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`booking and destination info.
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`Figure 5.47 The American Express travel and entertainment management process
`
`Travel policy
`
`underlying environmental factors, such as the base
`currency, by means of codes assigned by Amer-
`ican Express as part of the initial set-up process.
`Several other parameters and data elements com-
`bine to form a company’s integrated travel policy,
`including for example:
`
`0 Policy text AXI’s Policy Editor supports the
`inclusion of a company’s full travel policy in
`textual form. The policy may be indexed and
`stored using HTML, which supports hot links
`to other related sections and relevant para-
`meters within the Policy Editor. Eventually,
`AXI will be enhanced to include context sensit-
`
`A travel policy is invariably established at main
`board level within a company. At
`this level,
`it
`usually comprises an overall set of guidelines out-
`lining key directives such as when different classes
`of travel may be used by staff travelling on com-
`pany business and the various entitlements of dif-
`ferent grades of employees. These policy statements
`are expressed as unambiguous guidelines for trav-
`ellers and define a set of rules governing how
`travel suppliers are chosen. Despite the fact that
`this process may appear simple, it is often quite
`challenging for companies actually to implement
`their travel policies consistently throughout their
`organizations. Although it is at the heart of virtu-
`ally all business travel activities, it is surprising
`how many companies either do not have formal
`travel policies or which do not communicate the
`policies effectively to their employees. A comer-
`stone of AXI is therefore the Policy Editor, which
`automates this process.
`AXl’s Policy Editor supports the formalization,
`communication, execution and monitoring of a
`company’s travel policy. Access to the travel policy
`maintenance functions are of course restricted
`
`ive help functions that support automatic back
`referral to specific sections within the travel
`policy, as appropriate to the user’s query.
`0 Preferred and excluded airlines This is a power-
`ful way for the company to keep a tight con-
`trol on precisely which airlines its employees
`use for their business trips. Airlines can, under
`the complete control of the AXI user, either
`be included on the preferred list or specifically
`excluded. The old accusation frequently made
`by airlines during the negotiation process that
`the company has very little influence over which
`flights its employees choose, is groundless. With
`AXI, a company can instantly de-select a given
`airline or add a new carrier to its preferred list;
`any changes such as this take effect immediately.
`Similar functions also apply to hotels and car
`policy parameters. This is sufficiently flexible
`rental services (see the note on filtering below).
`to allow different groups within a company to
`0 City airport selection A travel manager may
`each have their own slightly different travel policy.
`choose the precise airports that are included
`AXI recognizes different policy groups and other
`
`
`to a senior level within the company’s organiza-
`tion. This is often the designated travel manager,
`head of personnel or chief financial officer. AXI
`enables a data base to be maintained of travel
`
`THE INTERNET 241
`
`Petitioners‘ Exhibit 1021, Page 250
`
`

`
`in availability displays for any given city. For
`example, a regional airport may offer cheaper
`flights than a city centre hub. However, re-
`gional airports have the disadvantage that they
`are often not quite so convenient. The person
`setting the travel policy can choose which air-
`ports to include in the GDS displays shown
`to their travellers by AXI (see the note on
`filtering below).
`0 Number of stops The maximum number of
`flight stops may be specified within AXI by
`the company as part of its policy. This allows
`the company to decide the limit to which it is
`prepared to let its employees suffer multiple
`stops en route to their destinations, in order
`to achieve low cost fares. Generally speaking,
`the higher the number of stops, the lower the
`fares. However, flight stops increase travelling
`time and add to a traveller’s discomfort. It is
`
`therefore important that their use is carefully
`controlled. AXI will not show alternative flights
`that feature more stops than the maximum
`specified in the Policy Editor (see the note on
`filtering below).
`0 Filtering Many of the travel policy functions
`supported by AXI employ filtering techniques
`such as those described above. Filtering allows
`a company to decide those suppliers, airports
`and travel arrangements that are both allow-
`able and non-allowable, within the bounds of
`its travel policy. While the AXI technology
`supports filtering, the decision over precisely
`how the filtering parameters are used is totally
`under the control of the client company. If a
`company decides not to use filtering, then its
`AXI users will be presented with all options
`reported as available by GDSs and other in-
`formation systems accessed by AXI. In many
`respects this is no different from the way
`companies enforce their travel policies at the
`moment in a manual environment. The differ-
`
`ence with AXI is that the technology allows
`companies to be more successful in applying
`their policies in actual practice and this in turn
`allows them to control their travel expendit-
`ure more effectively.
`
`The automatic application of an effective travel
`policy provides a company with a substantial bar-
`
`242 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR TRAVEL AND TOURISM
`
`gaining lever in its negotiations with suppliers,
`Historically, suppliers have taken the position in
`rate negotiation meetings that companies have very
`little immediate control over their employee's travel
`decisions. It used to be very difficult to get em.
`ployees to switch from using one travel supplier,
`to using another, e.g. to switch from using Airline
`A from City 1 to using Airline B from City 1
`without impacting other airlines and cities. With
`widespread use of AXI, however, this is perfectly
`possible (Fig. 5.48). By making a number of simple
`adjustments to AXI’s Policy Editor, the company
`can cause an immediate impact on the business
`delivered to specified travel suppliers.
`
`Planning, reservations and booking
`
`Trip planning is a vast area within business travel
`and it is closely integrated with the reservations
`and booking process. This is why I have merged
`these two stages of the business travel life cycle
`into this single section. Historically, these stages
`have arguably been a booker’s prime time-waster
`because the tasks involved can mean long spells
`on the telephone explaining travel requirements
`to a secretary or a travel agent, which is then
`followed by frequent call backs and changes asso-
`ciated with fare selection. With AXI, the business
`traveller or their designated booker, e.g. a secret-
`ary or personal assistant, can cut out these time
`wasting intermediate steps by directly accessing
`travel information, fare data bases and availabil-
`ity information themselves. What’s more, the AXI
`system enables the traveller’s personal preferences
`always to be taken into account at each stage.
`Let’s examine how AXI supports the provision
`of travel information and reservation services in a
`little more detail:
`
`0 Travel information For many travellers, the
`first stage in the trip planning process is to
`carry out some basic research on the destina-
`tion areas included in their proposed itiner-
`aries. AXI provides access to Microsoft’s
`global mapping and travel information data
`base, which I have explained above under the
`Expedia heading. For corporate travellers this
`can be extremely useful because it allows them
`to check information, such as whether or not
`visas are required for the countries they intend
`
`Petitioners‘ Exhibit 1021, Page 251
`
`

`
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`Northern Marianas, Puma Rico. U S Vurgm Islands, and Vllgll Islands)
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`Honduras. Nicaragua, Panama, Manna)
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`Figure 5.48 AXI general air policies page
`
`
`to visit, what the weather forecast is for the
`region and what cultural events are taking place
`during their planned stays. The travel data base
`also contains a great deal of detailed infor-
`mation on restaurants and other attractions in
`the destination area.
`
`date and time of travel, class of travel and many
`other parameters. When a traveller decides
`to request an availability display, AXI first
`consults its internal data base of specially nego-
`tiated fares for the itinerary specified. It uses
`these to construct an availability request that
`is sent to the GDS. In the USA, AXI uses the
`0 Air Travellers use the AXI GUI to define their
`Sabre GDS; however, other major GDSs may
`requirements in terms of from/to city pairs,
`
`THE INTERNET 243
`
`Petitioners‘ Exhibit 1021, Page 252
`
`

`
`AX! rlagm
`
`Seat Pinpointer
`Below you’ll fmd a map ofthe seats forthus flight Click
`on the seat you wanna reserve Use the Next Flight and
`Previous Flight buttons to switch between flights
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`
`well become available in the future as AXI is
`enhanced and extended over time.
`
`The GDS responds with an availability dis-
`play for each flight that meets the traveller’s
`requested itinerary. Flights that are outside the
`company’s travel policy may either be shown
`with a flag designating them as ‘outside policy’
`or they may be excluded from the display
`altogether. The decision on which of these
`display options is implemented is made by the
`company and specified within the travel policy
`section of AXI. The availability display shows
`flights either:
`(a)
`in sequence on fare price;
`or (b) in sequence with those closest to the
`
`chosen itinerary first and those farthest away
`last. The prices shown on the display are those
`that are taken either from the negotiated fares
`data base or from the scheduled fare as stored
`
`within the GDS. Negotiated fares may be either
`those obtained by American Express and avail-
`able specifically for its customers or those that
`have been obtained by the company itself.
`The traveller simply selects their chosen
`flight and can then either: (a) store the flight
`details as part of an itinerary that they are
`building in AXI, or (b) proceed with making
`the reservation. To make the reservation, the
`traveller’s preferences must be entered. These
`
`244 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR TRAVEL AND TOURISM
`
`Petitioners‘ Exhibit 1021, Page 253
`
`

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`
`0 Hotels and car rental AXI uses a data base
`
`can automatically populate many of the fields
`on the reservations page from a personal pro-
`file that each authorized traveller can maintain
`themself within AXI. This stores fields such as
`
`of hotels and car rental companies that is main-
`tained globally by Microsoft as part of its MTT
`service. This data base is also updated by
`American Express with details of specially
`meal types, smoking or non-smoking prefer-
`negotiated rates (Fig. 5.50). These special rates
`ences, the desired aircraft seating position, e.g.
`may in fact be of two main types: (i) rates that
`aisle or window, frequent flyer programme
`have been negotiated by American Express for
`details and many more. Naturally, these pre-
`general use by its corporate customers, or (ii)
`populated fields may be overridden by the trav-
`rates that have been negotiated by corporate
`eller as necessary. When a reservations request
`customers themselves and are only available
`has been successfully answered,
`i.e.
`the re-
`for their own use. Depending upon the author-
`quested seat or seats are available on the flight,
`ity of the end user,
`this data base may be
`AXI’s GDS response may in many instances
`searched and reviewed in many different ways.
`offer the traveller a scrollable seat map of the
`(From here onwards, I am going to be talking
`aircraft (Fig. 5.49). This shows seats already
`about hotels, as we explore how AXI works,
`reserved, those seats that are only available
`but virtually the same remarks apply to car
`to members of the airline’s frequent flyer pro-
`rental.)
`grammes and other available seats on the flight.
`When a corporate traveller requests AXI
`The AXI seat map therefore allows the traveller
`to perfonn a hotel search, the AXI server filters
`to choose their own seat: the availability of
`the data base to show the user only those
`this function within AXI depends on whether
`hotels that their travel policy allows them to
`or not it is supported by each airline’s CRS.
`
`
`THE INTERNET 245
`
`Petitioners‘ Exhibit 1021, Page 254 T
`
`

`
`see and that meet their stated accommodation
`
`requirements. At its highest level, the selected
`data base listing shows summary information
`and possibly a picture of the hotel, in ascending
`sequence on room rate. (The choice of whether
`or not to include a picture on these pages is
`taken by the hotel or its parent chain com-
`pany in conjunction with Microsoft who retains
`editing control over the hotel data base.) If
`further details are required, the user may either
`choose to view details of the hotel and its
`
`amenities or may choose to view a map using
`Hotel Pinpointer.
`The mapping feature is similar in many ways
`to that already explained above for Expedia,
`because AXI uses the same MTT platform to
`support this function. The map shown on the
`AXI first response page pinpoints the selected
`hotel in a wide-area context that includes the
`chosen destination. The user can then choose
`to zoom in and view the hotel’s location at
`
`closer quarters or use the mouse to determine
`how far the chosen hotel is from certain land-
`
`marks. The user also has the option of draw-
`ing a box on the map and then viewing all of
`the hotels that fall within this boxed area. This
`
`is a powerful yet extremely simple to use fea-
`ture of AXI, which has the added benefit of
`allowing the user to print the map for inclu-
`sion as a part of their travel documentation
`(Fig. 5.51).
`When a hotel is chosen by the corporate
`traveller, the first two things they will want
`to know are the availability of the required
`room in that property and the daily room rate.
`AXI firstly interrogates its hotel data base for
`property and rate information. Following this,
`it automatically links to the GDS for room
`availability information. The following situ-
`ations may subsequently occur, depending upon
`the hotel and rate chosen by the user. Either:
`(a) if the hotel and the rate are present in the
`GDS, then the availability is shown with an
`option to book on-line, (b) if the rate selected
`by the user is not stored within the hotel’s
`GDS record then the user is offered the option
`of sending an availability request directly to
`the hotel, or (c) if the hotel itself is not present
`
`in the GDS then a request can be sent to the
`appropriate American Express travel office for
`follow-up and booking.
`All requests made via AXI are handled by
`GDS PNR queuing systems that may employ
`several communication channels including, for
`example, teletype, e-mail, fax or the telephone.
`It is interesting to note that in case (a) above,
`the hotel and the traveller receive confirma-
`tion of the booking on-line, but the hotel must
`then pay the GDS a booking fee; whereas in
`(b) and (c) the hotel must manually process
`the incoming request to make the reservation
`and the traveller must wait for a confirmation,
`but the hotel does not need to pay the GDS a
`booking fee. It will be interesting to see how
`these economic dynamics influence the future
`ways in which hotels choose to record their
`rates within the GDSs, in particular for cus-
`tomer bookings involving specially negotiated
`rates.
`
`The entire planning, reservations and booking
`process is undertaken within the company’s travel
`policy, as created by the travel manager. This
`means that the availability displays that are shown
`and the rates that are used are all filtered through
`the travel policy parameters (see the note on
`filtering in the travel policy section above). If, for
`example, the company has decided not to include
`a specific airline in its displays, then that airline
`will not show on a corporate traveller’s availabil-
`ity display. Finally, AXI checks to ensure that the
`planned trip falls totally within travel policy with
`regard to fare, class and carrier.
`The company’s travel manager determines the
`appropriate action to be taken when an attempt
`to book an out-of-policy trip is detected by AXI.
`The action taken can vary in intensity from a
`simple warning to the traveller, right through to
`freezing the booking altogether. If the booking
`requires pre-trip authorization, AXI will ensure it
`is not completed or ticketed until
`the required
`level of authority has been granted. This is achieved
`by means of a message that is automatically sent
`by AX] to the person responsible for authoriza-
`tion. This person can view all the trip’s details,
`including any explanations for the out-of-policy
`
`246 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR TRAVEL AND TOURISM
`
`Petitioners‘ Exhibit 1021, Page 255
`
`

`
`situation that the booker may have previously
`entered.
`In certain situations, a company may allow an
`out-of-policy trip to go ahead. The company can
`use AXI to decide how it wishes to proceed in
`such cases. For example, AXI can either: (a) simply
`warn the travel manager that an out-of-policy trip
`is under way;
`(b) warn and document the out-
`of-policy booking and prevent it from proceed-
`ing; (c) document the situation but automatically
`authorize the trip, and so on. Each company can
`therefore use AXI to report out-of-policy situations
`as it sees fit for its travelling employees.
`
`Ticketing and boarding
`
`As electronic ticketing becomes more widespread,
`the issues associated with ticket delivery and board-
`ing will recede into the background. Although AXI
`can handle e-ticket transactions, for the moment,
`the vast majority of airline tickets must be phys-
`ically delivered to the traveller prior to their de-
`parture date. This may be accomplished by three
`methods:
`(i) ticket on departure - the ticket is
`collected by the traveller from an airline desk at
`the airport, (ii) collected from travel agent — AXI
`can queue the ticket for printing by an American
`Express travel agency location near to the trav-
`eller, or (iii) delivered to the traveller’s home or
`office by secure express courier. For home or of-
`fice delivery in the USA, American Express queues
`all tickets to the chosen carrier’s central distribu-
`
`tion hub, e.g. for Federal Express this is located
`in Memphis. The tickets are actually printed on-
`site in the hub, packaged and delivered overnight
`to the traveller’s home or office. If at any time the
`traveller wishes to check on the status of their
`
`delivery, the AXI Web site home page contains a
`hot link to the carrier's own Web site. The Airbill
`
`Tracking number is used as the key to support
`enquiries from travellers.
`
`Payment and expense processing
`
`Payment for travel services can be supported by
`AXI in several alternative ways. Charges can, for
`example, be billed to the traveller’s own American
`Express corporate card. This can be attractive from
`the company’s viewpoint because it eliminates
`
`many of the accounts payable functions that are
`an inherent part of business travel. Or, certain
`expenses such as air and rail tickets can be billed
`to a lodge card. A lodge card is a single American
`Express card against which company travel expend-
`iture is billed on a central basis, for all employees.
`The choice of payment method implemented by
`AXI is chosen by the client company in conjunc-
`tion with American Express.
`AXI also automates one of the banes of every
`traveller’s life - the completion of an expense
`voucher following completion of the traveller’s
`business trip. These functions are provided by AXI’s
`Expense Manager application (Fig. 5.52). The
`primary source for the electronic expense voucher
`is the card charges that are submitted to American
`Express by service establishments, i.e. places where
`the traveller has used their card to purchase goods
`and services. When American Express receives these
`records of charge, either electronically or in paper
`form, they are input at regional operating centres
`around the world and eventually find their way
`into the corporate traveller’s American Express card
`account. These charges may be viewed by the trav-
`eller and categorized for inclusion in their elec-
`tronic travel expense voucher. Charges may be viewed
`in detail and the traveller may split them into the
`expense categories that their company uses.
`In future, service establishment charge records
`may be available that are already split according
`to the services used. This is particularly relevant
`to hotel charges where the actual room rate may
`be only a small proportion of the total check-out
`bill. Not only will this facility make life easier for
`the corporate traveller but it will also enable the
`company’s buyers to include other relevant ex-
`penditure in addition to room charges, when they
`negotiate future room rates with hotels and hotel
`chains. Finally, the traveller may create new en-
`tries for inclusion within their electronic expense
`voucher to record non-card expenditure, such as
`cash spent on taxis, tips and snacks. When the
`traveller is happy that their electronic expense
`voucher is complete, it is e-mailed to their desig-
`nated authorizor (usually their line manager), for
`electronic approval. Approved expense vouchers
`are filed in a data warehouse that forms the basis
`
`for AXI’s management information.
`
`
`
`THE INTERNET 247
`
`Petitioners‘ Exhibit 1021, Page 255
`
`

`
`V
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`
`Management information
`
`AXI has been integrated with several powerful
`management information applications that were
`originally designed to run in stand—alone mode on
`a company’s own in-house PC. The functionality
`of these applications, known as Card Power and
`Trip Power, has now been migrated to AXI’s
`Internet server, thus providing users with a choice
`
`248 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR TRAVEL AND TOURISM
`
`of whether to run them locally or via the Web
`server. These software tools provide both internal
`and external management information functions.
`Authorized users can employ these management
`information support tools to select and process
`historical internal data in a variety of ways to
`measure travel expenditure and keep a check on
`the amount of business delivered to suppliers. In-
`formation on actual expenditure incurred can be
`
`Petitioners‘ Exhibit 1021, Page 257
`
`

`
`extremely valuable to a company in negotiating
`the best possible deals with suppliers and in review-
`ing the effectiveness of a company’s travel policy.
`An important source of external travel indus-
`try data is also available to authorized AXI users,
`such as the company’s financial officer or travel
`manager. These data are researched and published
`by American Express Consulting Services and pro-
`file the travel patterns of other companies, e.g. the
`Air Fare Survey Index. Such information can serve
`as an extremely useful yardstick for benchmarking
`exercises that establish the relative effectiveness
`
`of a company’s travel policy 1/is-it-uis others in
`related fields. In particular, it allows the company
`to review its corporate rates for air travel, hotels
`and car rental services with industry averages by
`business sector and city pairs.
`
`The technology
`
`rates negotiated directly between clients and
`certain high volume travel suppliers. The core
`of the data base that stores hotel and car rental
`
`information is maintained centrally by Microsoft
`and distributed electronically to the AXI server.
`0 Travel reservations server The travel reser-
`vations server is located within Microsoft’s
`
`computer facility in Redmond, Washington
`State. It actually comprises a number of server
`computers running software that interconnects
`AXI users with the GDSs, each of which uses
`different communications technology. Access
`to the GDSs provides AXI users with reserva-
`tions functions for airlines, hotels, car rental
`services and, eventually, local supplier access
`in international areas.
`0 Front-office AXI’s front-office client PC envir-
`
`onment supports access to [ntemet technology
`and local processing using software that runs
`in the employee’s desk-top or lap-top com-
`puter. The AXI PC client supports any browser
`that is HTML 3.0 compliant. The security and
`authentication standards used are SSL and
`
`Private Communications Technology (PCT).
`These enable credit and charge card transac-
`tions to be carried safely over the net. AXI also
`uses established American Express software
`products that provide company employees with
`a comprehensive business travel and expense
`management system.
`
`All these products and remote data bases may be
`accessed via the Internet or a corporate Intranet
`from an employee’s own desk-top or lap-top PC.
`So, as you will see from the above, AXI provides
`access to air, hotel and car rental reservations, a
`data base of company negotiated travel supplier
`rates, the company’s travel policy, preferred sup-
`plier prompts, a wealth of destination information
`and the ability to track business travel transactions.
`The AXI service is a living product that will con-
`tinually be modified and enhanced to provide
`applicability to other areas of the world. It will,
`products include Windows NT Server, Internet
`for example, be adapted to show local language,
`Information Server and SQL Server. In addi-
`value—added tax, foreign currencies and different
`tion to this, Microsoft products are also used
`postal code formats instead of USA zip codes. As
`to connect into American Express’ back-office
`the system is rolled out to other countries, it will
`systems, which feature a quality control appli-
`connect into local supplier systems via its links with
`cation, electronic ticketing, a low fare search
`the world’s GDSs. There are three connectivity
`facility and support for a data base of special
`
`
`The AXI development uses the MTT platform for
`many of its functions. This is the same platform
`that was used to launch Expedia, Microsoft’s own
`leisure travel oriented Web site. The web pages
`use frame technology throughout, which makes
`the system very easy to use and navigate. Frames
`allow users to drill down into the depths of data
`structures yet always provide a means to hot link
`into completely new areas. Under the terms of the
`joint venture contract, American Express has a
`two-year exclusive licence to the jointly developed
`corporate product. The AXI architecture comprises
`several different elements:
`
`0 AXI Web server This is an Internet server
`
`operated by American Express that runs soft-
`ware applications supporting:
`(a) a central
`data base of travel-related information, and
`(b) the core AXI processing functions. AXI
`uses Microsoft back-office server software to
`
`support the Internet, Intranet, or for that mat-
`ter client/server technologies for networking
`and central data base access. These Microsoft
`
`THE INTERNET 249
`
`Petitioners‘ Exhibit 1021, Page 253
`
`

`
`Corporate environment
`
`AXI
`server
`
`Web
`browser
`
`Corporate
`intranet
`
`Web
`browser
`
`Corporate
`intranet
`
`Firewall
`
`Firewall
`
`External environment
`
`AXI
`Server
`
`Reservations
`
`Web
`browser
`
`Internet
`World Wide
`Web
`
`Controlled
`access
`
`AXI
`server
`
`Extranet
`
`Internet
`
`Figure 5.53 AXI network options
`
`options that American Express customers may
`choose: Internet, Intranet or Extranet (Fig. 5.53).
`These are shown in Fig. 5.53 and are summarized
`as follows:
`
`0
`
`Internet With the Internet option, both the
`corporate traveller and the company’s head
`office staff access AXI via the public Internet.
`Dial—in access is provided by the company’s
`chosen ISP. Using the Internet has the benefit
`of wide—scale geographical availability, includ-
`ing access services provided by ISPs with gate-
`ways in many countries around the world.
`Global access can be especially useful for busi-
`ness travellers who need to keep in touch with
`AXI via their lap-top PCs during trips.
`Intranet The Intranet option is available for
`companies that choose to run their own in-
`house communications networks with firewalls
`
`for protection against unauthorized access. Com-
`panies may therefore choose to implement AXI
`on their own in—house servers, which are kept
`up—to—date via information feeds channelled
`through head office connections to American
`Express.
`Extranet The Extranet option is very similar
`to the Intranet option except that the AXI Web
`
`250 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR TRAVEL AND TOURISM
`
`server is actually run by American Express. This
`still allows the company’s travellers to connect
`to AXI via its own private and secure Intranet,
`complete with firewall protection. In this envir-
`onment,
`travellers access AXI via the com-
`pany’s private network, which is connected Via
`the firewall with external computers such as
`the AXI Web server run by American Express.
`
`To use AXI, a company must be a customer of
`American Express. In other words the client com-
`pany must use the American Express business
`travel service and ideally should also be a cor-
`porate card—member. The company may then be
`granted a domain name by American Express that
`enables it to access the AXI Web server. This pro-
`vides a client company with the automated core
`business travel services, but it still needs to be
`supported by a global network of human beings
`and servicing offices. After all, even in a fully
`automated electronic world, post—reservations sup-
`port is critical. This is an integral part of the AXI
`service and is provided by the world—wide network
`of American Express offices and a 24-hour hot—line.
`It may be complimented further by a link between
`the company’s corporate card and the travel informa-
`tion services of AXI.
`
` 259
`
`Petitioners' Exhibit 1021, Page
`
`

`
`issue for American Express is the
`The real
`degree to which companies will use AXI. Even
`for those companies that decide to implement the
`system, a significant internal selling job will need
`to be done on stalwarts. Despite the fact that AXI
`is so simple to use that it