Your Guide to Maximizing the TSA Hotel Program
Hello TRAVELSAVERS® and NEST Members!
As you may have seen from our last issue of Agent’s Edge, I recently joined the TRAVELSAVERS® Hotel Division as your Director, Agency Network. By way of a brief introduction, I’m remote-based in Irvine, California and have been working in the travel industry for more than 25 years – 15 of which have been directly within the travel agency consortia and hotel relationship sectors.
Bringing this experience to my role at TRAVELSAVERS® allows me to help travel advisors in a variety of ways, particularly as it relates to the relationships between travel agencies – both corporate and leisure – and hotel companies. While there are many facets to these relationships, I’ve often felt that when it comes to how much business is being transacted, it’s the technical matters that sometimes can play an outsized role in facilitating an agency’s ability to book the best hotels at the best rates so that you can deliver the best value to your clients. That’s why one of my top priorities is to insure that your agency is properly set up to access the TSA Hotel Program rates in your respective GDS, so that you are taking advantage of the benefits of booking these rates, rather than settling for just booking BAR or other published rates that may not offer discounts, last room availability, and guaranteed commissions. Plus, when you book the TSA rates, you have the comfort of knowing that TRAVELSAVERS® will always have your back if there is ever an issue with your TSA rate code booking.
While it may seem routine, my best advice is to always include both the TSA & TS8 rate codes in your hotel search strings. Even better, you can “pre-set” or “auto-populate” these codes in your specific GDS, so that you don’t have to worry about entering them each time you go to book. If for some reason you do not see the TSA rates for hotels in our program, please email me at wbennett@travelsavers.com, or reach out to your dedicated TRAVELSAVERS® Business Analyst. As I mentioned earlier, it may just be a technical matter of enabling your agency’s PCC or OID in order to view and book our rates.
Whether you are booking leisure, business or blended travel, the TSA Hotel Program provides you and your clients with exceptional travel value, guaranteed commissions, plus there are the added perks such as exclusive advisor incentives, hotel education, GDS segment credit, and more. In turn, your clients can receive discounted rates, value-added amenities, loyalty point, and more. When you book using the TSA or TS8 rate codes in the GDS, or the TRAVELSAVERS® Preferred hotel rates in our proprietary online booking tool, tripXpress, you help support our hotel program so that we can continue to provide the best hotel offers for you and your clients. For further details on how to book our rates, download the GDS Reservation Instruction Booklet.
Thank you, as always, for your support!
Bill Bennett, Director – Agency Network
Telephone: +1 516-624-0500 x2341
Email: wbennett@travelsavers.com
