A travel policy that lists every rule a trip breaks
Write your policy as rules, each with the sentence a traveller sees when a trip breaks it. When TripDesk365 prices a trip, it checks every rule and lists every one the trip breaks, so a traveller can fix the trip once instead of being refused again for the next rule.
An out-of-policy trip can be held while a second person decides, and it cannot be ticketed until they approve.
Where policy applies today. Policy is checked when a trip is priced in TripDesk365, and only that check can send a trip for approval. TripDesk365 does not search or price airline fares today, so bookings you import or forward, which were made and ticketed elsewhere, are not checked against your policy or held for approval.
Your travel managers can write, preview and publish your rules now, and cost centres and booking fields work on every booking.
Limits you can write
| Limit | What it checks |
|---|---|
| Cabin | The highest cabin allowed, for example economy on domestic trips. |
| Spend ceiling | A fixed amount , per booking, per traveller, per direction or per traveller per direction, so "$600 a person each way" judges a return fairly , or priced off the market: the median offer or the cheapest fare in the cabin, plus a tolerance you set. |
| Advance purchase | How many days ahead a trip must be booked. |
| Basic economy | Whether basic economy fares are allowed. |
| Airlines | An airline your company does not want used. |
| Refundable fares | Whether a fare must be refundable. |
| Preferred airlines | The airlines trips should fly. A trip with a flight on another airline is flagged. |
| Airline safety | Flights operated by airlines on IATA's Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) registry, read from IATA's own registry with each registration's expiry date. The airline flying each leg is judged, and one whose registration is not known is shown, not flagged. |
| EU Air Safety List | No flights operated by airlines the European Commission bans from the EU or allows there only with restrictions. The list is read weekly, the airline flying each leg is judged, and one whose place on the list is not known is shown, not flagged. |
| High-risk destinations | A country on the trip at or above the US State Department advisory level you choose. |
| Review | Every trip in a scope you set, such as all international trips, is flagged for review. |
| Colleagues on one flight | How many of your people may share one flight on one day, counting those already booked. |
A limit can be narrowed to domestic, international or transborder trips, or to an origin and destination airport, and then judges only the trips it covers.
How a trip is judged
Every limit is tested before anything is decided, and the trip gets one of four states:
- In policy. Nothing is broken.
- In policy by exception. A limit was broken, and a grant you wrote lifts it.
- Not recommended. A limit set to warn was broken. The trip can go ahead without approval.
- Out of policy. A limit set to block was broken. The booker gives a justification, and the trip needs approval before it is ticketed.
Each broken rule shows the sentence you wrote for the traveller, with what the rule allows and what the trip is: economy allowed, business chosen.
Exceptions are rules too. A grant names the one limit it lifts and when it applies, such as a long flight or a red-eye, when the fare states its flight time. If the facts a grant depends on are missing, the grant does not apply and the limit stands, because wrongly allowing a business seat costs more than an argument about one.
Nothing changes by accident. A new rule starts as a draft that decides nothing. Preview it against sample trips to see each trip's state before and after, with every rule it would break, then publish it. A rule is never backdated: it applies from the moment it is published, or from a later date you choose.
How an approval is decided
- The person who asked for approval can never approve their own trip, whatever their role.
- A rule can name the role that must approve, such as a travel manager. Only a signed-in person who holds that role in your account can decide. With no role named, your travel managers decide.
- Each request has its own single-use link, emailed to the people who can decide it: the role the rule names, or your travel managers. The person who asked is told who received it. Anyone holding the link can read the request without signing in: the first flight with its date and cabin, the airline, the travellers, the fare total, the justification and every rule broken. Recording a decision needs a signed-in account, so every decision carries a name.
- A refusal must say why, so the booker knows what to book instead.
- A request expires after 72 hours, and once decided its link stops working. One nobody answers is chased: the approvers are reminded after a day and again twelve hours before the link stops working, and the person who asked is told then, and if it expires.
- Approvers also see everything waiting on them on one page, oldest first with the reason, and can approve several at once.
- Your company can ask for trips to be agreed before anyone looks for fares: every trip, or only international ones. The traveller says where, when, why and for how much; the approver agrees or refuses it with a reason.
- A trip request can carry a budget. If your company asks for it, a booking above that budget can be held but is ticketed only after the approver agrees, and an approval covers the price it was asked for, no more.
The approver never sees net fares, markups or commission.
The fields finance asks for
Policy is also about getting the right details on every trip. Your travel manager sets up:
- Cost centres on each corporate account, so each booking can be charged to one.
- Booking fields such as project code, trip purpose, PO number or employee ID: text, number, date, a list to pick from, or yes and no. A field can apply to every client or to one, can have a default, and can be required.
Values can be filled in or corrected on the booking page at any time. A required field with no value stops a trip being ticketed in TripDesk365, though it can still be held. On a booking imported from elsewhere, a missing required field is shown on the booking page. A field cannot be set up to hold prices, and a value that looks like a card number is refused.
Writing a policy for the first time? Start from our free travel policy template.
What travel managers ask
Does every out-of-policy trip need approval?
Only a trip that breaks a blocking rule. A warning marks the trip not recommended and lets it go ahead, so people are not trained to type a justification for everything.
Can a booker hold a fare while waiting for approval?
Yes. Holding is allowed so the fare is not lost during the wait. Ticketing is what waits for the approval.
Is policy checked on bookings we import?
No. An imported booking was made and ticketed elsewhere. Policy is checked when TripDesk365 prices a trip, which it does not do today.
Bring your travel policy to the demo
We will write your rules in TripDesk365 with you and preview them against sample trips, so you can see what a traveller would be told.