On June 12, FLO Corp., a Registered Traveler enrollment provider, announced a new a distribution agreement with Advantage Performance Network, a meetings, incentives, and corporate travel company headquartered in Savage, Minn. Six days later, FLO had more news: another partnership, this time with Universal Meeting Management Inc., a meetings management company located in Raleigh, N.C.
“It’s not rocket science,” says Luke Thomas, executive vice president, strategy, FLO Corp. “Registered Traveler is tailor-made for the business traveler, and the meetings channel is a very effective way of organizing business travel.”
The agreements with Advantage and Universal give FLO the opportunity to market its RT product and even enroll new customers at corporate events managed by Advantage. “We are always looking for ways to add value for clients when they make a strategic investment in an important meeting or incentive event,” said Advantage CEO Mary Sue Leathers in a statement announcing the partnership. “It’s a real benefit to be able to offer a customized RT enrollment process while a group of colleagues are together at a corporate event.”
While being able to offer FLO services to meeting attendees is an important part of these agreements, says Thomas, the opportunity to expose FLO to meeting planners is even more critical from a strategic standpoint.
“These are important people from large corporations,” says Thomas. “So this gives us a potential entrée into the entire corporation, where we can offer our package to all of their corporate travelers.”
Thomas says that FLO’s package of benefits helps to make it unique in the increasingly competitive RT market. “We offer a whole series of door-to-door benefits [beyond the benefit of moving travelers through airport security lines],” Thomas says. Depending on the membership level, a FLO card carrier, for example, can receive travel-related discounts, concierge services, airline lounge access, medical services, and even mortgage benefits.
Whether passengers secure their “registered traveler” status through FLO or Verified Identity Pass’ Clear program, a well-established competitor, they can use fast lanes at any of the 18 airports around the United States that have Registered Traveler programs. At least seven others airports are expected to open RT lanes in the next several months.
The country’s busiest airport, Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International, announced in May that it has awarded its Registered Traveler contract to Verified Identity Pass. On the heels of that news, Verified announced a partnership with Delta Air Lines that will allow it to operate RT lanes at Delta terminals at New York’s LaGuardia and JFK airports, as well as Los Angeles International Airport. Delta’s hub airports—Atlanta, Cincinnati, and Salt Lake City—all operate, or will soon offer, RT lanes.
While Clear has previously negotiated agreements with foreign airlines such as British Airways and Air France, Delta is the first major American airline to embrace Registered Traveler.