Dynamic Rate Targets
Provide travelers with appropriate spend guidance while searching for flights and hotels. Dynamic Rate Targets are displayed within Tripkicks Insights Banner, and determined by your policy, configurations, destination-specific logic, and company initiatives. Our proprietary algorithm utilizes business rules to narrow down a grouping of Airfare Itineraries, or lodging properties, and selects a percentile from that remaining group to display as the Rate Target.
Rate Targets are not intended to always reflect the “lowest” cost option, rather, a reasonable target based on the options available to the traveler, while also considering the guidelines of the corporate travel policy.
Rate Targets are reliant on the information returned in the search results, and if no data is returned, a rate target cannot be calculated. Similarly, rate targets can only begin to calculate once all search results are returned.
Rate Targets are activated within Tripkicks by Group, so this functionality can be activated for one individual, or a group of individuals.
The display text as shown on the right, is customizable for both Airfare and Lodging. Tripkicks recommends using short text that will fit on one line.
When Rate Targets are activated, they will be pre-configured based on the profile of your company (e.g., policy, historical spend habits).
Preferred Suppliers: Lodging Rate Targets can be configured to focus on the group of properties that are the most preferred, within the search results. When “Most Preferred” properties are present, the algorithm will use this group. If those properties are not present, it will use the group below that (e.g., Preferred, or Preferred Chain). This setting is recommended.
Star (Crown) Class: Properties of a certain star (crown) rating can be included or excluded from the group. This will be pre-set based on historical travel patterns.
Proximity: Geo-specific rules can be set in Tripkicks based on the specific latitude / longitude of a search location. The most common use case for this is to only reflect properties that are in close proximity to the search location. This is especially useful in large cities, where just few miles distance can be considered an inconvenient location. Also common are situations where there is a company office is outside of a major city. In this example, the traveler might be presented with properties both inside and outside of that major city, but the rate target should represent the properties outside of the city (only).
Other: Other configuration exists to support various edge cases (e.g., chain / property exclusions, rate caps), and can be discussed based on client need.
Most Direct (Least Connections): Airfare Rate Targets can be configured to only utilize the most direct flight options available within the search results. This setting is recommended.
Take-Off / Landing Times: Flight itineraries can be excluded from the algorithm based on their take-off and/or landing times. This configuration can be set individually for Domestic and International flights. Rate Targets will be pre-set with set times (e.g., exclude red-eyes on domestic travel).
Fare Class Rules: Flight itineraries can be excluded from the algorithm based on cabin class. This configuration can be set individually for Domestic and International flights, and can be programmed so that flying times over a certain amount of hours can allow for different cabin classes to be included in the Rate Target calculation.
Airport City Codes: Since Rate Targets use the results that are returned in the search, itineraries that involve multiple airports may be used in the calculation. For example, if a traveler searches for “ORD”, results that contain “MDW” may also be included, and utilized in the Rate Target calculation (example on the right). Depending on the setup in the online booking tool, the traveler may need to then “select” a specific airport (in the search results) to see all itinerary options.
Refundable / Non-Refundable: The algorithm can be programmed to exclude Refundable fares. This is programmed automatically by Tripkicks based on the GDS/policy rules that are setup in the booking tool.
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