travelnews: Travel process during COVID 19 pandemic

[BAO news for travel administrators]

To UO business travelers and their Concur delegates:

All University of Oregon non-essential in-state, domestic, and international travel is suspended indefinitely. As many travelers have left campus to work remotely or for Spring Break, it is possible that your traveler is unaware of the current travel restrictions.  We need your help:

Please reach out to your business travelers by phone to be sure they have canceled any upcoming UO business travel through mid-April.  Airline tickets must be canceled prior to departure to retain credit for future travel.

If there is an urgent, necessary and immediate travel need you must seek an exception using the travel waiver request<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/app.smartsheet.com/b/form/33d3e09d9195481fa6d39c6e55abef78__;!!C5qS4YX3!QROQUgqUVSnmgsKNiAUY77U2D7HY5g2lKfXkLYRteWIymOwgSG4jxTm4erXo_zaN$> form on the Provost's website.  This includes new travel as well as returning faculty and staff who may need to change an existing ticket. Your request must be approved by your respective Dean or Vice President and then will be referred to the Travel Advisory Group of the Incident Management team for final consideration.   The approved form is attached to your Concur Request using the Attachment button.
Canceling your upcoming trip:  Please note that cancel rules will remain fluid for air, car and hotel vendors for an undetermined time period.  The industry requires this flexibility to adjust to any government added restrictions or changes over the course of the next few months. Best course of action is to check back in a few weeks to determine if you might qualify for a refund or waived change fees.  Be sure to note your ticket's cancel rules including change waiver or fees, and use-by date.

TMC assistance:  You should expect to experience extended hold times and delays to email queries.  Airlines are working to accommodate stranded travelers while dealing with reduced flight and seat inventory.  Our travel agents are not only working emergency travel situations but are also on hold with the airlines requesting waivers/favors to accommodate our UO travelers and their other customers, so please be patient and know they are working in priority of the need.  The After Hours/Emergency numbers are managed by the TMC contracted vendors.  We believe that you will receive better service with our local TMCs UO trained personnel during regular business hours so please be patient.
Important!

  *   You must cancel your ticket prior to your departure date to retain ticket credit.  Travelers may wait until closer to their travel date to cancel to determine if the travel suspension is still active.



  *   Be sure to cancel all travel components including transportation, hotel, conference registrations and any other prepaid expenses and be sure to inquire about a refund or waived fee if you can rebook for a future date.



  *   To cancel a booking tool booking,
     *   Go to Concur and click on Travel in the black bar at the top of the Concur screen.
     *   Click on Trip Library and locate your upcoming trip.
     *   Select Cancel Trip link on the right side of your screen in the right.
     *   Concur will provide an error message for you to contract your TMC if necessary.
     *   The Unused ticket flag will appear in your Concur profile to remind you for future bookings.
  *   For agent assist bookings, contact your travel agent/TMC:
     *   Premier Travel 541-747-0909 doug at premiertrav.com<mailto:doug at premiertrav.com>
     *   Direct Travel 855-221-1342 uofotravelteam at dt.com<mailto:uofotravelteam at dt.com>
     *   Or call the airline direct.  Please expect extended hold times.
*         Expense reports:  Airfare purchased with the UO Lodge Card (card held on file with the UO contracted travel agents) and any One Card expenses will need to be processed in a Concur Expense Report.  Unless you qualify for a refund, you will need to process the airfare charge.   If you qualify for a refund, the credit will post to your Concur profile and is added to the same report as the original expense.
*         To submit an expense report prior to the original travel dates:

     *   Change the dates of the expense report header to reflect current submission date
     *   Leave the Report Name to reflect Destination and original travel date
     *   Use activity code IRCRNA, along with your departmental index so we can track expense related to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Candidates, grad students, other non-UO employees: Personally purchased tickets will be reimbursed under UO Travel Policy guidelines.  Please use activity code IRCRNA.

UO employees who purchased airline travel outside the UO managed travel program:   Travelers should personally seek remedy from the airline, hotel, etc. first.   Expense reports for reimbursement should include explanation about why the travel was not purchased within guidelines and efforts to obtain refund or waivers.  Please use activity code IRCRNA.

The UO travel office stands ready to assist.  Be sure to leave a VM message if we are not able to pick up.  Some of us are working remotely and will return calls as quickly as we can.  When emailing or leaving a message - be sure to leave traveler name and relevant details so we can research in advance of our return call or reply.

Thanks for all you do.  Be healthy and safe.

[cid:image001.png at 01D5FDB8.ED3C75F0]
Laurie Jacoby
Travel Manager
Business Affairs Office
University of Oregon
lajacoby at uoregon.edu<mailto:lajacoby at uoregon.edu>
541-346-3158
**  If your travel involves human subjects research, please do not disclose any information that is protected under UO Policy and other Regulations http://rcs.uoregon.edu/content/regulations-and-uo-policy

Travel Office/Concur Help Desk:     Phone:  6-3100 ***  Email:  travel at uoregon.edu<mailto:travel at uoregon.edu>

TravelNews Opt In for Travel and Concur tips:   https://lists-prod.uoregon.edu/mailman/listinfo/travelnews

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists-prod.uoregon.edu/pipermail/travelnews/attachments/20200319/2e0a517e/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 2636 bytes
Desc: image001.png
URL: <http://lists-prod.uoregon.edu/pipermail/travelnews/attachments/20200319/2e0a517e/attachment.png>