Welcome

What do you do about a massive problem in global health care? If you're the “Millennium Foundation for Innovation Financing for Health,” you call on the travel industry to help promote a new and ambitious global health movement, MassiveGood.

Amadeus is the Millennium Foundation’s technology partner. We have developed software in the form of a donation engine that will enable the travel industry to support the Millennium Foundations stated aims. 

All 3 GDSs have embraced the project and have integrated the Amadeus developed software into their front office applications. The donation solution is a standalone, system-independent tool, enabling travellers to voluntarily make a micro donation when they purchase travel.

MassiveGood will be available via the Amadeus Selling Platform, e-Travel Management and e-Retail engine.  We are currently working with our colleagues on the implementation process of this donation engine, due to take place in January 2010. Read more

Welcome to STA Travel

We'd like to Welcome our latest customer - youth travel specialist, STA Travel. At the end of October, the many STA Travel offices throughout the UK were helped to migrate to Amadeus from Sabre. The feedback so far has been very positive and we are confident that as they get used to Amadeus' advanced functionality, STA Travel's consultants will quickly feel at home with Amadeus. 

Fare World

Watch a demo of our latest booking solution called Amadeus Fare World that helps you rapidly compare consolidator, published and low cost carrier air fares. Learn more...

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Ticketless Access module via e-Learning

Amadeus e-Learningoffers a new Ticketless Access module. With more and more low cost carriers signing up to Amadeus Ticketless Access, it's the perfect time to learn how easy it is to become an expert.

Click on the e-Learning Smart Tab in your Selling Platform.  

7 reasons to use Hotel Store

1. Assistance whenever you need it 24/7 

2. Book with confidence: 77,000 agencies use Transhotel consolidator product worldwide.

3. Profit boosting: earn commission before you client checks in. And Transhotel acts as Principal, so no worries on that score either.

4. Competitive pricing.

5. Great service from the reservations department and local commercial teams that are in place to help you.

6. Content: 50,000 hotels available worldwide.

7. Productivity: quick, easy bookings with automatic PNR integration.

Click on the Hotel Store Smart Tab in your Amadeus Selling Platform today. 

Air Update

Wind Jet (IV) an Italian low cost carrier flying from Gatwick and Luton is now available to book through Amadeus Ticketless Access. The airline adds a EUR2 point of sale fee.

See Amadeus information pages GGAIRIV or visit our web page to download the Quick Card

Air France and KLM are to jointly adopt a new inventory solution from Amadeus. Read more 

Want to know which carriers are currently available through Amadeus Ticket Changer? Use the entry: FQN ATC / CXR

West Jet (WS) and Jetstar Pacific (BL) now offer instant confirmation of sale (or rejection) at time of booking with no need to wait until PNR end of transaction.

Royal Brunei offers Amadeus travel agents seamless dynamic availability information directly from their own system. This results in more accurate availability information.

Air Asia has a new Special Service Request (SSR) available for excess baggage. The entry is: SRXBAG-nnKG (replace the nn with the number of kilos excess baggage). Please refer to Air Asia information pages for charges.

S7 Airlines now offer interactive advance seat request and interactive seat maps.

Hotel Update

Easier Hotel Search

An easier way to search for hotels is planned for release in Amadeus around 16 November 2009. This new search entry will speed up the process enabling searches for landmarks (e.g. Eiffel Tower) in geo-coded countries, as well as non-IATA cities. The new cryptic entry can be used with Hotel multi-property Availability (HA) or a Hotel List (HL) requests.  The location name is free-flow text with a maximum of 45 characters.

Example entries
HA PAR 12JAN / LOC-EIFFEL TOWER or HL PAR / LOC-EIFFEL TOWER

The follow-up entry from the resulting list is HAL1 (for HA line 1) or HLL1 (for HL line 1).

Check out the Sell Faster blog by our resident Hotel guru, Guillaume Thevenot. Do you agree with his comments about GDS hotel descriptions - why not add your own viewpoint?

Simon Taylor, our Hotels product specialist, lists the hotel brands where you can book up to 9 rooms simultaneously. It’s all in the blog.

Best Available Rate

New chains participating in Amadeus Best Available Rate include: Choice Hotel chain (EC)

Helpdesk Tips

You won't find a list of helpdesk tips in the newsletter anymore. This is because the first port of call for any Amadeus knowledge queries is our new e-Support portal for travel agents. So to help you become familiar with this great new tool, you’ll find the answers to the questions below in the Notice board section of the e-Support Centre homepage.

Click on the e-Support Smart Tab in your Amadeus Selling Platform. Register and log in once and you'll automatically be logged in for future visits. A short demo will be available to show you how to register via our website by the end of this week.

Topics this month include:

• Quick change air availability entry to show flights via  a specified airport or airports only
• How to change a flight number, class of travel and date for a booked segment in one entry
• Find a corporate hotel rate code using the company name
• Set up a Queue Monitor function 
• A handy entry to display the a list of MCO reason for issuance codes

 Click this Smart Tab icon in the Selling Platform to open e-Support Centre

Cruise update

For summer 2010 easyCruise is offering early booking discounts on all three and four night trips departing from Piraeus (Athens) and Kusadasi in Turkey. From April until October, the cruises visit some of the most stunning islands including Santorini, Mykonos and Crete.

Travellers who are planning a city break to Athens or a touring holiday of Greece or Turkey can easily add in a short cruise to their itinerary to combine history and culture with magnificent views over the turquoise Aegean.  easyCruise offers shore excursions in every port of call and travel agents can earn commission on all pre bookable options.

For a list of cruise lines available within Amadeus Cruise and their contact information, please visit our website. 

Competition

The answer to last edition’s question was Air Asia or Transavia are both newly  available in Amadeus Ticketless Access. The winner, selected randomly from all correct entries was Kelly from Opodo.

This month the competition is even easier than ever because there isn't a question!

For your chance to win £25 in vouchers from the high street shop of your choosing, all you have to do is register to access Amadeus e-Support. Just click on the Smart Tab and complete the simple registration form. This will enable you to search the e-Support knowledge library any time of the day or night. If you like the Amadeus HE pages, you’ll love the e-Support knowledge library with its great search capabilities and UK specific answers. Go on, try it today.

Everyone who registers between now and 30 November, will be entered into the prize draw. You’ll also be eligible to enter the December competition which will also be for registered e-Support users.

By the end of this week we are hoping to display a brief demo to show how easy it is to register. Visit our website for details. 

Rob's Ramblings

Andy Warhol didn’t know how right he was when in 1968 he said, “in the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”

What he probably didn’t envision is how fame could come knocking on your dooreven without you trying to scale the walls of Simon Cowell’s bachelor pad (or putting on a dodgy accent like Sacha Baron Cohen in one of his many guises).

All you have to do to become famous these days is upload a few photos onto the internet.

With everyone ripping off everyone else’s copyrighted material online, your photos don’t stand a chance. Soon, you could be the new face of Yak soup in shops throughout outer Mongolia. Or your family pics could end up hanging 20 feet tall advertising Italian food in Eastern Europe. Impossible? It happened to Danielle and Jeff Smith from St Louis, USA.

The Smith’s received a call from a friend visiting Prague. Their friend was standing in a shop beside a large poster that seemed strangely familiar. Then it clicked. It was a photo of his friends - the Smith family. Only the Smiths aren’t models and they’ve never been to Europe. All they did was upload a photo online to create a Christmas card. 

So be warned. If you don’t want your face to become one side of the official currency of the island state of Nauru, keep your photos in the family album safely on your bookcase.

Thanks for reading.

Rob (editor)