Our booking partner for all of our Smart Trip Tools is Priceline Partner Network. PPN's parent, Booking Holdings is the largest online travel company in the world and as such provides the highest level of service, with the most advanced technology for client services, as well as the best pricing on lodging.
Why use the Smart Trip Tools?
It is a Saturday night and one of your really good clients needs a car rental in Dallas for a day trip to their uncle's funeral or it is 9pm on a Tuesday and they need one hotel night in Des Moines to visit their grandmother before she has surgery. This is your client that books a river cruise with you every year and takes one other big trip a year (Safari to Africa, trek across China) so you don't really want to say no, but truly you also can't be on call for them 24 x 7. Balance is important.
Imagine if you could give them their own tool that in one click could book hotels, car and even air online right from their Google Browser. It would be branded with your agency logo and completely customized for their preferences.
We have been a long time partner with PPN and have a very favorable economic deal, which allows us to revenue share with you on any bookings made through our tools (even if they don't involve you at all in the booking process).
While we know that you can make more per transaction if you book hotels directly through other mechanisms, there are a number of reasons to use our tools:
- You can create a customized tool for each of your clients that includes their preferences and that gives you a revenue stream even on their self-service bookings.
- You can find lodging of all varieties within proximity to where your clients are actually going, whereas other tools are airport and city centric, not easily producing the right result.
- We guarantee the lowest rates on lodging or Solutionz will refund 110% of the difference if your client finds something cheaper for the exact same room on the exact same date at the same property.
- We help you also with driving directions, car rental and air and soon will be adding an AI engine to find things nearby where your client is actually going.
- Bookings can be changed and cancelled online, often without penalty.
- We provide 24 x 7 x 365 support for your clients in 40 languages and we price in 40 currencies.
- We donate 10% of our revenues to charity with every booking made through our system, so you can know that your clients' travel is making a difference. This doesn't come out of your compensation, nor does it cost the traveler any more.
- If your client has problems that can't be resolved by the PPN team, we provide you and your clients with your own Partner Success Director who will work through any unresolved issues for you. They are empowered to say "YES" and have to ask permission to say "NO".
The VIP Program
Our relationship with PPN also includes our clients (and their customers) being able to take advantage of their VIP Program.
VIP Program is tied to a specific email, so as a travel agent you can be the VIP member. You just need to know the upsides and the downsides.
Here are the different levels of our VIP program.
DO IT YOURSELF CLIENTS
The VIP program is designed for your DO IT YOURSELF clients.
With our Smart Trip Tools you can build a tool just for your client, with their preferences and give them access on a private page on your website or they can use the Google Chrome Extension and register their account with the widget number that you provide to them. That way, you have the booking statistics available to you 24 x 7 for what they have done online.
PROS
Their bookings count toward their own VIP level and they take advantage of the discounts and the service benefits as they do more and more bookings using their tool. They can change or cancel online and have access to customer service if they have a problem. We support them for the bookings made using the tool, so they aren't calling you.
CONS
If they want you to be aware of each of their self-service bookings, they can simply send you a copy of the confirmation and you will be able to access the booking online and also do changes and cancellations for them. You would see 100% of the contents of their online self-service bookings.
WHITE GLOVE CLIENTS
However if your clients truly have you doing everything for them and just providing one consolidated itinerary for the entire trip, you might want to look at using the Smart Trip Tools and the VIP program as a travel agent, for all of your client bookings.
PROS
As a VIP member you can get to the top level faster if you are using it for your client bookings, which gives you the top level of customer service for your clients, plus the highest discounts.
CONS
The downside is that when you share the trip confirmation with them electronically, if they click on it to modify the booking, they have access to all the bookings in your account, even if they are for a different client.
So this method is really only ideal for the client that literally has you do everything for them.
Want to learn more? Set up a call.