tool or travel management company, or directly.
Data can be captured whether the corporate is an expense or travel customer. According to Concur's press release, "Any bookings made on ba.com by someone who has chosen to link their British Airways Executive Club and SAP Concur accounts will now be captured automatically by SAP Concur."
The ability to link the individual traveller to their organisation regardless of whether they use the corporate preferred booking channel or not means that any discount that has been negotiated by the company with BA will be applied to the traveller's booking.
The partnership means that as well as the airline having the corporate's information the corporate will now have the full travel information even if the trip is booked online directly on the supplier's website.
In other words management information will be available whether the booking is made via the corporate's travel management company or not. That booking data can be used not only for financial analysis but for traveller tracking and duty of care purposes.
This arrangement is not unique. TripLink already is linked to some other major business travel suppliers such as Accor, InterContinental, Avis and Hertz. British Airways is, however, the first major European carrier (United Airlines has already done this) to integrate.
The biggest arguments for travellers to book through the preferred booking channel has historically been data collection for both financial and duty-of-care purposes. This arrangement overcomes those two arguments as well as the one that travellers booking directly would not be recognised and therefore not qualify for the corporate negotiated rate.
What does this all mean?
1. British Airways has sent out a strong message that it intends to continue to pursue a strategy of persuading travellers — and especially corporate travellers — to book directly on ba.com
2. The booking process is rapidly advancing towards the point where there will be no financial or management incentive to book through a preferred (ie TMC) channel rather than directly on the supplier website
3. Fewer bookings through intermediaries will cut the total cost of suppliers', such as BA, segment fees to content distributors, ie GDSs
4. Fewer bookings through the TMC might mean a drop in GDS agent incentive payments, a revenue shortfall that TMCs will have to fill somehow
Private channel agreements between TMCs and GDSs where they can offer the supplier site experience and wider content choices through initiatives such as NDC might now be even more welcome.