WASHINGTON -- The General Services Administration took several
travel agents on a rollercoaster ride over the past four weeks, but
almost everything was resolved by Christmas Day.
The imbroglio involved agencies that were awarded contracts
which were later canceled but then reinstated, agencies that didn't
get contracts and later got them and agencies that didn't get all
they wanted and maybe never will.
The affair began after the GSA in November gave exclusive
hunting licenses to 46 agencies to compete in the federal civilian
market for the next five years.
It had been an unprecedented, massive undertaking, with the GSA
evaluating hundreds of bids and awarding more than 385 hunting
licenses (more properly called "master contracts") giving the 46
agencies the right to compete for federal civilian business in 52
specific regions of the country.
But problems arose when other travel agencies -- well
established incumbents in the market -- didn't get anything and
were on the verge of being shut out for the next five years.
Other agencies got some master contracts, but were upset because
they didn't get all they wanted.
Then there was a group of seven agencies that got master
contracts and were happy until the GSA changed its mind and yanked
29 of their awards in 24 regions.
Five disgruntled agencies hired lawyers and filed protests with
the General Accounting Office, alleging a host of contracting
mistakes by the GSA.
All in all, 63 contracts were disputed either because agencies
didn't get them or because awards were canceled, according to Susan
May, director of the GSA's travel management division.
Eventually, however, the spirit of the holidays prevailed. The
GSA settled the protests and "we compromised on 36" of the 63
disputed awards, May said. The other 27 disputed contracts were not
awarded, primarily because the bids were relatively low on
technical expertise and relatively high on transaction fees, which
the GSA had allowed for the first time.
One of the agencies that had been off-the list, on-the-list was
Lorraine Travel of Coral Gables, Fla.
Another agency on the rollercoaster ride was Travelennium
(formerly Omega Travel) of Memphis, one of the pioneers of the
federal market that holds the Tennessee contract.
Dot Conley, chief executive officer of Travelennium, bid for and
won three master contracts to compete in Arkansas, the metropolitan
Atlanta area and Kentucky/Tennessee.
After the awards were made, WorldTravel Partners of Atlanta (a
firm that initially got some but not all the master contracts it
wanted) raised the subject of pricing as part of its protest.
The GSA had told bidders to state their maximum fees for the
two-year base contract period, plus separate maximum fees for each
of the next three renewal option years, in each region for which
they applied.
But WorldTravel Partners protested that the GSA evaluated prices
for the two-year base period only, and should have looked at the
three option years as well.
On reflection, the GSA agreed. So the GSA put everyone's
contracts on hold and "we went back and reviewed the last three
years of pricing" by all the winners, said May.
At the end of the exercise, 29 awards were canceled, on the
grounds that their transaction fees escalated too rapidly.
Travelennium lost all three of its master contracts, but "we
couldn't figure out what was wrong" because the firm's rates of
escalation were pretty much in the middle, said Conley.
Baffled by the loss of her contracts, Conley requested a
debriefing by the GSA and hired travel attorney Josephine Ursini of
Virginia Beach, Va., who bluntly told the GSA that it
miscalculated.
The GSA reinstated Conley's awards just about a week after she
got the notice that they were canceled.
"It's been a little nerve-wracking around here," said Conley
with great understatement. She also heaved a sigh of relief that
the thousands of dollars she spent on new brochures for the
government market were not wasted.
Ironically, WorldTravel Partners lost some of its awards too, as
a result of its own protest about the scoring of the fees. But they
got reinstated in the settlement, said the firm's attorney Mark
Pestronk of Fairfax, Va., who represented the agency and Business
Travel Advisors of Miami in separate protests.
Brian Hundertmark of Roberts and Hundertmark of Chevy Chase,
Md., who represented three agencies, said, "It was a very large
undertaking by the GSA, so it was not surprising that mistakes were
made. Once we brought the mistakes to their attention, they took
action to correct them. I commend them for that. The system
worked."
Pestronk said, "The GSA did a good job overall because handling
this massive amount of awards without screwing up would have been
impossible. It's still quite admirable what they did. No one had
ever done it before and as far as I know, they made everyone happy
and got the program off the ground."