refund.me Wins Top Sabre Red Appy Award

SOUTHLAKE, Texas, May 1, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Sabre, a global travel technology company, has awarded refund.me with the top Sabre Red Appy for its app that makes it easier for agents and travelers to claim refunds for flight delays and changes. The Sabre Red Appys is an annual developers competition that recognizes the best ideas for new Red Apps to help Sabre-connected agencies address challenges and opportunities in their businesses. 

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refund.me helps worldwide passengers traveling to, from, and within the EU obtain monetary compensation for delayed and cancelled flights in accordance with EU law. The refund.me Red App will automatically monitor all reservations made through the Red Workspace. When a qualifying reservation is detected, the agent is notified and can email the claim form to the traveler with just a few clicks, making the claim process easier for both the agent and traveler. In addition to winning the top Appy award, refund.me, a start-up company based in Potsdam, Germany, also received a $10,000 cash prize.

Further, two Red Apps, submitted by ExpertFlyer.com and ZoomandGo.com, tied for the second place award this year. Each company received a $2,500 cash award. The winners were announced today at Sabre's Travel Technology Exchange held April 29-May 2 in New Orleans.

ExpertFlyer.com's Seat Alerts Red App notifies agents when a better seat becomes available for flights where only undesirable seats, like middle seats, were available. With Seat Alerts, agents can quickly view seating status for PNR segments, create alerts for segments that don't have desirable seats available, monitor alerts and be visually notified if Seat Alerts finds a better seat, and easily request seats directly from Seat Alert notifications.  The Seat Alerts app is available today in Sabre Red App Centre.

ZoomandGo.com's Instant Travel Expert™ Red App helps travel agencies increase revenues and profitability when booking hotels, and increases agent productivity when performing hotel searches.  A travel agent can now search any destination in the world by street address, neighborhood, airport code and local attractions, and filter the results instantly based on traveler requirements, allowing the agent to find available hotels that meet a traveler's needs while also meeting the needs of the agency and the client company.  Agents become local experts with this Red App and can immediately add value to any client requirement and perform searches that previously could have taken them up to an hour longer a day.

"The submissions we received for Red Appy awards reflect the power of the Red App Centre," said Chris Kroeger, senior vice president for Sabre Travel Network. "Each of the Red App concepts shows true creativity and innovation, and will deliver real value to Sabre-connected travel agents."

The winners were selected by a diverse panel of judges including travel management company representatives and Sabre leadership. All of the winners and finalists will offer their Red App through the Sabre Red App Centre.

"We had a great group of finalists. However, the winners clearly stand out and met all of the criteria with apps that will help agencies be one step ahead of their competition with the services they offer," said Eric Reader, vice president of Connoisseur Travel and a Sabre Red Appy judge. "As the Sabre Red App Centre continues to grow, I'm excited to see what future solutions these and other developers will bring to the table."

The finalists for the Sabre Red Appys were:

GIATA - The TOURIAS Travel Guide Red App from GIATA instantly shows the travel agent if a free smartphone travel guide is available with the traveler's booking and allows the agent to add the free app to the travel itinerary with the click of a button. The TOURIAS Travel Guide app for consumers is available as an iPhone and Android app in English and German for more than 100 top travel destinations. It contains plenty of useful information for travelers, such as the main sights, maps, weather reports, shopping opportunities, restaurants and bars, as well as general travel tips. The content can be fully downloaded onto a smartphone, so that it can be accessed offline when abroad without incurring expensive roaming fees.

SignUp4 - SignUp4 Travel Red App will simplify the booking process and narrow the communication gap between the traveler, the event planner and the booking agent. The Red App will give travel agents real-time access to live registration data for events in SignUp4's Event Management System. When an attendee registers for the event on SignUp4, the agent is notified within the app and is able to immediately create a PNR based upon the specific travel requirements noted by the traveler during registration.  SignUp4 Travel will then merge the PNR information including air, hotel, transportation into the attendee registration record within the SignUp4 database, providing unprecedented reporting access for the event planner.

Travel Automation: The QBotic Agent Assist Red App helps travel agents manage their queues more efficiently.  Agents can choose from a variety of actions to perform automatically including accepting schedule changes, sending email notification, removing cancelled segments and placing the PNR on a follow up queue. QBotic Agent Assist makes it possible for office agents and home agents alike to keep up with the ever important task of working the queues.

TripSketch – The Activity Planner Red App by TripSketch provides travel agents with an easy-to-use web based application to simplify the process of trip and excursion planning for their customers. With a rich collection of destination activities created by travel and guidebook writers, travel agents can quickly identify and recommend destination activities for layovers, short breaks, and multi-city vacations. The Red App will prompt travel agents to add activities to the traveler's PNR only when they are exploring and booking flights and hotels for the destination of interest. Travel agents may also access the app from the community links within the Red App workspace.

TrustYou - The TrustYou Red App will help travel agents quickly identify the right hotel for their clients based on a variety of factors. TrustYou captures sentiment and opinions from millions of online guest comments on more than 400,000 hotels, and assigns an overall Trust Score to each including how the hotel is rated across multiple travel sites. The TrustYou Red App will make it easier for the travel agent to identify a hotel with the specific offering the traveler wants, while at the same time knowing the level of quality and service the hotel provides in general.

Currently, the Red App Centre offers more than 100 different apps with many more in development from 80 certified Red App providers. Agents in 70 countries have used the Red App Centre, generating more than 28,000 app downloads.

Launched in 2012, the Sabre Red App Centre is the first online marketplace to connect travel buyers, including travel agencies, travel management companies and leisure operators, with application providers from around the world.

Sabre Travel Network® provides technology to the travel industry. It operates the world's largest travel marketplace, connecting travel buyers and sellers through the Sabre global distribution system (GDS).  Its innovative technology connects 370,000 travel agents to more than 400 airlines, 100,000 hotels, 27 car rental brands, more than 50 rail providers, 14 cruise lines and other global travel suppliers. More than $100 billion of travel is purchased through this channel annually. 

Sabre Travel Network is part of Sabre Holdings®, a global travel technology company serving the world's largest industry- travel and tourism.  For more information please visit: www.sabretravelnetwork.com.

MEDIA CONTACT
Heidi Castle
Sabre Holdings
682-605-4290
[email protected]

SOURCE Sabre Travel Network