While your TMC can’t change the direction of the blizzard heading your way or send out a tech team to repair your aircraft’s baggage compartment, they can offer a few solutions to some of the more frustrating aspects of business travel.
At Gant Travel, we strive to give every traveler the perfect travel experience, and that’s not an easy task in a world that’s far from perfect. Between winter storms, hurricanes, aircraft equipment issues, and missed connections, there’s a lot that can keep you where you are instead of where you’re supposed to be. Whether you’re off to seal the deal with a big client or headed home to your loved ones after a long week of travel, we know it’s the travel experience that matters.
Flight Alerts
Travel is all about timing, and the faster you know about a change in your travel plans, the faster you can do something about it. Travelers need to know when their gate changes, or better, when they don’t need to leave the meeting early anymore because their flight got delayed. Plus, timely travel notifications and alerts can be a game-changer when it comes to snagging a seat on the next flight out.
Gant offers our own notifications service powered with Flightstats by Cirium. The near-live messaging system allows our travelers to stay up to date on all things flight related through trip reminders and change alerts. Notifications, which can be sent by email, text, or both, include a check-in reminder 24 hours before departure, flight status notifications, gate changes, and connection gate changes. Travelers also receive notifications if their flights are delayed more than 30 minutes and any time their connection time changes by fifteen minutes or more. They also get flight cancellations and reinstatement notifications if a canceled flight returns to “scheduled status.”
Waiver Application
Just like notifications can be helpful when your trip goes awry, knowing when a waiver applies can also be integral for navigating flight disruptions without paying unnecessary fees.
Gant offers our Perfect Waiver service to all of our travelers to help remove the stress of researching the fine print of an issued waiver. Since every airline can make its own rules, and waiver application is specific to dates and airports, determining whether a waiver applies to a trip you need to cancel or rebook due to reasons outside your control can be time-consuming and frustrating. To make it simple, our service interacts with airline waiver information in real-time to identify and mark tickets that qualify under the provisions outlined in an issued airline waiver.
Our Perfect Waiver is compatible with United, Delta, American, and Alaskan Airlines and tracks any waiver issued by an airline including industrial actions, strikes, and policing activity.
VIP Services
Flight alerts and help with airline waivers can definitely go a long way in navigating flight disruptions, but sometimes our busiest travelers just need a little extra support. For our executives and road warriors, we offer a dedicated team of travel experts that will always step up and go the extra mile in helping ensure a trip goes smoothly.
While our VIP travelers still receive the Gant Travel Trip Alerts and Perfect Waiver services listed above, membership in the program provides additional, high-touch services. Our VIP team is comprised of Gant agents with some of the longest tenure in the industry; they’re our experts in all things business travel.
With Gant VIP Services, travelers receive a meet-and-greet interview, where an expert agent will take the time to learn all travel preferences including seat location, hotel room type, and more. At 48 hours before departure, our VIP agents use this information to reconfirm all reservations by contacting vendors directly to verify that tickets have been issued, confirm seat selection, automatically request any available upgrades, confirm hotel bookings while attempting to secure any additional preferences and amenities, and confirm any car or car services booked.
VIP travelers also receive proactive trip disruption notifications, full reservation support, and priority call handling. In the case of a flight disruption, the VIP team reaches out to travelers or their designated executive administrators to work on a solution as soon as a notification is sent on the disruption.
“On a one-day turnaround trip to DC, my boss was notified his trip was canceled via TripIt Pro upon arriving at the airport. He immediately phoned the VIP desk and spoke with one of our VIP Specialists. Although there wasn’t an option to fly home that evening, they did connect with the airline to get him on the first flight available the next morning. They also took the extra step of leveraging his status to get him upgraded to first-class as compensation for the cancellation. They also used his status with both the airline and the hotel vendor to get him a room in a sold-out hotel right next to the airport, they even got the airline to pay for the room. All of this was handled within 10-minutes, and he was able to go get checked-in and return to working the remainder of the day.”
Current Client
At Gant Travel, we know, and our current clients know, we’ll do everything we can to make your trip a little easier, no matter the circumstance. Skies aren’t always blue and sometimes delays are inevitable, but with the right TMC, your travel experience could still be perfect. Services like Gant Travel Trip Alerts, Gant Perfect Waiver, and VIP Services help us show that we’re dedicated to taking the extra steps to ensure our travelers’ trips go as smoothly as possible.
Can your current TMC say the same?
