Corporate Travel

Despite an increasing number of online alternatives, travel agents continue to be the leading distributor of travel products and services. . Agents are the only UNBIASED source of travel-related information who can sort through nearly 200,000 daily air fare changes and various degrees of quality standards found with travel product purveyors.

A variety of studies conducted over the years by Consumer Reports show that millions of passengers who book direct are getting a bad deal for their travel dollar. Up to 40% of the flying public pay too much for their travel, hundreds of dollars more than they should to fly the exact same route, same seat, same plane, same class of service, same everything.

Additionally, a 2009 study by TOPAZ INTERNATIONAL, an independent auditing firm, confirmed that travel agents save their clients an average of $61 per itinerary over various internet sites including Travelocity, Expedia and Orbitz. Similar studies done over the prior seven years showed similar or greater savings.

No reasonable person would attempt to buy legal, medical or financial advice over the internet. There are too many complex components and personal choices that need to be made. So it is with travel. When you or your organization invests hundreds, even thousands of dollars on travel, it makes sense to seek out the help of a professional who can help you wade through the myriad of changes and choices you have in travel products. We are also a one-stop shopping service for all of your travel needs, whether it be an airline ticket, car or hotel rental, cruise or land package.

Best of all, you can depend on us to provide professional advice and courteous service. We’ll customize a program to fit your needs and travel budget and back it up with customer technology and support when you need it. Maupin Travel is a long-time player in the Research Triangle business community, having been in business since 1979. We have helped thousands of people realize their travel dreams and save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on their travel.

•Review and enforce your corporate travel policy to ensure your travelers are in compliance

•Use non-refundable tickets and purchase travel at least 7-14 days in advance.

•Combine trips for more than one destination and eliminate non-revenue producing travel.

•Use connecting vs. non-stop flights.

•Consider alternate airports for destinations having multiple airports in the region.

•Strictly enforce the return of unused tickets to agency for re-booking, where allowed.

•Consider all carriers, including low fare carriers such as Southwest, JetBlue and AirTran.

•Use fly/drive packages, meeting or zone fares (groups) or consolidator tickets whenever possible.

•Discuss alternative booking methods with your agent such as open jaw routing and split ticketing when traveling to multiple destinations on one trip.

•If using an online booking tool, be certain to use a MANAGED tool which allows you to build in your corporate travel policy and any applicable discounts.

In the past, travel agencies were compensated for their services by travel vendors via a commission based on the sales that were generated for that vendor.

Beginning in 1995, the compensation structure for travel agencies changed considerably and, after a series of reductions, the airlines eliminated ALL travel agency commissions in 2002. Many other travel vendors such as car and hotel purveyors have eliminated or reduced their commissions to travel agencies.

The GOOD news…agencies are no longer beholden to travel vendors for their income. The NOT SO GOOD news is that by these actions, these same vendors are telling the consumer that if they want the service, the consumer should pay for it. And so, service fees have become necessary for all travel agencies across the globe.

Now that service fees are part of the travel "landscape," we know we must work harder than ever to continue to show the value we bring to our client relationships. We desire to show our clients the value-added savings we bring to the table and encourage them to focus on the 93% of the ticket cost we CAN control, not on the 7% of the ticket cost that we CANNOT.

Maupin Travel pledges to show our clients that we will more than offset any service fees we charge by additional enhancements and savings we provide them on their total travel costs.

YES! Maupin Travel is proud of its track record of technology enhancements which includes its ability to search and display ALL fares for our clients, providing these fares are filed by the airlines into the GDS system.

As an Amadeus-connected agency (the world’s largest and most popular computer reservation system), Maupin has access to the web content for all the major domestic airlines including American, Delta, United, US Airways, and Continental as well as international carriers such as British Airways, Lufthansa, ANA, Japan Air, Quantas and SAS.

In addition, Maupin has the capabilities of booking low fare carriers such as AirTran, Southwest, and JetBlue.