Concur’s TripLink to Capture Lufthansa Bookings

Lufthansa signed a deal to participate in Concur’s TripLink solution, providing  business travelers with access to the carrier’s negotiated fares and avoiding Lufthansa’s €16 surcharge on GDS bookings.

Travel agencies have been asking the carrier to delay implementing the surcharge, slated to go into effect Sept. 1, until viable solutions are in place to manage the bookings outside the GDS.

However, the deal with Concur won’t be implemented for several months, and Lufthansa has shown no willingness to put its plan on hold.

Nor will the TripLink arrangement solve all the issues that agents have raised

Capturing data
TripLink was designed to bring bookings made outside a company’s corporate booking tool – for example, bookings made on consumer-facing online agencies — back into the corporate system.

It captures data from flights, hotels and ground transportation, regardless of where bookings are made, and sends it to mid- and back-office systems for post-booking servicing.

Concur says access to the data provides insight into travel expenditures before they happen and a more complete picture of spend with specific suppliers, giving companies the information they need for better negotiations.

But travel management companies want the ability to comparison shop, and TripLink will not provide that.

Currently, only a handful of TMCs are able to extract the TripLink data: Adelman Travel Group, Cain Travel, Christopherson Business Travel, Frosch, Gant Travel and Travel Incorporated.