PARSIPPANY, N.J. --
Budget Rent a Car, which in early July launched the Budget Business
plan for small and midsize companies, last week launched a second
component that rewards travel agencies for bringing their customers
into the new plan.
Budget Business,
available to companies that rent at least five times a year with a
maximum spend of $50,000 a year, provides a discount on the car
companys lowest qualifying rates on all car classes plus a $2
rebate per rental day. The rebate checks are automatically mailed
to customers monthly, Budget said.
These features --
the ability to apply a program-specific discount on all Budgets
rates rather than being locked into a contract price plus the
rebate -- give agents something to sell, a spokeswoman
said.
However, the car
company sweetened the pot for retailers by offering double
commission (10% rather than 5%) for a year on business booked for
any clients the agencies signed on.
In addition, Budget
will pay booking agents by dropping reward points into agents
Unlimited Budget accounts.
The Unlimited
Budget incentive program was designed for leisure business, and it
converts booking points into dollars that are applied to MasterCard
debit card accounts for participating agents. These will be the
first corporate sales to produce the reward points.
The per-booking
point rewards on the corporate bookings will be lower than those
for leisure sales, but there will be a one-time 10-point reward for
the first booking made for a Budget Business customer signed on by
an agent.
To contact the
reporter who wrote this article, send e-mail to Nadine Godwin at [email protected].