New Amadeus Service Offers Agents ‘Relief’ For Ticket Exchanges

Amadeus launched a new service that is likely to reduce the number of debit memos incurred through ticket exchanges, a complex process that is a minefield for errors.  

“It’s not just another smart key or macro,” Vic Pynn, COO of Amadeus North America, said. “It’s a holistic solution.”

Amadeus Exchange Relief, now available in the U.S., offers three options for handling ticket exchanges.

Amadeus is so sure that the solution will ease some of travel agents’ debit memo pain that it will absorb the cost of debit memos incurred when using two of the three options.

• Do It Myself: A guided manual option offers a free, step-by-step workflow that interacts with the PNR. It features built-in Amadeus exchange commands.

Agents supply the data, and the tool automatically populates the PNR for ticketing.

Donna Goudie, director of corporate initiatives and operations for Amadeus North America, noted that entering a single incorrect digit will incur a debit memo. Pre-population of fields reduces the chance of human error, she said.

• Do It Automatically: Agents supply the basic information and the tool does the rest. In just seconds, the automatic option handles all information and transactions required to successfully process exchanges, including reissue of unused or partially used tickets and interline tickets for partner airlines.

No expert-level knowledge is needed. It processes tickets, fares and changes across all airline participants.

• Do It For Me: Amadeus’ full-service option allows agents essentially to outsource ticket exchanges to Amadeus, freeing up agents to focus on revenue-generating tasks.

Agents submit the exchange directly to a team of dedicated faring and exchange experts who prepare the exchange and notify the agent upon completion.

Debit memos arising from exchanges processed through the Do It Automatically and the Do It For Me options are covered under the Amadeus global claims policy.

The Do It Myself option will always be free. The Do It Automatically option will be available on a free trial basis until Sept. 30, after which it will incur a flat transaction fee. The Do It For Me option will incur a transaction fee immediately.

Calls related to exchanges
Pynn said the idea for Amadeus Exchange Relief came to him when he was named COO in early 2014.

“I wanted to find out how our customers felt about us, so I went to our call centers and listened in,” he said.

An extraordinary number of the callers simply wanted to describe what they were doing during a ticket exchange and have the call center agent tell them when they were doing something wrong.

“About 30% to 40% of calls were related to exchanges,” Pynn said. “I said, ‘This is crazy.’”

Pynn, who spent much of his career at American Express, was shocked that over a period of 25 years, “nothing had changed” in either the processes or the all-too-frequent associated debit memos.

“So I said to Donna [Goudie], ‘We will need to come up with a solution that eliminates the pain of debit memos.’ We’ve done that.”

Choosing the best option
Agency owners and managers can decide which of the three options should be used on a case by case basis.

“It’s so dependent on the individual agency,” Pynn said.

For example, a small agency might never get enough debit memos for a staffer to develop expertise, so the owner might decide to send all debit memos to Amadeus’ Do It For Me team, which currently numbers a dozen highly trained experts.

On the other hand, a large corporate agency that employs more than 100 people to work on exchanges might want to use the Do It For Me option and reassign those employees to work that is more rewarding for both the employee and the agency.

Whichever option is used, Goudie said, “It will boost agents’ confidence and remove the weight of debit memos.”

Agents can assess the return on investment in using Amadeus Exchange Relief by using a calculator here.

The solution will be available in Canada once adjustments are made to work with Canada’s billing and settlement plan.