This article helps to explain the various best practice policies you may choose to implement within your travel booking solution.
What is a Travel Policy?
Travel policies are the rules for specific groups of travelers that you put into place to keep your travelers safe and help them find itinerary options that work them and make financial sense for your company. For example you might apply one travel policy asking employees book more than two weeks from departure to save money on airfare, but have a separate policy for interview candidates who often book on short notice. Or you might have one policy for employees that requires trip approval so that budget owners can watch their spending, but another for executives that doesn’t require approval because they manage their own budgets.
In SVB T&E, there are many travel policies you can choose to enforce. Here are best practices to consider when setting up your flight, hotel and car policies:
Flight Policy Highlights
Price
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- Set a maximum airfare price; this can be domestic vs. international
- Set authorized cabin, domestic vs. international
- Set a maximum price above the lowest logical price. The lowest logical price is derived from your search parameters. You can set additional stops and/or time flexibility in terms of determining the lowest logical price. Typically these are left to the defaults, but a company may want to restrict additional stops from being considered or narrow down the time window. You can also exclude ultra low cost carriers (Spirit, Frontier) and basic economy fares (typically these are non-refundable, do not allow a carry-on luggage item, and do not qualify for reward miles) from consideration in the lowest logical. Max price above lowest logical is typically set from $50-150.
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Fare Types
- Even if not using lowest logical, you can still choose to restrict or offer ultra low cost carriers and/or basic economy fares
- Refundable tickets can either be required, permitted by not required, or permitted but allow non-refundable tickets to be considered for all policy checks
- Allow/disallow Southwest Early Bird - $15-20 more per flight, priority boarding assignment (Southwest does not assign seats)
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Miscellaneous
- Maximum number of employees or executives allowed on one flight.
- Minimum advance purchase window. Typically set from 7-14 days
Hotel Policy Highlights
- Price
- Set maximum nightly rate. You can also add exception cities where this should be higher (i.e. San Francisco, Las Vegas, New York City)
- Set a maximum price above lowest logical price. The lowest logical price is derived from your search parameters. You can set a minimum star rating to consider (often 3 stars) and maximum distance from search location
- Hotel Types
- Only allow travelers to book at hotels you deem “preferred”, these could be hotels you have supplier relationships with
- Set a maximum star rating (often 4)
- Miscellaneous
- Prepay all hotels if you would like for Amtrav to arrange prepayment so travelers do not have to pay upon departure. Travelers should still expect to present a credit card at check in for incidental charges.
Car Policy Highlights
- Price
- Set maximum daily rate
- Set a maximum price above lowest logical price. The lowest logical price is derived from your search parameters. You can set a minimum car size to consider
- Car Types
- Only allow travelers to book with car rental companies you deem “preferred”, these could be companies you have supplier relationships with
- Set a maximum car size (i.e. standard SUV, Sedan)
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Miscellaneous
- Economy (ex. Hyundai Accent)
- Compact (ex. Ford Focus)
- Midsize (ex. Toyota Corolla)
- Standard (ex. Volkswagen Jetta)
- Full (ex. Nissan Altima)
Booking Management
- Out of Policy Bookings
- Flag or don’t flag out of policy options at time of booking. Often companies will flag to help encourage compliant traveler behavior.
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For example, on this flight search it is clear that the economy ticket is in policy, where as the first class ticket is out of policy.
- Approvals
- Choose to require approval for all bookings, no bookings, or out of policy bookings only
- Approvals must be made within 24 hours to secure booking price/availability
- You can set multiple approvers for a policy but only one approval is needed per booking that requires approval
- Choose to auto-approve for approvers of this policy
- Notifications
- Choose to send a notification for all, none, or out of policy bookings only
Payment Methods
- Allow Travelers under a certain policy to book their travel with designated corporate credit cards
- Authorize these cards for Air and/or Hotel purchases with one or multiple corporate credit cards you have added in company settings
- Default cards for Air and/or Hotel purchases which means it is automatically selected on the booking payment page (travelers can choose to add a different payment card on this page, though)
Ready to set up your travel policy? See this article on Adding a Travel Policy to your SVB T&E Account.