My agency offers E-Gov travel reimbursable services to other government agencies as a means for them to more cost effectively provide travel and let’s the agency concentrate on their core mission. In support of this, we offer a travel Help Desk. Initially, our intent was to offer better service administrating E-Gov Travel and travel policy questions for our customers than we felt the vendors could provide, and we were able to accomplish this. (We were used to doing this even before E-Gov Travel).
However we have noticed that our Helpdesk has expanded somewhat in the scope of questions being asked. We receive more than just the routing administration questions such as routing lists and group changes. Travelers have questions about finding the correct flights or hotels in they system. In effect, we are an intermediary between the software and the TMC. While we are not travel agents, flight, hotel and car rental questions are common as they relate to the FTR and/or agency regulations. Also if a TMC is busy and callers can not contact them due to weather delays or disasters, they often call us to assist.
A common questions is how to create a valid document when combining personal and official travel. This type of question takes into account the software as well as travel policy. Other questions we receive are about reservations not being issued, charges to a traveler’s credit card that are in error or possibly charged to the CBA when they should have been charged to the IBA. Sometimes a TMC will contact us when a traveler’s card will not accept a charge. It could be the traveler is delinquent and the card is suspended. Other times a card will not work at a certain location and may be blocked due to the MCC codes being used by the merchant.
So in effect, while travelers use E-Gov Travel and often seem like they have fewer communication options, with my agency’s E-Gov Travel helpdesk, we feel they are never alone in the federal travel process.
By Daniel Carozza
“The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Bureau of the Public Debt, or the U.S. Department of the Treasury.”