October 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 

Improved Sabre content

We worked with Sabre to optimize airfare availability during the shopping process for several carriers including Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Lufthansa, Air Canada, Air France, KLM, Qantas, British Airways, and more. These improvements will reduce fare expiry notices and increase seat availability for flights that are almost full.

Improved airfare deduplication

We updated our deduplication logic so travelers will now see fewer duplicate fare and fare class options, simplifying the travel booking process.

Traveler Experience 

Self-service Amtrak cancellations 

Travelers can now cancel Amtrak trips on their own using the Spotnana Online Booking Tool. It’s now simpler to make changes to itineraries without contacting a travel agent.

To cancel a rail trip, the traveler navigates to the trip with the Amtrak booking, selects the rail booking, clicks Cancel, and then clicks Confirm cancellation. Once completed, the traveler will receive a cancellation confirmation email from both Spotnana and Amtrak. The Amtrak email will contain refund vouchers.

Note: Travelers can only cancel an entire rail itinerary (both legs of a round trip journey) and credits from refunds can only be used directly on the Amtrak website.

Improved Travelfusion seat maps

The accuracy of seat maps for Travelfusion bookings has been improved, making it easier to select a wider variety of seats when flying on low-cost carriers.

Self-service Travelfusion cancellations

Travelers can now cancel low-cost carrier flights booked using Travelfusion without having to contact an agent for assistance. 

Expanded hold booking support for flights

Travelers can now hold flight bookings for Air Canada, Emirates, Qatar Airways, Etihad, British Airways, Air France, Swiss Airlines, and Singapore Airlines. This improvement gives travelers more flexibility when planning their itinerary on a variety of global airlines.

Traveler pronouns 

It’s important for travelers to feel they are represented appropriately when they travel. User pronouns can now be added in the Traveler Information section of a traveler’s Profile. If a user indicates their preferred pronouns, their selection will also be visible to our agents, enabling a more personalized service experience.

Users can select their pronouns by navigating to My Profile > Personal > Traveler Information. Currently supported are:

• He/him/his

• She/her/hers

• They/them/theirs

Travel Management

Spotnana Carbon Removal

Our newest sustainability feature provides travel programs with a fast, exact, and permanent way to remove carbon from the atmosphere through an scientifically proven process called Bio Carbon Capture and Storage (Bio-CCS). Participating companies receive a digital certificate documenting the exact amount of carbon removed by this process, making it easy to communicate results both internally and externally.

Contact your Customer Success Manager for more information on how to reduce your program’s carbon footprint with Spotnana Carbon Removal.

Improved chat routing for administrators

We have simplified the process for administrators and travel arrangers to request assistance from an agent when booking for another traveler. Users with the Company Admin or Travel Arranger role can now indicate which traveler requires assistance in our chat tool, which allows us to route the request to the correct agent more quickly and accelerate issue resolution.

Fallback logic for flight CO2 calculations

When CO2 calculations are not available for certain flights, we now provide estimated carbon emissions based on the distance traveled. Our estimate is derived from the median of CO2 emissions across each cabin class. This enhancement helps to provide more robust carbon tracking data for your travel program.