GoBumpFree eases travel headaches for airline employees

HALIFAX —GoBumpFree launched its website July 13 with the aim of enabling airline employees to take full advantage of their personal-travel benefits at zero risk.

Coming from a background in the aviation industry, GoBumpFree president and CEO Donna Lavallee is familiar with a problem faced by its employees. While they get the benefits of unlimited travel for families, parents, kids and buddies, their flights are very last-minute. If they book a hotel, they run the risk of losing their money if they are bumped from a flight.

“As a former airline employee, I was always concerned with the risk and obligation of being ‘bumped’ when using space available benefits for travel. I thought there must be a better way. Made exclusively for airline employees and your buddies, GoBumpFree lets you book last minute hotel rooms without the risk of cancellation fees,” Lavallee explains on the @GoBumpFree Twitter URL. Employees can sign up for free, book their room and cancel if their flight gets bumped. For hotels, it’s a way to get rid of last minute available rooms. The only requirement is that they don’t charge a cancellation fee.

Consequently, she and Paula Broaders, director of operations, developed the GoBumpFree travel portal.

Broaders, whose background is in business operations and management, including four years in aviation, said they have signed up 46 Choice Hotels locations in Canada, along with hundreds of La Quinta properties, Bahia Principe, Charisma and Gloria hotels around the world. The company has hired Kris Crundwell, who is well-known in the Canadian hospitality industry, to develop the hotel side of the business in Canada.

Airline employees have exclusive access to the online portal and can sign-up for free. Via service agreements with GoBumpFree’s partner hotels and resorts, airline employees book their hotel room or resort and cancel should they get bumped with zero risk.

With GoBumpFree, participating hotels and resorts are able to sell off their last-minute available inventory and have a viable option for incremental revenue.