Industry Postings

Implementation of E-Gov Travel simplifies the voucher processing. When I began my career in administrative accounting 19 years ago, our agency used the paper-based system for processing travel reimbursements. A traveler submitted a manually prepared travel voucher with original receipts to his/her approving official. The voucher and receipts arrived at the administrative office for payment by internal mail or hand delivery. Prior to issuing a reimbursement to the traveler, the administrative office reviewed the voucher and receipts. Every detail of the trip was analyzed for compliance to the Federal Travel Regulations and any pertinent accounting regulations to assure the claim for reimbursement was proper and valid for payment. Upon validation of the claim a...

There appears to be some confusion and even debate regarding the fares negotiated and contracted by the United States Government’s City Pair Program.  Many Government travelers do not realize what they are getting for their money, and what total costs are associated with non-contract restricted fares. Many Government travelers compare the ticket price of City Pair contract fares to the ticket price of economy fares that they book for personal travel using internet sites like Orbitz, Expedia, and Travelocity.  While the economy fares many of us use for personal travel have restrictions, penalties/fees for cancellations, and often require advance purchase, this is not the case with the Government’s City Pair contract fares.  City Pair contract fares require...

The use of the Fedtraveler online booking engine (OBE) for government travel provides different options regarding mode of travel, hotel reservations and rental car reservations.  The purpose of this paper is to focus on the required use of the hotel OBE for government travel versus the use of a direct or manual process of booking hotel reservations for government travel. For the last 18 months one of my collateral duties has been the first level approving official for government travel for a Region of 26 federal government employees and in that time, I have reviewed and approved dozens of travel plans and expense reports.  The primary focus of the Region I work in is to travel throughout the country one to two weeks out of the month and conduct assessments on...

During my many years as an employee in our travel office, I have conducted many training sessions for our various government agency customers.  The reservations section within our electronic travel system (ETS) is by far one of the most ‘inquired about’ sections during my training sessions.  The reservations section within our travel system houses the capability for users to book their hotel, rental car, rail and airfare via the Sabre Global Distribution System (GDS). The Sabre GDS allows access to government negotiated rates, policy compliance at the point of sale, and automation of reservations and ticketing, which improves the efficiency of the overall government travel booking process.  The Sabre GDS provides access to preferred government rates such as...

Millions of dollars are lost to the government and taxpayers each year because travelers do not initiate the refund process.  Holding onto a totally or partially used airline ticket costs your agency money.  Unused tickets have a monetary value; therefore any adjustments in your ticketed transportation that pertains to an unused segment must be promptly processed to prevent a loss.  The definition of an unused ticket is Tickets purchased for Government travel, but never used. Travel is terminated short of the authorized destination. Return portion of a round-trip ticket is not used. Services actually furnished are different or of a lesser value than those authorized. The traveler dealing with an unused ticket that was purchased with their individually billed...

In 2009, my agency transitioned to the mandatory use of an ETS vendor for travel.  I won’t mention the vendor’s name, but I’d like to address some problems I’ve noticed with our particular vendor. One issue that has caused some frustration is the lack of visibility in our ETS.  For managers, this is a particularly frustrating experience.  For example, if one manager approves a traveler’s authorization, another manager cannot view the authorization that was approved.  This becomes a problem when, for example, Manager X approves travel for Mr. Doe since Mr. Doe’s manager was out of the office.  When Mr. Doe’s manager returns to the office, he has no idea what was approved by Manager X unless a hard copy was printed for him.  And creating a bunch...

Since the mid-1980s, federal government civilian agencies have had the freedom to contract directly with commercial travel agencies for Travel Management Center (TMC) services.  These contractual relationships were typically established via GSA’s Travel Services Solutions (TSS) schedule or through full and open competitions conducted by the agencies. Beginning with the introduction of the E-Gov Travel Service (ETS) in the early 2000s, agencies were presented with the option to procure TMC services as part of the integrated solutions offered by the ETS contractors.  The TMCs offered by the ETS contractors are referred to as “Embedded TMCs” while those contracted directly by the agencies are called “Accommodated TMCs” (because the ETS vendor must...

As part of Improving the Management of Government Charge Card Programs, OMB Circular A-123, Appendix B, Chapter 6, requires that agencies perform a credit worthiness evaluation of all new travel card applicants prior to issuing a card. The current travel charge card vendor for my agency obtains the credit scores on all new applicants.  The new applicant must have a FICO credit score of 660 or greater to receive an “unrestricted” status; a score of less than 660 will result in the issuance of a “restricted” card.  At no point does the bank provide the agency with the credit score of the applicant. The bank will process the applications of individuals who receive the status of unrestricted and issue a travel charge card with the established standard...

Many approving officials ask, “What is my responsibility as an approving official?” The answer to this question is that approving officials are to ensure: The claim is properly prepared in accordance with the pertinent regulations and agency procedures; A copy of the authorization for travel is provided; The types of expenses claimed are authorized and allowable expenses; § The amounts claimed are accurate; and The required receipts, statements, justifications, etc. are attached to the travel claim. (Receipts should be attached to vouchers electronically in eTS.) It is also the approving official’s responsibility to: Verify expenses/receipts Acknowledge that the expenses are reasonable/necessary Review the accounting code selected to ensure that the...

As a Government worker, I would like to respond to aka1979′s posting. Let me start by saying that I agree that $2.5 billion dollars is a lot of money. However, the Federal Government is very large and performs a lot of functions. This figure covers subsistence expenses for both civilian and military employees. It would be interesting to know how many trips by how many employees are included in this figure. The Government does a lot of training on-line and does training and performs functions using teleconferencing. It is my experience that most large facilities have teleconferencing capabilities and use them. Aka1979, seems to presume that all or most of this travel is for training, but this is not the case. While some travel is for training or to attend...

Contracting for Travel Services allows the government to solicit for a company under contract with an agency to arrange travel services for Federal employees on official travel, including tickets and transportation, and reservation of accommodations. Until recently what has been the challenge with most agencies contracting for services is getting the same standard of service at all facilities. Most of the Central Travel Office (CTO)’s have provided good customer service, the challenge has been getting the same standard for all CTO’s. Some of the anomalies that existed were the variances across a broad spectrum.  Problem area of customer service included: the number of times the phone would ring before it was answered; how long a caller would be on hold; how...

A TMC must understand the entire process of being eligible for the RFP process to obtain a contract and or task order for travel services from any state or federal government institution.  This process starts with being accredited by the Airline Reporting Corporation, ARC, to sell airline tickets and other travel services.  IATA, the International Air Transportation Association also endorses travel agencies and provides an IATA ID card which identifies travel agents as aUSbased travel sales professional.  In addition a TMC must also incorporate standards set by local and state licensing boards in established travel agency principles in order to be competitive and qualify for government contracts. There are two contracting methods used for contracting travel...

One of the most critical factors in determining whether the government market is real business fit for a hotel is contingent on whether there are local government business drivers that exist in that hotel’s competitive set.  In the final analysis, local government customers will steer nearly all the government volume that generates into a specific region. Having a solid understanding of who the local government players are, and further understanding their collective needs are perhaps the most important tactical components of penetrating and properly selling to government clients. In this age of revenue optimization, one question hotels must consider is whether the prevailing per diem for lodging is acceptable?  If the answer is yes, then the hotel is...

Government travel management stems a long way back with initiatives lunched after the enactment of the “Airline Deregulation Act of 1978”. The main purpose of the act was to remove government control over fares, routes and market entry (of new airlines) from commercial aviation. The Civil Aeronautics Board’s (CAB) powers of regulation were to be phased out, eventually allowing passengers to be exposed to market forces in the airline industry. The act, however, did not remove or diminish the Federal Aviation Authority’s (FAA) regulatory powers over all aspects of airline safety. The stated goals of the act included: the maintenance of safety as the highest priority in air commerce; placing maximum reliance on competition in providing air...

Over the last few years of being in the travel industry I have witnessed great concern over increased airline fees that are now being imposed by most airlines. Unfortunately, the days of simply purchasing an airline ticket for a cost has come to an abrupt end.  Since 2008 when checked bag fees began to surface one doesn’t just purchase an airline ticket for the cost of the ticket.  Instead the airline ticket is purchased, but the passenger must adhere to additional expenses and funds are still to be spent on items and/or services that were previously conveniently included in the cost of the ticket.  If the traveler is not fortunate enough to be a premium class passenger, a military member on a mission or have a high frequent flier status they are not exempt...

For many travelers, the most important aspect of their trip is the seat assignment on the airplane. Some travelers want the exit row seats for more legroom, while others choose a seat based on class of service. Government travelers are not permitted to book First Class seats without high level agency approval based on Federal Travel Regulations; however, travelers are permitted to upgrade to First or Business Class seats using their frequent flyer reward programs. In our E Travel System we have two options for seat selection–travelers can select isle or window from a drop down menu; or, if one is available, the traveler can view a seat map of the airplane and select a specific seat. Unfortunately, their seat selection is not guaranteed until their...

Over Thanksgiving weekend, 2008, the vast majority of federal civilian agencies executed a “flash cutover” from their existing SmartPay® travel cards to newly-issued SmartPay®2 travel cards.  In order to support this cutover for their 65 agency customers, the E-Gov Travel Service (ETS) contractors had to replace all of the SmartPay® charge card numbers (both Centrally Billed Accounts and Individually Billed Accounts) in approximately 500,000 ETS user profiles with new SmartPay® 2 numbers … all without a significant disruption of service or impact to travelers. The project to accomplish the SmartPay®2 transition for ETS was managed by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA).  It began years earlier but took on its greatest momentum during the...

The City Pair Program began in 1980 with 11 city pairs and has grown to over 5,000 city pairs, both domestic and international.  These airfares are very competitive and saves the government an estimated 50% to 70%.  The City Pair Program is administered by the General Services Administration (GSA) for use by all government travelers.  Each year GSA awards contract fares for air fare for travelers on  official government travel under the city pair program.  These contract awards are based on the best overall value to the government, taking into consideration type, distribution, number of flights, flight time, and price. The Federal Travel Regulations (FTR) requires government travelers to use a contract fare when available, use coach class service unless...

When my agency first started using eTS, I myself as an analyst, along with my co-analysts, found that the rental car section in the system could be more user friendly and informational. We recommended several suggestions to our eTS vendor. I am happy to say that our eTS vendor has taken our suggestions and have upgraded the system to add these enhancements. One of the enhancements was to add the capability to select and save one-way rental cars, or off airport locations. This enhancement allows more rental car locations to choose from, and that meets the traveler’s needs. Travelers can now book one-way rental cars on-line in the eTS allowing them to be charged the self-service transaction fee. Before the enhancement, they would have to contact the TMC directly...

Commercial airlines have varied prices for seating in different parts of an airplane. The Department of Defense (DoD) typically requires coach (economy) class travel accommodations be used when performing official government travel. Changes effective as of December 2009 to the Joint Travel Regulation (JTR), for DoD Civilians, and the Joint Federal Travel Regulation (JFTR), for the uniformed services, allow the “Economy Plus” type upgrades to be authorized by an Approving Official (AO). The AO must determine that accommodations are in the Government’s interest and/or necessary because the traveler is limited by a special need, such as needing additional legroom, that other lesser-cost (economy/coach) accommodations could not be used to meet. In addition to...

This posting will be a discussion regarding how an interface between an EGOV Travel application and an accounting system identifies and captures expenditures for air and hotel charges.  First, the discussion will regard the identification and mapping of the air and hotel charges in the EGOV Travel application.  Secondly, the discussion will focus on the capturing and reporting options for the air and hotel charges in the accounting system. In the EGOV Travel application, the traveler selects the appropriate air tickets in the reservation module.  The cost of the tickets automatically populates upon the legs being selected, and the Travel Management Center (TMC) fee also pulls in once the tickets are booked.    The hotel room rate is automatically...

Credit cards and debit cards have all but become the default method of payment for consumers over the last few decades.  The same is true with government travel.  Instead of issuing cash advances (although this is sometimes still necessary), paying with cash, and having a paper trail to follow, government travelers now have the convenience of paying for travel expenses either with an individually-issued government travel charge card (IBA) or through an agency’s centrally billed account (CBA).  Most government travelers are now issued their own personal government travel charge card, commonly abbreviated as GOVCC or IBA.  Most cards for our customers are issued through Citibank. The individually-issued card is the most convenient option for government...

It’s a known fact that keeping track of employee’s unused tickets is undeniably difficult.  Most companies struggle with employees who will purchase and or cancel directly with the airlines (usually against company policy), or those that chose not to do anything when a trip is cancelled.  If and when these situations occur, Travel Management Companies cannot obtain ticket information for future use.   Travelers often don’t say anything until they receive their credit card statement and are seeking compensation for the cancelled trip. Due to the many tickets that are written off due to lack of re-use or not recalled by the TMC, our organization needed to come up with a sure fire way to use up the hundreds of tickets before they expire.   We have...

The 41 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) chapters 300-304, of the Federal Travel Regulations (FTR) administer the laws that govern the travel allowances and entitlements for federal employees.  It implements provisions and statutes pertaining to per diem, travel and transportation allowances.  Amendments to the FTR are published in the Federal Register and the CFR.  The FTR has the force and effect of law. Training specific to these travel regulations is available from General Services Administration (GSA) and other federal training centers.  Each federal agency may have their own travel policy that includes regulations, procedures and business practices unique to their agency.  The Federal Travel Regulations take precedence over agency-specific...

The E-Gov Travel program was one of the George W. Bush administration’s electronic government initiatives aimed at improving government cost operations.  The E-Gov Travel System (ETS) was mandated by the government in order to reduce government costs and to hopefully realize a significant cost savings.  The Bush administration also felt the ETS would greatly improve employee productivity. I can remember when preparing the paperwork for government travel was such a frustrating part of my daily responsibilities.  The document was placed in a typewriter (remember those) to be completed.  You could not make a typo error (not even one) or you would have to start over.  There were several carbons attached to this document and it had to be perfect.  If a...

The necessity for each agency’s Travel Manager to communicate with travelers and other stakeholders has never been greater … in large part due to the number and variety of changes taking place in the federal travel marketplace.   A transition from the E-Gov Travel Service (ETS) to E-Gov Travel Service 2 (ETS2) looms on the horizon for nearly all federal civilian agencies.  A bill has been introduced in Congress to cut the federal travel budget by up to 75%.  Federal telepresence centers are springing up all over the country.  Greenhouse gas emissions are being considered when making travel decisions.  Some airlines (notably, American) are threatening to remove their inventory from one or more of the Global Distribution Systems (GDSs).  Some foreign...

Part of our division’s responsibility as the travel financial office is to implement internal audit controls for the E-Gov travel system to insure that travel payments comply with the Federal Travel Regulations (FTR) as well as laws and regulations for use of federal funds.  One way we meet this requirement is to perform a random post-payment audit of a sample of all our travel payments. Although the electronic travel processing edit feature reduces the risk of improper payments, we still have an obligation to ensure that the electronic processing is policy compliant.  We audit the entire process of the identified travel transaction including the arrangements for travel accommodation in the authorization, submission of a proper travel voucher, and the...

The Government traveler needs to be conscientious in arranging for travel accommodations.  I compile the data for our agency’s Use of Premium Class Travel Report.  In reviewing the data provided by our Travel Management Center and speaking with the travelers, I find that several travelers are not aware when a portion of their airfare is classified as premium-class.  Sometimes the fares are automatically upgraded by the airline for one segment of a trip.  An upgrade in classification for this purpose is not an acceptable justification unless a qualifying circumstance also exists and the agency specifically approves this use in advance. The traveler on official Government business is required to use coach-class or economy-class accommodations for...

With all of us trying to do things ourselves, sometimes what seems like a time saver can actually be time waster. If you use the services of a travel company properly, you find a huge amount of information from someone who is an expert, rather than guessing on our own. To take this to the simplest level, imagine you have just been “asked” to travel to a foreign country for business. Now some destinations may seem exciting, but you need to understand the local rules and what is required of you prior to your travel date. The first thing is to remember that the entire world does not speak English, so choosing where you will stay and how you will travel in that country make a significant difference. You also need to understand what travel documents will be...

Before E-Gov Travel when I went on a trip the first thing I would do is to decide on what hotel I wanted to stay in.  I did this in various ways such as internet searches, past experiences or referrals.  My normal destination is to DC so I would try to find a hotel that was either close to the location I was traveling to or at least close to a metro stop.  Once a decision was made, I called the hotel and asked for the Government rate, which many times exceeded per diem.  Even after calling several hotels there were times I could not find any hotels that offered a rate at or below per diem and I ended up having to request reimbursement for actual expenses on my lodging. When our agency moved to a eTS and required that we book Fedrooms hotels when possible, many...

Communication is a key ingredient in any business or aspect of life.  In our agency, one of our biggest assets is our ability to communicate well within our office, with the customers we service, and the communication between us and the vendors we work with on a daily basis.  We focus on high quality customer service.  Our travel helpdesk is staffed with technicians who are very knowledgeable in the E Gov Travel system and the Federal Travel Regulations. Our technicians answer any questions the traveler may have regarding the FTR or questions that pertain to the creation of documents in the E Gov Travel software.  Our customers have access to our helpdesk five days a week within the hours of 6:00am to 6:00pm.  The most common calls are from first time...

We have a particular group that is coming to our hotel for a conference in March.  This group has been booked since the middle of last year and has had to rebook one time already due to a tragedy.  Since we are coming up so close to their new arrival date, I have just found out that in the next two weeks everyone within this group will be making their travel arrangements to make the trip to Gettysburg.  This could greatly affect the arrival and departure dates that we already have in our reservation system.  By them booking their travel plans so close to their arrival date and by us already have been given a rooming list we could potentially be sitting on rooms that we may not be able to resell.  The policy at most properties would be to charge the groups for...

At a minimum, let’s talk automation with the Electronic Travel System. How about “working smarter NOT harder?” You will think in this day and age of technology where 5 year olds are using computers, that agencies would embrace the ETS… Well, that’s what you will think, but as you can tell from the frustration in my voice, not all agencies have embraced the ETS.  An agency I am familiar with (agency XYZ) is using a system that is so OLD, that it’s a shame to even talk about. Nothing is linked and even though you enter the information in the system, it has to be printed out (talk about going green) and sent through the various chains for approval. After all that is done, there is a totally separate process on the financial systems part. With the...

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) discovered that government employees in numerous agencies misused their travel cards to purchase items for their personal use or to travel first class.  Examples of the misuse are: Having laser eye surgery – amount $3700. An unauthorized trip to Hawaii, flying first class and An employee received reimbursement for 13 airline tickets he never purchased – cost $10,000. Auditors have determined that some agencies have failed to receive reimbursement for millions of dollars of unused airline tickets and constantly fail to pay travel invoices in a timely manner. The CRS report states a major problem is agencies fail to determine if tickets have been used.  It stated the Department of Defense (DOD) may have purchased more...

From my experience working with the federal government, they still have difficulty tracking their travel expenditures. “The government presently has very limited capability for management information reporting of its travel usage and spend.” This phrase appeared in the statement of objectives for GSA’s Business Travel Intelligence RFP in 2006. Although the government has the foundational tools (ETS/DTS), vendors (TMC/CTO, SmartPay) and processes (FTR) in place, they still are unable to determine how their money is spent to any degree of specificity. One key reason is that, unlike corporate clients who maintain a single travel agency for all transactions*, GSA allows each agency to contract with individual travel agencies. Having various travel agencies...

One of the most significant projects I participated on while working with an EGOV Travel application was the planning, design, and development of an update line of accounting module.  This was an eighteen month project in which we worked in conjunction with the EGOV Travel vendor to redesign the line of accounting module.  The enhanced line of accounting  module offered several improvements over the prior module of which the most significant would include enabling travelers to more easily identify and select accounting, provide additional security by limiting accounting available to travelers, and improve the accounting conditional routing options. The prior accounting module housed each line of accounting under a unique accounting label for each...

Section 2a discusses Global Distribution Systems. Although I am sure that it must exist somewhere, I have not seen a recent diagram that shows the flow of information throughout a travel transaction. By a travel transaction, I am referring to the following components: Vendors (airlines, hotels, car rental agencies, other) GDS Travel Agencies Traveler (or end user) The data flow used to be rather straightforward, in that the vendor supplied data to the GDS, the GDS to the travel Agency, and the Travel Agency to the traveler. However, through technology and financial tightening there are now myriad other methods for securing travel. Those include: Vendor-direct call centers or websites Alternate GDS (ITA, G2, Farelogix, INS) Corporate Travel Departments, On-line...

In an effort to gain a better grasp on Temporary Duty (TDY) as an industry professional with no direct government experience, I have tried to create an easy to read and understand document based on the Chapter 301 regulations for this type of travel. An Official Duty Station or Permanent Duty Station is defined as the designated post of duty or official station, the limits of which are the corporate limits of the city or town in which the employee is stationed or the established subdivision thereof having definite boundaries within which the permanent duty station is located. Temporary Duty (TDY) is defined as duty at a location(s), other than the permanent duty station of a military or civilian US federal government employee. This includes: Official assignments...

It is amazing how far the Travel Services and related services like hotels & rent a car have changed since the late seventies.  Government travelers used to buy their tickets from SATO with no choice of carrier or price laid to them.  In 1978, deregulation happened.  Government officials realized that they have a very strong buying power as the single largest corporation to purchase airline tickets; thus, in 1980, the government started negotiations on a program called CITY PAIR in which they allowed airlines to compete between 2 points for the government business.  The progress was phenomenal from 11 city pair to over 5000 city pair now. Airlines developed Computer Reservation Systems (CRS) to help them manage their bookings and yields.  These systems...

Often travelers question why they must use the “City Pair Program” by choosing contract flights for their travel.  I will briefly try to justify the benefits and reasons for the Government’s use of the “City Pair Program”. One obvious benefit of using the City Pair Program for airline flights is that there are no penalties to Government travelers.  For example, if one’s travel is cancelled at the last minute, the agency does not need to pay a hefty cancellation or change fee.  This is one of the reasons why the contract City Pair Program airline fares are priced higher than the typical fare one would find at Orbitz or Travelocity.  The fares that one usually books for personal travel are penalty-laden, and full of restrictions.  Using the contract...

Beginning in September of 2004, our agency began converting our customers from the legacy travel system to the new E Gov Travel system.  With approximately thirty agencies to convert, we completed the transition within a twelve month time-frame.  Even though this schedule was quite intense, we were able to complete this transition successfully due to the cooperation of everyone involved, the organization of a well thought out project plan, and a detailed training plan. For each customer to convert from the legacy system to the new one, there were two people in our agency assigned to lead each team.  We were responsible for performing all of the background maintenance tasks, such as routing lists, the people table, and security groups. We also trained all...

For some reason our agency has had more than its fair share of car accidents while on official orders.  And rarely, all too rarely, are the resulting claims straightforward and clear cut.  When there is a problem on a car rental claim, it is because there is some unusual circumstance surrounding the accident.  Many times what appears to be a reasonable claim under the government car rental agreement is actually a financial claim against the government.  The trick, as I have learned straddling my areas of authority and/or expertise in procurement, finance and travel, is to know when a car rental problem is actually a financial or legal problem. Here’s what I have learned over the last few years.  If you are fortunate the traveler used an approved car...

Has the method of paying for travel services come full circle? At issue is how government employees pay for travel expenses while performing their duties. Cash Advances Prior to corporate travel cards, there were travel advances where employees would request a certain dollar amount to pay for expenses while traveling on official state business.  This methodology seemed to work well at the time, but the presence of fraud and abuse always lurked in the background.  There were some control measures put in place to prevent this, and receipts were required to be submitted, along with unused funds being returned.   There were also employee risks involved by sending out an employee with a large amount of cash that could have been easily lost or stolen. Full Credit...

The “law of unintended consequences” (also called the “law of unforeseen consequences“) states that any purposeful action will produce some unintended results.  Deregulation was intended to increase competition and reduce costs.  Government travel policy experts had probably been hopeful that reduced costs and increased flights and airlines would make government travel easier and less expensive.  However, there were significant and unanticipated effects on government travel as a result of deregulation. In 1978, when the Airline Deregulation Act was enacted, the airline industry was delighted to be free of the controls (particularly rates which directly impacted their profits and ability to expand) enforced by the Civil Aeronautics...

The travel process is pretty involved and involves many different individuals including the traveler, possibly a document preparer, approving official and the processing staff.  Each person that touches the document has a role in ensuring that the traveler has a successful trip.  This is going to explain the process a travel document follows from the time the traveler is requested to go on travel. Travel authorizations are manually entered by the traveler or a document preparer in the eTravel system prior to taking a trip for the agency.  During the creation of the authorization the reservations are made for air, hotel and rental car.  Any estimated miscellaneous expenses such as parking, taxi or hotel taxes are input so that funds can be reserved in the...

A major benefit of converting to an E-Gov travel system is that the system enforces travelers to comply with the Federal Travel Regulations (FTR).  The FTR governs what expenses the traveler is allowed to claim and what requirements must be met in order to conduct official travel on behalf of the Government.  An agency may also have a travel policy which is stricter than the FTR.  The E-Gov travel system can also be set up to reflect some of the agency’s requirements in addition to the FTR requirements. Pre-audits have been built into the electronic system, which makes the travelers follow the guidelines. The E-Gov travel system has a built-in reservation module, which allows travelers/document preparers to select their airfare reservations.  Travelers...

My husband and I talked about visiting Canada a few years ago to see Niagara Falls, but now we can’t. My sister moved to Australia two years ago and I would love to visit “the land down under”, but I can’t. You may be saying, “Why can’t you? Are you handicapped?”. Well I do have a condition that prevents me from going. I don’t have a passport. However, in a few weeks that’s going to change. I thought getting a passport was going to require a bunch of red tape, but I was wrong. I did have to gather up some information and get some things done, but it was really a simple process. I wish I had done it sooner. I picked up an application form at my local U.S. Post office. The form is called a DS-11: Application For A U.S. Passport and can also be...

As Director of National Sales for Carlson Hotels Worldwide, on an annual basis I am required to comply with our company’s policies on business ethics.  Our leadership team firmly believes that fostering strong and consistent standards here is paramount in terms of creating a successful and trusting culture based on accountability. I agree with this philosophy.  Furthermore, it reminds me of something one of my mentors taught me about business practice in general – He said, “How you get there is just as important as getting there.”  That concept left a deep impression on me, so on certain occasions I would find myself revisiting that same mentor when faced with difficult decisions.  Consequently, he would always tell me the same thing, “I advise...

November 30, 2008, marked the beginning of the new Travel Charge Card Program called Smart Pay 2 (SP2).  Federal Government travelers are encouraged to apply for an individual Government charge card in order to pay for their travel expenses.  The previous 10-year contract, also known as Smart Pay 1 (SP1), expired on November 29, 2008.  Various individuals from my agency were extremely involved in the selection of our credit card vendor.  As it turned out, the incumbent charge card vendor was awarded the new 10-year contract. Internally, our credit card team conducted weekly meetings with the individuals from each section who were assigned to the project so that the conversion would be completed accurately and timely.  In addition to working with the credit...

Open most newspapers and you will probably find that many experts are predicting a bleak economic forecast for 2009 and financial uncertainty.  Due to inevitable declining market conditions, several hotels are now refocusing their efforts and targeting the government market as a primary sales initiative for the upcoming fiscal year. As a national sales director, one of my primary functions is to manage global RFPs for government key accounts on behalf of a hotel community compromised over 1,000 hotels.  Recently, I was in rigorous task of managing RFP negotiations when it occurred to me that hotels in general seemed to be putting too much of an emphasis on program history. In my opinion, this rationale strongly reinforces that educating hotels in terms of how...

Federal Agencies are required per contracting law to set aside 23% of their contracting funds for small and small disadvantaged businesses. If the government believes that small business is essential to this country as most of us do agree with this that small business is the backbone of our communities throughout this country. Each week I meet travel agencies that would love to get into the government travel business.  However most are discouraged before they even get started.  They hear the challenges and the difficulty of new entrants in to the market.    For our industry to thrive we must attract new travel companies and a younger generation to become interested in our industry. The federal agencies need to put substance behind the initiatives and not just...

Everybody who is involved in Government travel whether in systems administration, finances, travel consultants, travelers and others have many resources to help them fulfill their jobs. Online training on ETS/DTS  (GDS for travel agents)  for vendors to access appropriate financial codes for travelers, are some resources that can help. Attending seminars and educational programs from professional organizations dealing with Government travel can also be a valuable asset.   Federal Travel regulations and Regulations Integration: Government travel is conducted under various types of regulation laws and rules . Reservations, ticketing and travel activities like hotels, rent a car or Per Diem allowance, have  to comply with either/or Federal Acquisition...

When it comes to official government travel, there are so many regulations and procedures that must be followed on how to make your travel lodging reservations that it gets quite confusing.  Keep in mind that personal convenience, which is certainly what we would prefer, is not a Federal Travel Regulation (FTR) exception. First and foremost, we should be looking for a FedRoom facility.  Doing so will meet the FTR requirement of giving first consideration to FedRooms properties.  These are establishments that are contracted by General Services Administration (GSA) under the FedRooms Program to ensure that the government traveler stays in fire safe accommodations at a government rate.  Lodging facilities participating in the FedRooms program offer rates at or...

Fishing:  rod, reel, bait, picnic basket and a sunny, lazy day Phishing:  illegal act to fraudulently obtain sensitive information Just recently, our bureau received an alert from GSA’s Office of Charge Card Management to inform our cardholders of a new phishing scam involving another government agency’s employee.  Cardholders must be constantly vigilant of the types of activities that are being used to fraudulently obtain information. Phishing is any type of trick used to deceive cardholders into giving personal information:   their social security number, charge card number, banking information, passwords, etc.   Emails that convey the need for urgent or immediate action often come from what appears to be a legitimate bank address.   The...

The travel agency in which I am employed holds contracts for several large government accounts. I work as the Government Client Services Representative for our government department and I see the daily frustration that our employees experience in having to call in ticket transactions on ticketless carriers. For our government accounts we have approximately 10 employees that are members of our government support team. These employees work daily behind the scenes helping travel agents and managers with queue rolls, schedule change queues, preparing records for ticketing and then finally ticketing. We have one support team member in particular whose responsibility is to ensure that all tickets have been issued with carriers such as Airtran, Jetblue, and Southwest...

One of the distinct challenges the hotel community continues to encounter are the criteria set for establishing the areas to be surveyed and how the data from Smith Travel is used. The Data used to compile the rate and occupancy information tends to focus on all the area within the city limits, but does not focus on the main areas of where government or business travel is concentrated. A good example is to compare Boston and San Francisco as these two cities for corporate travel rates are rather similar. Boston with seasonal rates of $203-$256 is a concentrated area with a large downtown and does not contain a suburban area containing many hotels. The majority of the hotels within the city limits are located in the downtown area. San Francisco has a similar...

Due to the deregulation act of 1978, the airline markets opened up for more choices, better pricing, more schedules to choose from. Competition became more evident. However, the down side to this change is fuller flights, tighter security and baggage concerns. From the airline industry side, many small carriers were unable to keep up to the constant changes and many carriers found themselves in bankruptcy and mergers. Several large carriers were also forced into mergers in order to continue with the every changing demands of the public. Where this deregulation has been the best for the industry is still being debated. Government spending for airline travel is reported to be $3.4 billion in 2006. And as Corporations became more watchful of the pricing changes, the...

The City Pair Program was developed in 1980 for use by all government travelers. The program saves the government an estimated 50% to 70% off unrestricted coach fares.  Because the fares are so appealing, the airlines insist that only government travelers on official business use these rates.  Furthermore, City Program fares can only be purchased by using the government issued travel charge card or in special circumstances, the Government Transportation Request (GTR). The City Pair Program is contracted and administered by General Services Administration (GSA).  Awards to airlines are made after evaluating both quality of services and price.  This allows an award to be made to a higher priced carrier that has superior service. Besides the obvious financial...

Government employees are mandated by the Federal Travel Regulations to use an E-Gov Travel Service when made available by their agency. Most government travelers are familiar with on-line booking engines such as Expedia, Travelocity, etc. when making reservations for personal travel. However, the E-Gov travel systems may not be as user friendly since travel regulations are integrated with the system. Travelers often find that they need assistance when preparing their travel documents in the system and making reservations. At my agency, we provide travel help desk support to other government agencies. This support ranges from assisting travelers with system functionality on a small scale to training infrequent travelers on how to use the system. When appropriate we...

As an Agency/Organization Program Coordinator (A/OPC) over travel charge cards and a holder of an individually billed travel (IBT) card, it is amazing to realize how many government travelers do not understand the proper usage and responsibility of holding a government issued IBT.  Although the information is available to them when they first applied for the charge card, they still have preconceived notions on what they should be responsible for and what they think the agency’s responsibility is. The first problem that I run into a lot is the notion that the etravel government system used to record the travel expenses should automatically know what the charge card was used for and, therefore, the payment to the account should be correct. The etravel system...

The City Pair Program (CPP) is contracted and administered by the General Services Administration (GSA) for use by all government travelers.  The program was established in 1980 and has helped save taxpayer dollars over the years.  The CPP offers one-way flights so travelers are able to take multiple destination trips. The benefits of using the City Pair Program are, but not limited to: Fully Refundable Tickets No Penalties for Rebooking Prices are in effect for one year Capacity Fares Availability The use of the City Pair Program is mandatory for most government travelers.  However, there are exceptions in which a CPP fare doesn’t have to be used.  If a scheduled flight or space is not available in order to reach a travelers’ destination on time, then...

Per diem rates are set each year for various CONUS, non-foreign and overseas locations.  Although most per diem rates stay constant throughout the year, there are some locations where the rates may change several times during the year.  This may be to account for certain “peak” travel times or seasons, such as summer or any other time of the year when a lodging facility may see an increased demand for lodging.  Travelers staying in CONUS and non-foreign locations are required to claim lodging taxes as a separate expense under “miscellaneous expenses” in GovTrip, the ETS system used by the Department of the Treasury and its customers.  If the traveler is staying in an overseas location, lodging taxes are not claimed separately, but are...

This posting will be a discussion of a method used to help implement a new customer on an EGOV Travel system.  At my agency, Excel spreadsheets are utilized to collect data that is used as the building block determining how information and tables will be setup in the EGOV Travel system.   The information provided on these spreadsheets help ensure that good accurate data is used to build the new EGOV Travel database for the agency.  The spreadsheets also serve as a tool to assist an agency with data cleanup. In order to use the EGOV Travel software, new users go through a one-time self registration process the first time logging onto the EGOV Travel application.  Self registration procedures are provided to the agency’s travelers before going live with...

For those of us who work for the government and with travel policy, we have heard the words “prudence” or “prudent” many times.  What do these words mean and more importantly, what do they mean to each of us as individuals? Dictionaries give us many definitions for prudence and prudent.  Care, caution, discretion, frugal, responsible, sensible, and thrifty are a few of the definitions for these words.  How are they applied by the government traveler? What does the Federal Travel Regulation (FTR) say about being prudent?  FTR 301-10.123 basically states that the prudent person should use the same care in incurring expenses that would be spent on personal travel.  Most individuals use their personal money wisely and try to get the most value from their...

Our agency’s travel office receives inquiries regarding why a travel authorization is required prior to going on official business travel.  In answer to this inquiry here are some reasons why a travel authorization is of benefit for the federal agency as well as being generally required.  According to the Federal Travel Regulations (FTR) Chapter 301-2.1: §301-2.1  Must I have authorization to travel? Yes, generally you must have written or electronic authorization prior to incurring any travel expense. If it is not practicable or possible to obtain such authorization prior to travel, your agency may approve a specific authorization for reimbursement of travel expenses after travel is completed. However, written or electronic advance authorization is...

While the complexity of the ETS system can be intimidating to first-time users, there is a reason behind it.  Many travelers are used to using such systems as Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz for their personal travel needs.  These systems are relatively easy to use and travel can be booked in a short amount of time.  Often, nothing more than the traveler’s personal information, preferences and method of payment are needed in order to book their trip.  In contrast, the ETS can seem rather cumbersome, at times.  In reality, the system itself is not overly complicated, but the information that it has to take into consideration certainly is, as is the checks that the system performs prior to completing the authorization and/or voucher. In addition to...

Most of our customers who are traveling for the first time are likely surprised by the amount of information that must be entered into GovTrip.  There is, however, a method to the madness.  Before leaving on a trip, the traveler must submit an authorization.  This is an estimate of the total costs and expenses of the trip, and also includes an itinerary, as well.  The benefits of doing an authorization in GovTrip first is that since GovTrip takes the Federal Travel Regulations (FTR) into account, the document preparer and approving official are alerted to any items or expenses that could potentially be in violation of the FTR.  Once the authorization has gone through the entire routing process and has received final approval, the traveler may then go on their...

Amtrak is the only approved DOD rail passenger carrier in the US.  According to the Joint Travel Regulations, rail may be provided only when it meets mission requirements and is most effective mode taking in consideration best value such as time, per diem and miscellaneous expenses.  More and more travelers are forgetting about taking the Amtrak.  Amtrak is always an option when it comes down to the mode of transportation.   Many travelers chose to take the Amtrak if they have a fear of flying. As I understand it, you must have a medical certification stating you have a fear of flying. This fear of flying must be documented in writing by a physician.  Fear of flying “is a huge problem,” says Jerilyn Ross, president of the Anxiety Disorders...

Once the GSA and Department of Defense received the authority to contract with travel agencies to test travel agencies’ capabilities in 1980, a new customer was born for travel agencies in the United States.  In 1984, when the GAO removed the prohibition against using travel agencies for the federal government’s travel, travel agencies realized that government travel management could be a new business venture. Although there were a few flaws in the initial program, namely the that the TMC program caused travel agencies to be paid only after a trip was taken, while the travel agencies had to pay the Airline Reporting Corporation weekly, this was ameliorated by the introduction of a charge card to be used by government travelers.  However, it was not until...

This posting will be a discussion of the different resources used for auditing a travel document. The EGOV Travel application and the accounting system are the primary sources for retrieving the document for audit.  The EGOV Travel application houses all documentation regarding the travel including the required receipts.  The EGOV Travel documentation is compared to the accounting system to ensure that the two systems are in sync. Many internet resources are used to confirm that the information in the travel document conforms to federal travel regulations.  Some web sites, such as Sabre’s “Virtually There”, can be utilized to obtain valuable information regarding the individual’s travel such as itinerary information and eInvoice.  A key...

Being somewhat technologically challenged, the evolution of electronic payments amazes me.  My experience with making government payments began with the paper-based system.  Receipt of a federal travel payment took weeks. Today the advancement in technology gives the federal agency the capability to pay the traveler and vendors, if not instantly, then within a few days. Previously, we issued travel advances in cash through use of an onsite imprest fund cashier.  The traveler requested a voucher that authorized the cashier to disburse the cash to the recipient.  Now, the traveler, if approved by the agency, receives a travel charge card for an individually billed account (IBA) to obtain travel advances and to pay for travel expenses.  To receive a travel...

Government agencies are faced with reduced budgets in recent years due to the economy. At our agency, employees have been asked to submit suggestions to improve processes and save money during this time of limited resources, and several suggestions have been submitted that relate to government travel. One suggestion that was submitted was that a comparison worksheet should be required to compare the costs of a rental vehicle versus a privately owned vehicle (POV) where air transportation is not utilized for TDY. The submitter believed that some savings could be achieved in utilizing a rental vehicle instead of a POV, because the reimbursement for a POV often seems to exceed what would have been the reimbursement for a rental car. Government travel should be...

Most airlines participate in some type of commercial code-share agreement.  These agreements allow carriers to expand their service offerings without additional resources, equipment and costs. A code share is an agreement between airlines that allows the sale of seats by a partner airline on another airline’s flight as if the flight were its own.  Code shares can provide a cost-effective way for a carrier to enter new markets by using the facilities and operations of a partner carrier. This can be misleading for travelers who believe they’ve purchased a ticket on one airline only to discover they are actually flying another. Or worse, when that traveler believes they are staying on a single airline on a multi-leg trip only to discover that they are...

A few years ago the Defense Travel Management Office was designated to be in charge of the Rental Car Program for the entire Federal Government.  The Rental Car Program is designed for official business used only to meet mission requirements. It offers special benefits for federal government employees on TDY such as unlimited mileage, insurance, free upgrades, etc. While participating in this program you are required to show a valid drivers license and TDY orders. A traveler can only request a compact size car unless otherwise authorized by their approving official.  Rental cars can be purchase using your government travel card, personal card or cash depending on your agency local travel policy. While on TDY, you must treat the automobile as if it were your...

In sections 2d and 3a of the Certified Government Travel Professional Training Course, I must admit I try not to rental cars whenever possible when I travel on official business. When I am on a site visit and we are researching meeting locations, then it is unavoidable. Generally I would call the Rental Car Company directly to obtain their government rates. I realize I could have reserved through our Omega Travel System but, for some reason, I was not comfortable with the system. I was always concerned about the liability issue. In reading this section I really shouldn’t have worried. Everything seemed to be covered in this regard. The Electronic Travel Systems section details the Federal Government system. Since the U.S. Postal Service is quasi-government, our...

The success of GSA’s contract City Pair Program (CPP) is widely acknowledged and well documented.  The CPP has now “expanded … to include 13 carriers in over 5,700 markets.”  GSA estimates that “CPP fares will provide average savings of 68% below full, commercial air fares” and that the program “is projected to provide the Federal Government cost avoidance and potential savings of $6.3 billion in fiscal year 2011.” (1)  While this number is significant on its own, it becomes even more impressive when compared to the $3.4 billion estimated cost for all federal travel in 2006. (2) In order to keep the program’s fares to a minimum, the government has mandated use of CPP fares through the Federal Travel Regulation (FTR).  While there are certain...

The Federal Travel Regulations (FTR) require that all federal travel be booked using a government travel agent, also known as a Travel Management Center (TMC).  Reservations can be made on-line using an e-Gov travel systems or via a phone call to the TMC.  When you use a TMC, your reservations are booked using one of the Global Distribution Systems (GDS) such as Sabre, Galileo, or Worldspan.  The GDS were previously known as Computer Reservation Systems (CRS) and were created by major airlines to aggregate the schedules, pricing, and inventory of the world’s airlines that could be used by travel agents to make reservations. The GDS eventually began including hotel, rental car, tour and cruise inventory for those companies that wanted to pay to participate....

Are you ready for a COOP or Pandemic situation?  What about the Swine Flu? Influenza pandemics have occurred every few decades.  Previous pandemics have affected a large number of the population and resulted in numerous deaths.  No one knows when we will be affected by the next pandemic or a COOP event. We have developed a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) to ensure that our Temporary Duty (TDY) and Relocation customers continue to receive services should we experience a disruption to normal operations. Whether it be a major catastrophic event or a software outage, communication is critical. Our TDY area is ready, should we experience a GovTrip outage. Our experienced and knowledgeable travel technicians will work closely with Northrop Grumman to ensure that our...

The federal government has taken on monumental tasks implementing the DTS system and ETS systems, and I commend DoD and GSA for their actions. Surprisingly, although the systems have been in place for many years now, my experience has been that neither group has been able to obtain the type of management reports necessary to effectively alter traveler behavior or leverage their purchasing power during negotiations. As a simple example, let’s take the FedRooms program. Currently DoD does not participate in the program. Therefore the FedRooms rates, according to GSA’s FedRooms manager, are not even loaded into the DTS system for display to DoD travelers. On the ETS side of the house, while FedRooms rates (XVU code) are displayed, they are displayed with up to 20...

My agency uses the program, FedTraveler.com E-Gov Travel Service (ETS), for travel services for its federal employees.  This is an example of a Global Distribution System (GDS).  The ETS can be used to book flights, hotel lodging, and rental cars, as well as reimburse employees for travel services.  ETS is primarily a self-service system whereby employees enter their travel plans and budget authorizers approve or return plans.  Overall, the ETS is convenient and user-friendly.  I have entered dozens of travel plans for my job as a facilities inspections officer.  One of the biggest benefits I have found is that the ETS automatically calculates the correct government per diem. My major complaint with the ETS is the transaction fees.  As stated on page 43 of...

In addition to providing Temporary Duty travel, our office is a Relocation Resource Center and we provide end-to-end relocation services, for both domestic and international, to 29 Federal customers.  We deliver an effective and efficient relocation solution and take advantage of cost sharing. We strive to ensure our customers have a pleasant experience during what can be a very stressful time for the employee and their family. Each relocating employee is assigned a relocation coordinator.  We provide one stop shopping.  Our coordinators counsel the employee from the beginning of the relocation and walk them through each step of the entire process.  Each agency has a customized web page with fill able forms and other information, such as links to the FTR, GSA...

Travel Management has grown with leaps and bounds.  It has grown from a struggling infant to a fully automated system capable of providing all your travel and travel payment needs. 1989 a survey conducted by American Express shows that corporate travel management is a career opportunity. 1993 the Clinton administration thought it could eliminate the entire White House travel office staff and replace it with a cousin of the president and the help of a midsized travel agency in Little Rock. Hal Rosenbluth of Rosenbluth International proclaims time is right for the automation of travel management. 2001, Sato began specializing in providing travel management services to government agencies. 2002 “The ETravel initiative was one of President Bush’s 24...

This will be a interesting course for me to complete.  I am already amazed that $2.5 billion dollars is spent on official travel a year, and more I’m sure with fares changing daily.  This makes us the largest purchaser of travel in the world. It is my hope that we will look at ways to curtail some of the spending, with so much new and improved technology available now this should be possible.  There are ways of live broadcasting for training classes, conference calls, etc.  I feel a majority of this training could be on line, which I am a big supporter of that.  I don’t think there is anything better than on-line courses, and especially when companies are trying to cut costs. A lot of costs can also be cut, with just encouraging travelers...

Business intelligence, data mining, reporting all are the key to future best practices of Travel Management whether it is corporate or government travel.  Without data one cannot make strategic decisions, improve efficiencies, and reduce expenses while improving the customer experience. For Government travel this has been a challenge and continues to plague the market sector.  Getting one’s hands around the information is difficult at best and when you finally do receive the information it has been hard to verify the accuracy. Removing obstacles for data to be processed without the invasion of personal information is the key to our future in this business. TRX, Government, and Suppliers need to create a commons set of standards in reporting that provides...

Why aren’t I able to use the Government CTO/TMC to booked my rental car and lodging for official travel as a contracted employee? Contractors are NOT Government employees. Therefore, any travel rates offered by transportation carriers, negotiated by the Government for “employees or uniformed personnel” (such as the city-pair air fare contracts negotiated by GSA and the rental car rate agreements negotiated by the (Military) Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (SDDC)) for official government business) do NOT apply to contractors or contractors’ employees. (Commercial car or hotel vendors may voluntarily offer-discounted rates for contractors’ employees at their discretion or contractors can even negotiate rates for their employees with...

Government travel represents only a small portion of government spending.  When dealing with taxpayer dollars however, government employees are and should be held highly accountable.  The government traveler should exercise the highest level of ethical behavior to avoid any repercussions that could arise from public perception.  The newspapers and television stations are always anxious to report stories concerning government officials using the taxpayer’s money to fund personal vacations or lavish accommodations stating it was for official government business.  And that, my fellow Americans, is the fleecing of America.  Consistent enforcement of travel policies is needed to ensure waste, fraud, or abuse does not occur and also to avoid even the...

The government’s rental car program has established a successful car agreement with most competitive rental car companies. The agreement lowers the cost of rental cars, offering exclusive special benefits to its employees. Renting a car can be very expensive while causing a burden. Many rental car companies require further identification and documentation just to rent a car for hours or days, with many restrictions. My experience with rental car companies has not been very pleasant.  One major factor contributor to this unpleasant experience is the deposit required, which is extremely high. While traveling on a business trip to Los Angeles last year, I was asked to put down a $250.00 deposit.  This became a burden as I was unprepared for this cost, or if I...

Our division as well as many others, has developed a simple sampling (audit) plan for conducting quality control  reviews in compliance with the Federal Travel Regulations (FTR), the ARC Travel Program Guide, and Government Accountability Office (GAO) Guidelines.  The main objective is to ensure travel and travel payments are in compliance as determined by the FTR.  Our staff will complete a Travel Voucher Statistical Sampling Checklist on each document selected for audit. At the beginning of each month a random selection of documents is made from vouchers paid the previous month.  The Travel Voucher Statistical Sampling Checklist comprised of multiple tests per document is conducted on each randomly selected document.  The Statistical Checklist is comprised...

I can remember years ago, when a federal employee, that was authorized official travel, would receive their travel authorization from the typewriter of the secretary, take that piece of paper to the ticket counter of the in-house TMC and make all of the travel arrangements.  A few days later, you would receive days later a GTR would cover the cost of the ticket and the ticket printer would produce your itinerary, along with your information regarding your trip.  It was nice to see a face, get to know your internal travel agent, as well as  have the hands-on person available there to ask any questions and to make any changes, if necessary.  Today, everything is done by the booking engine, we have become accustomed to booking our travel via our PC’s, pads or...

The sight of travelers frantically searching for their tickets has become rare at airports in recent years. That’s because more people are relying on electronic tickets, or e-tickets, when they fly. E-ticket is now the main method of issuing tickets for the vast majority of airlines. It’s a secure form of ticketing that makes travel plans less cumbersome and more efficient for the traveler. The travel data is all stored electronically in the Global Distribution System (GDS) or the airlines reservation system. Passengers can, at any time, print their e-ticket receipt from the airlines web site. In addition, a passenger with an e-ticket can check in faster by just producing the e-ticket print out and an appropriate ID. E-tickets issued through the E Gov Travel...

The volume of information presently available from a variety of web-based sources is immeasurable. With hundreds of millions of websites presently in existence, practically any topic imaginable is likely to yield more search results than the person running the query is capable of processing. For example, a simple query for “US government travel policies” using the Bing search engine yielded approximately 407 million results. The same search on Google yielded 875 million results. Regardless of the mass quantities of direct and indirect results to any given search, there remain gaps of knowledge when it comes to government travel policies. Government travelers and travel vendors presently have the ability to easily access rules and regulations as set forth in...

When a vehicle is rented for official travel, only the expenses incurred for official use of the vehicle may be reimbursed.  Use of the vehicle to travel from the hotel, to and from the temporary duty point, and to and from restaurants is considered official use. If the traveler wants to include personal use of a rented vehicle, the cost of that use may not be claimed. Some travelers arrive at the temporary duty point early, and remain there after duty is completed, and wish to use a rental vehicle for that additional personal time.  The traveler must inform the rental agency that a portion of the time for which the vehicle is rented is for personal travel, not official business. If the traveler takes a trip away from the temporary duty point, such as on a...

CAR RENTALS: Today Car rentals are all run by Corporations and private enterprises (they used to be owned by Auto manufactures). This $16 billion industry offers its services to the Government through formal agreements. The Car Rental Program for the government is now a day’s run by the Defense Travel Management Office (DTMO). The government business is valued at $300 million with over 2.25 million cars at 5000 locations. The car rental agreement between the (DTMO) and the car rental companies offers a very competitive service to the government using various car sizes and benefits like: free CDW, Unlimited Mileage, Reduced driver age to 18 for official travel (with no underage driver fee), online bookings on DTS,ETS, Quality control and Car Upgrade from some...

As soon as it is determined that a government employee will be traveling in order to fulfill specific official missions it is time for that employee to create a level 2 profile.  The level 2 profile is assigned specifically for the traveler and pertinent information within the profile can be copied over into the GDS (Global Data System) by the booking agent at the time of booking. When working with travel plans for federal government employees it is important to understand that arriving safely to and from their destination is of utmost importance and is generally only a small percentage of the employee’s job duties.  The government employes responsibility to travel is only necessary to accomplish a greater mission.  Therefore, I hope to continually be of...

Congress enacted the Travel and Transportation Reform Act (TTRA), also known as Public Law 105-264, in 1998.  This Act mandated the use of a government furnished travel charge card. All federal employees were required to use a travel charge card to pay for official government travel expenses.  According to Hatch (2010), the travel cards were intended to reduce travel costs and improve oversight of employee travel expenditures, but audits of the government travel card program at a number of agencies found evidence of waste, fraud, and abuse due to a lack of adequate internal controls (Hatch, 2010, p. 1).  Hatch reported that the dollar volume of travel card transactions increased 103% from $4.39 billion in FY1999 to $8.93 billion in FY2009 (Hatch, p. 1). In...

The GSA (General Services Administration) often enters into City-Pairs negotiations hampered by a relative lack of hard data on Government travel.  Where substantive data has been available it has not been as detailed or as encompassing as the Government requires to effectively support negotiations.  This lack of effective data caused the Travel Program management Office (PMO) of the GSA to conduct an Full and Open competition for a vendor that could provide services to make up for this lack of information.  The solicitation requirement was to obtain the best travel data aggregation and reporting solution that satisfied government requirements at the best value.  A trade-off analysis was performed between technical and cost and past performance to make the...

I contend that electronic ticketing was the single most significant improvement made during the 1990′s by the airline industry to regain control of their product. Up to this time the airlines were losing thousands of dollars daily. Savvy passengers were literally running wild taking advantage of points beyond, hidden cities, etc. This single enhancement stopped revalidations and itinerary changes without add collects; eliminated lost tickets; caused passengers to stay with their scheduled airlines during irregularities, eliminated paper waste and handling, and made security so much easier to be enforced. When this enhancement was first introduced the public was very leery. No one wanted to make the change. Compliance was minimal because many passengers were...

As a travel agent, understanding the history of government travel and how it has affected the importance of adequate travel planning is monumental to a TMC’s success as a government contractor.  Some of the most influential changes to government travel affecting travel agencies have been: 1980, GSA and DoD received authority to contract and test several travel agencies capabilities. October 4th, 1985 DOT issued an order which terminated the antitrust immunity for the airlines to operate SATO, effective April 30th, 1986.  This meant the airlines could not create cooperative pricing agreements, and SATO would operate independently. November 8th, 1985 section 1464 of the DoD Authorization Act, P.L. 99-144, stated free and open competition for government travel...

Most of my experience comes to play on the audit end of the travel spectrum. I have 20 + years experience working in the finance arena; and currently serve as my Bureau’s travel ‘expert.’ I work a lot on the internal review or audit side of the house, as well as provide TDY travel training internally. One of the major items I stress to travelers is the usage of the Contract City Pair Fares (CCP’s), and not only is the government traveler mandated to utilize them by the Federal Travel Regulations (FTR); there are multiple benefits to them as well. One of the major benefits to utilizing CCP’s is the ability to make changes to your reservations without penalties up until the ticketing date at no additional charges. In my agency we ticket 2 business days...

Hotel rating systems used to determine the relative quality of individual hotels, or even entire brands, often reflect only the provision of amenities and do not necessarily take into full account those qualities that differentiate a desirable hotel from a non-desirable hotel. While safety and cleanliness do enter into consideration for many rating systems, they too often are minimized by assessments that rely heavily on the number of amenities offered to determine the ultimate rating of a hotel. For instance, two practically identical hotels in the same neighborhood could, theoretically, receive different ratings simply because one features a small swimming pool, or enclosed closets in the rooms instead of exposed clothes racks, or sets out muffins and juice each...