Posts Tagged "TMC"

FedRooms, formerly known as the Federal Premiere Lodging Program (FPLP), is the official Federal Government lodging program that will allow for substantial savings.  The FedRooms rate in comparison to “government” rates will always be at lower cost to matching prices, which creates a savings for your agency. The Government negotiates FedRooms rates while “government” rates are set by the vendor and are arbitrary. Other benefits of staying at a FedRooms hotel are the 4 p.m. (or later) day of arrival cancellation policy, no early departure fees or any other hidden fees.  Hotels that are approved by FEMA as fire safe hotels offer the Fedrooms rate. Book the FedRooms rate using either your E-Gov System, your travel management center (TMC) or online...

Prior to moving to an eTS in 2006 our agency placed task orders off of the GSA Travel Services Solution (TSS) Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) 599-2 for three separate TMC’s.  As a cross service provider we wanted to provide options to our customers.  Most of our customers selected a mid-sized TMC that provided the best price and also was well know for outstanding customer service.    We rarely had issues with the TMC and knew we could always count on them when our travelers where in a bind. Once we moved to an eTS we considered continuing with one of our current travel agencies as an accommodated TMC.  However, the one TMC, which partnered with our eTS and was embedded, offered a lower price for both traditional and on-line booking and came with a great...

How much do you know about the global distribution system (GDS) that is used by your E-Gov Travel System?  Maybe your E-Gov System uses Sabre, Galileo/Apollo, Worldspan or Amadeus.  Currently, these are the four major GDS systems. My agency chose an E-Gov Travel System that uses the GDS, Sabre. The GDS houses the necessary information that will allow travel agents to book and sell airline tickets, book hotel rooms, make rental car reservations, and reserve rail reservations and more. The first GDS, Sabre, was created by the airlines in the 1960s.  Sabre has been around a lot longer than its competitors; Amadeus was created in 1987, Worldspan in 1990 and Galileo/Apollo in 1993. These complex systems have numerous capabilities.  Besides what was previously...

In order to manage business travel efficiently and maintain conformance with policy regulations, companies issue travel procedures that govern travel planning and cost reporting.  Owing to the many available travel options, the travel procedures provide detailed instructions for compliance. When making travel arrangements, employees are obligated to give primary consideration to the best interests of the company and any sponsors. The company expects employees to apply good judgment and professional integrity when planning business travel, in accordance with a code of ethics and to make travel plans at the lowest available cost. However, all corporate preferred travel programs experience some leakage at one point or another.   The loss of transactions through...

For those states that have a managed travel program, each state puts a different spin on how to contract for a Travel Management Contractor.  Some states will contract separately for an online and a traditional provider.  Some will contract for a single agency and others will contract for multiple.    Some states may have statutes or laws like the federal government where a portion of the contracts is required to be spent with minority or small business. Oregon has had a managed travel program for over 15 years.   The model was patterned after the GSA and has worked well.  One thing that Oregon does is it keeps the number of travel agencies who are authorized to provide contracted air fares, to one.    The State of Oregon partners with the...

The Federal Government has a rental car program, which is managed by the Defense Travel Management Office (DTMO).  DTMO has managed this program since October 2007. You may be asking what are the benefits of the U.S. Government rental car program?  One of the most notable benefits is that the collision damage waiver (CDW) insurance is included in the negotiated rate. Besides the attractive rates, other benefits include unlimited mileage, adjusted rates according to size of car and much more. These rental cars can be booked using your E-Gov travel system or using the traditional method by calling your Travel Management Center (TMC).  The rental car reservation is booked and charged to the traveler’s individual Government charge card.   If a traveler does not...

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...

In a very short time (years, not decades), government travel has gone from old school where travelers had to call their Travel Management Center (TMC) to book every reservation to working with first-generation on-line booking tools that may or may not have been a real time connection. These tools were not always user friendly but they lowered the agencies overall travel cost. From there we progressed to on-line booking engines designed to mimic the experience travelers had when booking personal trips on leisure web sites. These tools were developed to be in compliance with the Presidents E-Gov Initiatives to reengineer the federal government’s travel process to realize significant cost savings and improve employee productivity. E-Gov Travel Services (ETS)...

With the onset of ETS systems, the vendor of each system had to select an imbedded partner to act as the travel agent.  As referred to by GSA, the Travel Management Center (TMC) or Commercial Travel Office (CTO), had to be accredited by the Airline Reporting Corporation to sell airline tickets and other travel services.  The TMC/CTO is responsible for issuing tickets requested and approved through the ETS.  The TMC/CTO also had to provide full travel services along with 24/7 emergency services. Travel agents working on government travel accounts receive customized training on policies and procedures for official travel.  They also have experience with the GDS system and have access to the Federal Travel Regulations. The most common way of booking reservations...

The existence of multiple Global Distribution Systems presents challenges for United States Government agencies’ efforts to manage travel.  One such challenge involves determining which Global Distribution System an agency’s Travel Management Center should use, although my sense is that most agencies do not direct their Travel Management Center on which Global Distribution System to use.  (Contractually, an agency may or may not even have the ability to determine which Global Distribution System their Travel ManagementCenter uses.) Some Global Distribution Systems do not allow for the booking of tickets for certain airlines – although this is often driven by which airlines choose to participate in which Global Distribution Systems.  In...

There are many options available to employees when purchasing travel.  Most travelers are aware of policies and procedures, however, vendors may not be aware of certain restrictions and will try to upsell or upgrade amenities to our employees.   When this is accepted by the traveler, they run into cost reimbursable issues when filing expense reports. As an example, car rental companies will try to upsell a traveler by offering additional insurances, GPS systems, larger vehicles, sporty or hybrid models.  All of which are not reimbursed by our organization.  Also, a traveler may not realize they are being charged an additional amount for the vehicle being offered if it happens to be a larger vehicle. What we’ve done to alleviate all the backend hassles of...

One way to measure the cost savings is through reporting from the TMC.  The collection of data will break down air, car, hotel and credit card spend with Ad Hoc reporting capabilities.  However, a non-mandated travel program makes it difficult to ensure cost savings to the organization. Reporting to Senior Management should reflect true costs associated with your program, unfortunately, as noted, all data may not be captured.   It is important for management to realize the benefits of mandating the use of the TMC and preferred vendors to better leverage discounts for the organization. Some of our greatest savings are obtained by mandating hotel bookings through our program.  As an example, we used to capture 50% of bookings through our on-line booking tool or...

A high level of communication is needed for a smooth transition from a traditional Travel Management Center (TMC) environment to an Electronic Travel System (ETS) environment.  People can be very reluctant to change, especially when they’ve used certain processes to complete travel over several years.  There’s usually a bit of anxiety, especially on the part of the traveler.  ETS systems put more of the process in the traveler’s (or travel preparer’s) hands.  While it is a faster process with so many things automated, I’ve seen many travelers who were more comfortable with a manual process of writing up their travel authorization, getting written approval from their manager, and then having their TMC issue the tickets.  Using an ETS system can seem...

Domestic or international, request assistance or book on-line are all factors of how much a traveler will be charged for their government travel reservations. Government travelers are still struggling with the different fees that appear on their travel documents. First there are the Travel Management (TMC) fees. The TMC fee is charged at the time the ticket is issued for airfare and when the hotel reservation is booked. The rate of the fee is based upon the service that is provided to the traveler. The TMC fee is significantly lower if the traveler books reservations on-line rather than calling an agent for traditional service. Also the fee for international reservations is higher when the traveler requests assistance due to the complexity of the travel. The...

Twenty years ago I was assigned to the office that was responsible for travel processing.  In 1989 very few employees had computers and most of the work continued to be done as it had been for decades – by paper.   At that time a traveler would work with their secretary to complete a multi-carbon copy travel authorization.  The per diem rates were looked up in a GSA published book and the secretary would complete the estimates after calling the airline and hotel to make reservations.  Once the paper authorization or voucher was completed it was sent to several people for signature and eventually ended up in the Finance Office. Once the Finance Office received the documents, a technician verified the per diem rates and quarter day calculations for first and...

To be honest with you, I was so nervous, I am afraid to fail. I do not even know where and how to start completing the requirements of this certification but glad I had the guts to start the program. I procrastinated since the time my agency paid the dues last year but I spoke with Rick Singer and convinced me that I can easily pass and complete the program in no time. Being in the travel industry for so long, when I say long, it means that the airlines back then use Raytheon computers with green screen and computers were primarily used to assist in getting load factors – seats and cargo, that’s all.  I was fortunate enough to be on the first year class at the University of Santo Thomas in Manila, Philippines when the Dean of Education decided to put a...

There are two types of government fares that our travelers can book in the E Travel System, GSA City Pair Fares and Government fares. In 1980 the General Services Administration (GSA) developed the City Pair Program (CPP) to provide discounted air passenger transportation services to Federal government travelers. In the beginning, this service only covered 11 markets, but has grown to over 5,000 city pairs. The average savings is 63%-77% below commercial full fares. A critical aspect of travel planning is flexibility and the CPP has many features that allow Government travelers all the flexibility possible. Features of the Service include: Non-stop service was awarded on 95% of the markets where non-stop service was offered. Fares are priced on one-way routes,...

Reports, reports, and more reports – every member of management has had a need for a report of some sort at some time or another.  Reports are crucial in today’s business world.  A report can advise management of budget constraints.  A good report also tells management where a company is spending, and maybe even losing, money.   Reports can also indicate how much time was spent on particular jobs/assignments. It is nearly impossible to function without reports. My agency receives many requests from our customers for various reports.  Nearly every day, we receive a new request for information.  In addition to the requests that we receive from our customers, we also receive data calls from the Department and General Services Administration (GSA). ...

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...

According to the text, Travel Management Centers (TMCs), applying for the GSA Schedule are expected to offer prices better than those offered their best customer. This raises some interesting questions. Does GSA truly get the best rate? First, were this truly the case, it would be of no advantage for agencies to negotiate non-schedule TMC arrangements. They presumably could not get a better rate and presumably the $1.50 transaction fee is not enough to make the issuance of a Request for Proposals (RFP) and competition, an expensive process, a profitable alternative. Why than would an agency choose to run its own competition? Is it solely to add additional requirements not available under the schedule? Does GSA require that TMCs on the schedule offer services in...

Communication is essential to the success of the Government Travel Professional and its agencies. The Government Travel Professional’s responsibility is to clearly communicate with the agency and its peers of any new updates, transitions, policies, and procedures.  Special attention is placed when a new system is implemented.  In addition, the Government Travel Professional keeps daily communication through phone or e-mail with TMC/CTO.  Communication is transferred in various means in which keeps the government organized while keeping their employees informed. The government ensures all stakeholders are informed of a new system/s. They cover all aspects when a new system will be taking place this is accomplished through the successful communication...

It is imperative that Travel Administrators develop a good working relationship with their Travel Management Center (TMC) and the E-Gov vendor’s TMC team. As a matter of fact, it is a must.  You will find that it nearly impossible to administer your agency’s travel program without their assistance. My agency has developed a mutual friendship and good working relationship between both parties.  The TMC has been very helpful in assisting us with resolving issues and creating guidance for educational purposes.  The same also applies to the E-Gov vendor’s TMC team. The majority of our travelers were used to using an automated system.  However, the reservation module was new to them, so they experienced quite a few problems in the very beginning.  Of...

I have been employed in the travel industry for almost 3 years. Although I didn’t have any previous travel experience at the time I was hired I was given a position on the agents support team and learned about the aspects of travel authorizations, profiles, working queues, schedule changes and ticketing. Later, still with relatively little experience I was given the opportunity to serve our clients as Client Service Representative and point of contact for our government accounts.  This position has allowed me to increase my knowledge of aspects of the travel industry in areas such as the new account set up and implementation, quality control procedures, premium class travel, debit memo’s,  government travel contracts, and account credit card...

A professional travel agency, the Travel Management Center (TMC), is the federal agency’s link to the travel industry.  The TMC agent is experienced in the use of the Gobal Distribution Systems (GDS) and is specially trained in the Federal Travel Regulations (FTR) to assist the federal traveler. As a partner with E-GovTravel Services (ETS), the TMC facilitates the federal agency in reserving and booking transportation and hotel services in compliance with the FTR. How does the TMC assist in arranging for travel accommodations?  The federal agency and the TMC establish a written agreement or ‘Business Rules’ defining their relationship for reservation assistance, automated and full service. The on-line booking feature of ETS initiates automated...

My government agency not only uses the imbedded TMC in E-Gov Travel, we also use an accommodated TMC.  In addition, we also have a task order on the GSA TSS Schedule (Travel Services Solutions) with a TMC that is used apart from E-Gov Travel for telephone reservations only. We have a mechanism to still prepare the authorizations and vouchers for travel in our E-Gov Travel system and record the transportation expense. We are glad that our chosen E-Gov Travel vendor recently allowed more TMCs to participate in E-Gov Travel. Prior to E-Gov Travel, we created our own independent contract for travel management services, since the existing GSA contract was non-mandatory. One thing the travelers find cumbersome is the fee process. It’s difficult for the...

The Travel Management Center (TMC) is an accredited travel agency that is under contract with the Government to provide travel services for official TDY travel.  These travel agencies are professional organizations that sell airline tickets and other travel services.  They are responsible for issuing tickets requested and approved through the Electronic Travel System, (ETS).  The TMC also must provide full travel services along with 24/7 emergency services. The TMC provides help desk support to assist federal travelers with travel arrangements that require manual handling, such as changes in reservations, emergency travel, and combining business and personal travel. Travel agents working on government travel accounts receive customized training on policies and...

Millions of dollars are lost to the government and taxpayers each year because travelers do not initiate the refund process.  Holding onto a totally or partially used airline ticket costs your agency money.  Unused tickets have a monetary value; therefore any adjustments in your ticketed transportation that pertains to an unused segment must be promptly processed to prevent a loss.  The definition of an unused ticket is Tickets purchased for Government travel, but never used. Travel is terminated short of the authorized destination. Return portion of a round-trip ticket is not used. Services actually furnished are different or of a lesser value than those authorized. The traveler dealing with an unused ticket that was purchased with their individually billed...

Since the mid-1980s, federal government civilian agencies have had the freedom to contract directly with commercial travel agencies for Travel Management Center (TMC) services.  These contractual relationships were typically established via GSA’s Travel Services Solutions (TSS) schedule or through full and open competitions conducted by the agencies. Beginning with the introduction of the E-Gov Travel Service (ETS) in the early 2000s, agencies were presented with the option to procure TMC services as part of the integrated solutions offered by the ETS contractors.  The TMCs offered by the ETS contractors are referred to as “Embedded TMCs” while those contracted directly by the agencies are called “Accommodated TMCs” (because the ETS vendor must...

For many travelers, the most important aspect of their trip is the seat assignment on the airplane. Some travelers want the exit row seats for more legroom, while others choose a seat based on class of service. Government travelers are not permitted to book First Class seats without high level agency approval based on Federal Travel Regulations; however, travelers are permitted to upgrade to First or Business Class seats using their frequent flyer reward programs. In our E Travel System we have two options for seat selection–travelers can select isle or window from a drop down menu; or, if one is available, the traveler can view a seat map of the airplane and select a specific seat. Unfortunately, their seat selection is not guaranteed until their...

It’s a known fact that keeping track of employee’s unused tickets is undeniably difficult.  Most companies struggle with employees who will purchase and or cancel directly with the airlines (usually against company policy), or those that chose not to do anything when a trip is cancelled.  If and when these situations occur, Travel Management Companies cannot obtain ticket information for future use.   Travelers often don’t say anything until they receive their credit card statement and are seeking compensation for the cancelled trip. Due to the many tickets that are written off due to lack of re-use or not recalled by the TMC, our organization needed to come up with a sure fire way to use up the hundreds of tickets before they expire.   We have...

With all of us trying to do things ourselves, sometimes what seems like a time saver can actually be time waster. If you use the services of a travel company properly, you find a huge amount of information from someone who is an expert, rather than guessing on our own. To take this to the simplest level, imagine you have just been “asked” to travel to a foreign country for business. Now some destinations may seem exciting, but you need to understand the local rules and what is required of you prior to your travel date. The first thing is to remember that the entire world does not speak English, so choosing where you will stay and how you will travel in that country make a significant difference. You also need to understand what travel documents will be...

Beginning in September of 2004, our agency began converting our customers from the legacy travel system to the new E Gov Travel system.  With approximately thirty agencies to convert, we completed the transition within a twelve month time-frame.  Even though this schedule was quite intense, we were able to complete this transition successfully due to the cooperation of everyone involved, the organization of a well thought out project plan, and a detailed training plan. For each customer to convert from the legacy system to the new one, there were two people in our agency assigned to lead each team.  We were responsible for performing all of the background maintenance tasks, such as routing lists, the people table, and security groups. We also trained all...

November 30, 2008, marked the beginning of the new Travel Charge Card Program called Smart Pay 2 (SP2).  Federal Government travelers are encouraged to apply for an individual Government charge card in order to pay for their travel expenses.  The previous 10-year contract, also known as Smart Pay 1 (SP1), expired on November 29, 2008.  Various individuals from my agency were extremely involved in the selection of our credit card vendor.  As it turned out, the incumbent charge card vendor was awarded the new 10-year contract. Internally, our credit card team conducted weekly meetings with the individuals from each section who were assigned to the project so that the conversion would be completed accurately and timely.  In addition to working with the credit...

When it comes to official government travel, there are so many regulations and procedures that must be followed on how to make your travel lodging reservations that it gets quite confusing.  Keep in mind that personal convenience, which is certainly what we would prefer, is not a Federal Travel Regulation (FTR) exception. First and foremost, we should be looking for a FedRoom facility.  Doing so will meet the FTR requirement of giving first consideration to FedRooms properties.  These are establishments that are contracted by General Services Administration (GSA) under the FedRooms Program to ensure that the government traveler stays in fire safe accommodations at a government rate.  Lodging facilities participating in the FedRooms program offer rates at or...

The Federal Travel Regulations (FTR) require that all federal travel be booked using a government travel agent, also known as a Travel Management Center (TMC).  Reservations can be made on-line using an e-Gov travel systems or via a phone call to the TMC.  When you use a TMC, your reservations are booked using one of the Global Distribution Systems (GDS) such as Sabre, Galileo, or Worldspan.  The GDS were previously known as Computer Reservation Systems (CRS) and were created by major airlines to aggregate the schedules, pricing, and inventory of the world’s airlines that could be used by travel agents to make reservations. The GDS eventually began including hotel, rental car, tour and cruise inventory for those companies that wanted to pay to participate....

Travel Management has grown with leaps and bounds.  It has grown from a struggling infant to a fully automated system capable of providing all your travel and travel payment needs. 1989 a survey conducted by American Express shows that corporate travel management is a career opportunity. 1993 the Clinton administration thought it could eliminate the entire White House travel office staff and replace it with a cousin of the president and the help of a midsized travel agency in Little Rock. Hal Rosenbluth of Rosenbluth International proclaims time is right for the automation of travel management. 2001, Sato began specializing in providing travel management services to government agencies. 2002 “The ETravel initiative was one of President Bush’s 24...

The sight of travelers frantically searching for their tickets has become rare at airports in recent years. That’s because more people are relying on electronic tickets, or e-tickets, when they fly. E-ticket is now the main method of issuing tickets for the vast majority of airlines. It’s a secure form of ticketing that makes travel plans less cumbersome and more efficient for the traveler. The travel data is all stored electronically in the Global Distribution System (GDS) or the airlines reservation system. Passengers can, at any time, print their e-ticket receipt from the airlines web site. In addition, a passenger with an e-ticket can check in faster by just producing the e-ticket print out and an appropriate ID. E-tickets issued through the E Gov Travel...

CAR RENTALS: Today Car rentals are all run by Corporations and private enterprises (they used to be owned by Auto manufactures). This $16 billion industry offers its services to the Government through formal agreements. The Car Rental Program for the government is now a day’s run by the Defense Travel Management Office (DTMO). The government business is valued at $300 million with over 2.25 million cars at 5000 locations. The car rental agreement between the (DTMO) and the car rental companies offers a very competitive service to the government using various car sizes and benefits like: free CDW, Unlimited Mileage, Reduced driver age to 18 for official travel (with no underage driver fee), online bookings on DTS,ETS, Quality control and Car Upgrade from some...

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...

There various fees which can be added to the trip total of a traveler when using an eGov Travel system.  Some of the fees include the TMC, IFF and eGov Travel contractor transaction fee. The TMC (Travel Management Center) fee is paid to the travel agency under contract with the Federal Government to provide reservation services for airline tickets, hotel reservations and car rentals.  The fee is determined by using comprehensive economic models and approved by GSA.  Travelers are always encouraged to select air tickets through the eGov Travel application as this is the most cost effective method for the government.  Due to the complexities of the some foreign travel, it is appropriate at times to contact the travel management center directly to obtain...