Spotnana has enhanced its Travel-as-a-Service platform so that users can redeem unused flight credits on a self-service basis for both EDIFACT and NDC airfares.
The New York-based company, which featured in The Business Travel Magazine‘s 2023 Tech Hotlist, has also expanded its direct NDC integration with American Airlines so that travellers can redeem unused ticket credits for an EDIFACT-based booking toward the purchase of an NDC fare.
“Spotnana added support for NDC redemptions of EDIFACT-based flight credits in a matter of weeks,” said Anthony Rader, Director of Airline Retailing Technology at American Airlines.
“Their next-generation modern infrastructure is ideally suited for NDC, and we look forward to working together to bring new innovations to market.”
The latest innovations mean that during the booking process, travellers can view unused ticket credits and see which flights allow a credit redemption, and apply the value of a credit toward the purchase of a flight.
If multiple unused ticket credits can be redeemed for the same flight, travellers have the option to choose which credit they prefer to use.
As Spotnana is single unified platform for both travellers and agents, travel agents using Spotnana can apply an unused ticket credit on a traveller’s behalf.
In addition, administrators can view reports on unused ticket credits that are outstanding or have been redeemed, gaining valuable insight into a key driver of travel programme savings.
Spotnana’s platform also offers self-service capabilities for changing and canceling flights, including the ability to modify or cancel flights even if a trip has been partially flown, receive an unused ticket credit for cancelling a non-refundable flight, and choose whether to receive either an unused ticket credit or a refund if the amounts differ.
According to Sarosh Waghmar, Founder and CEO of Spotnana, studies have shown that unused airline ticket credits can make up 5% of airline travel spend.
“The vast majority of these credits go unused, either because travellers forget they exist or find the redemption process too difficult to navigate,” he said.
“While commercial solutions exist for tracking unused ticket credits from EDIFACT based fares, no one has created this for NDC. As a result, we decided to build this ourselves. Our architecture is inherently content agnostic, which makes it easy for us to build features that work consistently across distribution channels.”
