Air Miles takes to the net as part of relaunch

Air Miles has completed a major overhaul of its IT systems as part of its relaunch as an online travel provider.

The company, best known for its airline loyalty schemes, is focusing on internet travel sales and attempting to compete with established specialists such as Lastminute.com.

Air Miles managing director Drew Thomson told Computing the relaunch is the company's biggest investment for 10 years, and that IT is a vital part of the plan.

'We have spent a lot of money building this,' he said. 'We are spending £1m just launching it, which gives you some idea of the scale.'

Thomson says the most time-consuming part of the project was the integration of its existing data with the new infrastructure.

'We had to integrate it with our existing selling system and our customer database, the technology in our call centre and the Amadeus central reservation system,' he said. 'The challenge has been considerable.'

The company has installed software from BroadVision to allow site visitors to personalise their view of the web site, as well as improving scalability.

Air Miles has been working on the IT overhaul with internet solutions specialist Syzygy since March.

Customers booking travel on the site will be able to pay with Air Miles, or a combination of Air Miles and cash. One of the next phases will be to provide a cash-only facility, says Thomson.

Lastminute.com last week launched new services allowing customers to access its web site using mobile phones, PDAs and interactive TV, (Computing 26 July).

But Thomson says Air Miles is concentrating on its existing service for now.

'We don't want to try to be the emerging technology,' he said. 'Lastminute.com are known as leaders in the technology stakes. We want to wait for other people to develop the technology and then we'll step in. It's still very new and it's going to take a while to evolve.'