While I doubt it will ever happen (years ago I put some effort into it, all for naught), the airlines could make life for TMCs, travelers and travel managers a lot less complicated and much more efficient were they (by guiding approval through the Airlines Reporting Corp. and International Air Transport Association) to allow a service fee to made a part of the ticket. Their mantra has been "we don't want anyone messing with the price of our ticket," but that is flawed reasoning. Rebates were a form of messing with the price; service fees are not--as long as they are spelled out and clear to the customer, for whom service fees are an integral part of the transaction. In conjunction with solving the
air fee problem you discussed in Management.travel and
The Beat, it would make tremendous sense to facilitate the billing of service fees in this way. Beyond agency "convenience," integrating the elements of a transaction would be a godsend for traveler expense reporting and for travel management reporting, as well. There would be
one form of payment for the whole ticket. In reporting credit card sales to ARC, the agency would take a credit for the service fee, less any charge back (for the credit card discount, for example).
It would make a lot of sense. But I'm not holding my breath ...