American Airlines Launches Exciting New Application Using Facebook Platform

March 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- After more than 80 years of bringing people together through the air, American Airlines is now bringing people together through cyberspace on Facebook Platform.

American Airlines has launched Travel Bag, an exciting new application on Facebook Platform that makes it easy for users to share travel experiences with friends in their network; to offer and read reviews and comments on things such as restaurants and shops; and even to create countdowns for upcoming events or trips to let friends know what they're doing to.

In addition, Travel Bag offers a convenient link to American's award-winning Web site, AA.com, where Facebook users can check for low fares, make reservations, view their AAdvantage miles, check gate and arrival/departure information, even get the 411 on American Airlines destinations -- all within their own unique profile page. Facebook has more than 67 million active users, and American Airlines is the first major airline to offer an application on the site for users to contribute and access travel-related content.

"At American Airlines and AA.com, we know that one of the great pleasures of travel is being able to share your experiences and knowledge with others, and our new application on Facebook Platform makes that easy, convenient and fun," said Derek DeCross, Managing Director - Interactive Marketing at American. "It's also a new portal to everything that American has to offer customers through AA.com. If you read or see something during a Facebook session that inspires you to travel, the start of your trip is just a click away, at AA.com."

The components of the new American Airlines application on Facebook Platform are:

• Favorites - Generate a list of your "favorite things" -- the best restaurants, the best-equipped gyms, the best museums, and more in your town or on the other side of the world. Share with fellow Facebook users your impressions, with information easily organized by category, destination, network or previously tagged favorites.
  
• Travelogue - Make travel journals, include photographs, share anecdotes with other Facebook users, and let them know all about your most recent trip. Was it the trip of a lifetime, and are you already planning your next one? Travelogue is better and faster than a postcard, and you don't have to worry about stamps.
  
• Trip-O-Vent - Create visual countdowns to important events in your life for other Facebook users to see -- an upcoming trip, a graduation, a wedding. Invite friends to your event or even add pictures. An additional component allows Facebook users to search for public events by destination, so if you have free time or are feeling bored, now you'll know what's going on around town.
  

"American Airlines is committed to interacting with customers in ways that are most convenient to them. With Facebook's enormous popularity, it's an ideal forum to reach out to our current and potential customers," DeCross said. "We're excited about this new capability and plan to add enhancements to it, keeping it fresh and relevant as the community of users grows."

It's fast and easy to download the new American Airlines application on your Facebook page. Simply visit www.facebook.com and search for "Travel Bag" in the Application directory.

The ability to interact with American Airlines and AA.com in the Facebook environment is just one of many recent enhancements for AA.com users. Earlier this year, American introduced a mobile version of its Web site that provides access to most of the same services available on AA.com -- all from a Web-enabled cell phone or other Web-enabled device. For more information, visit www.aa.com/mobile.

Other customer-friendly features American has added to its Web site in the past year include:

• A new online shopping and booking feature that makes it easier for customers to plan travel on AA.com with the ability to see, at a glance, the lowest fare available three days before and three days after their original departure date.
  
• The new DealFinder tool, which can be downloaded to a user's computer desktop and offers customers exclusive, personalized, special fares to locations throughout American's worldwide network.
  
• A new AAdvantage award booking feature that makes it faster and more convenient to plan and book AAdvantage award travel on AA.com with color-coded calendars showing available dates for each of the various AAdvantage award levels over a four-week period. The AAdvantage award booking tool can be used on any domestic or international route flown by American, American Eagle or AmericanConnection carriers.
  
• A "Change Reservations" feature recently added to AA.com enables many customers to change their reservations online up to three hours prior to scheduled flight departure.
  
• New, country-specific Spanish-language portals added to www.aa.com/espanol allow site visitors to select their country of residence from among nearly 20 choices, allowing American to better serve customers in Latin America and the United States.
  
• The "Fly Now, Pay Later" deferred payment option allows holders of the American Airlines Credit Card to enjoy six months of no payments and no interest for tickets purchased on AA.com. For terms and conditions and more details, visit www.aa.com/paylater.
  

• Email this page
• Printer-friendly version