Travel management service Concur is further developing an integrated experience for customers through a partnership with HotelTonight and Lyft in which users can seamlessly expense services through the two mobile applications.

HotelTonight and Lyft are a few of the numerous mobile apps that have emerged, devoted to travel that have made lives of vacationers much less complicated and now these conviences are being offered to business travelers as well through the Concur partnership. Business travelers using HotelTonight and Lyft can now book, plan and expense work trips through integration with Concur.

“Concur has a vision of enabling the Perfect Trip and these partnerships with HotelTonight and Lyft help bring that to life,” said Tim MacDonald, executive vice president of Travel at Concur. “We are passionate about meeting modern business travelers where they are and capturing spend as it happens.

“For Concur customers that use Lyft and HotelTonight they will have a direct connection to Concur, making their entire travel and expense experience much more seamless for their customers,” he said.

Destination discount
The discount hotel-booking app aims to be travelers’ one stop destination for booking their trips and to create a convenient option, in a retail sector that can be particularly daunting. The hotel service is increasing its place in assisting business travelers with the partnership and will now offer a much easier method for consumers to expense and book work trips.

Lyft will also be increasing its business customer base through this partnership. Business traveler opens these services up to a substantial demographic and can increase sales significantly.

Concur’s mobile app keeps track of consumers’ work trip expenses, and now users can link their accounts with HotelTonight and Lyft. When a business traveler user books or spends through these two apps, Concur’s system will log it automatically.

Previously these services were for the most part unused by businesses for travel. These apps were more known for personal use.

This partnership can secure both apps places in the travel industry and can provide an advantage of the competition. For Lyft, this could mean a significant lead over Uber, which is currently dominating the peer-to-peer travel sector.

Lyfting partnerships
Lyft is known for its numerous partnerships. For instance, Starbucks is continuing its streak of teaming up with major brands by tapping ride-sharing application Lyft to offer its employees My Starbucks Rewards gold status, and enable riders to tip their drivers with the chain’s egifts (see more).

Also, Campari America joined forces with mobile rewards platform Kiip to offer consumers credit for ridesharing application Lyft during peak drinking hours (see more).

“User’s HotelTonight or Lyft expense will be automatically pre-populated in their expense report and provides them more booking options as they travel,” Mr. MacDonald said. “This is seamlessly integrated with Concur, which enables them to save valuable time and focus on their business trip.”

Final take
Brielle Jaekel is editorial assistant at Mobile Marketer