Paging Frugal Business Travelers: A New Perk
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This is Your Money Matters from The Wall Street Journal. I'm John Wardunk at The Wall Street Journal. Attention business travelers, especially the frugal ones out there. There's a new perk for you through a company called Upside Travel. Scott McCartney writes the middle seat column for The Wall Street Journal, and he joins us with details. So, Scott, tell us more.
Well, John, Upside Travel is a new venture from Priceline's founder, Jay Walker. And he's a very well-connected guy in the travel business. And he realized that Priceline's very much aimed at leisure travelers. But he could take some of the ideas that took hold with Priceline and bring them to business travel. So what he does is negotiate discounts with airlines and hotels. and works these into packages that you can sell to business travelers. Airlines and hotels will give him big discounts because the actual price that they're offering him is opaque. It's hidden in this package price. So they don't have to publish new airfares that competitors could match or new hotel rates. So with the vendors, this is popular.
They can move some inventory at discounts that might not otherwise move. And they can also reach out with this to business travelers who aren't part of a big corporate program. Big corporations typically get discounts. And this is very similar for the self-employed traveler, the consultant, the people who, small business people, even medium-sized business people, who don't have a corporate travel department. And also I think for luxury travel folks, people who are willing to pay a bit more, they specialize in flexible tickets and sometimes in deeply discounted first class and business class fares. So it has a lot of appeal. So what he does is take that package price and that's a savings for your employer or your client who's actually paying for the business trip.
And he takes some of his margin and gives it back to the traveler who books in the form of gift cards. And you can get, you know, as much as 10 percent back on the published prices of a trip. So you book a three thousand dollar business trip for a week somewhere and and you may get a three hundred dollar gift card in your pocket. while your employer also saves money.
How do you get in touch with Upside Travel?
What is Upside Travel and who founded it?
You mentioned that, Pricelines, founders involved. So is this a website? Is it an app?
It's both. Upside.com is the website, and they do have an app. And another interesting aspect of it is because the margins are pretty good in this business, they actually have a call center of people, travel agents who can help you when things go wrong. Upside has some big backers in the business travel world, including BCD Travel, which is a big corporate travel management company. And BCD Travel has helped them with a call center and training of agents. And from talking to customers, they really do a pretty good job. When, you know, your flight gets canceled, you get stuck somewhere, you need help, they jump in and help out.
We're talking with Middle Seat columnist Scott McCartney. And this is Your Money Matters from The Wall Street Journal. Thanks, everyone, for joining us. So, Scott, what is a potential drawback to using upside travel?
Well, there are a couple you don't when you book hotels in the package, you don't get your hotel points through through that booking. You may actually be able to go to the hotel and kind of plead your case. But as a general rule, you do get airline miles. You earn those on the tickets that you fly. But the prices are discounted so much that hotels don't award points. And they have some, uh, limited availability of, uh, of flights. Um, uh, they're, they're working with American. American says they have a strong partnership with them. Um, they're, uh, United wouldn't comment to us, but if you look through the website, they have plenty of United inventory. Also, uh, Virgin America, JetBlue, Alaska, uh, some others, they, they don't have Delta.
How does Upside negotiate opaque discounts with airlines and hotels?
Um, and, uh, And for some travelers, that may be a holdback. You can, I think it's important to know, you can book exactly the flights, the hotel, whatever you want with this.
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