Engine buys Options Travel to build an AI booking tool for TMCs

What's the deal? Engine, an all-in-one travel and spend management platform, has acquired Options Travel, a corporate travel management company (TMC) with more than 30 years in the business. Options Travel will keep operating independently under its own name and current leadership, and all its employees will join Engine.

Why now? TMCs manage billions of dollars in corporate travel spend, but the software behind them has lagged. Nearly a third of corporate travel buyers are reevaluating their TMC this year — citing technology, not service, as the reason, per Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) polling.

What's the endgame? Engine and Options Travel started working together nine months ago, and the close-up view exposed how much outdated tools held agents back. That prompted Engine to build an AI-native Online Booking Tool (OBT) for TMCs across the industry.

The product: The OBT covers booking, payments, reporting, customer management, and duty of care in a single dashboard. Consolidated flows cut booking times to as little as 2.5 minutes, against an industry average of nearly 15 minutes, per a Forrester study. It personalises search to each client's rates and policies and flags issues across an agent's whole book of business — the kind of automated disruption handling 89% of travel buyers say they want, according to GBTA.

What they're saying: "TMCs are the relationship experts at the center of the industry," said Elia Wallen, founder and chief executive officer of Engine. "The technology behind them hasn't kept up."

Brett Buynack, general manager of Options Travel, said joining Engine lets the firm help build "real technology, for every TMC that's been underserved by legacy software."

By the numbers: More than 1 million travelers and 33,000-plus businesses rely on Engine, which reports a Net Promoter Score of 60. It is backed by Telescope PartnersDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Blackstone, and PermiraDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.

The signal: By acquiring a TMC rather than just selling to one, Engine is embedding itself in the operations it wants to modernise — a bet that owning the workflow beats fixing it from a distance. Engine will demo the OBT at the GBTA Convention in Chicago from August 3 to 5.

Read more: Associated Press

Image credit: Nick Harris1