By the late 1970s airlines were installing CRS’ in travel agencies throughout North America. For almost two decades, approximately 80 percent of the CRS’ in travel agencies came from two CRS companies—Sabre which was owned an operated by American Airlines, and Apollo by United Airlines. Travel agencies leased the CRS’, including the hardware, from the airline. The system looked much like a personal computer does today, but it was different in an important way. It was a dumb terminal: meaning it could exchange information with the airline’s central computer, but it could not do any processing of its own. Reservations on hundreds of major airlines throughout the world could be made on any of these systems.

The 1990s brought many changes to CRS’, partly because of the spreading use of the personal computers and the Internet. The systems themselves are now usually called global distribution systems (GDS) and most systems are owned and run by companies independent of the airlines. Other changes in GDS’ are more obvious to users. Dumb terminals are a thing of the past; on today’s GDS’, users can run a host of programs to perform tasks such as word processing, accounting, and database management. Both command interfaces and graphical interfaces are available. And GDS’ offer a wealth of information on all travel products, not just air travel.

The companies that run GDS’ are sometimes called hosts or vendors. They obtain revenue from suppliers that pay to have their services included in the system as well as from travel agencies that subscribe to the system.

Many suppliers such as Southwest, Airtran, and Jet Blue have their own computerized reservation systems but still participate in a GDS. They have the choice of various levels of participation, for various costs. For example, an airline might have its schedule displayed on the GDS, but not information about the availability of seats on its flights–this is the least expensive level of participation. More expensive levels of participation may indicate the availability of seats on a particular flight or allow the reservations to be made through the GDS. At the most expensive level of participation, there is a direct link between the supplier’s computer system and the GDS allowing the user to receive up to the minute reservation information.

Airline, hotel, and rental car participation in a GDS paved the way for today’s E Gov Travel Systems. Our E Gov Travel vendor provides a one-stop shop that allows our government travelers to process their travel documents, book their reservations and claim reimbursement once their trip is complete all using the same system. This progressive evolution came from the government and the travel industry working together to forge relationships that modernized government travel.

by Carole Byrd

Disclaimer: The contents of this message are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the Government or my agency.  Use of this equipment is consistent with the agency’s policy governing limited personal use.

A preferred practice would be to have the lead member of the team take Contracting Officer’s Technical Representative (COTR) training at the beginning of the process instead of after the contract is awarded. This training advises employees of the pitfalls and special requirements when participating in the solicitation process. Determining evaluation factors and how to rate the vendors is a tough practice, but usually provides a valuable return on investment. Make sure to call and ask questions of several references. Even after the decision is made and the vendor is selected, the work of monitoring the contract has just begun. A well thought out quality assurance surveillance plan should be established at contract award; so both vendor and the Government know what is expected.

by Jaqueline Lynch

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

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 trying to recoup extra dollars spent on miscellaneous fees, is put together a training manual on how to travel effortlessly.

This material includes a car rental section which gives step by step instructions for travelers to understand all the miscellaneous offerings that are not reimbursed by the organization.  Here’s a brief summary:

• Step 1 – Always sign up with the preferred vendors rental program.  By doing this, it ensures that negotiated rates are always purchased and the necessary insurance coverage is included within the quoted rate.  And most importantly, the ability to bypass the rental counter to avoid the additional offerings.

• Step 2 – Book the vehicle through preferred method of on-line booking or through TMC.  This again, ensures proper rates and necessary coverage, as well as reporting capabilities for travel management.

• Step 3 – Make sure you check the vehicle for damage prior to taking off the lot.  This alleviates the many damage claims that are received because travelers often forget to do this.  This is a rampant problem with international bookings and becomes a lengthy hassle to resolve.

• Step 4 – Upon return of the vehicle review your receipt prior to leaving for your flight home.  This helps the traveler reconcile correct charges when filing an expense report.  There are times when a vendor will accidentally charge for excess mileage, gas or fees that should not have been applied.  Taking care of this prior to leaving ensures there will be no hassles when the expense reporting department receives the bill.

By following these four simple steps, our travelers can ensure a smooth, successful trip and not have to worry about reconciling items that they did not ask for, or expect.   This has helped to cut down on the many receipts that have been received with extra charges for travelers that are not aware of vendor upselling techniques.

by Stefanie Tretola

The vendors also charge a fee on a transactional basis for the use of the eGov travel system. The Travel Authorization and Voucher (TAV) fee is assessed on the authorization and local voucher when the document is signed. When the corresponding voucher or local voucher is approved, the fee is charged to the individual government-issued charge card. If the individual government-issued card number is not available in the system, then the centrally billed account that was used to purchase the ticket is charged.

Some travelers find these fees to be cumbersome when reconciling their individual billed account (IBA) statements especially the TAV fee. The TMC fee normally appears on the IBA statements around the trip dates when other charges for the trip are being charged, such as hotel, rental car, meals, etc. However, the TAV fee is charged to the IBA when the traveler submits a voucher for approval and payment. If the traveler does not voucher timely, then it could cause issues when the traveler reconciles their IBA statement.

At my agency, we are currently working with the vendor on an enhancement to the system that will direct the payment of the TAV fee to the vendor rather than it being charged to the traveler. This enhancement will reduce issues that the travelers encounter when reconciling their IBA statement.

by Julie Gilchrist

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

Another difficulty is with only 3 vendors to choose from, the ideal electronic travel system does not exist yet. There are high points and low points of all three products. They could each benefit from usability studies. These products were originally created to meet specific requirements. Yet once the vendors actually acquired agencies as customers, they were slow to accept input from those who have real world experience in Government travel. This sluggish response to required enhancements led to a slow adoption of the products by the Government. Many types of training are vital to reach the maximum amount of the traveler/arranger/approver audience, so they can feel comfortable with the E-Gov Travel system. Hopefully now that adoption has increased, improved products will be realized by all.

by Jaqueline Lynch

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

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 course, we had the travelers who did not confirm that they received their final itinerary from the TMC before arriving at the airport.  The reason some of the travelers did not have tickets was due to a system glitch or agent error.  However, if the reservations could not be confirmed by the TMC, the traveler would have received an email notification. We discovered that our travelers were not always responding to the emails from the TMC.  We quickly realized that we needed to learn the ins and outs of the reservation module and instruct our travelers as to how it worked.  The E-Gov vendor and the TMC team educated us on this process.

Since we would have issues from time to time, we decided it would be beneficial for all parties to set up biweekly meetings.  During the meetings, we discussed the current issues and our concerns.  The TMC provided answers or gave us suggestions on what we could do to improve the situation.  As time went on, the issues decreased significantly and the standing meetings were cancelled.

Prior to converting to an E-Gov travel system, an agency/traveler would have been charged up to $40 (full-service fee) for a TMC fee.  A benefit of converting to an E-Gov system was that the TMC fees would be as low as $4 (self-service fee), if the reservations were booked online.  Suddenly our travelers were very concerned as to how much they were going to be charged when they booked their reservations either online or directly with the TMC.  Our help desk received numerous calls from our travelers inquiring how much their fee would be for their reservations.  In the past, the travelers did not give it a thought about how much the TMC fee would be.  They just picked up the phone and made their reservations. The TMC team helped us construct a scenario sheet indicating how much the TMC fee would be in various situations. The scenario sheet has been extremely helpful to our help desk.

Some of the scenarios are outlined below:

• If a traveler makes airfare reservations in ETS with a carrier that participates in the GDS, the fee will be the self-service fee.
•  If a traveler makes airfare reservations in ETS with a carrier that does not participate in the GDS, the fee will be the full-service fee.
•  If a traveler makes airfare reservations in ETS and one leg is with a carrier that participates in the GDS and the other leg is made with a carrier that does not participate in the GDS, the fee will be the full-service fee.
•  If a traveler has airfare reservations in ETS, which have not been ticketed and they make a change to them in ETS, the fee will be the self-service fee.
•  If a traveler makes airfare reservations in ETS and the reservations have not been ticketed and the traveler calls the TMC to request an earlier or later flight for the same day, the fee will be the self-service fee.
•  If a traveler makes airfare reservations in ETS and the reservations have not been ticketed and the traveler calls the TMC to request to leave a day earlier or a day later, the fee will be the self-service fee.
•  If a traveler makes airfare reservations in ETS and the reservations have been ticketed and the traveler calls the TMC to request an earlier or later flight, the additional fee will be the full-service fee.
•  If a traveler makes airfare reservations in ETS and the reservations have been ticketed and the traveler calls the TMC to request to leave a day earlier or later, the additional fee will be the full-service fee.
•  If a traveler has reservations in ETS and the reservations have been ticketed and the traveler calls the TMC to make changes and requests them to ticket the new reservations, the additional fee will be the full-service fee.
•  If a traveler has reservations in ETS and the reservations have been ticketed and the traveler calls the TMC to make changes, but does not have the TMC to ticket them, they will only be charged the original fee.
•  If a traveler has reservations that have been ticketed and the traveler calls the TMC to get a seat assignment, the fee will be an additional the full-service fee.
• If a traveler selects advance ticketing in ETS, the fee will be the self-service fee.
•  If a traveler calls the TMC to request advanced ticketing, the fee will be the full-service fee.
•  If a traveler calls to have the form of payment changed, the fee will be the full-service fee.

The vendor’s TMC team also helped us in understanding the business rules.  They explained the rules to us in layman’s terms. The business rules outlines all aspects that the TMC will provide in order to fulfill the reservations.  Some of the information outlined in the business rules is ticketing parameters, processing of Premium/Business Class, the process for unused tickets and much more.

Both the vendor’s TMC team and the TMC were very helpful to us when we conducted release testing.  We have always tested each release in training and then again in production.  There have been many changes made to the reservation module.  The vendor’s TMC team and the TMC were very helpful to us with the testing and educating us on what the new features would or wouldn’t do.

If you are converting to an E-Gov travel system, be sure to take the time and develop a good working relationship with all the parties involved.  It is worth the time and effort.

by Pam Morton

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

Although the E-Gov Travel system has automated many aspects of the travel document process; the maintenance of the profiles, lines of accounting, and routing lists still requires many hours of ongoing maintenance to ensure accurate document processing. If an agency could establish one database that maintained all changes of approving officials, charge card numbers, and lines of accounting for travelers; the task would be easier. Additionally, if the vendors would cooperate in the handling of these new file updates in an automated fashion; the goal of the truly automating not just the payment process, but more of the entire travel process could be achieved. Agencies should take full advantage of the GSA Project Management Office to try and get best practices enacted whenever possible.

by Jaqueline Lynch

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

The downside of not being eligible for many of the special discounts that government travelers are entitled to is our costs are much higher and constantly questioned by auditors.  FFRDC’s and government contractors are no longer eligible for the GSA City Pair Program or car rental programs, which means our travel costs can be more than  double of their traveling sponsors.  Even with significant negotiated discounts with preferred vendors, our rates can be much higher.

One of the areas that we have been successful in controlling costs is our hotel spend.   About two years ago, we introduced our employees to the FedRooms Program.  This program has allowed our employees to book hotels at GSA per diem rates without having to book months in advance or search endlessly for government lodging rates with no success.

The Fedrooms program has helped us to demonstrate how much was being booked over per diem due to lack of availability for contractors and FFRDC’s.

Since the introduction of FedRooms, our hotel spend has decreased significantly due to the availability of GSA rates.  During the first year we saved over $100,000 in “over per diem” spend.  Our total nights over per diem dropped approximately 3,500 room nights in that same year.

It’s nice to know that there are programs that benefit contractors who are trying to control costs just as much as the government, and we will continue to seek others to help control our costs too.

by Stefanie Tretola

One issue that has caused some frustration is the lack of visibility in our ETS.  For managers, this is a particularly frustrating experience.  For example, if one manager approves a traveler’s authorization, another manager cannot view the authorization that was approved.  This becomes a problem when, for example, Manager X approves travel for Mr. Doe since Mr. Doe’s manager was out of the office.  When Mr. Doe’s manager returns to the office, he has no idea what was approved by Manager X unless a hard copy was printed for him.  And creating a bunch of hard copies of documents seems to defeat the purpose of “electronic travel”.

Another problem with my agency’s ETS is the general usability (or lack thereof) of the actual travel program.  It is not a user-friendly system, and the controls and buttons in the program are non-intuitive.   We have run into problems such as when a traveler wanted to print a copy of her authorization and then ended up deleting her entire trip.  Other travelers have also accidentally cancelled their reservations due to the lack of common-sense programming in our ETS.

There have been other problems, some of which have required a workaround.  For example, if the per diem location is changed on an authorization, the preparer of the authorization has to manually go into the return home portion of the authorization and hit a modify button.  In addition, I think there have been overpayments of per diem amounts since the airport location and the TDY location can be confusing in the program.  Thinking that one should enter the airport location in a particular field where the TDY location should actually be entered is a common mistake, thanks to the idiocy of our ETS program.

My simple solution to our ETS problem is to choose a different ETS vendor, but unfortunately I don’t think my agency is going to make this change. 

By K.J. Martin

*NB: The above posting is my own opinion and does not reflect the opinion of my agency or the Federal Government.*

• Vendors (airlines, hotels, car rental agencies, other)
• GDS
• Travel Agencies
• Traveler (or end user)

The data flow used to be rather straightforward, in that the vendor supplied data to the GDS, the GDS to the travel Agency, and the Travel Agency to the traveler. However, through technology and financial tightening there are now myriad other methods for securing travel. Those include:

• Vendor-direct call centers or websites
• Alternate GDS (ITA, G2, Farelogix, INS)
• Corporate Travel Departments, On-line Travel Agencies and On-line Booking Engines.

On the following page I have created a data flow chart which includes many of these recent entities. I would appreciate any feedback you have as to whether I understand the flow of information correctly.

The other aspect to consider, and again, this probably exists somewhere, is the flow of money amongst these entities. Logically the money flow would be opposite from the data flow in that the traveler bears the brunt of the expense, which flows all of the way through to the vendor. Any additional information you have to share on the money flow would be appreciated.

For diagram, click here.

By Ted Schuerman