How Travel Agents Can Leverage Email Parsing
Don’t get us wrong—our supplier and technology integrations are absolutely the way to go if you work with any of our partners, like Sabre or Classic Vacations or Tramada. But as new travel suppliers and new mid-office systems come into the picture, these days there are thousands of systems and booking engines that travel agents can use to book travel, making choosing your itinerary platform difficult.
Luckily, Umapped is partnered with Traxo, our email parsing supplier, to unlock bookings made across thousands of sources. Whether you primarily book directly with suppliers like airlines, hotels, car rental companies, and more, or whether you typically book packages for your clients, remains one of the easiest ways to get your bookings in Umapped.
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Parsing for non-GDS users
For agents that aren’t interested in using a GDS—maybe you prefer booking directly with the suppliers, maybe your customers specifically requested that for personal reasons—Umapped’s supported supplier list for email confirmation forwarding is absolutely chock-full of airlines, properties, hotel folios, car rental services, and more.
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Parsing for users who purchase packages
There are a variety of reasons why travel agents purchase packages for their clients. Bundling travel products together offers a more competitive price for most travelers and allows agents to sell a variety of products and services.
It’s also quicker and easier booking through a package company than creating it all yourself through multiple suppliers. Plus, with package companies, agents are able to cultivate closer relationships with these various package companies, which is one of the many joys of working in the travel industry.
Parsing for GDS users
We didn’t mean to exclude our GDS users! While Umapped has a robust integration with Sabre and PNR import capabilities for Travelport and Worldspan, our parser also accepts email confirmation forwards from all of the major players in the GDS world, including Amadeus.
This can also be a helpful solution if you’re on a deadline but you’re having issues importing using our integrations; shoot the confirmation email off to import@umapped.com and then deal with emailing Support when your clients are on their way. We always try to ensure that there are tons of ways to get your bookings into Umapped.
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Traveler collaboration using email parsing
Travelers can also get in on the fun! According to one statistic, 82% of travelers end up booking components of their trip online. If your travelers often make additional purchases while they’re on their trip, maybe restaurant reservations, train sojourns across the mountains, or shore excursions while they’re on a cruise, giving them the option to put those bookings back in the itinerary without manually typing it out is always an added perk.
If you work in collaboration with your travelers, they can simply forward their email confirmations to import+USERNAME@umapped.com (remember to have them replace the username part with your actual username) and you can add those bookings straight to their trip. It’s a slightly different email address than the one you’ll find below, but that’s just because it’s coming from a different person.
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How Do I Get Started?
Now that you’re on the up of Why to use email forwarding, let’s go over the How. Sending your email confirmations to Umapped is actually incredibly simple, and we’ll show you by breaking it down into four steps:
Verify that your supplier is on the list (see here for the full supported supplier list)
Send the email confirmation to import@umapped.com
Wait 5-8 minutes and then navigate to the Booking Inbox
Add the booking to your trip
It’s as simple as that! For more detailed instructions or a mini video that you can watch on your own time, check out our support article on the topic.
Curious about how Umapped can help you meet all of your clients’ needs?
Using digital itinerary solutions, like Umapped, travel agents can ensure that all of their bookings, no matter where they’re made or by whom, are easily added into their traveler’s itinerary.
See why more and more advisors are turning to digital solutions like Umapped by signing up for a free trial and joining one of our introductory webinars.