Price Packages Without the Manual Math
This episode covers Tern's launch of itemized package pricing (the team's biggest engineering lift in months), updates to AI chat tools, and a new pod...
Transcript
Episode Overview:
David Shull, Molly Johnson, and Brad Turner cover one of Tern's biggest engineering lifts to date: itemized package pricing. Advisors can now track costs at the item level within a package, see them reflected on invoices, and handle optional add-ons without workarounds. The team also walks through new AI assistant capabilities in Notes, a support schedule overhaul that cut response times fast, and a set of quality of life improvements across branding, email templates, and expedition transfers.
Episode Topics:
(0:00) Week in Review The team shares how the week went before getting into what shipped.
(1:01) Host Migration and Package Pricing Launch Molly walks through completing a large-scale host migration alongside the itemized package pricing launch.
(5:49) What Itemized Package Pricing Does Items in a package can now retain their own cost, show on invoices, and drive optional add-on selections without manual workarounds.
(9:01) Groups and Real-World Impact How this resolves a long-standing frustration for group bookings, where advisors had to manually calculate and move items in and out of packages.
(13:21) Tech Debt, AI Agents, and Code Cleanup Why cleaning up legacy payment code made the launch smoother and matters more in an AI-assisted development workflow.
(18:10) Chargebacks and Why Tern Built It This Way What advisors need to understand about chargeback risk, and why packages are deliberately scoped to single suppliers.
(22:02) Support Schedule Overhaul Restructuring hours across U.S. and Philippines coverage dropped response times dramatically and created near-continuous availability.
(25:22) AI Assistant: Tasks, Group Trips, and Email Search New capabilities in the AI chat tool: create tasks from a conversation, build group trips with drafted descriptions, and search emails by contact or subject line.
(28:10) Trip Review Skill Demo The first AI skill in Tern scans your itinerary for issues like missing accommodations, mismatched dates, and headcount gaps.
(33:15) Quality of Life Updates Resend invite for host agencies, a new branding settings page with auto-save, last name variables for email templates, and expedition transfer details surfaced automatically on client itineraries.
(36:08) Week Ahead Better canceled booking support, insurance in packages, group subtrip syncing, and the first set of granular user permissions.
Show Highlights:
- Itemized package pricing is live: item costs persist, show on invoices, and power client add-on selections without any manual workarounds
- AI assistant in Notes can now create tasks, build group trips with drafted descriptions, and search emails by contact or subject line
- First AI trip review skill flags missing hotels, date mismatches, and headcount gaps
- Support coverage expanded to 18-20 hours a day, cutting response times significantly
- Branding settings now auto-save, so changes are no longer lost on navigation
Keywords:
Tern, Flight Path podcast, CRM for travel agents, itinerary builder, AI product tools, travel advisor workflow, payments, product updates