June 2023 - Release Notes

Here are the most recent enhancements to Spotnana’s Travel-as-a-Service Platform. The features are grouped by functional category (Content, Self-service, etc.).

Content

Amtrak rail bookings

We are putting a big focus on building out our support for rail this summer. Travelers can now book Amtrak rail tickets in Spotnana’s Online Booking Tool. We’ve added support for all Amtrak routes including Acela high speed rail and cross-border trips into Canada as well as ferry, bus, and taxi itineraries. Travelers can book coach, business, and first class tickets and use an Amtrak Guest Rewards rail card.

In addition to adding Amtrak as a new rail supplier, we have refreshed our rail shopping experience. Travelers now benefit from an updated design for our search interface, the ability to search by Amtrak Station Code, a new search results page with columns for fare classes, and cleaner checkout and trips pages with additional details.

At this time, tickets for rooms and sleepers are not available. Rail bookings will soon be added to Spotnana’s mobile app. Self-service changes and cancellations will also be available shortly.

Rail discount and loyalty cards

Travelers can now add rail loyalty and discount cards to their Profile, which allows a traveler to gain access to discounted fares and earn loyalty points. On the search page, travelers can choose to apply multiple discount and loyalty cards to search results, if applicable. Validation rules limit the cards that can be selected based on station pair. For example, Amtrak allows only one discount card at a time, while European rail carriers allow multiple discount cards to be applied to a single search. 

Enhanced hotel room images

We have significantly increased the number of hotels that include room images. This can help enhance the booking experience and give travelers a better idea of which property is the best choice for their needs.

Search and Trips 

National ID numbers

We now include national IDs in the list of personal travel documents that can be added to a traveler's Profile. This allows travelers to book trips with suppliers that require a national ID.

Email itinerary enhancements

Spotnana travel agents can now communicate important updates to travelers by writing notes that appear on emailed itineraries.

Self-service

Expanded support for self-service flight changes

Flight changes are exceptionally difficult to automate due to variations in airline rules and the number of complex use cases. We have made significant progress overcoming these challenges and now allow travelers to exchange a GDS ticket multiple times as well as exchange a GDS ticket with a pending upgrade. 

In addition, we now redirect travelers to cancel their flight if they try to change a ticket during the void period, and we now alert travelers that if their initial flight is nonrefundable, then any exchanged tickets will also be nonrefundable, regardless of the fare rules for the new ticket.

Unused ticket credit redemption for NDC bookings

Unused airline ticket credits are one of the main sources of loss for corporate travel programs. To help our customers address this, we have developed industry-leading capabilities to automate unused ticket credit tracking and redemption. We recently added the ability for travelers to redeem unused ticket credits for GDS fares on a self service basis. Now travelers can redeem unused ticket credits for NDC fares as well on American Airlines and United Airlines. Spotnana is the first company in the world to offer this capability!

Hold an airline ticket

Sometimes travelers want to reserve a seat on a flight but delay completing a booking. To address this need, Spotnana has added the ability for travelers to hold a ticket for 24 hours.

All elements of a booking including trip name, payment method, and required custom fields must be in place for a hold to be activated. This allows travelers to later remove the hold and confirm they wish to proceed with the booking with a single click.

Holding a ticket does not lock in the price. In addition, seat selection may not be made during the hold process, you can only select a seat when you actually purchase the ticket. Approval requests are generated after the traveler confirms they wish to complete the booking. Holds are not available for all airlines or for flights departing within less than a week. The ability to hold a ticket is currently available for American Airlines, United Airlines, JetBlue, Alaska Airlines, and Southwest Airlines. Additional airlines will be available shortly

Holding a ticket does not lock in the price. In addition, seat selection may not be made during the hold process, you can only select a seat when you actually purchase the ticket. 
Approval requests are generated after the traveler confirms they wish to complete the booking. Holds are not available for all airlines or for flights departing within less than a week. 
The ability to hold a ticket is currently available for American Airlines, United Airlines, JetBlue, Alaska Airlines, and Southwest Airlines. Additional airlines will be available shortly.

Consolidated user uploads

Company administrators can now quickly add users and arrangers to Spotnana by uploading a CSV file. We have removed the User upload page from the Company tab, and instead added the option to upload a CSV to the User page. To facilitate uploads in the correct format, admins can also now download a CSV template from the User page.

Policy and Reporting

Approval workflows for hotel, car, and rail

Soft and hard approvals have long been available for air bookings. Now, travel managers can easily set and manage hard and soft approval workflows for hotel, car, and rail bookings via the Program > Policies page. 

We’ve designed our hard approval workflows for non-refundable rates to avoid automatic cancellations (and a monetary loss). Instead, hard approvals for nonrefundable rates will automatically convert to soft approvals unless the trip is explicitly canceled.

Missed savings field in approval emails

We have added a Missed Savings field to Out of Policy approval emails. Missed savings shows the difference in price between an out-of-policy air booking and the lowest fare calculated via Spotnana’s dynamic policies. This makes it easier for approvers to quickly see the difference in price between the booked travel and the median, lowest, or lowest logical fare. 

This feature is currently only available for air bookings.

Self-service policy document uploads

Company administrators can now upload PDFs of policy documents in the Program > Policies area of our admin console on a self-service basis. In addition, since it’s not uncommon for travel programs to have different policies for different groups of travelers, we now support the ability for admins to upload and update policy documents for each group, ensuring that travelers will see the appropriate policy document for their policy group in the Out of Policy modal. 

The default policy will continue to be displayed on the Homepage and at the top of the Search Results page.

Custom field enhancements

Custom fields are a powerful way to collect the data you need from your travelers during the online booking process. To provide administrators with greater flexibility in the way questions are created and displayed, we have added numerous enhancements to this feature including:

• CSV files - You can now upload a custom field CSV and export the data inputs as needed in order to quickly populate fields with a large number of options for a traveler to select.

• Free text - You can now add free text fields, in addition to multi- and single-select fields.

• Alternate cost centers - For companies with multiple cost centers across different departments, we have added the ability for travelers from one department to allocate their travel to another department’s cost center. To populate cost centers, admins can choose to align “source” to their company’s HR feed OR manually enter in options for the traveler to choose on the Checkout page by configuring this within the Program > Custom Fields section. If the HR feed is selected, then one of four options can be chosen – cost center, department, entity, or office.

• Custom field conditions - Custom field questions might not always apply to all travelers. To streamline the booking process, admins can now apply conditional logic to custom fields, so they only show when relevant. Conditions can be set based on:

  • Worker type (HR feed)

  • Country (HR feed)

  • Cost center (company settings)

  • Legal entity (company settings)

  • Office (company settings)

  • Department (HR feed)

  • Booking type (Air, hotel, car, rail)

  • Travel type (Domestic, international)

Limo transaction report

We have added limo transactions to transaction reports. Travel managers can now view all travel transaction reports including air, hotel, car, and limo for both personal and company-level reporting. Currently, limo bookings can only be made by agents for Seat 1A users.

Payments

Central card enhancements

Travel managers can now add central cards for hotel, rail, and car bookings, as well as air. Central cards can be added as the sole form of payment for all travelers in a legal entity or country, or for a specific traveler-type. Each central card will be displayed in a row on the Payment Methods page, making it easy for travel managers to locate and configure individual cards in a single location.

When multiple payment methods are presented at checkout, it can be confusing for travelers to determine the preferred payment path. In order to minimize traveler confusion and errors, company administrators now have the ability to set a mandatory central card that will be the only payment option shown at the time of booking. If that card is not available, travelers will have the option to use a personal credit card.

Travel managers can also designate central cards to guarantee pay-at-property hotel rates and pay-at-pickup car rental rates. 

The central card is used to hold the rate for hotel bookings, but another card may need to be presented onsite to complete the payment.

Card permissions by role

Previously, central cards and virtual cards could be set up for travelers who belong to specific legal entities, departments, countries, or cost-centers. Now, cards can also be configured by user role. Administrators can set central and virtual cards to be available to “agents and admins only” or to “everyone”. This gives you more control over payment methods displayed on the Checkout page.

Integrations

ISOS integration

We have enhanced our Duty of Care capabilities through an optional integration with International SOS (ISOS), a leading provider of Duty of Care services for companies around the world. Now, Spotnana customers who use ISOS can send data on their traveler’s bookings and subsequent modifications directly to ISOS on a near real-time basis. This enables you to locate and reach your travelers as needs arise, wherever they are in the world. Our ISOS integration is the first in the world to support NDC exchanges.

In order to take advantage of this integration, you must be a customer of both Spotnana and ISOS.