Avoid Those Costly Airline Change Fees with ChangeGuard
Dallas, Texas (PRWEB) September 13, 2013 -- TravelSolutions by Campbell announces an expanded menu of services to help business travelers eliminate costly airline change fees throughout their entire trip.
The Dallas-based global travel management service company has developed ChangeGuard, a proprietary program that gets rid of one today’s biggest headaches for business travelers: Having to change travel plans and facing hundreds of dollars in airline change fees.
"We set out on a course to help companies eliminate a cost area,” says TravelSolutions CEO Bill Campbell. “However, we were unexpectedly surprised to find that ChangeGuard actually helps in many different ways -- from convenience, to securing lower fares as they become available, to allowing the business traveler to remain nimble in the course of serving their clients.”
Adds Campbell: “We are very pleased with the outcome, and are now very excited to be able to break our ChangeGuard product down into multiple components that allow the customer to tailor it to their specific needs.”
Business travelers know that plans often change when you’re on the go and trying to seal that business deal.
When travelers make changes to their nonrefundable tickets, most airlines impose a change penalty that can range from $200 on domestic trips, up to $750 for some international trips. This fee is charged for each and every change you make to that ticket.
The airlines are raking in billions from these changes. The U.S. Department of Transportation, which tracks travel industry data, indicates airline change fee revenue has nearly tripled in the past six years. During the first quarter of 2013, the airlines collected $685 million in change fees. That was up 8.6 percent from $631 million charged during the same quarter in 2012. Total change fee revenues in 2012 were nearly $2.6 billion, compared to only $915 million in 2007.
TravelSolutions’ ChangeGuard program gives companies that sign up for the service the freedom to change nonrefundable tickets for any reason as many times as they like with no change fees.
Companies can choose from the following options:
- ChangeGuard PreTrip – Allows traveler flexibility to change air travel plans to suit the needs of their customers. Sales people can be nimble when planning to visit that important prospect, to get that important deal closed. Our systems also look for savings on ticketed airfare, and we can tap into those savings normally not available due to the airline change fees. One of our customers saved $1,900 on one international flight when we were able to secure a lower rate and also avoided the change penalty.
- ChangeGuard Interrupt – Allows travelers to vary their travel plans during their trip. For example, an en route traveler that needs to change a trip to get to another customer site quickly, or needs to lengthen a trip, can change their flight without penalty. Our road warriors may enjoy their jobs; however, consistent travel can be a grind, and traveler surveys indicate that many would appreciate a little corporate flexibility when they have the opportunity to return home early. Not only is this great for morale and increased employee productivity, but the ChangeGuard customer may also avoid the unnecessary $150/night hotel room and the $42-a-day car rental expense.
- ChangeGuard Complete – Comprised of ChangeGuard PreTrip, which guards against change fees up to the day of travel, and ChangeGuard Interrupt, which guards against change fees during the trip. This bundled product covers the full life cycle of the ticket from booking until travel completion. It even covers fees on open, unused tickets when they are later applied to new tickets.
Need to combine two trips into one? Reluctant to leave that important client meeting to catch a scheduled flight? ChangeGuard has you covered. We take the financial sting out of canceling flights and changing travel plans.
For more information about ChangeGuard or TravelSolutions by Campbell, visit our website at http://www.campbelltravel.com.
About TravelSolutions by Campbell: TravelSolutions by Campbell is a privately-owned travel management company (TMC) with 30 years of experience helping business and leisure travelers circle the globe. The company develops and uses innovative technology solutions to business travel challenges. It was one of the first TMCs to use robotics in seat and fare scanning. It was also one of the first to develop Open Booking capture technology via CampbellConnect, a proprietary technology that assists clients by capturing and leveraging travel expenses that may occur outside of their managed programs.
Steve Sedgwick, TravelSolutions by Campbell, http://www.campbelltravel.com/, 1-800-655-5248, [email protected]
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