The One Percent 
After a three-and-a-half year fling with active, global pre-trip approval for all travel bookings; my travel program is abandoning the process. When we first began pre-trip approvals it was because of a knee-jerk reaction by C-level management to reduce travel in a time of restructuring the company.

The consulting firm hired to help NetApp transform advised us that active approvals were the norm and would reduce travel.

I beg to differ. The Travel Team strongly disagreed with this imposition on our program. The process of getting approval hierarchies set up and maintained, the constant missing of ticketing deadlines because of non-approval, and a decline rate that never went above 1 percent did not convince me that the policy was sound. While travel may have been reduced by employees shying away from asking to travel, we could not measure any real savings by managing pre-approval processes.
– Mark Zeigler

Pre-trip Two-step? 
My biggest struggle with pre-trip approvals is trying to convince myself they have any merit. The truth is, they provide very little value or savings for the company. In most cases, travel is approved by the direct manager before the pre-trip is submitted, which means the manager approves them and doesn’t spend much time reviewing the request. Additionally, the number of rejected pre-trip requests is less than 10 percent, so does it make sense to have pre-trip?

Over the past two years, managers have questioned the process. When asked why it exists, the standard answer is manager visibility (into the actions of their employees) and potential savings by reducing the number of trips. However, if we all are doing our jobs, can’t we accomplish these objectives without the added step?
– Cheryl Benjamin

No-win Proposition
Usually if a company is attempting to use pre-trip approval they are wanting to save money or control spend. At this stage requiring pre-trip approval is only there to make an inexperienced person feel like they have some control. I can understand it very short term due to some type of change management, emergency, etc. But long term it’s a no-win proposition. Unless it is a very small travel program or you have people dedicated to waiting 24 hours a day to approve or reject a trip, this is a money-losing strategy. Perhaps in years gone by we lacked other means of control; today we have full transparency and more immediate reporting.

Since I had some data on when trips were approved, a few years ago I researched what the increased cost would be if ticketing was held until approval was received. On average approvals were received two to three days after the booking, which would have added 15 to 20 percent to the airline cost. Not to mention the poor traveler experience of getting to the airport with an un-ticketed reservation or no reservation canceled by the carrier.
– David Smith

Travel Smarter
Being on the both the buyer and supplier side in the corporate travel industry, I can honestly say I have never been a big fan of pre-trip travel approval.

I certainly understand the reasons why companies feel that pre-trip approval will help manage unnecessary trips, gain added visibility to their travelers’ spend and help manage their travel department’s budget. However I have found that in many cases, the cost of travel can actually increase.

Unfortunately, airline tickets fares are never guaranteed until ticketed, and since a hold for a specific flight is usually released by midnight, travelers are at the mercy of their manager to review and approve during a tight timeframe. If the manager is unable to review, the ticket is canceled, and the advance purchase may be lost. This results in additional travel spend as well as loss productivity due to the traveler having to go through the process again. Also, I have found that many managers just approve travel requests, similar to expense reports, without truly reviewing it just to get it off their plate – which defeats the purpose.

Instead of a pre-trip approval, a strong travel manager can be much more effective saving the company money by reviewing data, reporting traveler compliance and coaching travelers on how to travel smarter.
– Chris Brockman