Posts Tagged "rental cars"

Effective October 1, 2005, OMB Circular A-123 mandated the use of split disbursement for government travelers. Split disbursement is the process of dividing a travel voucher reimbursement between the charge card vendor and the traveler. The balance owed to each is sent directly to the appropriate party. On April 21, 2005, the Department of the Treasury formally waived requirements of 31 CFR 208.6 and 210.5. This waiver allowed Federal agencies to issue part or all of an employee’s travel reimbursement to the travel card-issuing bank for crediting to the employee’s travel card account. For more information on the split disbursement waiver, you may visit this website: http://www.fms.treas.gov/news/split_travel_disbursement_waiver.pdf Split disbursement offers a...

Our E Travel System uses the Sabre Global Distribution System as an integral part of the overall travel system. The GDS is a legacy data based system that is used by all travel suppliers such as airlines, hotels and rental car vendors to automatically book travel. The GDS is separate from the commercial internet booking sites, although some booking sites will use GDS information to offer information to their users and to assist with bookings. Not all airlines and hotels use a Global Distribution System as the GDS charges travel vendors to display inventories. If a supplier uses a GDS, it is the airline carrier, hotel, or rental car company’s responsibility to keep the GDS updated with current information. In some instances some small airlines do not use the GDS...

Even with the Rental car agreement through the DTMO you are subject to high rates during peak season with the car rental locations. Example: Superbowl in Tampa, Florida and just recently the Inauguration in Washington, DC. Also rental car companies often hold double the amount of the rental. Example: If you car rental was only for 2 days and total cost was $200.00 they will hold easily $400 to $500 on your credit card. Really what is the purpose? You have insurance on your own car to protect them against any damages that might occur during the time you are renting the car. With my experience I prefer to use Enterprise Rent A Car. I have not had to put extra deposits on my credit card when renting. I have rented from them from several different states and I have...

I provide a great deal of E-Gov Travel System training to our various customers’.  During training, it seems the same question arises during my coverage of the rental car section.  The very popular question is:  Do I have to pay the GARS (Government Administrative Rate Supplement) fee?  The answer to this question is yes, all Government travelers must pay the GARS fee.  However it should be noted; The GARS fee and the optional insurance that may be offered are two different things.  The GARS fee is $5.00 per day worldwide and is paid by all Government renters.  Travelers should be aware, that the $5.00 fee is in addition to the daily rate and is not automatically included in the daily rental rate of the vehicle. The GARS fee is an administrative fee which...

Smartpay 2 is the next generation of the Government charge card program put forward by the General Services Administration’s master contract. Smartpay 2 offers the added functionality for the agencies to choose an integrated Government charge card. This allows Federal employees to have the ability to charge purchase card transactions, travel card transactions, and even fleet card transactions on one individually issued plastic card. Another functionality that is not widely in use is the ability to centrally bill travel transactions. Our agency has taken advantage of both of these functionalities since the first Smartpay contract and they have worked so well; this white paper aims to explain more about these benefits so others can consider and take advantage if...

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. The government also has access to the vehicles being offered, rates, and rental vendors as they are listed under the Defense Travel Management Office website. 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 required deposit, which is extremely high. While...

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...

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...

When it comes to data mining and collecting all of the information available to review compliance and leverage travel spend, once a completely integrated tool is developed and proven, we will still conduct our analysis the manual way.    The primary pieces that states have access to is the back end reporting provided by the travel agency and the credit card transaction reports. Oregon also has access to car rental information from our contracted car rental provider. Gathering airline and car rental spend is easy, just contact the TMC or car rental contractor.  The challenge that we face is gathering the hotel spend, especially the instate hotel spend where there is no air travel involved.   Since only ten percent of the states travelers use the...