2021 is coming to a close, and the holidays are upon us.  In this traditional season of giving, Fareportal, the travel technology company behind leading online travel agencies CheapOair and OneTravel, is changing the narrative on what has been a very challenging year by sharing with others.

Continuing what has been a tradition of giving that spans more than a decade, and as an expression of goodwill, the company has donated to The Ali Forney Center, which supports LGBTQIA+ individuals and organizations; New York Cares, which addresses needs in the New York City area through year-round volunteer opportunities; Covenant House, which provides shelter, food, immediate crisis care, and other services to homeless and runaway youth; Tourism Cares, dedicated to supporting the travel & tourism industry; The Travis Roy Foundation, dedicated to supporting those suffering from spinal cord injuries; Berkshire South, supporting the health and well-being of residents of the Southern Berkshires; Digital Undivided, supporting the creation of economic opportunity for Black and Latinx women entrepreneurs; Children’s Hope India, serving the needs of the children of India, and Amigos de los Animales Puerto Rico, which rescues, rehabilitates, and rehomes abused and abandoned animals.

“Philanthropy has always been a foundational concept for Fareportal. Since the company’s inception, our Founder & Executive Chairman, Sam S. Jain, ensured that we prioritize giving back to the local and global community. This year presented unprecedented challenges to so many individuals that we felt it only right to step up our efforts to shine a light of hope as we enter the New Year,” said Werner Kunz-Cho, CEO of Fareportal.

The company hopes that sharing this information will remind others there is still time to brighten someone’s holiday by making a charitable donation.

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About CheapOair 

CheapOair is an online travel agency that specializes in providing cheap flights and great last-minute flight deals for travelers worldwide. Consumers can book online, on mobile apps for iOS and Android, by phone, or live chat. Part of Fareportal’s family of travel brands, CheapOair bridges the gap between an online travel agency and a traditional agency with travel agents available worldwide to help find great deals on flights to global destinations on over 600 airlines, a million lodgings, and 100s of car rental companies. Follow CheapOair on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for travel inspiration and helpful travel tips.  

About Fareportal   

Fareportal is a travel technology company powering a next-generation travel concierge service. Utilizing its innovative technology and company-owned and operated global contact centers, Fareportal has built strong industry partnerships providing customers access to over 600 airlines, a million hotels, and hundreds of car rental companies around the globe. With a portfolio of consumer travel brands including CheapOair and One Travel, Fareportal enables consumers to book online, on mobile apps for iOS and Android, by phone, or live chat. Fareportal provides its airline partners with access to a broad customer base that books high-yielding international and domestic flight, hotel, and other travel and add-on ancillaries.  

The popularity of chat platforms has transformed the customer relationship management landscape. Chat platforms are now ubiquitous and have made their way into the fabric of everyday life. The demand for chat-based communications tools to support customers has grown, and that trend skyrocketed exponentially during the pandemic – a time when travel companies struggled to address the sharp rise in customer support requests.  

In response, Fareportal, the travel tech company powering online travel agencies CheapOair and One Travel, went to work to enhance its existing chatbot service. The chatbot uses natural language understanding to mimic human conversation and is available 24/7. Customers can engage with the chatbot to search for flights, request help with their existing booking, and make changes to – or even cancel – their existing bookings quickly and easily. The chatbot can resolve most inquiries and when needed, complex cases that require human intervention are routed to the company’s live agents.

Werner Kunz-Cho, CEO of Fareportal, comments, “The number of travelers needing our assistance keeps growing, so we’ve fast-tracked many innovations for CheapOair and OneTravel.  Our commitment to customer service is unwavering, and we are very pleased to offer our customers an easy-to-use and efficient chatbot solution.”

Due to the success of the chatbot’s end-to-end solution that helps customers through the lifespan of their travel plans, the tool handles 7,000 chats daily, a 12-fold increase from January 2021, with a 55% containment rate for chats resolved by the bot and a 95% success rate in customers’ intent identification. Further enhancements will be rolled out in the future as the demand for chatbot-based service grows and customer needs evolve.

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About CheapOair 

CheapOair is an online travel agency that specializes in providing cheap flights and great last-minute flight deals for travelers worldwide. Consumers can book online, on mobile apps for iOS and Android, by phone or live chat. Part of Fareportal’s family of travel brands, CheapOair bridges the gap between an online travel agency and a traditional agency with travel agents available worldwide to help find great deals on flights to global destinations on over 600 airlines, a million hotels, and 100s of car rental companies. Follow CheapOair on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for travel inspiration and helpful travel tips.  

About Fareportal   

Fareportal is a travel technology company powering a next-generation travel concierge service. Utilizing its innovative technology and company owned and operated global contact centers, Fareportal has built strong industry partnerships providing customers access to over 600 airlines, a million hotels, and hundreds of car rental companies around the globe. With a portfolio of consumer travel brands including CheapOair and One Travel, Fareportal enables consumers to book online, on mobile apps for iOS and Android, by phone, or live chat. Fareportal provides its airline partners with access to a broad customer base that books high-yielding international and domestic flight, hotel and other travel and add-on ancillaries.  

The holiday season begins this week and travel interest is showing a strong upward trajectory. This is good news for the travel industry and underlines the public’s readiness to get back to travel. According to leading online travel agency CheapOair, online searches of airline tickets for Thanksgiving and through the holidays are up 72% as compared to searches in August of this year. Comparing the same period, searches for US to international destinations are up 73%, and searches for international origin to US destinations are up 129%.

The largest US cities are seeing a healthy recovery, with New York, Los Angeles, and Orlando topping the list for domestic bookings for Thanksgiving travel. This year’s leading destinations for US travelers:

Top 10

• New York City
• Los Angeles
• Orlando
• Las Vegas
• Chicago
• Denver
• Dallas
• Atlanta
• Boston
• San Francisco

Overall airfares are trending 15% lower than pre-pandemic levels.

Glenn Cusano, Co-CEO and CFO of Fareportal, the travel technology company behind online travel agencies CheapOair and OneTravel, comments, “We’re pleased to see the surge in interest in travel over the holiday season by both domestic and international consumers. We want to remind the traveling public to check current travel regulations at their destination, to ensure a safe and seamless travel experience. For our customers’ convenience, the latest information on covid-related travel restrictions is easily accessible on both CheapOair and OneTravel.”

About CheapOair 
CheapOair is an online travel agency that specializes in providing cheap flights and great last-minute flight deals for travelers worldwide. Consumers can book online, on mobile apps for iOS and Android, by phone, or live chat. Part of Fareportal’s family of travel brands, CheapOair bridges the gap between an online travel agency and a traditional agency with travel agents available worldwide to help find great deals on flights to global destinations on over 600 airlines, a million hotels, and 100s of car rental companies. Follow CheapOair on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for travel inspiration and helpful travel tips.  

About Fareportal   
Fareportal is a travel technology company powering a next generation travel concierge service. Utilizing its innovative technology and company-owned and operated global contact centers, Fareportal has built strong industry partnerships providing customers access to over 600 airlines, a million hotels, and hundreds of car rental companies around the globe. With a portfolio of consumer travel brands including CheapOair and One Travel, Fareportal enables consumers to book online, on mobile apps for iOS and Android, by phone, or live chat. Fareportal provides its airline partners with access to a broad customer base that books high-yielding international and domestic flight, hotel, and other travel and add-on ancillaries. 

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American consumers have come to expect savings on their purchases made during what is increasingly known as the Cyber 5, the period from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday.  There are deals to be had across the period, but research shows that Cyber Monday remains the biggest draw.  In 2020, Cyber Monday delivered $10.8 billion in sales, while Black Friday reached $9 billion.

Air travel is not excluded from Cyber Monday savings opportunities.  This year’s e-commerce buying spree is yet to come, but the Data Science team at CheapOair looked at trends from 2019 and 2020 and report Cyber Monday flight savings were a reality for both domestic and international air travel, as compared to 3^rd quarter of the same year.

In 2019, Cyber Monday discounts for domestic air travel improved by 16% as compared to the previous three months.  International air travel for the same period realized an average improvement of 15%.  2020 was a very different year for flight purchases, but the trends continued with domestic equaling 15%, and international hitting 10%, despite the scarcity caused by various travel restrictions in place at the time.

Werner Kunz-Cho, CEO of Fareportal, the travel technology company behind online travel agencies CheapOair and OneTravel, comments, “There is a lot of discussion around Cyber Monday, and travel is very much part of that conversation.  Travelers are seeking Cyber Monday flight deals.  We encourage our customers to take advantage of the many great air travel options to be found on our sites every day of the year, especially on Cyber Monday.”

As in past years, CheapOair will highlight partner deals and airfares across their sites, and their 10-day “Countdown to Cyber Monday” via Social Media channels beginning mid-November.

About CheapOair
CheapOair is an online travel agency that specializes in providing cheap flights and great last-minute flight deals for travelers worldwide. Consumers can book online, on mobile apps for iOS and Android, by phone, or live chat. Part of Fareportal’s family of travel brands, CheapOair bridges the gap between an online travel agency and a traditional agency with travel agents available 7 days a week to help find great prices on flight tickets to global destinations on over 600 airlines, 1 million lodgings, and 100s of car rental companies. Follow CheapOair on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for travel inspiration and helpful travel tips.

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Continuing their focus on travel technology innovation, Fareportal, the company that powers online travel agencies CheapOair and OneTravel, announced this week that CheapOair, in partnership with American Airlines, has launched their AAdvantage® customer enrollment program.  CheapOair Rewards members are now able to sign up for the American AAdvantage® loyalty program with ease at the time of booking. This innovative partnership and technology integration will provide an effortless experience for CheapOair Rewards loyalty members by eliminating the need to go through a separate sign-up process for AAdvantage® on the American Airlines site.  With the launch, CheapOair becomes the first OTA to offer this level of access to their customers.

“We are passionate about building cutting-edge technology solutions for the traveling public.  Members of our loyalty program, CheapOair Rewards, will now be able to enjoy the benefits of their membership in the program, and at the same time earn American Airlines AAdvantage® miles,” said Glenn Cusano, Co-CEO and CFO of Fareportal.

“AAdvantage makes earning and redeeming miles for travel easy, so collaborating with Fareportal to offer a seamless way to enroll in the program makes perfect sense,” said Neil Geurin, Managing Director of Digital and Distribution for American Airlines.  “We look forward to welcoming new members onboard as part of their journey with CheapOair.”

CheapOair Rewards offers travelers access to member-only deals, allows earning and redeeming points to save on bookings, unlocks benefits as they reach higher tiers, and provides a seamless travel booking and service experience.  The company plans additional enhancements to the program in the coming months.

About Fareportal  
Fareportal is a travel technology company powering a next-generation travel concierge service. Utilizing its innovative technology and company owned and operated global contact centers, Fareportal has built strong industry partnerships providing customers access to over 600 airlines, a million hotels, and hundreds of car rental companies around the globe. With a portfolio of consumer travel brands including CheapOair and OneTravel, Fareportal enables consumers to book online, on mobile apps for iOS and Android, by phone, or live chat. Fareportal provides its airline partners with access to a broad customer base that books high-yielding international and domestic flight, hotel and other travel and add-on ancillaries.

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