Etta Product Series—Ep. 2, Spring 2022

Hi. My name is Harper Lieblich. I head up product at Deem, and I'm here to show off some of the biggest changes coming to Etta in the next few months.

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Sustainability in technology — EcoCheck

We've heard from businesses and travelers alike that they want better visibility into the environmental impact of their travel choices. So we've partnered with Thrust Carbon, the industry's leading provider of [carbon] emissions data, to bring you EcoCheck. When searching for flights, travelers will now see a relative carbon footprint for each leg on their trip.

Which flights have lower or higher emissions, which ones are about average? In fact, I've already used this to choose between two flights that are leaving at about the same time. So I'm finding it very helpful. When you're searching for a place to stay, EcoCheck now shows a score out of a hundred for every hotel on the planet. Hotel properties can be tough to measure, especially given all the independent hotels out there.

So EcoCheck takes into account location specific sustainability practices, even including eco certifications for each hotel that they may have earned. And when choosing a rental car, travelers can now see how each car class compares to the average CO2 emissions in their search results.

Now, when I see 350 kilograms of carbon emissions, I don't really understand what that means.

So EcoCheck makes it easy to wrap your head around that. We added these helpful comparisons, like how many plastic bags you could produce or for the same footprint, or how many trees you could plant to offset it. 

We think this is a great way to help travelers make more informed decisions when booking their travel, and we'll be doing a lot more in the coming years to help companies hit their sustainability goals.

New personal identity options

Now, I'm proud to say that Etta now supports non-binary or unspecified gender markers in your traveler profile. With this update, travelers have new options when selecting their title and gender. This gives travelers broader choices when setting up their Etta account, and it also provides consistency across travel documentation, TSA and passport requirements.

You can make changes to your gender markers by visiting Etta on the web and going to your profile. And if you're using Etta for iOS or Android, you can update your gender marker during checkout. 

Delegate booking

Now, let's talk about some subtle but important changes that we've made to the delegate booking experience. Bringing delegate booking to air mobile is especially important to us because it means delegates can make last minute travel arrangements without having to pull out their laptop.

It's a modern world. You should be able to do this stuff on your phone. But we didn't want to just copy over the experience from Etta for web. Based on the research that we did with travel arrangers, we've made a few tweaks.

The first is that switching to delegate booking is now super easy. The option to switch travelers is now front and center.

And second, we've added a search bar at the top of the list to make it easier to find the traveler that you're looking for.

Delegate booking is available now on Android and coming soon to iOS. And we’ll be bringing this improved experience to the web experience later this year.

Uber for Business with Etta

In the last decade, ride hail has exploded as a way for business travelers to get around in-destination. But until now, our industry hasn't done a great job of incorporating ride hail into our travel programs.

All of that changes with Uber and Deem's partnership. Later this summer will be launching a beta [program] that allows companies to connect to their Uber for business account with Etta. And it allows travelers to search and book Uber rides right inside the app. 

Now, we didn't want to stop there because Etta knows which flights you've taken. It knows which hotel you're staying at. And in a lot of cases, the addresses of your local office. So Etta can automatically recommend ride hail options for your upcoming trips, which means no more copy and pasting addresses from wherever they are into the Uber app while you're trying to get off the plane.

And with Uber's new reserve feature, you can book a ride in advance and have your driver waiting for you when you're ready.

If you haven't set up an Uber for business account, I recommend it. It's incredibly easy. And if you're interested in participating in our Beta later this summer, please reach out to your team representative for more info. 

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These are just a few of the exciting updates coming to air this spring and summer. If you'd like to learn more, check out the release notes on our website. You can find a link in the video description below.

And if you'd like to find out more about Etta in general, we'd love to give you a demo of the program — just reach out. We'll see you out there on the road. Stay safe and take care.

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Learn more about what's new in Etta: https://www.deem.com/release-notes

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