Galileo Agents Gain Paperless eVouchers on Avis Bookings

Avis has teamed up with Travelport GDS to introduce a new paperless eVoucher for Galileo-connected travel agents. The agreement with Avis follows the launch of eVouchers last year with Hertz and Sixt. The eVoucher— effectively an electronic, ticketless confirmation of their booking— works in much the same way as an airline e-ticket; doing away with the need for customers to produce proof of deposit or payment when picking up their rental vehicle.

As well as offering significant benefits to customers, the new system makes booking and managing car rental transactions easier for travel agents. Through Galileo’s CarMaster system, agents receive real-time confirmation of the booking and are saved the time-consuming tasks of hand-writing rental vouchers and/or faxing voucher payment details to the relevant rental location.

“Since the airlines introduced paperless ticketing customers have become very comfortable with using e-tickets," said Jane Lewis, Travelport GDS senior director hospitality and car rental, EMEA, Asia and Pacific. "The eVoucher extends the principle to car hire and makes the whole process of renting a vehicle much easier and more secure. Customers needn’t worry about losing their documentation. Details of the booking are transmitted directly to the car rental location, so all of the customer’s details are waiting when they arrive. Just like a flight ticket, they can print out confirmation and present this when they pick up the vehicle. And because the system integrates with the agent’s back office function, management of the whole payment and settlement process is seamless.”

The systems allow agents to take three types of payment for car rental— Full Credit (the entire cost of rental including special equipment, upgrades and extra days); Group/Day (the cost of rental for certain number of days); and Specific Value (fixed amount towards cost of rental).

Visit www.travelport.com.