Opodo

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Opodo
Founded2001; 24 years ago (2001)
HeadquartersMadrid, Spain
Area servedEurope
IndustryTravel
ProductsCharter and scheduled passenger airlines, package holidays, hotels and resorts
ServicesTravel agency
ParenteDreams ODIGEO
URLwww.opodo.com

Opodo is a Spanish-owned online travel agency. It is a pan-European enterprise, founded by a consortium of European airlines, including British Airways, Air France, Alitalia, Iberia, KLM, Lufthansa, Aer Lingus, Austrian Airlines and Finnair. The travel technology provider Amadeus owned 99.4% of the company until 2011, when it was taken over by eDreams ODIGEO.[1]

Opodo operates out of fourteen European countries with headquarters in Madrid. It operates Opodo-branded sites in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Austria, Belgium, Poland and Switzerland, as well as Travellink-branded sites in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland. It also operates several other French travel websites.

History

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Opodo was designed and developed by Sapient in London in 2000.[citation needed] It launched its first site in Germany in November 2001, its UK site in January 2002, its French site in April 2002 and its Italian site in January 2006.[citation needed] Giovanni Bisignani, former CEO of Alitalia and present[when?] CEO of IATA (International Air Transport Association) was Opodo's first CEO.[citation needed] Nicolas De Santis former CMO of web currency beenz.com and president of strategy consultancy and incubator CorporateVision.io was Opodo's first director of marketing, sales and strategy.[citation needed] In 2002, David P. Scowsill was appointed as Opodo's CEO, replacing interim CEO Simon Tucker.[2][3]

Prior to the founding of Opodo, Orbitz was negotiating with European air carriers, trying to get a deal with them, but the airlines were hesitant to work with a company majority-owned by US carriers.[4]

In 2004, Opodo was bought by Amadeus for 62 million euros.[5]

Since 2011, Opodo has been part of the largest online travel company in Europe, eDreams ODIGEO.[6][7]

Products and services

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Opodo Prime

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Opodo Prime was launched in 2017, and Metro dubbed it the ‘Netflix of travel’ due to its subscription-based pricing model.[8] It offers additional discounts on all flights and accommodation options.[8] The discounts can be used for up to 9 people on the same booking, across flights and hotels.[9]

Opodo Prime hotels

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Opodo launched Prime hotels as part of its Prime subscription service in June 2020.[10] For the same yearly subscription fee, 2.1 million accommodation options with up to 50% off were added to Opodo Prime.[11]

Flight price index dashboard

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In June 2020, Opodo unveiled its flight price index dashboard for the UK market.[12]

The service compares current flight prices with prices of the previous year, to suggest the optimum time to book flights.[13] The dashboard uses over 14 billion data touch points from 660 airlines to generate year-on-year price comparisons.[14]

Criticism

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Poor customer service

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The UK consumer association "Which?" recommends members not to use Opodo.[15] The majority of customer complaints focus on a serious lack of responsiveness from the Opodo customer care team, for instance not receiving a reply to an email in over a month, for them being "unreachable by phone," as well as many instances in which tickets booked and confirmed through Opodo are never actually reserved with the airline.[16] In 2020 The Observer gave Opodo an award for the year's "worst customer service" after it began charging customers £16.49 to receive confirmation emails, "speedy" refunds and "free customer service".[17]

References

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  1. ^ "History". edreamsodigeo.com. Retrieved 2023-02-08.
  2. ^ "Opodo appoints full-time CEO". Travel Weekly (UK). 2002-09-19. Retrieved 2019-10-22.
  3. ^ "David Scowsill". Les Echos (in French). 2002-10-02. Retrieved 2019-10-22.
  4. ^ Schaal, Dennis (2016). "The Definitive oral history of online travel". Skift.com. Retrieved 15 June 2016.
  5. ^ "Amadeus: 62 Millionen Euro für Opodo" [62 million euros for Opodo]. manager magazin (in German). Manager Magazin. 2004-06-16. Retrieved 2019-10-22.
  6. ^ "eDreams ODIGEO - Leading online travel agency". eDreams ODIGEO. Retrieved 9 August 2017.
  7. ^ May, Kevin (November 17, 2011). "Opodo-eDreams-GoVoyages powerhouse Odigeo plots next move, eyes startups and full service". Phocuswire.
  8. ^ a b Millar, Laura (2021-08-09). "Three fun travel ideas you might not have heard of but will want to try out". Metro. Retrieved 2021-08-10.
  9. ^ Burgess, Rob. "Would you pay £59.99 per year for Opodo Prime?". Head for Points. Retrieved 2021-08-10.
  10. ^ "eDreams Odigeo's Prime travel subscription now includes hotels". Globetrender. 2020-07-15. Retrieved 2021-08-10.
  11. ^ "Hotels added to eDreams ODIGEO's Prime subscription programme". Travolution. 17 June 2020. Retrieved 2021-08-10.
  12. ^ "EDreams Now Has a Half Million Paying Travel Subscribers". Skift. 2020-06-17. Retrieved 2021-08-10.
  13. ^ "Coronavirus: EDreams ODIGEO launches flight price index to highlight best deals". Travolution. 2 June 2020. Retrieved 2021-08-10.
  14. ^ "Coronavirus: EDreams ODIGEO launches flight price index to highlight best deals". Travolution. 2 June 2020. Retrieved 2021-08-10.
  15. ^ "Why you shouldn't book with Opodo". Which? News. 2020-10-11. Retrieved 2022-01-30.
  16. ^ Tims, Anna (12 September 2014). "Complaints are different, but Opodo's response is the same – ignore it". The Guardian.
  17. ^ Tims, Anna (27 December 2020). "In the year of Covid, the awards for worst customer service go to..." The Observer. Retrieved 30 December 2020.