When COVID-19 hit, global lockdowns saw the levels of unused tickets jump to over 85% for purchases made in the first quarter of 2020. A considerable hike on the normal 7% industry average.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For one client alone, that meant a potential loss of $500,000. Rapid action, a determination to help our client to keep cash in their business and some out of the box thinking resulted in the protection of 80% of that total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s $400,000 of cash, preserved as an asset within the client\u2019s business that could have been lost for good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How did we secure 80%<\/strong> of the dollars for future use?<\/p>\n\n\n\n THE SCALE OF THE CHALLENGE<\/p>\n\n\n\n The global pandemic meant we weren\u2019t just faced with cancelled flights. Where airlines were still flying, the tickets were non transferrable. In an economic climate where layoffs became common, we were met with limited ability to implement a name change or refund dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n TRACKING AS STANDARD<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tracking unused tickets is standard practice at Reed & Mackay. Automated within our tech platform, it\u2019s easy to prompt travelers to use their tickets within future bookings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The challenge? Although airlines were forthcoming with extended life for qualifying tickets and waived change fees and full refunds where cancellations took place \u2013 they didn\u2019t update this centrally within their systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To protect our client\u2019s bottom lines, we manually updated over 6,800 records to include the new expiration date and change fees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n THE REAL WORK BEGINS<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the change fees and expiration dates were updated, we reviewed each ticket that was due to expire by March 2021 and proactively worked with our airline partners to process a refund for the ticket and\/or extend the expiration date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For clients who downsized their employee numbers due to the pandemic, we proactively leveraged our supplier relationships to work with the airlines to accept name changes, not currently within the airline policies, and extend the expiration dates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We also utilized our preferred airline funds, typically used for upgrades, premium seating, etc. to minimize the financial impact to our clients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n AN EVOLVING SOLUTION<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ve been working hard behind the scenes to enhance our tech solutions and provide even greater support to our clients. If you\u2019re looking to talk to an expert about making the most of your unused tickets we\u2019re here to help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n