Amadeus Will Deploy Hopper's Upsell Products to Airlines and Agencies
Skift Take
Amadeus will distribute Hopper's upsells, such as trip cancellation protection, for consumers to add when buying from airlines and agencies. Seems like B2B2B2C is the new business-to-consumer (B2C).
Online travel agency Hopper has said it makes more money by upselling customers with add-ons, such as trip cancellation protection, than it does from selling travel itself. Now the Montreal-based company has begun distributing these upsell products for airlines, agencies, and others to use, too. Amadeus, the world's largest travel technology company, said on Tuesday it had become the first distributor of the startup's products.
The deal between Hopper and Amadeus is part of a new frontier for the travel industry, as many companies invent more creative ancillaries. The underlying trend promises to unlock additional profits for travel suppliers and sellers, while also building traveler confidence to make purchases during an uncertain pandemic.
Amadeus has the right to deploy any of Hopper's products that a partner requests. For now, it is starting with offering two policies an unnamed online travel agency has asked for in a pilot study. One product is "cancel for any reason" protection, which lets a traveler bail on a flight up to 24 hours before departure and get back most of the ticket price. The other policy is a "price freeze" product that enables a traveler to hold a price for up to two weeks before booking.
Amadeus has no immediate plans to make Hopper's upsells available in its reservation system used by more than 100,000 "offline" travel agents worldwide until an agency requests it. The company expects first to hear interest from airlines.
"Our biggest business in the insurance unit is working with airline partners to distribute travel insurance on the airline websites," Altmann said. Many carriers already use the tech giant's insurance Web services to sell policies to travelers who book tickets directly on airline sites and mobile apps.
Hopper has made big claims about having higher-than-usual attachment rates, or rates of selling the ancillaries along with core travel products. That had piqued Amadeus's interest.
"When cross-selling traditional travel insurance on an airline website, if you look at a conversion rate, meaning the number booked with insurance as a per
