Six Ways to Determine if You Should Rein in Your Rogue Travelers

Millennials often shun the concept of a centralized managed travel system. They have come to learn that they know a lot more about technology than many of their more senior associates managing line items like this and they think that simply by technology access they can do it better. Most claim they are doing it to save money but more often than not proof of that result is not always available to those who hope to keep an eye on this significant line item. I would also mention that for years travelers have claimed they could do it better themselves even when they had to call multiple airlines. In every analysis I have been involved in the results didn’t prove these travelers right because many had their own idea of what the best value was (many times that perception involved their preferred suppliers and not the company’s). Do not get me wrong, their intent was not malicious but they many times end up feeling complacent with going to their go to suppliers and they did not always consider all the options in an unbiased way. This has been my experience, anyway. There are six ways to evaluate and assess these rogue claims to determine the CBA of this behavior.

1.      Benchmark. Compare the rogue average airline ticket, hotel, and car spend over the course of the year to those that are complying. There are ways to capture rogue and complaint traveler data these data via expense reports, card data and more.

2.      Bias. Run a report of spend by traveler and look for supplier consistencies. Are they always on American? Does it seem their hotel selection complies with policy?

3.      Policy compliance. Look at how you define value in your travel policy and what travelers should select in your policy to determine if even when they book outside your system they are making good selections.

4.      Cancellation cost. Check to see how many trips these travelers cancel and if they are using up their unused non refundable tickets or if they are incurring hotel or car cancellation charges at rates over and above the others.

5.      Deals. Asses the volume of spend you are investing in different suppliers and ensure you couldn’t be securing a discount or benefit from these suppliers as a company by managing spend within your system. If you have deals like this you must consider what you may lose by not having travelers use these deals.

6.      Compliance/Legal. When people go rogue how do you know where they are and if they get hurt or make the wrong buying decisions would the law be by your side. A chat with you legal team may help clarify legal obligations and even business plan compliance obligations.

With these few consideration you can put a number on the cost benefit analysis of managed versus unmanaged travel and make the right decisions. In this life we all have to comply with many sensible rules for the greater good- taxes, health care requirements, traffic laws, workplace obligations, etc. Not everything can go rogue and in my experience and in most instances, T&E is not a place to go rogue and not only because of trip. It is not just about booking trips and it is also about managing travel – the line item.

Five Places to Secure Data About T&E That Can Uncover Treasures For This Sizeable Line Item

We work with many small and mid sized companies who are ready to get a handle on their T&E spend. Sure their people can book trips a variety of ways but how do you know that you agree with what they have selected and they haven’t left some significant opportunities on the table for the company’s budget? Many don’t. They have no idea what they spend in many of these expense categories and don’t know how they stack up to others or even those within their organization. As a result they cannot quantify their missed opportunities and they cannot define what the company should expect them to do when making choices for travel. And you don’t have to be the travel gestapo to spot check and clarify expectations for big savings. By making sure that the company’s and traveler’s desires are respected, big money can be saved, expense processing can be streamlined, the volume the company spends can be leveraged for deals, and support and emergency care can be enhanced.

Here is where you can find some of this data.

1. Travel Management Company. When you direct all travel to one travel management company (we all have online and call in booking opportunities if we are focused on the business travel marketplace) you can access what was booked, policy compliance data, lost opportunity data, spend by department or customer or person , available unused non refundable tickets, and more. If you are assigned an account manager and have a corporate agreement with your travel company also, most of us will even help you benchmark your travel spend to determine treasures.
2.  Credit Card. With one central card system you can have a great deal of the data mentioned above but you will see actual spend versus what was booked (what the agency has). In addition entertainment costs also come into play here also. The data from those who book outside of your travel system can also be secured if you make them use your card system at least so you can compare how they are doing as rogues versus managed travelers.
3. Expense Systems. Popular today are automated expense systems that are pre populated with booking data from your TMC’s bookings tools and data sent to it by your travelers. These systems too have extensive amounts of actual data in many T&E categories.
4. Itinerary Management Apps. Trip Case and Trip It for example have upgraded versions that allow companies to aggregate data for trips booked and sent to these apps for you to review.
5. General Ledger. If nothing else this data has to fall into your accounting system somehow and some way even if spreadsheet expense reports and rogue travel is your norm.

T&E is the second largest controllable cost for the average company and it makes me nervous when I hear companies don’t know what they spend and cant easily get this data. Its my experience that when data is collected and the opportunities are assessed, treasures can be found is easily managed places.

25 Transformations in 25 Years: Start Up Student Group Customer Requires Creativity to Make First Event Ever a Major Success

We recently had a customer sign up who had very specific guidelines for their student groups. They needed MacNair to find hotels that could accommodate 200 rooms per night with 3 beds per room (so, we would have to locate a hotel that would have 200 cots). A place that would tolerate a large student group, was accessible to the DC Armory (either walking distance from it or metro accessible), and one who would be flexible on deposit and payment dates as this was a startup organization who did not know the response its first event would receive. Cash flow was king. We leveraged systems we use to develop a first rate RFP, researched likely properties, and used preferred supplier relationships to uncover and cajole a few potential options in short notice. We (with the customer) performed site visits and negotiated a great price with the appropriate number of rooms under acceptable terms that also included an additional block for parents and breakfast included in the room rate.

The result was that the customer's first event ever was a smashing success even in inclement weather (we hand held many through transportation challenges that weekend). They have gone on to expand their events and with our support have multiple blocks around the country including a block at the sister hotel of the initial hotel who was happy to have them and us back with a good history and track record and more accurate RFP.

Change Fees and Buckets of Money Left on the Table with Unused Non Refundable Tickets and What to do About it

Business travelers change their tickets often. We know this. The current airfare structure also incentivizes companies and travelers to purchase non refundable tickets and the change fees to re use them are size able. As a company do you know how much you are leaving on the table by not maximizing the use if these non refundable tickets and the cost to exchange these tickets? Not only are the unused tickets money left on the table-or should I say with the airlines, but the change fees required to reuse these tickets are significant. Customers in the United States paid a total of 2.5 billion in cancellation fees in 2012 as per the bureau of transportation statistics. Cancellation fees have even increased from $150 to $200 in more recent years. The interesting thing is that this bureau of transportation statistics does not collect the amount of non refundable tickets go unused, but you should for your organization. To digress, I am not a proponent of more regulation but disclosure of this data seems logical and useful for companies that serve the vast public and use public facilities and services. 

So what can you do as a travel manager to understand this amount and change policies and behaviors to better leverage this sizeable investment? Travel Management Companies like MacNair Travel Management offer a reminder to use these tickets on their corporate online booking sites, we offer reporting of the unused tickets to travel managers, and the cost of exchanging tickets is readily available on travel management summary reports. So yes this is yet another reason to manage and consolidate travel if your volume and losses are a concern and are significant. 

Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate, has been pressing airlines to account for the amount that have gone unused. At least you can take on is responsibility for your organization and deliver even more value. Current open booking trends can make this process more complicated but in a managed program, it is easy to control.

25 Transformations in 25 Years: Local Association Needs an Online Travel Solution for Staff and Non Staff Travelers.

A local association customer of MacNair’s needed reporting, itineraries, and traveler information for both staff and repeat travelers (profiled) and one time travelers (non-profiled) who were booking travel on their online booking site. The association wanted to be able to put all travelers booking within their site (including the non-profiled) on their corporate card. Meeting planners needed to get all travelers on board with using MacNair and improve their online adoption. As a result, we created two separate travel sites – both paid for by the association - one for profiled and one for non-profiled travelers. On the profiled site, travelers’ data would get saved. For the non-profiled the traveler would be responsible for inputting their TSA information at the time of booking. A meeting link was setup for each individual site and the meeting planner was able to receive a copy of itineraries and reports for both groups.

As a result, the Meeting planners had the ability to track all travelers (profiled and non-profiled) and would receive itineraries on each. This enabled them to mandate the use of MacNair Travel for everyone and online adoption jumped up to 89%, reducing fees while policies and procedures were enforced with quality booking data and trends that reduced ticket costs by 18%.