The Challenge

Ohio State entered the early stage of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic with a significant number of unused airline credits. Knowing that these tickets were non-refundable and travel wouldn’t be returning for the foreseeable future, Ohio State turned to CTP to help.

The Solution

After several meetings with CTP and our airline vendor partners, OSU elected for an individualized airline credit redemption process (keeping the credits in the individual faculty/staff member name for that specific individual’s later usage).

CTP worked with OSU on the standard operating procedure for ticket redemption – specifically highlighting tickets with waivers to perform a name change without penalty: and reversely, procedure and authorization for tickets with a financial penalty with a name change.

CTP’s software validated airline waivers and extended expiration dates for unused tickets, keeping OSU’s unused airline credit reporting updated and clean.

In tandem, CTP analyzed OSU’s unused airline credit log for all refunds available. Airlines are required to refund many tickets in response to travel restrictions and cancellations. As carriers are limiting travel management companies’ ability to process refunds, CTP had to manually process the refunds through the airline carriers directly to achieve maximum savings. A team of five CTP travel agents and OSU’s account executive invested 200+ man-hours on the project.

The Results

CTP successfully received $260,000 in refunds on non-refundable airline tickets, roughly 17% of the total unused ticket bank.