Starwood Signs Agreement for New Commission Payment System

Starwood Hotels & Resorts has formed a partnership with Worldwide Payment Systems (WPS), an industry leader in travel agency commission processing and payments, to support StarCom, Starwood’s upcoming new commission-payment system. In tandem with StarwoodPro, a dedicated one-stop-shop for the travel professional, StarCom offers a worldwide consolidated payment program for all participating Starwood hotels.

“With this partnership we will be able to offer a complete free of charge processing, payment and recovery tool to the travel professional community,” said Linda Kent, vice president of electronic distribution.

Features include online tracking for agents to search for the payment status of a commission by hotel name, guest name, Starwood confirmation number or dates of stay; online commission claim, which creates a new commission claim or tracks an existing claim online; reconciliation, customized payment reports designed to be imported into back-office systems for reconciliation; and global commission recovery, where WPS will help travel professionals recover commissions.

Starwood is in the process of transitioning its Hotels & Resorts to StarCom, which will continue though the fourth quarter of 2008. An announcement will be made to the industry once the conversion is complete.

Visit www.starwoodhotels.com.