Lufthansa, TripActions Partner for SME-Targeted Platform

The Lufthansa Group and TripActions are launching a co-branded booking and management platform, targeting small and medium-sized customers of the airline group.

The platform lets members of Lufthansa Group’s corporate rewards program, PartnerPlusBenefit, book through a specialized version of TripActions’ tool and lets users earn and redeem points in the program. That also gives program members access to TripActions features including policy and profile management tools, customer support and centralized billing. In addition, Lufthansa will be able to make special offers to those customers through the platform as a dedicated channel.

It is designed to “provide a solution to our valued corporate customers who have previously booked via our airline websites and have long had the desire for a suitable solution and associated enhanced functionalities,” Lufthansa Group SVP of sales Stefan Kreuzpaintner said in a statement. “This unique offering expands the available [travel management company] offers in the market for corporates, adding to the current solutions offered by our other TMC partners.”

It first will launch in early 2022 in the home markets of the Lufthansa Group airlines, which include Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Eurowings and Swiss. From there, Lufthansa and TripActions plan to further develop the platform to add additional redemption benefits, language capability and expansion into more markets.

TripActions in early 2020 announced Lufthansa as its first “strategic investor,” with plans for an “extensive” partnership as TripActions sought to increase its presence in Europe. It already had established a New Distribution Capability-enabled direct connection to Lufthansa to provide content, including some not available on global distribution systems, while avoiding Lufthansa’s distribution surcharge for indirect channels.

This week, TripActions also announced that it had expanded availability of its Liquid payment and expense management tool into Europe, via a partnership with corporate payment platform Stripe to issue both smart virtual and physical cards in U.S. dollars, U.K. pounds and euros.

Michael B. Baker  www.businesstravelnews.com