travelnews: Travel Lessons Learned from COVID cancelled travel

Tue Sep 22 13:46:11 PDT 2020

Use our UO managed travel program by purchasing air through our UO contracted travel agencies or through the Concur booking tool.  Our contracted airlines provide 6-18% discounts on airline tickets (Alaska, American, Delta and United and their partner carriers).  Additionally UO negotiated contract protections including a free one time name change on COVID cancelled business airline tickets, waived change fees,  and got date extensions on tickets that were due to expire.   One of our UO TMCs has successfully negotiated refunds on over 125 of our COVID cancelled tickets.
** UO travelers purchased $412,000 of business airline tickets using personal credit cards which involved travel after the March 15 travel suspension.  At our average UO discount of 8% using our airline contracts, UO travelers left almost $33,000 in discount dollars on the table with the airlines!  Additionally, these tickets do not have our UO contract negotiated protections including name changes and date extensions.  Taking into account tickets purchased outside the system that may go unused and the lost discount opportunity, this potentially represents almost half a million dollars in lost travel spend for the university.

Do not book airline tickets too early.  UO travel reports demonstrate the "sweet spot" for domestic booking for favorable rates with plenty of seat availability for domestic travel is 21-45 days prior to departure.  For international travel, the premium purchase timeframe is about 60-90 days prior.  Keep in mind flight "lift" into the destination - large cities will offer more flights.  For smaller cities, you might need to book 30-45 days in advance. Another factor to consider: holiday dates including school holidays and graduation.  Statistics show that booking months (or even up to a year) in advance results in plan changes, cancelled flights, and often multiple change fees negating any perceived early booking discount.

Do not book discounted, fully prepaid, non-refundable lodging accommodations.  And do not use third party vendors like Expedia or Travelocity.  Business travel requires flexibility.  Plan to spend $10-20 more per night so that you can change or cancel your reservations.  Book directly on hotel websites or by calling hotels.  UO travelers lost hundreds of dollars to third party vendors because they booked nonrefundable/non-changeable reservations with no flexibility.
** Prepaid, cancelled hotel reservations booked through third party vendors due to COVID represent a loss of $5400 for the UO.

Update all Concur profiles with cell phone numbers, personal email addresses, emergency contact information.  (For reference to mandatory fields, we created a checklist for onboarding new employees: https://ba.uoregon.edu/travel/concur )  When UO Safety & Risk needed to locate/connect with UO travelers at the onset of the pandemic, this information was vital in order to reach out to travelers to assist with decision making and travel planning.

Be sure Concur Request contains the full range of travel dates, including any personal time extensions. In the case of an emergency, UO Safety & Risk personnel need to be able to identify all travelers who are in travel status with accurate travel dates in Concur. Very important:  Do not cancel or inactivate your Request in Concur until after the travel is complete.

Consider "Fixed Fee" for payments for services on PCS contracts for contracted Independent Contractors for their travel expenses.  You can include the cost of air, lodging, ground transport, meals, etc into the fixed fee for a contractor's service and allow them to book their own travel arrangements.  If they need special arrangements, want to add personal time, need to change or cancel, the UO is not left holding a potentially non-refundable, non-usable ticket for a guest who may never use it.  The contractor can always exchange their own ticket for future business or personal travel.

Happy Fall.  Safety and health to us all.  Go Ducks!

[cid:D409AF7E-A065-4B03-9E7F-72A60DB7E5EF]
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>

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