Two major travel management companies (TMCs) have announced deals to aid the fast growing
SME market.
American Express has renewed its credit card programme with BA and is launching a new card specifically aimed at small and medium companies.
Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT) has joined with the Royal Bank of Scotland to launch a new card deal for the same group.
Under the Amex/BA agreement, a new co-branded corporate card will be available later this year for members of the airline's OnBusiness programme. Holders of the new card will be entitled to some free business travel.
Paul Abbott, Amex's vp head of commercial cards for the UK and Benelux, said there had been an “unprecedented growth” of SME companies in the past few years and the card would give them the air travel savings available to larger companies.
Tiffany Hall, BA's head of global sales, said the card offered the chance for SME to make additional savings as well as being a highly convenient payment tool.
Amex has corporate cards with other airlines, among them Air France, KLM and American Airlines.
However it relationship with BA has been at a low ebb for several years with the two sides engaged in a legal battle in 2002 after the airline stopped paying merchant fees on UK net fares.
The case was settled out of court in 2004.
CWT's new deal with the Royal Bank combines its Corporate Select service for SMEs with the latter's MasterCard onecard product.
It offers SMEs a 20% discount of travel management fees and access to the Royal Bank's card payment solution which gives travel managers online access to manage day today spend.
Simone Buckley, CWT's UK director of sales, said: “There is so much travel content on the Internet, we are convinced that cost-conscious companies are having real problems finding the best deals.
“At the same time, UK companies are growing at a rate which means travellers have even less time to negotiate the online minefield.”