Sabre signs up to Star Alliance

Sabre signs up to Star Alliance

Star Alliance has widened its distribution channels for its fare products.

Travel agents using the Sabre GDS can now book and automatically calculate the corresponding Round the World (RTW) and Circle Fares, joining Travelport and Amadeus, who already offer this facility.

In the past pricing often had to be calculated manually, due to the routings involved in RTW traffic.

Star Alliance offers jetsetters a total of 14 RTW fares to choose from; three for travel in First Class, four for travel in Business Class and seven for travel in Economy Class.

Star Alliance’s vp for commercial and business development Horst Findeisen said it was encouraging to expand its distribution channel with the addition of Sabre.

“Leveraging technology to simplify and accelerate complex processes is a key benefit which an alliance can provide,” he said.

“In this case, we now enable even more travel agents in even more markets to quickly and easily respond to customer wishes for round the world travel, which often involves highly individualised and complicated routings.”

Sabre’s senior vice president of EMEA Harald Eisenaecher added that through Star Alliance, agents would be able to book RTW fares more easily.

“We were keen to respond to industry demand to automate this process, and we are proud to be the first GDS to introduce a new industry framework earlier in the year,” he said.

“Since then, we have had a hugely positive response to this new technology from our travel agent clients. This agreement further proves the industry’s need for the automation of these types of complex itineraries. We expect this to drive more bookings from agents of RTW fares.”

Over the last years, Star Alliance has continually worked towards simplifying the booking and ticketing process for RTW travel.

In 2009 it launched the Star Alliance Book and Fly tool, which allows online booking and ticketing for RTW and Circle fares through the Alliance’s website.

In parallel, the Alliance worked with the major GDSs used by travel agents to ensure that travel agents would also be in a position to automatically price such itineraries.

Customers can build their own routings within the mileage limits of the different fare levels, with customers travelling on Star Alliance RTW fares able to accrue miles in any of the 19 Frequent Flyer Programmes offered by the member airlines#.

The collected miles can count towards earning Star Alliance Gold or Silver status and be redeemed for example for free flights, upgrades, hotel stays, etc.

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