Administration

Branded Fares Rule

Admins who would like to configure flight policy based on the new branded fares in Concur Travel will now be able to do so with a new flight rule. The rule verifies the carrier name(s) and the branded fare name(s) to add additional precision to flight policy

User Benefit: Configuring flight policy around branded fares allows travel admins to manage the fares that are available to travellers – to potentially avoid change fees, which can be a result of choosing a lower, nonrefundable fare.

Flight

Remove American Airlines and Delta Air Lines Note from "Unable to Price" Message

In the latter part of 2015, Delta (DL) and American (AA) discontinued their interline agreement, which meant that Concur’s default methods for reserving flights could encounter errors when finalising a user’s reservation. Since then, Concur has been adjusting messages to call out the situation, assisting the user during booking.

With this release, since all issues have been resolved, Concur has removed the text in the standard "unable to price" popup that references American and Delta.

User Benefit: This change should reduce confusion for users that see the "unable to price" message, especially those that are not booking AA/DL mixed itineraries.

American Airlines Choice Fares to be Discontinued on 6 December, 2016

American Airlines offered additional fare options for travel in the main cabin, within the continental United States, with the introduction of the Choice Essential and Choice Plus fare options. These fare options provide specific features such as no change fee, preferred boarding, checked baggage and more.

American Airlines recently announced that the Choice Essential and Choice Plus fare offerings are no longer available as of 6 December, 2016.

**COMING SOON – January 2017** Remove Invalid Seat Selection, Finish Booking – United Airlines (UA) and/or American Airlines (AA)

Starting with the January release, if a user is assigned to a premium seat on United Airlines (UA) and/or American Airlines (AA) but does not qualify for a premium seat, the seat will be cancelled and the reservations (PNR) will be created without the seat assignment. Users must contact their TMC or the carriers directly to secure the proper seat assignment.

User Benefit: Bookings will no longer fail and customers will now be able to secure the booking and desired fare without a delay.

Web Fares

Mandatory User Login for Ryanair (Repeat from Last Month)

Ryanair has started to introduce mandatory user login for the Irish market as of 1 November, 2016. The reason for this is that they want to encourage users to book on their website instead of using screen-scraping tools.

Travelfusion – Add "Agent Affiliate ID" for Avianca Brazil

With the October 2016 release, we announced the availability of Avianca Brazil in Concur via Travelfusion as a B2B carrier. In order to grant full access to their content, Avianca requires the additional parameter – the Agent Affiliate ID. With this release, we support the required parameter.

Air Asia via Travelfusion

We are happy to announce that Air Asia (AK) will be available via Travelfusion with this release. Air Asia is the largest low-cost carrier in Asia and offers flights to over 100 destinations in Asia and Australia. As part of the Travelfusion integration, the following airlines belonging to the Air Asia network will become available: Air Asia (AK), PT Indonesia AirAsia (QZ), Thai AirAsia (FD), Philippines AirAsia (Z2), AirAsia India (I5), AirAsia X (D7), Thai AirAsia X (XJ) and PT Indonesia AirAsia Extra (XT)

User Benefit: With Air Asia, customers now have access to the largest low-cost carrier network in Asia via Concur.

Travelfusion – Improve Error Messages

In response to customer feedback, we have updated our error messages that a user may see in a Travelfusion booking. The new messaging provides more information and better instructions for the user.

User Benefit: The new messaging should provide enough information so the user can correct the error and then continue with the booking.

Hotel

Auto-Cancel if Hotel Service Segment is a Part of the Trip

Currently, if a Hotel Service supplier (as defined in the Hotel Service TSG) hotel reservation segment is part of the trip, the trip cannot be auto-cancelled in these cases: trip unfinished by the user, trip on hold time-out, trip rejected by the manager, trip not approved in time by the manager.

With this release, these exceptions will be removed; auto-cancel will work the same for Hotel Service suppliers as for GDS hotels – based on the client configuration.

Train

**COMING SOON** Renfe and Swedish Rail Available via Concur Travel

Concur Travel currently provides rail content for US, Canada, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Concur will add content for Spain (Renfe) and Sweden to the portfolio of Concur Travel rail carriers. We are targeting end of the first calendar quarter of 2017 to have the content available.

User Benefit: Travellers can book rail content for Spain and Sweden in Concur Travel – a single, intuitive, web-based interface with effortless user experience.

Profile

Air Travel Preferences – Vegetarian Hindu Meal

Concur updated the travel profile to include Vegetarian Hindu Meal (AVML) to ensure that Concur offers meal options that meet the needs of all travellers. The Vegetarian Hindu Meal is widely accepted by airlines and GDSs while the current Hindu Meal is not. With this release, both are available.

User Benefit: This addition provides better options for all travellers.

**COMING SOON** XML Profile Sync Moves to Deprecated State 1 January, 2017

Starting in the October release, XML Profile Sync will move into a deprecated state. Moving to a deprecated state means that Concur will address only mission-critical issues between January and June 2017. After June 2017, Concur will no longer support XML Profile Sync as a way to synchronise profile data with Concur.

Meeting

**COMING SOON** Concur Meeting Discontinued as of 1 January, 2018

Concur will discontinue Concur Meeting on 1 January, 2018. Therefore, we are recommending that all Concur Meeting Management clients transition to a third-party meeting management solution that integrates with Concur as soon as possible. These partners and partner integrations are available for our customers today.

Miscellaneous

Online Help - New Languages Available

Concur has updated and expanded the translated online help available for clients. In this release, the Help menu links point to the new translated help. The following languages have been promoted from Tier 2 to Tier 1: Czech (cs), Danish (da), Finnish (fi), Korean (ko), Norwegian (no), Polish (pl) and Russian (ru)

In addition, the translations for the existing Tier 1 languages have been updated.

Release Note Admin Summaries Now Available in Online Help

Concur has enhanced the release note information available in the online help by adding new pages that present release note information and Admin Summaries. The What's New and Release Note Admin Summary links now appear in the left menu of the online help for all admin users.

The release note Admin Summaries (HTML format) will be translated into all Tier 1 languages. The administrator can also view the full release notes (English only, in DOC or PDF format), and the release calendar. The translated Admin Summaries will be available through these pages shortly after the monthly release.

User Benefit: The What's New page brings together all the information that Concur provides for each release, giving busy administrators a single location to check. The new Admin Summary translations provide global administrators a summary of monthly changes in their language.

Google Calendar – Ground Bookings Supported

Concur has added support for ground bookings via the Google calendar integration. This enhancement is available only to clients with an active Google calendar integration.

User Benefit: The user now sees ground bookings within their Google calendar.

**COMING SOON** Support for TLS v 1.0 Encryption Protocol to End March of 2017

Concur announces an End of Support cycle for version 1.0 of the TLS encryption protocol, continuing support for the more secure 1.1 and 1.2 versions of TLS. As background, the TLS protocol allows secure back and forth communications between a phone or computer and a cloud-based service.