http://www.fms.treas.gov/news/split_travel_disbursement_waiver.pdf

Split disbursement offers a higher level of convenience by eliminating the hassles of writing a personal check, the cost of a stamp, and the worry of getting the payment in by the due date.

The traveler remains responsible for timely payment of all charges to the Government travel charge card and should verify that payments have been credited properly on subsequent statements. The traveler should contact the charge card provider if payments were not credited as expected. Collection of any overpayments made to the credit card company is the responsibility of the traveler.

For my agency, these expenses are set up in the travel system to be paid to the individual credit card account via split disbursement:

• All airfare, lodging, and rental car reservations made in the travel system are automatically paid to the traveler’s credit card account (including TMC fees).
• All TAV fees for vouchers and local vouchers are automatically paid to the traveler’s credit card account.
• Non-mileage expenses (Optional: Travelers may change the method of reimbursement in the system if they want these expenses to be paid to their credit card account).
• Travelers may also request additional amounts be paid to their credit card account by indicating the amount in the appropriate field in the travel system. Travelers use this option for expenses that were charged to their credit card such as meals, parking, incidental expenses, etc.

Many travelers have access to their IBA on-line which allows them to easily calculate the split disbursement payment amounts in order to pay their account in full each month.

by Julie Gilchrist

“The contents of this message are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the Government or my agency.

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 and therefore, the TMC must be contacted directly either by phone or by requesting assistance on line by entering a comment. The TMC will then contact the Non-GDS vendor to work with the traveler to make their reservations.

With domestic and foreign (non-complex) travel it is a requirement that our customers use the online booking tool within our eTS to book their reservations. However with complex foreign travel we encourage our customers to book directly through the TMC via phone. With complex foreign travel, the TMC has knowledge of and can offer advice about Visa requirements, the fly America Act, or if foreign carriers and flights are limited or unavailable in the GDS and will require TMC assistance.

by Brian Shears

Did you know: That a driver’s license issued to military personnel does not expire as long as the individual remains in military service, as so stated on the license, and such licenses will be accepted regardless of the date of issuance or expiration. Random drivers’ record checks are permissible under the US Government Car Rental Program and are at the expense of the Company.

by Kimberly Hubbard

The GARS fee is an administrative fee which reimburses the rental car company for the following:  administrative costs incurred by rental car businesses which are peculiar to doing business with the Government; application of the agreement terms on a worldwide basis; a guarantee of the rates for at least 60 days; the rental of vehicles to employees under age 25; and the acceptance of properly-licensed Government employees on official business as additional drivers.

When reserving a rental car, please remember to add the $5.00 per day to the daily cost of the rental car.  On your rental car bill, the GARS fee will appear as an itemized daily expense.  Other charges that will be itemized and included are state and local taxes.  Taking these fees into account on your travel authorization will ensure a more accurate estimation of your total rental car cost.

by Brian Shears

Several agencies are issuing a separate plastic for purchase card transactions and travel card transactions; even when they use the same vendor for both types of transactions. This means an employee with both purchase authority and travel authority has to carry at least two cards, reconcile two types of statements, and maybe even use two electronic access systems; if their agency uses two different vendors. The Integrated card allows one plastic Government charge card to be issued; which can carry one, two, or all business lines on the same card. An agency will have to spend time up front to make sure the authorization control sets are appropriate and the correct merchant category codes are activated for each line; but this type of work is required on separate cards as well. It’s also good for all the business lines to work together managing one program, because it allows travel, purchase, and fleet to take advantage of best practices in policies, reporting, and managing a charge card program. It brings together travel and procurement in a way that the whole agency can benefit. The advantage to the end user is clear as well, one card to carry, one statement to reconcile, and one electronic access system to learn.

Whether or not an agency chooses to implement an integrated card, one feature that evolved from our integrated card was the splendid idea to centrally bill travel transactions. Some agencies do have something called a centrally billed account, maybe they have one card number, or ten, or a hundred for the agency set up as the default. They will use this account to possibly charge airfare expenses to and then they have to do additional work when reallocating the charges to the real field level account. The reallocation seems burdensome to many agencies so it’s not always an appealing process. The Department of Interior treats it differently, more like a diversion account. They set up master accounting codes and the individually issued Government cards each have a default account number so even when the airfare expense hits the individually issued card, it shows up as centrally billed to the traveler and the Government pays the charge the day it comes in. This is how the purchase card works in several agencies, the purchases are centrally billed and just show as memo items on the cardholder statement, meaning the Government directly pays the charge. However, agencies haven’t decided to take advantage of this billing functionality on the travel card.

The improvements that centrally billing charge card transactions have provided are numerous. We not only centrally bill airline charges; but rental cars, taxis, parking, even lodging. By centrally billing lodging and other transactions, DOI is truly tax exempt since the Government is directly paying the charge. Since the rest of the Government does not follow this practice, we are always questioned and challenged on tax exemption. If we could get buy in from other agencies, it would provide more support with the lodging and rental car establishments. One concern with centrally billing transactions is the increased monitoring required because of the risk that a traveler may place a personal charge on the card. In our experience, the percentage of travelers who do not follow the appropriate policy is very small. They enjoy the flexibility of not owing hundreds of dollars on a charge card statement or being out of pocket for travel charges too much to jeopardize the program.

By taking this diversion approach, we are essentially performing the split pay best practice recommended by A-123 but even better. Instead of waiting until the voucher is filed by the traveler and diverting a certain calculated payment to the bank, the Government pays the bank charges the next day. It’s apparent how supplying those timely payments would maximize any agency’s rebate. It also lowers your risk and population available for delinquencies, since the only transactions that could even cause a delinquency is an ATM transaction or a food purchase. Our delinquency percentage has been below 2% consistently since we implemented these practices.

An Integrated charge card program and centrally billed travel transactions take work to set up correctly in the beginning of the process, and any card program requires diligent examinations. The return on investment is well worth the effort in both cases. GSA should encourage agencies to participate in Smartpay 2 user group meetings to discuss best practices, so all can take advantage of what has been successful in various Government Card programs.

by Jacqueline Lynch

The contents of this message are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the Government or my agency.

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 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 should say “hold “on my card for this amount.  At the time, I didn’t have the money available, this was extremely inconvenient.  I was in a situation with limited options; however, I had to get a taxi to the hotel and rent a car from the hotel’s rental car agency – which only required a credit card hold for $75.00. Employees should not be responsible for this fee (credit card hold) as this, after all, is a business trip. Not worrying about having the extra funds to rent a car is an enormous surplus for government employees.

Another requirement I’ve experienced in the past for car rental is extra verification documents. While traveling on another business trip I was asked for a utility bill. I had never been asked for this type of document and was uncertain if this was legal. Of course, I did not have a utility bill with me as I don’t travel with it.  I could not understand why this was being asked, and the complications for car rental entailed. This put me in a very awkward and inconvenient situation. I did not rent a car, instead, I had to use taxis for transportation. This cost my company hundreds and hundreds of dollars, and I was questioned why I couldn’t have rented a car. This was definitely another matter I had to deal with.

What has this come down to? Why the unnecessary requirements for non-government employees?

As we are moving ahead with technology today, most or all rental car companies have websites. Therefore, one can certainly rent a car online, but this is not to say, when arriving to the rental location we’ll get what we purchased. Indeed, this is another one of my experiences. I have booked rental cars online and when arriving for pick-up they don’t have the model /size I chose.  The company also fails to at least offer a discount to compensate for their error.

In my opinion, rental car companies can take some advantage of the customer due to the fact they know the customer is eager to get to a destination and many times is running late and doesn’t have the time to search for other rental car companies.  I wouldn’t say all rental car companies have these unnecessary requirements, but I haven’t had many pleasant experiences.

This extra restrictions and charges are implemented when a non-government employee rents a car. I believe one of the major reasons is due to car theft.  When one commits a crime the rest of us have to pay the consequences.

As the rental car industry is $16 billion in the United States, there’s enormous competition among rental car companies.  Even though discounts and incentives are offered, they can easily be tampered with when upgrading to a different model car.

Under this agreement, the government is able to provide great benefits to its employees, while saving money and preventing inconveniences to the employees.  Some of the great benefits include: upgrade coupons, no extra fees for additional government agencies, and unlimited mileage, to name a few.  The employees have options and should take advantage of the many benefits being offered under the rental car agreement.

The government has been able to institute this type of agreement with rental car companies as they compose a good percentage of the rental car’s profit industry.  The government traveler can rent a vehicle comfortably without worrying of the restrictions a non- government employee encounters. This is not to say, their experiences are always 100% pleasant, but certainly they alleviate a lot of hassles.

by Ana Ferrara

Here’s what I have learned over the last few years.  If you are fortunate the traveler used an approved car rental agency, rented the car as a government employee, had approved orders on hand, and was clearly working within the scope of his/her authority as an agent of the government.  Oh, and there was actual damage to his car allowing him to pursue a claim.  The traveler goes to the car rental company and files a claim and, assuming the agents are well trained, that will be the end of it.  Now remember this is the easy case.

As an example of a complicated case,  there’s the situation that there was no damage to the rental car as a result of the accident but the mishap caused damage to another person’s car overseas.  This one was interesting, it was not covered by the Car Rental Agreement (because there was no damage to the rental car) but under government claims.  If it had occurred in the U.S., it would’ve been paid for, after the Office of General Counsel (OGC) attorney reviewed the documentation, as a claim against the government where it would become a strictly financial transaction.  In the latest case the incident described above happened overseas and the US Government will not recognize an international claim.  So in this case, the traveler will again provide all documentation to the OGC who will notify the overseas’ victim (and supposedly their insurance company) of the law at work here and the claim will not be paid. The traveler will also not have to pay anything regarding this accident because they were acting properly as an agent of the Government.

In conclusion, some of the most difficult car accident cases are those that are actually not being covered by the Government Car Rental Agreement, but rather fall within legal and/or financial regulations as claims against the Government.  When my boss tosses me those problems, I have learned to look at them as potential claims and get the OGC involved as soon as possible.

by Julie Speers

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 should say “hold “on my card for this amount.  At the time, I didn’t have the money available, this extremely inconvenient.  I was in a situation that I didn’t have many options; however, I had to get a taxi to get to the hotel and rent a car from the hotel’s rental car agency – which only required a credit card hold for $75.00.

Under this agreement, the government is able to provide great benefits to its employees while saving money and preventing inconveniences to the employees.  Some of the great benefits include: upgrade coupons, no extra fees for additional government agencies, and unlimited mileage, to name a few.  The employees have options and should take advantage of the many benefits being offered under the rental car agreement.

by Ana Ferrara

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 corporate travel charge card, we can only estimate based on that spend.  The easiest thing would be to make use of the card mandatory for all travel spend, but with collective bargaining agreements and the tightening credit market, this has become impossible.

Oregon currently uses permissive agreements with instate properties who honor per-diem rates for state travelers.   Without accurate spend data, it is challenging to enter into actual agreements with negotiated savings.   This provides a disservice to both the properties and the Oregon tax payer, by not being able to capture savings where possible and guaranteeing a minimum number of room nights to a property.

Once a complete end to end and automated solution is developed, it will certainly maximize time and provide savings to the government travel program.

by Tim Hay