MilesBuzz! - How About Negotiated "Flyer Talk" Rates for Travel?

I have not found this anywhere, so if this already exists please post the link.

Many people on this board have great negotiated rates with Hotels, Airlines and Car Rental companies through either the compnay that employs them or the compnay that they own. Others have great rates throuhgh associations such as travel clubs, auto groups, etc. What if we neogotiated a rate as a "Flyer Talk" group? I'd guess that we could get phenomenal discounts considering the combined volume of travel we do.

Let me know what you think, Ken.

great idea ... in the true spirit (and the motto) of this board, the focus should be on mileage-bonus and special status deals, price (hopefully) 'only' being another positiv side-effect.

I think this is an excellent idea and it has my vote! Good thinking TMK!

Good idea - perhaps several FlyerTalkers who already got airline discounts for community events can post their experience here?

I love it! May be difficult to implement, but worth a try. How bout it, Randy?

Starwood Lurker, Adam???

there are a number of non business flyers who would love it. [ i am 1 ]

What a brilliant idea! Get's my vote, too...

Great idea! Count my vote as well.

I love it!

Superb idea... Im in !!!

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Gaucho100K

As I am also for this, I would surmise that everyone who crosses this thread would agree as well.

What is the next step? We probably need to becomre a bit more organized to get the ball rolling. Any ideas?

The next step is probably getting some idea of the magnitude of $$$ we are talking about. One of the issues with the idea is that many of us travel for both business and leisure. Many companies already have negotiated discounts which employees must use when travelling on company business. These discounts are received thru special corporate codes provided to airline and hotel reservations staff. In some cases these discounts can be used for leisure travel booked by the individual as well. I suspect that many Flyertalkers with corporate discounts will not be able to partake of special FlyerTalk negotiated rates. Thus, we need an accurate figure for revenue (airlines) or number of nights (hotels) that we can expect will be booked each year by people travelling under the FlyerTalk codes. We probably need Randy's backing at some point.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by MileKing: The next step is probably getting some idea of the magnitude of $$$ we are talking about. One of the issues with the idea is that many of us travel for both business and leisure. Many companies already have negotiated discounts which employees must use when traveling on company business. These discounts are received thru special corporate codes provided to airline and hotel reservations staff. In some cases these discounts can be used for leisure travel booked by the individual as well. I suspect that many Flyertalkers with corporate discounts will not be able to partake of special FlyerTalk negotiated rates. Thus, we need an accurate figure for revenue (airlines) or number of nights (hotels) that we can expect will be booked each year by people traveling under the FlyerTalk codes. We probably need Randy's backing at some point.</font>

I think this is the exact starting point. We need to create a realistic estimate of how many nights, how much revenue, and number of car rental days we do as a community - that we control. To expand on MileKing let me give an example:

1. If your company has a negotiated rate with United or American Airlines, how many flights and how much do you spend when traveling outside of this umbrella?

2. If we were able to negotiate a deeper discount do you have the ability to book your travel under "FlyerTalk"?

Also, I think that our strategy should be to concentrate on a few major corporations first. i.e.: Hotels - Hilton, Marriott, Starwood. Car Rental - Hertz, Avis, National. Airlines - American, United, Continental/Northwest (I know there are many others, but we need to have a starting point.)

I'd be willing to work in the coordination of this and I'm sure that we can find many others to help in different ways. So what do all of you think is the best way to gather the required info? How difficult is it to build a website that can capture this information? I'm not a techie, but maybe someone can help me build a very basic online spreadsheet that has blank values for people to input their travel info.

I suspect the response you'll get is perhaps an offer for an affinity program, rather then real negotiated rates or discounts.

This means, for example, a 10% discount cert from an airline, a 1 class car upgrade from a car rental firm, etc, etc.

Basically the same deal that the companies give trade and professional associations to give to their members as a "member benefit."

But you should ask a travel professional.

Marty???

I'm with Rudi. I'm pretty happy with how much I pay for things, especially recently, but I'd love to get extra miles or even better, bonus status qualifying miles!

d

How would we be identified? FT would have to issue some sort of ID card right?

For us corp. travelers, many of us are bound by corp agreements and booking via corp travel agencies and could not support this if we wanted to on most of our business.

The rates would have to beat our corp discounts as well?

AS good as this sounds, it seems like we might get AAA type discounts which is good for personal travel or those who can't use their corp rates on personal travel.

One of the best ways to gauge the success of a long-term program is to have a trial-run.

For example, we can attempt to have a negotiated percentage-off for hotel rates or for airfare during a specific month of travel or a special event.

Maybe we can have a FlyerTalk conference or a FlyerTalk cruise (great group deals !! ) and gauge the volume or level of seriousness that could be out there.

As others have mentioned, in order for true success to arrive we would need to get some really good deals rather than simply association discounts.

If we get some numbers, I could ask around my hotel and travel agency contacts. If our numbers are good, these people are capable of giving us some serious discounts.

We can also ask for the advice of an airline group booking representative to share with us some realistic expectations once we provide them the size of the community.

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Got points ? Got smiles !

What a nightmare this would be for any participating hotel or airline.
They would have a bunch of very informed consumers on their hand, just what businesses hate the most.

They already have us on their hands, just not as readily identified as a group. We're their best customers, they know it, and they ply us with goodies to keep us happy. Given that they're stuck with us in any case, wouldn't they want an easy way to know who we are?

Plus, airlines go to a lot of trouble and expense to "convert" each other's frequent flyers. This may be a less expensive way for one of them to steal a jump on its competition in that regard.

My situation is that until recently my company was able to participate in one of our clients' discount programs for all our travel. They just tightened the rules on that program to where 99% of our travel is no longer eligible. If I could get a decent discount by booking with a FlyerTalk code, or through a FlyerTalk agency, I'd do it in an instant. That would have a signficant positive impact on the amount of my personal travel in 2002.

For what it's worth, that client's program is administered by AmEx Travel Services. All travel under it must be booked through them. Contacting them may be useful.

United has programs like PerksPlus. When a member of a program (such as FlyerTalk) makes a reservation, they would give United the PerksPlus number. The reservation would be counted towards the PerksPlus rewards.

Unfortunately, the "perks" aren't really enough to spread around to 100s of people. Maybe a few discount certs, a few free Premier Executive status designations, a few free upgrade certs.

Oh, BTW, I like this idea... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

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"What do you mean you didn't get miles for that?!"