Audit Your Hotel Rates: American Express Business Travel Blogs: Business Travel ConneXion

Audit Your Hotel Rates Posted 01/19/2010 10:57 AM
A significant number of Hotels continue to struggle with accurately loading corporate rates. Companies have found problems with up to 30% of their hotels. What other strategies are you taking to ensure rates are accurately loaded?
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There is no silver bullet to solving the issue of rate loading. However, there are some best practices companies should consider to lower the chances of having rates incorrectly loaded (or not loaded at all!!). In addition to completing a rate audit at the onset of new program implementation, companies should consider completing periodic rate audits to ensure ongoing compliance by suppliers. It is not uncommon for corporate negotiated rates to ‘drop’ or inadvertently be ‘closed out’ by suppliers. Regularly auditing and following up on offending properties will greatly decrease the chances of travelers not finding the right rates or paying a higher rate than what was negotiated. Quarterly audits are advised.
Another best practice is to consider squatter audits. Properties which have not been accepted into a hotel program can easily compete for travelers by occupying GDS space and appearing as preferred properties. These properties are known as “squatters”. Auditing the GDS for squatters and requesting immediate removal of these properties is another best practice as squatters dilute a company’s preferred hotel program, negatively impacting potential savings and compliance to preferred properties.

You can sign up for a hotel program like Complete Suite! AEBT handles the auditing of all the participating properties to ensure the rates are properly loaded.

We should see something interesting here, Frank.

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