iCoupon and Lagardère Travel Retail Expand Their Partnership Through New Group Agreement

When a partnership grows from a handful of locations to a group-wide agreement, it's usually because the solution is doing exactly what it was designed to do.

For several years, Lagardère Travel Retail has been using iCoupon across a growing list of countries to support the redemption and management of digital airline vouchers. Now at 13 countries, the company has expanded its relationship with iCoupon through a new Group Agreement.

The agreement marks an important milestone for both organisations, but perhaps more importantly, it reflects the confidence that comes from years of day-to-day operational use.

For travel retailers, airline paper or virtual credit card vouchers can create significant administrative work behind the scenes. Teams need to validate vouchers, manage redemptions, reconcile transactions, manually enter 16-digit card numbers and ensure airlines receive accurate billing information. When those processes vary from airport to airport or market to market, complexity quickly starts to build.

By using iCoupon, a single digital platform across multiple countries, Lagardère Travel Retail has been able to create a more standardised and efficient approach to managing airline vouchers across its network.

Richard Bye, CEO of iCoupon, said:

"What makes this particularly meaningful for us is that Lagardère Travel Retail already knows the platform inside out. This isn't a new customer deciding to give iCoupon a try. They've been using the system across 13 countries for years and have chosen to deepen that relationship through a group agreement. We see that as a strong endorsement of the value the platform delivers to their teams every day.

More importantly, we are beginning our journey to collaborate on new passenger-facing services across the Lagardère Travel Retail estate where iCoupon sits as a primary partner between airline and retailer to drive ancillary airport revenue for both parties. In the past, the challenge with any such arrangement has been the need for airlines and retailers to share information between each other – doing this regionally, let alone on a global basis, has always been a real struggle. iCoupon removes the requirement to share whilst being able to distribute value for passengers, and in turn drive revenues for both sides by being a GDPR compliant intermediary and use the boarding pass as the vehicle to carry any such promotions for simple and easy redemption, whilst providing 
additional value to the passenger."

The agreement also reflects a wider trend across the aviation industry. As airlines, airports, and retailers continue to digitise operational processes, there is increasing focus on reducing administrative burden and creating more consistency across large networks. iCoupon is the only company that has a global network of over 190 airlines who issue vouchers into the system, amounting to over 1bn supported passengers annually.

For iCoupon, the expanded agreement strengthens a relationship that has already been built through years of collaboration and practical experience. For Lagardère Travel Retail, it provides a framework for continuing to manage digital airline vouchers through a platform their teams already know and trust, while creating a scalable foundation that could support additional services and future opportunities as industry needs evolve.

Nicolas Platiau, POS Director – Lagardère Travel Retail said "This expanded Group Agreement is a natural next step in the evolution of our technical infrastructure. Standardising on a single platform for airline voucher management allows us to reduce complexity, strengthen data security, and build a more resilient foundation across our network. It also positions us well to support new use cases, like promotions and passenger engagement, as the platform continues to evolve alongside our business."