10
min read
David Shull
The last time we hosted a launch event was back in May. That was not because we slowed down. It was because we were busy doubling our team. We brought on engineers, designers, and support staff, then spent months onboarding them to make sure we were ready for what comes next.
This Fall Reveal was the first glimpse of that investment paying off. The features we announced are not just improvements. They are massive steps forward that change the way advisors and agencies run their businesses.
Payments are one of the most sensitive parts of an advisor’s job. Your clients trust you with their cards, and you need to protect that trust while still moving quickly.
Before this release, anytime you changed something on a trip, the credit card authorization would reset. That meant new approvals every time, even if the change was small. Now, Tern shows you exactly what changed and gives you the choice. You decide whether a new authorization is needed. Best practices are built right into the app so you always know the recommended approach.
We also made it easier to upgrade a booking from an individual supplier to an agency version without having to reset the payment process. Agencies can add their own terms and conditions and require them on every authorization. You can also control which fields are required for your agents. This means every advisor in your agency is compliant by default and protected by your agency standards.
With hundreds of millions of dollars already processed through Tern’s authorization system, these updates make an already industry leading system even stronger.
The mobile app is now the gold standard for both travelers and advisors. No other platform comes close.
Travelers can log in once and get the full experience. They can see their trips with day by day itineraries, receive real time flight updates, access important documents, and pick up right where they are in the journey. Most importantly, travelers can now interact directly in the app. They can make decisions, approve itineraries, choose rooms, authorize payments, and complete forms without leaving the app.
Advisors now have access too. By logging in with your advisor account, you can see exactly what your clients see. You can preview itineraries, authorize payments, and even opt in to push notifications alongside your clients. That means you get the same instant alerts on flight delays or changes.
The message from the Fall Reveal was clear. This is not just another travel app. This is the best traveler mobile experience in the industry, and it now doubles as the best advisor mobile tool as well.
The dashboard was the single most requested feature in Tern’s history. With nearly 500 votes from advisors, it topped the list of priorities. We listened.
This is not a basic dashboard with a few numbers. It is a carefully crafted home base designed to save you time every single day.
When you log in, you will see metrics for bookings, commissions, and sales. You will see upcoming payment deadlines, active authorizations, and new form responses. Every item is one click away from the trip or contact it belongs to.
The dashboard also includes shortcuts to your most important actions like creating a trip or adding a contact. A “jump back in” section gets you straight to what you were working on last. A built in calendar highlights client birthdays, anniversaries, and trip milestones.
Even the small touches matter. Interactive tasks. Friendly greetings that change every time you log in. Easter eggs when you complete your work. The dashboard is functional, but it is also fun. It was designed to make your day easier and to put a smile on your face.
Spreadsheets are finally in the past. Tern’s new business intelligence suite puts real time data at your fingertips.
Advisors can see clear dashboards for sales, commissions, client engagement, and leads. You can filter by supplier, by date range, or by advisor. You can compare performance across months and years. You can click straight into the booking or trip behind any data point.
Agency owners get full visibility into their teams. You can see which suppliers drive the most revenue, which advisors are closing the most sales, and which clients are overdue for a touch point. The days of exporting CSV files and building formulas are over.
This is not just reporting. This is business intelligence built into the platform itself.
We closed the Fall Reveal with one of the most exciting parts of the entire user conference: our Shipathon. Over a single weekend, our engineering team took advisor feedback from the user conference and turned it into live features. By the time the ship docked, new functionality was already rolling out in Tern.
Here’s everything that came out of it:
The reaction in the chat said it all. Advisors flooded the feed with lines like “These engineers are UNREAL”, “Email marketing!!!”, and finally, the simple closer: “BOOM, MIC DROP.”
The Hackathon was the big finale of the Fall Reveal, but it wasn’t the whole story. In the weeks leading up to the event, our team shipped dozens of other top-requested updates that didn’t make it onto the webinar.
Some of these were small but powerful quality of life improvements. Others were foundational changes that set us up for even bigger releases ahead. Together, they represent our promise to advisors: every piece of feedback matters, and every request gets considered.
We built Tern to evolve with you, not just for you. That means we are always listening, always iterating, and always shipping. Even the updates that don’t get the spotlight are part of what makes Tern feel like the platform that finally understands how advisors work.
We are already looking ahead to the next big moment for the Tern community. At the Fall Reveal, we announced our second User Conference. In October 2026 we are bringing the event back, this time on land in New Orleans.
We took the lessons from our first conference and listened closely to feedback. Advisors told us that a six-day cruise was too much time away from clients, and that the price point on a premium cruise line was a challenge. So we are making the 2026 conference more accessible, with early bird pricing starting at just $750.
Expect the same community, the same energy, and the same commitment to helping you move your business forward. But this time it will be bigger, more accessible, and designed to meet you where you are.
We also shared that we will be hosting a Vision 2030 Webinar. This will be a chance to step back from product demos and talk about the future of the travel industry itself—what we believe will change, what will stay constant, and the role technology and AI will play. It will be a window into how we are building not just for today, but for the next decade of travel advisors. This was one of the most popular sessions at our User Conference. The number of people who came up to me saying "I need others to see that" is why we decided to turn it into a webinar.
The takeaway is simple. Tern is not just releasing features. We are building a movement. From New Orleans in 2026 to our vision for 2030, we are committed to giving advisors the tools, community, and insight they need to thrive.
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