SANTA CLARA, Calif.-When most travelers plan out their itineraries, the most pressing needs involve finding an airline flight and booking the hotel reservations. If you are lucky you may even be able to match the two correctly and avoid spending any uncomfortable nights sleeping in the airport or hotel lobby.
In setting up travel plans, many people overlook the details of how they are going to get from one place to another upon arriving at their destination until they actually get there.
With 24 years of experience in the car rental business, Mark Walker wants to help out with this problem with Easy Reservations, a San Antonio-based full-service online travel agency that allows travelers to make car reservations from a range of Internet-enabled mobile phones and WAP-compliant personal digital assistants.
“Easy Reservations’ wireless application empowers the independent, tech-savvy business and leisure traveler,” said Walker, president of Easy Reservations. “For those travelers who lack the luxury of a personal assistant or corporate travel planner or for those who prefer to make their own plans, Easy Reservations is the perfect, portable travel assistant.”
To set up the service, users visit Easy Reservations’ wired Internet site and establish a personal profile. The profile includes travel-related information for each individual traveler, ranging from applicable corporate discounts and frequent rental membership numbers to preferred car types and rental car companies.
Once the personal profile is activated, it is automatically recognized by Easy Reservations’ wireless application on the traveler’s wireless device. Consumers then can access the wireless site and compare car rental rates and availability at airports in more than 200 U.S. cities and 100 international destinations.
The available rental cars are displayed in order from least expensive to most expensive, with future applications displaying the selection in order of profile specifications. Once a car is selected from the menu, a reservation request is automatically sent to the rental car agency’s reservation system, which in turn sends out a confirmation number to the wireless device.
“Traveling today is often associated with high levels of urgency, inconvenience and unnecessary stress. Knowing that with Easy Reservations you won’t have to scramble to make a car reservation or find the best possible deal, puts some of the leisure back into all types of travel-whether it’s for business or pleasure,” explained Walker.
Consumers also can access the system to check on their existing reservations or cancel reservations if other accommodations are made.
“The car part is the most fluid part of travel,” Walker said. “Using wireless devices, this service is designed to work well with mobile travelers.”
The service currently allows reservations to be made only for rental cars, though plans are in the works to add hotel and airline capabilities in the future. Walker acknowledged that while the limitation to car rental reservations may not stack up well with other online travel reservation services like Travelocity.com or Trip.com, he noted Easy Reservations is currently the only wireless Web accessible site providing access to rental car services.
