Australian flag carrier Qantas has launched a new online booking and travel management tool for SME clients powered by Spotnana.
Following an August trial, the tool will now be rolled out to more than 480,000 members of the carrier’s SME loyalty programme known as Qantas Business Rewards.
The ‘one-stop’ booking tool includes flights, hotel and car hire as well as access to ‘real-time’ data and analytics and the option to automatically apply business travel policies to bookings – on top of existing loyalty benefits such as flight discounts and the ability to earn points on travel expenses.
A new ‘Manage Trip’ feature also allows clients to make individual flight, hotel or car hire bookings, or to add and manage them as one comprehensive trip.
Qantas Loyalty CEO Olivia Wirth said the platform was launched in response to ‘direct feedback’ from businesses about the demands and costs involved in managing travel requirements.
“The investment we’re making in Qantas Business Rewards will provide Australian businesses with a one-stop platform to manage their business travel needs and make the most of their rewards.
“One in five Australian small and medium-sized businesses are Qantas Business Rewards members and this new booking experience adds to the benefits they already enjoy, including flight discounts and earning Qantas Points on travel and everyday business expenses,” she added.
Spontana in a blog post said it has worked closely with the carrier to embed its infrastructure in the Qantas Business Rewards website, develop and test new features and implement “our most comprehensive white label project to date”.
The travel tech platform said it had made enhancements to its tech stack in order to “support a successful launch” for Qantas. These included developing a customised user experience for the carrier that features an enhanced shopping experience, the ability to add or remove travellers from a Qantas Business Rewards account, and a ‘custom points payment experience’ at check-out that enables users to determine how much of the total cost should be paid via points or a card.
“This is just the beginning,” said Spotnana. “We have a comprehensive roadmap of features and capabilities we will work together to deliver, and the steady stream of new enhancements we release on a continuous basis to all of our customers and partners will be available to Qantas as well.”
Spotnana added that the new tool will reduce average booking time from more than 10 minutes to under two minutes.
Following the launch, Qantas said it will waive the AU$89.50 fee to join its Business Rewards programme until 8 December 2023.