Before the advent of the government travel credit card most Temporary Duty (TDY) travel was limited to a small cadre of individuals.  Service members often could not afford the added expense of traveling without an advance payment.  Travel advances created a series of challenges that were difficult to overcome: the major challenge of travel advances was that the system was labor intensive, it often resulted in more overpayments, and it was less secure for service members to travel with cash.

The lengthy travel advance process began with the service member completing a DD Form 1610, Request and Authorization for TDY Travel of DOD Personnel. The disbursing clerks were required to verify the requested dollar amount in order to ensure that it was in accordance with the Joint Federal Travel Regulations (JFTR) and the Marine Corps Travel Instruction Manual (MCTIM) prior to processing the advance for payment.  After the voucher was approved by the auditor for payment, the disbursing clerk created a DD Form 1351-6, Multiple Payments List. The member was then paid via cash or check depending on where s/he was located.  The government travel credit card eliminated the tenuous advance process; service members were able to receive funds for travel with the credit card. The new system reduced the number of indebtedness due to overpayment from advances. It also improved the security and safety of the service member, and reduced the disbursing work load required for advance payments.

The second major evolution for the Department of Defense was the elimination of the paper vouchers, and the conversion to the computerized DTS.  With the old system, the paperwork was completed by the service member, turned in to the administration office, and hand carried to the disbursing office where it would be logged in to an internal tracking system. The travel voucher package included an Original DD Form 1351-2, the original DD Form 1610 (travel order), airline itinerary and final stub, lodging receipts and one copy of all other receipts for expenses greater than $75.00.  Completed packages were difficult to obtain, and often a series of problems developed in the movement from service member to auditor.

If the travel voucher package was not logged into the disbursing system the service member would have no means of tracking the travel voucher package. Assuming the travel voucher package was logged into the internal tracking system properly, the next hurdle was ensuring the entire package made it to the disbursing clerk’s desk, was computed properly, and then sent to the auditor intact. If the entire process did occur, and the service member did not claim expenses that were not in accordance with the JFTR or the Joint Federal Regulation (JTR), then the claim was complete and the service member would be paid.

With the advent of the Defense Travel System (DTS), the service member is able to track his/her voucher from beginning to end on his/her office computer.  All receipts are loaded into the system electronically, and are maintained for six years and three months. Lost or misplaced items are no longer an issue.  When a member completes a voucher, DTS cross checks it against the Joint Federal Travel System for compliance, and problems with claims that are not in compliance with regulations are also eliminated.

It is not necessary to have lived through the previous stages of government travel to understand the current system, but it does help to have an understanding of the history of travel to better deal with the challenges of the future implementation of government credit cards and DTS.  As Fredrick Allen said, “Only fools who do not heed the lessons of History, are doomed to repeat it!” Travel professionals need to be aware of where we have come from in order to better facilitate the future.  Understanding the obstacles of the old system may circumvent challenges in the new one.

By G.W. McCurtis

What was surprising to me about solicitation TFL06-RH-1040 was the vast scope and limited timeline of the project. The project requires that TRX establish data feeds with not only DTS and the three ETS vendors, but also with:

• multiple charge card vendors (presumably GE Capital, Chase, Citibank, US Bank)
• every government TMC/CTO (which I understand there are approximately 100)
• settlement data (i.e. ARC)
• data direct from suppliers (air, car, hotel)

When you step back and think about the scale of the project from a technology perspective, not to mention the privacy and security issues, it is immense. And now for the laughable part: GSA required the contractor to achieve “full operational capability” within 180 days (6 months) from the date of award. That is simply not feasible.

TRX was awarded the contract in December of 2006. That would have meant the business intelligence system was generating reports from all requested data feeds by June of 2007. Credit GSA for implementing what might turn out to be a world class travel management system, but they need to comprehend the scope of their request and establish realistic timelines.

By Ted Schuerman

The DTMO serves to establish direction, set policy and centrally manage the defense departments commercial travel programs.

DTMO is responsible for the DTS online booking tool and monitors the usage, cost and customer satisfaction in order to determine the efficiency and effectiveness. Since the implementation of DTS (Defense Travel System) in 2006 the system now operates over 9,500 sites worldwide and has approximately 75,000 users accessing it on a daily basis.

The positive customer service results and the efficiency of the tool have been hard to ignore.

Per the Transportation Reform Act of 1998 the DOD requires that all travelers are reimbursed with in 30days of submission of their travel claim.  The average time it takes DTS to reimburse the traveler is 7 days.  This has resulted in a cost avoidance of 40% in voucher processing. The 2008 customer service survey revealed 69% of DTS users find the tool easy to use, while maintaining an 85% adoption rate. The combination of both numbers subsequently reduces agency transactions fee costs for the Department of Defense.

The DTS implementation is still not completed.  Phase III completion is scheduled for 2010.

The remaining Phase III sites include US Army Special Operations Command, Army Corps of Engineers, Air Force Reserve and Navy afloat sites. DTMO is always searching for ways to improve the site and is open to customer feedback and suggestions in order to maintain a responsive and valuable tool for its users.

By Maruca Malloy

In the old days and before the 1978 Airlines Deregulation Act, the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) used to decide the fares between any two cities. They decided which airline flew from/to cities and how much they should charge.

Well, the 1978Airline Deregulation Act changed the dynamics and working ways of the airline industry. It allowed airlines to decide where to fly and how much they can charge. Competition was the name of the game.

What was the government reaction to the deregulation act?

In 1980, the government using the sheer volume of business it controls was able to negotiate and establish “government fares or CITY PAIR PROGRAM”. “Fly America Act” requires the use of US flag carriers or US Code Share flights.

These fares were to become the backbone of huge savings for the government and were published under the code of YCA. (Special government Business Class fare was also established to be used under special circumstances). TMC /CTO’s can report all government travels easy now with the use of E-Ticketing. These fares are very low, based on one way and very flexible and fully refundable.

The government also looked into the accommodation of the staff on duty and their use of car rentals & established rules and regulations about their use with additional benefits to government travelers.

The government requires from hotel/car rental companies to provide usage reports to DTMO.

On top of that, the government established Per Diem expenses for TDY allowances published in the FTR. Those rates are reviewed and adjusted by 3 entities:

• GSA for CONUS
• DoD for Alaska, Hawaii, Guam and any other non-foreign location
• The Department of State for OCONUS

Electronic Travel Systems:

Both the Dept. of Defense & GSA decided to invest and establish new electronic systems utilizing the new technology breakthroughs. A new Defense Travel System (DTS) by the DoD for the use of Military personnel and the E-GOV (or ETS) by GSA were developed for use of civilian government employees.

Federal Travelers are required by law to use Travel Management Service (TMS); otherwise they will be responsible for any cost associated with not using the system.

Chapter 301 from the FTR describes the minimum capabilities of the system which basically include the availability of Travel Management Center (TMC) or Commercial Ticket Office (CTO) to perform: Bookings, lodging and car rentals. In addition to basic management reporting system  providing for example number of bookings by type of service (carrier, lodging & car rental) and compliance with policy and reasons for non compliance , statistics on origin/destinations, number of lodging nights and where & locations of car rentals used. The last thing is possibility of reconciliation of charges on CBA and refund tracking and processing.

After airlines stopped paying the TMC’s commission, the TMC’s established 2 methods of collecting fees for their work; Transaction Fees (fees on each action they take) or Administration Fees (a lump sum for all their actions say during a month).

Contracting:

The DoD issue an RFP and GSA Travel Services Solutions (TSS) Multiple Award Schedule (MAS). The awarding of services will go to the winners with the experience, professional accreditation and specific capabilities.

The other method of contracting is Full & Open competition for TMC or CTO to conduct Government travel services. Government will issue a task force order sent to 3 schedule contractors for bids. The best one with value and price is usually selected. Also the Government will always put aside some contracts for small businesses. The TSS Schedule RFP means travel agents have 90-120 days to respond to a bid.

Once TMCs/CTOs are functioning then they will be using GDS which are called front office. TMCs/CTOs reporting systems linked to GDS data like: Airline ticketing, Hotel Bookings, Car Rentals, Destinations, Fares and other data like CPP usage, CPP expense, unused tickets to provide full reporting to the government.

Payment Methods:

Beside GTR (Government Transportation Request), which is being phased out as a method of payment, a new law was introduced in 1998, to mandate the use of charge cards to pay for travel expenses; thus the GSA SmartPay was introduced.

The SmartPay cards are uniquely numbered for recognition as Government issued charge cards. Cards issued to agencies or organizations are called CBA (Centrally Billed Accounts- liability rest with the government) and those issued to individuals are called IBA (Individual Billing Accounts- liability rests with the individual).

Enhancements & benefits of using these cards include: one method of payment, minimize cash advances, Electronic Payments to vendors and Electronic reimbursement to travelers, tracking data, faster transactions, new look with anti-misuse / abuse features & increased security methods such as email supervisor once card is used. Airlines will only issue tickets with Government/military fares against these cards.

Frequent Flyer Program:

Government employees are allowed to accumulate either miles on airlines or points at hotels/cars.

Conclusion:

Whoever wants to be a travel manager or a government travel professional must have a ticketing/reservation background and master all the information mentioned above from all the sources that deal with government travel from web training to access to all the government travel rules published. He should have high ethics and communicate clearly and effectively with all government individual travelers and branch managers. Well versed in dealing with the DTS/ETS SYSTEMS for authorization and issuance of vouchers.

By:  Metri Altwal

By: Stacey Clark

Before today’s technology the tools we were constrained to from a hotel perspective seem primitive.  Although I have never had the prodigious opportunity to utilize the ETS/DTS from an end user vantage, I believe my experience can lend testimony to the giant technological leaps and improved systems we have come to develop and implement in a very short time.  I feel the same holds true in most aspects of business and life.

Before global, web-based RFP systems and advanced lead delivery instruments existed, nearly everything in the hotel world was accomplished with paper documents via mail and/or fax.

I recall the year 1996.  It was my first RFP season and I was one of several support employees tasked with completing global, consortia RFP.  I remember the burden of literally being on an RFP assembly line that my boss later coined “the Mamba Line.”  The first step of this grueling, extensive procedure was delivering hard copies of RFPs to our entire hotel community via mail.  It was repetitive, monotonous work.

Needless to say, things didn’t get any easier when we received the completed RFPs back from the hotels.  Many late nights were spent on corrections, revisions and renegotiations.  I personally recall endless afternoons and triplicate copies at the Xerox machine

As I am quickly approaching 40 years of age, I consider myself fortunate to have lived in two different worlds; in the first I was limited to the tools and lack of sophistication of yester-year, however, in the second I have had access to the speed and efficiency of  21st century technology.

In my opinion, most Generation Y Millennials could not image life without Blackberries, cell phones, video games, remote controls and wireless internet access.  In certain aspects, I feel  fortunate to have a much deeper appreciation of the convenient tools we know today, because I can still vividly remember a time when television actually stopped broadcasting shortly after 1:00 a.m. and the atrocious confinement to only three major networks.  I also remember how much slower things seemed to crawl prior to nearly all business and government organizations transitioning to electronic systems.

In certain capacities, I believe the strides taken by U.S. Federal Government are parallel to that of what fits other businesses and our society as a whole.  I think this is especially true as it pertains to environmental strategies and corporate responsibilities.  I firmly trust our ever-evolving quest to make systems paperless is greatly appreciated as it relates to EPA expectations.

In our industry, the communication between our best customers and our hotel community seem to be growing at a healthy pace in the right directions.  I hypothesize, as technology advances, so will “adaptability” and soon thereafter “dependability” until finally the next better evolution of tool presents itself to make the system better again.

by Christopher McLaughlin

Know that each of these agencies has gone through a fairly rigorous test to be available for use by federal agency states credibility these companies.  Their financial health, the evaluation of the staff, key employees, and their ability to know their clients’ needs and work with them on a daily basis.

If the purpose of the ETS or DTS system is to provide a seamless approval and reservation system that can operate quickly and efficiently all while providing rapid reimbursement to the federal traveler for their out of pockets expenses.  It is certainly the understanding that reimbursing the traveler has been greatly improved since the implementation of these systems.

Going forward we acknowledge that user functionality is not where they want to be but due to excessive regulation this challenge.

Perhaps one of the most overlooked options for a federal agency is the use of an accommodated TMC versus the imbedded.  Though they may both do the same job accommodated travel agencies have to compete to win your business and they must earn their value through their customer service.

If I were an agency my criteria would be how large is my business within this TMC’s total revenue?  Do they have the facilities and personnel to handle by travelers?  Do they operate or subcontract the 24 hour emergency desk or is it operated by their own staffs who know the nuances of my agency and their travelers.

Value of the travel agency can often be overlooked because we relate to many of the consumer driven systems that we use for our personal travel but have no regulations to require us of specific items for personal travel as we do for government travel.   Given all the services  a travel agency must do and services they can provide one should look very carefully at all choices for service rather than taking the quick solution of utilizing only the imbedded agency.

This is an opinion of myself and does not express any opinion on behalf of SGTP.

By Rick Singer

It is not easy to get an IATA number but IATA numbers are basically the Travel agent’s ID number; this is also used to identify individual travel companies so that they will receive a commission check once the person has traveled to the destination.  When you put the IATA number in, it’s not for the discount…it’s so the companies know which travel agent to pay the commission to. To get the travel agency rate, you generally need to get the right rate codes (at least with rental cars & hotels – not sure how airlines interact with the GDS systems since they do not get paid commission on the airlines but are paid by a fee that is attached to the booking).

Since SATO has an IATA number and SATO gets $1 per night spent in a hotel from the hotels. For IATA cardholders they receive commission from hotels and sometime the airlines gives them breaks on airfares and/or sometimes the airlines give them upgrades from coach to first class.

When a traveler books online it is called the Global Distribution System, also known as the GDS system. Traveling on government orders you are not allowed to use 3rd party website, such as Travelocity, Expedia, Priceline and Orbitz. Even if it is a better rate than the government per diem, most hotels offer the government per diem in their hotel. The rate code in most cases would be GM or GOV.

You are allowed to book reservations on your own without using the DTS also if you have stayed at the hotel and you know that it is approved government hotel — by all means call the hotel directly.  This will take out the middleman such as travel agents and SATO but you would know exactly what you are booking. Besides most of the time you have a favorite hotel and you know which room you want, how you want your room and what amenities come with that room to make you more comfortable.

I have heard from a lot of the government travelers that comes through my hotel, that the older government travelers are just used to having certain items while traveling so they will also look for those items while choosing to stay in a hotel when they travel. Examples include free Internet access, breakfast included, gym, and social hours.

Working in the hotel industry I have heard from some of the government travelers that they are required to book through the DTS. But also if your travel manager books you through the DTS and you are not happy with the accommodations, you must stay one night and they can move to your desired government approved hotel.

Sometimes the traveler would like a hotel with a Gym or perhaps a swimming pool. I have heard that some government travelers would want to save their food per diem and are looking for extended stay accommodations such as larger refrigerators, stove tops, pots n pans, and utensils. This way they would be able to save more money instead of eating out all the time. Others might be looking for the kind of food that is already prepared to eat as soon as they get up or right after they get off work. The hotels breakfast or social hour have been taken away slowly in the past few years to try to save the hotels money, but I noticed that they are coming back with these programs to capture the government travelers.

Through my own personal view I have noticed that since the economy has turned from less leisure travelers, for an example we have 55% of June revenue entirely with government business. 10% group, 12% wholesalers such as Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity and Priceline and a mere 23% leisure travel.

So our hotel is looking at offering items they never had to offer due to the location of our hotel. Right on he Beach in San Diego! We need to capture more government travelers the hotels and the government travelers are also looking at what they can do to offset those extra traveling expenses, such as parking fee, Internet fees, food and beverages, gym memberships and how they can save their food per diem

On almost a daily basis we have calls coming in and asking these same questions, what do we offer for government travelers or better yet can we have breakfast with our reservations, and waive the parking fee? So we are looking at the government on what we can offer them to help them save their food per diem and also to help the hotel generate more government business to generate higher revenues.

by Kimberly Hubbard

It is our policy that all travelers use an available CTO for all official transportation requirements.    While online ticketing may initially appear to be less expensive and a way to save taxpayer dollars, these fares are usually not refundable, and the travelers may be charged substantial fees to make changes should the traveler’s mission needs change.   DLA recently reported that they have gleaned monetary savings through use of DTS.   If a traveler needs to change a City Pairs airfare, they typically do not have to pay for an entire new ticket fare.  The standard CTO fee would be charged each time a change is made, but in most cases, the traveler does not incur other ticketing costs.  In contrast, travelers going through a commercial vendor could pay a change fee of $100 to $150, plus the price of a new ticket.   The traveler themselves might be responsible for these charges, should the Approving Official decide not to reimburse transportation purchases that do not follow agency regulations.

In conclusion, using these online sites would not support policy or, in most cases, save taxpayer money.  Due to contracts that have been negotiated for travel services, CTO tickets are at the most economical route, consistent with travel regulations and government policies that satisfy mission requirements.

Reference: DLA gleans monetary savings through use of Defense Travel System (9/28/2011 by Jonathan Stack)

K. Barnoski, 2012.    Disclaimer: The contents of this message are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the Government or my agency.

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 with various reports and reporting formats adds a layer of complexity and administration that is not present in the corporate market, and makes the task of rolling up all information into a government-wide summary complex and cumbersome. The same is true if not more intricate on the DoD/DTS side, which I understand has current contracts with up to 100 travel agencies. Add on top of that the dynamic that travelers sometimes deal directly with travel vendors (hotels, airlines, etc) and by-pass travel agencies all together, and the data becomes even more diluted.

In 2007, the federal government contracted with TRX to facilitate the consolidation and analysis of travel data. Effective implementation of this project will finally give the federal government the data they so desperately need.

By Ted Schuerman

*According to Runzheimer International 94% of corporations who negotiate lodging rates rely upon travel agency provided reports for negotiations.