SAA’s SME, corporate and
government fares expired
on March 31, without
communication, resulting in
agents being forced to offsell
to other airlines, contrary
to their standard practice
of maximising SAA override
agreements wherever possible.
However, SAA has since
responded with an official
apology saying it had to
realign its value proposition
to its partners following the
recent network rationalisation.
TNW understands that the
airline has also scheduled
an April 12 meeting with
new ceo, Vuyani Jarana, and
leading corporate travel trade
members, and advised that it
expected the new Customer
Loyalty Programme to be
distributed by April 18.
The revised corporate
special rates are being
activated to minimise the
inconvenience already
caused, said the airline.
In the interim, agents have
now also been authorised that
they can manually build last
year’s fares using authorisation
number WF18.J50.XXX and
the corporate number (CK) in
the endorsement box. The fare
basis must also be changed to
SAACORP/SAAGOV and ticket
numbers must be forwarded to
SAA for tracking purposes.
For used tickets issued from
April 1-12, SAA has committed
to retroactively refund the
applicable discounts using
the last financial year’s fare
sheet structure. For unused
tickets issued from April 1-12,
agents can submit these via
BSP Link for a full refund with
new tickets issued as per
the interim process above.
SAA will also waive its refund
administration fees.
Travel trade sources told
TNW that a handful of new
corporate agreements had
now also been released by
SAA but these showed far
lower discount levels than
usual. “We believe the new
Corporate Loyalty Programme
will not be offering the same
rich discounts to enterprises
compared with what has been
offered in previous years,” said
one anonymous source
