Pegasus Solutions Launches Enhanced Electronic Commission Reconciliation and Tracking Service for Large Global Travel Agencies

Provides Travel Agencies a Flexible Tool for Total Automated Management of Commissions from Hotels Worldwide

On location at World Travel Market in London, Pegasus Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq: PEGS) today announced its Pegasus Financial Services unit has formally launched its revolutionary Electronic Reconciliation & Tracking service that works in tandem with its Pegasus Commission Processing service, equipping travel agencies with a totally automated solution for the management of hotel commissions worldwide. Pegasus Commission Processing is the hotel industry’s leading travel agent commission processing service and is operated by Dallas-based Pegasus Solutions, a leading provider of hotel industry transaction processing solutions and electronic commerce services.

Incorporating extensive feedback from several of its large travel agency customers into the development of the Reconciliation & Tracking offering, Pegasus spent the last two years fine-tuning the new service, which was informally made available on a pilot basis in 1998. To date, 45 large travel companies representing more than 11,000 agencies have signed up for the Reconciliation & Tracking service.

According to Jeff Bzdawka, senior vice president of Pegasus Financial Services, the enhanced service incorporates various custom requests from Pegasus’ large global travel agency customers and is especially effective in assisting agencies in properly receipting and reporting hotel commissions in accordance with corporate account agreements. Some of the key enhancements to the Reconciliation & Tracking service include:

a tax reporting feature for non-U.S.-based travel agencies;

the inclusion of service fees within monthly reports; and a new reporting tool that provides access to secure data cubes via the Web or by file transfer, depending on the customer’s needs. The data cubes offer three-dimensional views of hotel bookings, revenues, account receivables and aging histories by office, corporate account, travel agent and vendor, in addition to custom reporting sorts determined by each agency according to their needs.

“When recently implementing several large travel companies on the Reconciliation & Tracking service, we quickly determined that the most important product feature we could offer was greater customization and flexibility. In today’s global marketplace, one size does not fit all. Our customers require a hotel commission reconciliation, tracking and reporting system that meets their needs as defined by them,” Bzdawka said.

Navigant International, Inc. (Nasdaq: FLYR), the fourth largest travel management company in the U.S. and Canada and one of the largest in the U.K., is one of the travel management companies currently using Pegasus' Reconciliation & Tracking service. "Implementing the Electronic Reconciliation & Tracking Service has enabled our agencies to track 100% of their hotel commissions by office and corporate account, which in turn provides better service to our customers. Additionally, our vendor relations efforts have been enhanced by the ability to easily analyze hotel response rates, booking trends and payment patterns, all of which enable us to better manage our preferred supplier programs," said Navigant Vice President of National Vendors John Coffman. "And, most importantly, the bottom line is that our relationship with Pegasus Commission Processing continues to have a very positive, measurable impact on our hotel commission revenue."

Bzdawka continued, “Our enhanced service provides travel companies with the ability to effectively outsource the management of commission processing to a company that is widely considered to be the expert in the field and that enjoys relationships with most hotel brands worldwide: Pegasus. This distinction definitely allows Pegasus’ customers to feel a strong sense of comfort and security in knowing that their commissions are collected, allocated, tracked and reported correctly.”

Pegasus’ Electronic Reconciliation & Tracking service is unique in the industry due to the close relationships Pegasus enjoys with more than 31,000 hotels around the world that participate in the Pegasus Commission Processing service. The Reconciliation & Tracking service uses these relationships, along with multiple hotel interfaces already established for the basic commission service, to facilitate a highly integrated process for researching and tracking travel agency hotel commissions.

“Our hotel customers know us and trust our technology. They know the thoroughness of our procedures in making sure that every commission is reconciled accurately, so that any resulting commission requests we send them are legitimate. This confidence in turn leads to higher response rates,” Bzdawka said.

On a monthly basis, Pegasus collects from its 31,000 member hotels actual guest stay information related to hotel bookings made by travel agents. After consolidating information and commission payments for its participating hotels, Pegasus sends a consolidated commission payment to its member travel agencies worldwide.

The more than 100,000 travel agency locations in 207 countries that subscribe to Pegasus’ service can also receive detailed reporting of actual guest stays, cancellations and “no shows” and can elect to receive total automated commission management through Pegasus’ Electronic Reconciliation & Tracking service. Today, Pegasus processes in excess of US$42 million in hotel commissions per month from more than 100 hotel companies in 159 countries. Of the top 25 hotel brands worldwide, 23 participate in the Pegasus Commission Processing service