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It’s been a big week for TravelPerk, the Barcelona-based startup that recently raised $60 million in further Series C funding. The travel management company has now released a product called FlexiPerk, which allows users to cancel and get a refund on any booking made through the service, for any reason. This marks a break from the rest of the corporate travel industry, where changes to travel plans typically cost significant amounts of money either in changeable booking prices or cancellation fees. “We wanted to provide a service that solves one of the biggest pain points in business travel, which is the lack of flexibility when it comes to cancellations and travel changes,” said Avi Meir, TravelPerk’s CEO. The new product is an opt-in service, available to TravelPerk users. There is a 10 percent fee for all bookings made with a FlexiPerk account, but it gives travelers the option to cancel at nearly any time and receive 90 percent of the total payment back. Typically, businesses that want to change travel plans have to pay inflated “flexi-fares,” or else deal with a tedious cancellation process. Providing they have not yet checked in, users can cancel flights up to two hours before departure, and they can cancel hotel reservations until 4 pm of the first day of their stay. The product has been in testing with a number of different companies, which have reported average savings of 26 percent from using the service, according to TravelPerk. The product has not yet been officially rolled out, but starting Thursday, companies that wish to use the service can sign onto a wait list. |
