Travel Hacks for Cyber Monday That are Good All Year Long!

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Cyber Monday 2021 is upon us, and the team at CheapOair has some useful advice on how to get the best prices on airfares on Cyber Monday, and beyond.

Published this week on CheapOair’s Miles Away travel blog site, the article provides readers with a handy checklist to guide them to great deals on cheap airline tickets whatever the destination. 

Comments Werner Kunz-Cho, CEO of Fareportal, the company behind online travel agencies CheapOair and OneTravel, “It’s important that we provide our customers with useful information to aid in their leisure travel and business travel planning. Our experts share their insights on how to create the perfect itinerary at the best value, which the traveling public can refer to when creating their next trip. It’s a win-win!”

US air travel has been extremely active. Traveler counts have been more than 2 million per day for the last week. For the past weekend, the TSA reports passenger throughput of 7,820,705, only 14% less than pre-pandemic numbers.

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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CheapOair Shares Thanksgiving Traveler Trends

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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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CISO to Mentor Cybersecurity Startups in Support of India’s Manufacturing and Economic Growth Initiatives

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It’s no secret that for a travel technology company to innovate, it must keep a keen pulse on tomorrow’s talent, tools, and trends. After all, the future is a lot closer than it appears. It’s unfolding right here, right now.

Fareportal takes pride in having some of the brightest and most innovative minds in the Travel & Tourism industry among its ranks who are dedicated to leading the way as we continue to define the future of travel. One of these shining lights is Ankur Ahuja, CISO and Vice President of Information Security.

Ankur has been working hand-in-hand with the Data Security Council of India (DSCI) for more than eight years. Long recognized as an information security subject matter expert, he is among 27 professionals recently selected by the DSCI to be a startup mentor for the National Centre of Excellence (N-CoE) for Cybersecurity Technology Development, a joint initiative formed by the DSCI and India’s Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY). In this advisory role, Ankur will support the growth of approximately 30 early-stage cybersecurity startups of national interest by providing guidance and feedback on the companies’ programs. His efforts will support India’s “Make in India” and “Digital India” initiatives that aim to secure manufacturing investment, bolster economic growth, and improve online infrastructure in the second-most populous country in the world.

Ankur’s mentorship selection gives him the opportunity to reap the rewards that only a select group of individuals can access. He will be able to keep that ever-important pulse on the latest happenings in India’s cybersecurity industry, and he will work directly with startups that address new problems that surface in the rapidly evolving cybersecurity landscape, keeping him at the cutting edge of the industry.

Like Ankur, Fareportal will benefit too. Our cybersecurity team partners with many startup agencies to keep our data safe, and it’s likely that Ankur will mentor startups that will be able to solve Fareportal’s security challenges of the future.

Are Flights Cheaper on Cyber Monday? CheapOair Shares Encouraging Data!

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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 3rd 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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CheapOair Becomes First Online Travel Agency to Offer Native Enrollment in American Airlines’ AAdvantage®

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Another company first has been achieved!

Our loyalty program, CheapOair Rewards, gives customers a personalized experience and member-only deals. Customers can join for free and they earn points on every booking; to sweeten things up, they earn double points on every booking made in the CheapOair app. The program offers a seamless travel booking and service experience, and as travelers continue to book with CheapOair, they unlock generous benefits as they reach higher point tiers.

That experience has just become even more seamless, thanks to a vote of confidence from American Airlines.

Continuing our focus on the customer journey and travel technology innovation, our Product and Tech teams worked to build a cutting-edge solution that integrates American’s AAdvantage® loyalty program into the CheapOair site. With just a single click, CheapOair Rewards members can now sign up for AAdvantage and simultaneously reap the benefits of both programs! This integration makes travel planning much easier by giving our CheapOair Rewards members the opportunity to sign up for AAdvantage directly on CheapOair.com.

American Airlines is one of our biggest partners, so collaborating to offer a seamless way to enroll in their loyalty program makes sense. With the launch, CheapOair becomes the first OTA to offer this level of service to their customers.

More CheapOair Rewards enhancements are on the way. Stay tuned!

Fareportal’s CheapOair First OTA to offer AAdvantage® customer enrollment program in partnership with American Airlines

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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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CheapOair iOS and Android App Development Moves to React Native

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Recently, our Mobile Engineering team successfully migrated the development of our CheapOair apps for iOS and Android to React Native.

React Native is an open-source mobile application framework that provides a single codebase, effectively eliminating the need to code separately for iOS and Android. Our team’s ability to share this codebase across platforms boosts their productivity, improves speed to market, allows for quicker integration with partner offerings, and delivers a greatly improved customer experience.

Our Mobile Engineering team took a data-driven approach and closely analyzed usage in preparation for this awesome migration. They identified engagement pattern shifts that took place throughout the app, and they used the collected data to prioritize development to serve our customers’ evolving travel needs. Once React Native launched, the team quickly rolled out in-demand features and performance improvements – resulting in a double-digit conversion rate gain.

This new architectural foundation places CheapOair in an even stronger position to bring more new travel-related digital products to their customers. Part of an ongoing series of enhancements, Fareportal’s Mobile Engineering team is poised to roll out new travel-related digital products to CheapOair’s iOS and Android apps in its mission to provide an end-to-end, all-in-one planning & booking solution for the traveling public.

Fareportal Mobile Apps Evolve to Single Code Solution with React Native

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Fareportal, the travel technology company powering online travel agencies CheapOair and OneTravel, has successfully migrated its CheapOair apps for iOS and Android to React Native.

With this technology consolidation, the company’s commitment to a lean, efficient travel technology organization is further realized, as React Native provides a single codebase alleviating the need to code separately for iOS and Android.  It bolsters mobile engineering productivity, as a single codebase can be shared across platforms, improves speed to market, allows quicker integration with partner offerings, and delivers a greatly improved customer experience.

“We are constantly updating our Mobile Apps as new features are added.  Rather than simply rewriting the CheapOair mobile apps, our mobile engineering team took a data-driven approach, closely analyzed usage, and identified engagement pattern shifts throughout the app,” said Glenn Cusano, Co-CEO and CFO of Fareportal.  “The team then prioritized development to serve evolving customer needs.  When the React Native version was launched, we were pleased to see a double-digit conversion rate gain.”

Part of an ongoing series of enhancements, Fareportal’s mobile engineering team is poised to roll out new travel-related digital products to CheapOair’s iOS and Android apps in its mission to provide an end-to-end, all-in-one planning & booking solution for the traveling public.

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.

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 24/7 to help find discount flight tickets 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.

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IVR System Enhancements

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The coronavirus pandemic delivered a perfect storm to the Travel & Tourism industry virtually overnight. Fareportal was not immune to the rapidly evolving business and operational landscape. Call volume rose exponentially as worldwide travel restrictions went into effect, our Operations team scrambled to meet this unprecedented demand, and companywide our global teams were faced with adapting to the logistics of a new work-from-home norm. As more customers called, our call volumes went up by more than 50% in March 2020 while call wait times skyrocketed and failed to meet company standards.

It was clear to our teams that it was prime time to develop highly capable tools that efficiently meet the high demand and ultimately, our customers’ needs. Our Technology and Customer Service teams worked diligently to create high-value solutions for inbound precision routing to improve our Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system.

Several enhancements were made to our IVR after March 2020. Prompts that reflect our customers’ changing needs were added to support our most in-demand services, and the validation process was shortened to reduce call wait times for more than 60% of our customers. The improved system now consistently redirects our customers to highly capable travel experts who are trained to meet their specific booking and post-booking needs.

Our customers were connected to our newly created, dedicated COVID-19 help desks. Over 25,000 inbound calls were answered, and customer queries were resolved much quicker. Our processes progressively became more streamlined, the high demand was efficiently met, and our customers were even more satisfied with our ability to meet their travel needs.

Security was enhanced so that our customers could safely pay for their bookings through IVR.  Our new security features make the booking experience even more seamless, effortless, and quick.

Fareportal Customer Service Operations Omnichannel Design

An enhanced customer experience is being provided through our omnichannel customer experience where our customers can interact through voice, chat, or our Self-Service Tool (SST). Our teams saw a dramatic 45% increase in customer preference for the self-service options. In response, our IVR system prominently promotes SST so that our customers can make changes to their bookings and apply for cancellations and refunds on their own.

As Fareportal’s commitment to uniting people and places across the planet evolves, new capabilities such as speech IVR will be added.

Employee Engagement Top Priority as Fareportal Launches New Initiative

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Fareportal, the travel technology company powering online travel agencies CheapOair and OneTravel, has announced the launch of their companywide “Learn As You Grow” career development initiative.

With Learn As You Grow, Fareportal employees are given access to a wide variety of learning opportunities via online courses.  Participation is encouraged via corporate communications outreach, and staffers’ time during the workday can be allocated to attending courses.

“Companies that provide growth and training opportunities for their teams are more likely to attract and retain talent,” said Werner Kunz-Cho, CEO of Fareportal.  “Our employees have always been receptive to the learning opportunities we have created for them.  Learn As You Grow formalizes our commitment to the professional and personal growth of our global workforce.”

Glenn Cusano, CO-CEO and CFO at Fareportal comments, “As a company, we know that people are our most important asset.  This initiative is another example of the high value Fareportal places on providing our employees with a challenging and rewarding environment in which to work.”

As Covid-induced lockdowns created remote work environments that did not previously exist, the importance of positive employee engagement has come into focus for corporations worldwide.  Interestingly, research shows that employee engagement in the US actually increased during 2020, as corporate leaders stepped up communication with employees in response to the rapidly evolving situation and were perceived as being more communicative and responsive than in normal times.

Fareportal expects to unveil additional employee engagement programs before the end of 2021.

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.