American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) announced it has expanded its booking options with ground transportation provider, GroundSpan. The new offering is now available in Egencia, providing travellers more choice and flexibility when scheduling ground travel.

Egencia’s customers will have access to GroundSpan’s global ground transportation supplier network, which includes multiple vehicle types such as chauffeured sedans, SUVs and multi-passenger vans. Customers’ existing negotiated rates with their preferred suppliers will also be available in GroundSpan.

In cities across North America, customers will have the ability to book chauffeured transportation and have access to new booking features, regardless of their company size or transaction volume. Smaller companies, which often don’t have their own preferred ground transportation relationships or negotiated rates, can benefit from these expanded booking options.

Intuitive User Experience for Faster Booking
Egencia has also revamped its ground transportation booking and travel management offering for customers in the US and Canada. The enhanced user experience enables travellers or arrangers to book ground transportation in three simple steps – search, select and book.

New features include pre-populated business reporting data fields and custom frequently used pick-up and drop-off locations to improve the time to book. Flight details are also automatically passed on to the vehicle supplier for active flight monitoring for delays or schedule changes that may impact the traveller’s journey.

The Egencia Analytics Studio enables travel managers to quickly view trends in overall ground transportation spend. They can access the full data set to have a deeper analysis with 50 different data points including active bookings, number of cancellations, distance travelled, location, booking per supplier, and total cost.

Heather Lisagor, Vice President of Product Management, Egencia, said: “This is a complete redesign of the ground transport booking experience for customers in North America. These sophisticated updates use our customer’s existing travel and profile data to create an intelligent, efficient booking process. Our new and improved offering provides travellers and arrangers with a seamless experience that won’t disrupt their busy schedules.”

Ovation Travel Group, Amex GBT’s high-touch service, is already using GroundSpan for its ground travel bookings. It is anticipated that later this year, Neo, Amex GBT’s online integrated travel and expense solution, will also be expanding its ground transportation options with GroundSpan.