Posts Tagged "CONUS"

First, the material does not note that some chains permit Government workers on personal travel to take advantage of Government rates. This is not so of all chains and you cannot use a Government credit card for such purposes. I suspect, that it works well for those chains that offer it as it creates a kind of brand loyalty and Government travelers are free to select the hotel they wish to use on Government travel. Second, the article does not note that per diem for a CONUS city is broken into two parts. The first part is for lodging, the second is for meals and incidentals. Government workers on CONUS travel, under GSA rules, receive up to the Government rate for hotels in an area (with some exceptions). However, that part of the per diem is limited by what the...

Each year, it is my responsibility to solicit all four thousand plus of our hotels for each agency or third party we have relationships with, who have government lodging contracts. The rates must be at or below per diem, must be contracted January 1 through December 31 of program year, are preferably both commissionable and last room available. Also, the hotels offer their own non-contracted government rate that may or may not be at per diem. Although these are pretty simple requirements and standard for all participating properties, they do have challenges that corporatization may improve. First, per diems are issued in early August to be effective October of that year through September of the following year. Since we currently contract January to December, all...

Starting in 2005 the lodging per diem rates have been based on the average daily rate (ADR) data, which is a measure based upon a property’s room rental revenue divided by the number of rooms rented as reported by the hotel property to the contractor.  GSA reviews each specific property to make sure they meet their criteria for geography, fire safe certification, and various property’s demography combined with their ADR to help determine market rates.  This calculation provides GSA with the average rate that rooms rent in a given area.  The goal is to find properties that have the best mid-range hotels in the market. For fluctuations, GSA has created seasonal rate periods in many markets where there is a sustained period (two or more months in...

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...

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...

Government Sabre is a product that enables travel agencies to streamline the travel booking process for government travelers.  Government Sabre delivers access to government negotiated rates, policy compliance automated at the point of sale, and automation to improve efficiency in the government travel booking process. Government Sabre includes access to government negotiated rates, policy compliance automated at the point of sales, automation to improve efficiency of overall government travel booking process, and provides access so the agent will only see government approved rates. Government Sabre offers the following features: Access to Preferred Rates. CONUS and OCONUS rates for lodging and transportation, which are approved government per diem rates. Rates...