Business travel gets easier for travelers using Sabre's GetThere online booking tool

Sabre Corporation , the leading technology provider to the global travel industry, today announced a new industry-first solution for corporations and business travelers to purchase United Airlines Economy Plus extra-legroom seats in the GetThere online booking tool.

Available globally, GetThere Air Extras allows business travelers to select and pay for these seats during the booking process and even gives the option to pay with a personal credit card for times when a corporate travel policy does not allow for an upgraded seat. United Airlines is the first airline to deliver this capability to travelers and is already selling its extra-legroom seats via GetThere Air Extras.

Business travelers today often book their flights using an online booking tool like GetThere and then later have to call their travel agent or go to the carriers' website to select and purchase a paid seat. With GetThere Air Extras, travelers no longer have to go outside their online booking tool and take the extra step to purchase paid seats, streamlining the booking process and making it easier for business travelers to get the travel experience they want.

"Seat selection is becoming increasingly important to business travelers and a deal breaker when travel managers work on defining policy compliance. Often, frequent passengers experience full flights, and airlines allocate seats for preferred customers," said Yannis Karmis, vice president of corporate solutions for Sabre. "With our new solution, travelers with premier status can choose their seat based on the complimentary available seats shown, at the same time they book their flight. For travelers without premier status, we make it easy to select and purchase extra-legroom seats. And this new capability in GetThere allows travel managers to activate paid seats on an airline by airline basis, giving them greater control of their travel program while allowing them to improve the travel experience for employees."

"United is pleased to be the launch partner for GetThere Air Extras," said John Slater, United's vice president of sales for the Americas. "In addition to giving our corporate customers access to purchase United's Economy Plus extra-legroom seating, this new self-service solution also gives them the option to split the payment between a corporate credit card and a second form of payment."

When using GetThere, travelers will see available seats and the price associated with each seat when viewing the seat map.  During checkout, the traveler will see all of the fees associated with the seat they selected and can choose which credit card to use.