SAS is a global data and analytics leader with more than $3 billion in revenue and 12,000 employees across 65 countries. For nearly two decades, the company operated its own Corporate Travel Department (CTD) in the U.S. while relying on partner TMCs for its international offices.
In 2024, SAS had reached a crossroads. Its legacy OBT struggled to produce reliable data: duplicate records, missing profiles, and out-of-sync information had become routine, forcing agents to spend hours fixing errors rather than helping travelers. At the same time, the post-pandemic shift in travel volume eroded the economics that once sustained the CTD model, and fragmented global servicing made it difficult for agents to support travelers outside their home regions.
“We had reached a crossroads, and that crossroads has two paths,” said Richard Clowes, Director of Travel Operations at SAS. “Do you persevere with the old method and hope that it evolves? Or do you start with someone new who is making that road based on current technology, not technology from 30 or 40 years ago?”
SAS needed a travel platform that could modernize self-service, dramatically improve data quality, unify global servicing, and provide open APIs to future-proof the program.
After piloting Spotnana in early 2024, SAS selected Avenir: Travel Edition, powered by Spotnana’s Travel-as-a-Service platform, and chose Direct Travel as its global travel management company (TMC). SAS launched in the U.S. in mid-2025, with a phased global rollout already underway.
Technology built for how travel actually works
SAS began piloting Spotnana in early 2024. In the first month alone, Spotnana generated more NDC bookings than their previous solution had produced in the prior ten months.
For Clowes, who had long been waiting for a modern system of record to solve his data quality challenges, the pilot was a turning point.
“All our data problems disappeared virtually overnight,” said Clowes. “Profiles not syncing, missing data, inaccurate records: those questions are now gone. This is the best data fluidity we’ve ever had.”
After the pilot, SAS selected Avenir: Travel Edition from Direct Travel, built on Spotnana’s travel platform. He deployed a rent-a-plate model with in-house SAS travel agents backed by Direct Travel’s global servicing model. Together Spotnana and Direct Travel offered something the market had previously lacked: modern technology combined with the high-touch service SAS travelers and agents depend on.
By leveraging Spotnana’s modern architecture, Avenir enables any agent to service any traveler from any location. “With Avenir, our team can service any of our people as if we were supporting them locally,” said Clowes. “That’s powerful, and it’s one of the reasons we switched.”
Through Spotnana’s API-first architecture, SAS was also able to bring trip data directly into its internal Power Platform tools and connect non-traditional bookings, including group lodging from Cvent Passkey and private jet bookings, into a single, unified trip view.
“Our goal was simple: one complete view of travel, no matter how it’s booked,” said Clowes.
Transforming data, traveler experiences, and servicing
Within the first three months of launching in the U.S. with Direct Travel, online adoption increased 5% from the prior solution.
The improvement in data quality, however, was the most immediate and striking outcome. With real-time trip records, accurate manifests, and a modern data pipeline, the chronic problems of missing profiles and inconsistent reporting disappeared.
Clowes called the quality of data he now receives the best of his career, a stark contrast to the legacy stack where data reliability degraded the further east his travelers went.
The shift to a hybrid rent-a-plate model, which combines SAS agents with Direct Travel’s global servicing infrastructure, was significant, but Spotnana’s global-first architecture made it work. U.S. and German agents can now support travelers anywhere in the world on the same platform, with access to the same content, profiles, and policies.
SAS now sees that more than 97% of unused credits are redeemed prior to expiration. Travelers also praise the Microsoft Outlook integration, clean interface, and the ability to make self-service changes without calling an agent.
“This move puts us on the right footing for the future,” said Clowes.
