[July 28, 2015]

Airfare & Hotel Price Tracking Technology from Yapta Ushers in New Era in Rate Visibility & Reporting

Yapta, the leader in airfare and hotel price tracking services, today revealed that enterprise customers using FareIQ, Yapta's (News - Alert) corporate airfare price tracking solution, and RoomIQ, Yapta's hotel price tracking solution, are realizing additional benefits, beyond automated price optimization. With access to live pricing data from FareIQ and RoomIQ at their fingertips, corporate Travel Managers are now better equipped to reinforce their advance booking policies, safe in the knowledge travelers will not be penalized by last-minute price fluctuations. They are also using the data to strengthen their negotiations with travel suppliers that are becoming more reliant on dynamic pricing strategies.

"Dynamic pricing makes it very difficult for Travel Managers to not only control costs, but also to rein in travelers that get enticed to book outside of their travel program because they've suddenly found a cheaper flight or hotel," said James Filsinger, President and CEO of Yapta. "In reality, booking outside of the travel program often destroys purchasing power. The data from FareIQ and RoomIQ is being used by Travel Managers to convince their travelers to 'buy in' to policy compliance, while also enhancing their negotiating position with suppliers. With travel prices expected to rise this year, there's now real urgency to initiate price tracking and begin generating this type of data, before heading back to the negotiating table."

According to the 2015 Global Travel Price Outlook published by CWT and the GBTA Foundation, airfare prices are expected to increase this year by 2.2 percent globally and 2.5 percent in North America. Meanwhile, hotel prices are expected to rise 2.6 percent globally in 2015. Yapta's FareIQ and RoomIQ solutions can help travel managers and corporations effectively offset these increases through a seamless implementation and integration into the travel process.

Furthermore, recent findings from the annual "Travel Management Priorities" survey from Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT), indicate that more companies plan to implement an airfare tracking solution to save on ticket prices that may be discounted after booking. According to CWT's recent survey, 62 percent of travel managers are planning to deploya fare tracking and rebooking solution this year, ranking second among a dozen travel program priorities.

FareIQ's patent-pending Intelligent Price Tracking^TM technology provides in-depth, 24x7 analysis and insights into corporate airfares, spotlighting opportunities to re-book tickets at lower prices, saving corporations crucial T&E dollars on a daily basis. The solution integrates seamlessly with agents' workflow by dynamically monitoring pricing on individual passenger name records (PNRs) that are placed on a queue by the corporation or its travel management company. Upon recognizing a savings opportunity, FareIQ immediately issues a series of messages, including email alerts, a FareIQ web portal notification, and remarks posted directly in the PNR, that enables those savings to be acted upon by an agent.

Companies adopting FareIQ are seeing an opportunity to save on more than 10 percent of their overall itineraries, with an average identified savings of $260 per ticket. Any savings identified by FareIQ on behalf of its customers are over and above any airline imposed change fees and agency re-booking fees, ensuring customers see true value to their bottom line.

"The technology has performed very well for many Fortune 100 companies," Filsinger said. "And in addition to FareIQ, our customers currently on the Sabre (News - Alert) or Apollo platforms are able to boost their savings by using RoomIQ to track hotel price drops, providing a remarkable opportunity to save an additional one to two percent on corporate travel budgets."

RoomIQ dynamically monitors U.S. domestic and international hotel bookings across 115 countries, looking for price reductions at the same hotel and on the same room type. Once a savings opportunity has been identified, RoomIQ then issues an alert in the local currency. Companies utilizing RoomIQ are seeing an opportunity to save on approximately 12 percent of all hotel bookings tracked - with an average savings of $109 per booking (2.4 room nights on average). Overall, RoomIQ has helped these companies lower their average daily rate (ADR) by 4.7 percent.

"The intelligence we're providing customers allows them to be more nimble from a cost-cutting standpoint," Filsinger said. "Instead of operating from data that's reported every 30 days, Travel Managers now have immediate visibility into identified savings opportunities and can take action as it occurs within the booking path."

Both FareIQ and RoomIQ provide corporate travel managers with complete visibility into price tracking performance with "Fitbit®-like" summary emails that illustrate the true savings to the bottom line. Users also are provided with real-time portal access, and highly detailed ad-hoc and quarterly reports.

For more information on how FareIQ and RoomIQ are delivering real savings to managed travel programs, visit Yapta.com.

About Yapta

Yapta is a pioneer in airfare and hotel price assurance services for travelers. Launched in 2007 as the travel industry's first airfare price tracking and refund alert service, Yapta has delivered more than $630 million in airfare savings alerts to consumers and corporations. Today, Yapta's Intelligent Price Tracking™ technologies, FareIQ and RoomIQ, are helping companies reduce spend and extend their T&E budget by constantly tracking booked airfares and hotels and flagging lower rates when they become available. For more information about Yapta, visit www.yapta.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150728005147/en/

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