Yapta began a pilot program with "several large travel management companies" to test a new tool designed to capture savings when airfares drop.
CorpTrav Management Group, a woman-owned TMC based in Lombard, Illinois, is participating in the pilot of FareIQ, a tool which ties into back-end systems and identifies lower fares based on business travelers' itineraries.
"Our technology finds lower prices, their clients re-book to save money, and the agency strengthens the value of its services," says Ken Myer, Yapta's president and interim CEO.
Yapta, founded in 2007, is known for tracking airfare price drops for consumers and has been shifting part of its business into the corporate travel market recently. It is hunting for a new CEO since co-founder Tom Romary left the company in late 2011 for a position at Rearden Commerce.
Lisa Donovan Berry, senior vice president of sales and marketing at CorpTrav Management Group, says one of the values of FareIQ is it doesn't necessarily impact travelers' itineraries and can coincide with corporate travel policies.
"Since FareIQ looks for savings based on identical itineraries, travelers maintain the same carrier, travel dates, departure times and other preferences," Donovan Berry says.
Yapta has been beta testing the tool for several months.
TripIt Pro, a service of Concur, currently tracks airfare price drops for business travelers, but not for TMCs.