Unbundling was a dirty word that first reared its head in the travel market a few years ago and the public’s disdain toward suppliers offering unbundled prices peaked when Ryanair suggested it was planning to ‘charge a pound to spend a penny’. It’s since become part and parcel of how we buy travel and, when the game is played well, travellers and travel managers can use unbundling to their advantage, paying for only what they need and saving money as a result.
In the trade, unbundling is more commonly referred to as ancillary fees. And though we may be more used to their existence, controlling, navigating and tracking them can still be a mystifying experience for many travel managers. According to recent research by the GBTA just 21 percent (21%) of travel managers are tracking ancillary fees while those fees account for over eight per cent of total travel spend.
Believing that ancillary fees have a significant impact on travel budgets and policies and, with better insight into how these fees work, travel managers can make more informed choices, the GBTA has now released the ‘2012 Ancillary Fee Handbook, Who Charges What, When & Where’.
The study categorizes virtually all the ancillary fees that business travellers can incur through airline, hotel and car rental travel. It also provides a rating system that evaluates each fee on three essential characteristics:
1. How common it is for a business traveller to incur the fee?
2. How transparent it is to travellers and planners?
3. How easy it is for travel managers to track the fee once it has been incurred?
You can download it here: http://hub.gbta.org/resources2/view/profile/id/21535. Travel managers across the globe can now breathe a collected sigh of relief.
Posted by Daniela Reck - daniela.reck@centaur.co.uk
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