Up to 10 percent of all sold airline tickets need to be refunded. Estimates show that a manual refund takes 15-20 minutes to process. That adds up to 10 million hours lost each month for travel agencies around the world, with no additional revenue! With Amadeus Ticket Changer (ATC) Refund, it takes less than a minute to automatically refund a ticket in two simple steps.

Your time savings with SAS in ATC Refund - let's do the math

In December 2017 Scandinavia’s largest airline SAS joined our refund solution, which really gave Scandinavian agents a savings opportunity.

Let’s do the math, to show you just how big the potential is. Assume that your travel agency makes 375 000 SAS bookings a year. If 10% of these bookings need to be refunded and each refund takes 15-20 minutes – then you need one full-time employee, just for handling the SAS refunds!

To get an idea of your full time savings potential, see what other airlines are participating in ATC Refund by entering this cryptic command in Selling Platform (Classic or Connect): FQNATC/CXR

So why are refunds such a complicated matter?

 Refunds are complicated because each airline and ticket has its own refund rules, with 80% of tickets refundable under certain conditions.

But, it gets even trickier when the traveler only uses the outbound flight and wants to cancel the inbound part of the ticket. Then, the travel agent needs to calculate how much of the fare was used on the outbound journey, how much of the money is left on the ticket, how much of the taxes are paid or consumed, and finally, figure out how much to refund the traveler.

 All of this takes time. And due to the complexity there is a risk for errors which can mean lost revenues for the travel agency.

“Complicated refund processes often create frustrated users. A smooth solution for refund processes saves not only time and reduces the workload for the travel agency, but also reduces the risk for errors due to the human factor,” says Magnus Linder, CEO at Scanworld Corporate Travel & Events, a Swedish travel agency that has used ATC Refund for the last nine months. “Now that ATC Refund also includes SAS, it means less hassle and time spent on refunds for us”.

An automation solution that really does its job

In today’s fast moving digitalized world, improving efficiency is key. And ATC Refund does exactly what is says on the tin:

“We’ve worked hard to promote the solution in Scandinavia because this is one automated solution that we really believe in. There is a joke that people are doing a lot of automation that doesn’t add value to their business… but this is one tool which really does save time and money and adds value,” says Mats Gustafsson, Portfolio Manager at Amadeus Scandinavia.

• ATC Refund is a well-known product in Scandinavia, used by many travel agents and airlines through Amadeus Sell Connect, Amadeus Selling Platform and Amadeus Web Services.
• Out of the 20 largest airlines in Scandinavia (including SAS which came on board in 2017), 11 are now using ATC Refund. Enter the following cryptic command in Selling Platform Connect or Classic to see all participating carriers: entering this cryptic command in Selling Platform (Classic or Connect): FQNATC/CXR