The 5 key areas you should cover in your business travel policy are:

• Flights
• Hotels
• Trains
• Ground transport, such as car hire or taxis
• Duty of care, such as managing traveller risk

If you cover each of these within your travel policy, you’ll have most eventualities covered. What’s important here is that you give simple and clear guidance so the
traveller can easily understand what can and can’t be booked. Try not to leave anything to interpretation as this will help avoid questions later and also reduce the
amount non-compliant bookings.

One size might not fit all…

It’s always been common practice to have a policy for the majority and a different set of guidelines for the most senior employees, but does this traditional approach go far enough? Consider who your most frequent travellers are, and if different employees
should have the same or varying travel guidelines depending on their circumstances.

Flights

The most obvious thing to consider when it comes to flights is which class of travel the traveller can book. However, it’s worth bearing in mind that within each class of travel there several different ticket types with wildly different costs usually depending on the flexibility of the ticket conditions. So, asking your employees to always book an economy ticket, doesn’t mean they will be booking the cheapest option.

Here’s an example:

Ticket A – Economy £300 (No refunds, no changes)

Ticket B – Economy £500 (No refunds, changes for a fee)

Ticket C – Economy £700 (Fully refundable)

If your travel policy says the traveller must travel in economy class, the traveller could legitimately book Ticket C, and cost the business £400 more than if they booked Ticket A. Flights Sometimes, a business class ticket can even be cheaper than a more flexible economy option.

Try to build these scenarios into your travel policy so travellers know what’s ok in these situations. Some businesses allow premium economy or business class if the flight is over a certain duration. And some have different rules for different employees-influenced by the seniority of the position or the number of hours spent travelling or frequency of trips over a sustained period of time. For example, consider what optional extras are permitted too, which are common amongst budget airlines, such as, priority boarding, allocated seating on board meals and additional baggage.

In a post Covid-19 world, businesses are changing their air policy to allow business travellers to upgrade from economy to premium, or business to reduce risk and enhance comfort to support traveller welfare. More so, organisations are changing advance purchase policies normally in place to secure lower fares by booking in advance.

Hotels

Hotels range massively when it comes to quality standards and price, that’s why it’s important to be clear on what travellers are entitled to. Some organisations specify that travellers can only stay in 3* hotels, but what if the 4* round the corner is the same price?

An effective way to manage hotel policy is to set a maximum price limit, but travellers should still be encouraged to book cheaper rates than this whenever possible. If you have a negotiated rate programme, should these hotels and rates be booked every time or only if it’s the cheapest option? What about budget chains? Are there any that aren’t up to scratch that shouldn’t be booked at all?

Hotels For long stay bookings, it can be more cost effective to book a service department and a
better experience for your traveller too. Consider building this guidance into your policy once booking durations go over a certain number of days.

Don’t forget to outline the incidental expenses that are permitted too such as newspapers, bar bills and laundry charges. Remember the sharing economy… Are you happy for your employees to book through Airbnb or stay with friends when traveling on business?

Use your travel policy to give your travellers guidance on what is acceptable. Post Covid19, Hotel caps which set the amount a traveller can spend on a room night have increased by travel managers to allow travellers a degree of flexibility on room rates considering the pandemic and provide more choice.

Rail 

Rail tickets can be confusing for travellers so it’s important your travel policy makes purchasing them as simple as possible. Most businesses will tell their employees to book a standard ticket, but like air travel, the variance in price is vast depending on the ticket’s flexibility.

When travelling by rail, travellers typically like to travel home whenever they are ready, rather than being fixed to a particular train, but this often means they book the most expensive fare. To get around this, it may be wise to tell travellers to buy a flexible ticket for the return part of their journey, but they must buy the cheapest fixed outbound ticket. This means your average ticket prices will likely come down, but travellers aren’t inconvenienced because they already know which train, they’ll get on their outbound journey.

Like air travel, will you allow your traveller to book a business class ticket if it’s the same price or less than the standard class option? If you document these frequently asked questions in your policy from the beginning, it will avoid lots of questions being asked later.

Ground Transportation

When giving guidance on hiring a vehicle, consider the following questions:

• Under which circumstances can an employee hire a car?
• What standard of car is considered fit for purpose? Economy, Luxury or somewhere in between?
• How does the employee claim for refuelling?
• What insurance is required? Is there a company policy already?
• Are there any preferred suppliers? If so, how should they be booked?
• Are there any countries when car hire is not permitted due to safety
  reasons, for example?
• Would an organised transfer work out cheaper?

Other ground transport options include taxis, chauffeur-driven cars, airport transfers, public transport, and personal car usage. Be clear in your policy if any forms of ground transport are not advised in locations where it is not considered safe to do so. 

Duty of care

Use your travel policy to help ensure your employees’ duty of care when they’re
travelling on business. Work with your HR department to ensure you are supporting
travellers before, during and after travel. Does your employee know what to do in case of emergency out of normal office hours? Outline a main point of contact if travel plans are disrupted.

Communication

How will you keep in touch with your employee and vice versa when they are travelling? If you use a travel management company, this information should be added to every booking automatically from the traveller’s profile. Make sure travellers also provide you with their mobile contact information and ensure they have the correct numbers to call if they need support.

Traveller Tracking

If you use a travel management company, they should be tracking your travellers for you. If you book things in-house make sure you have your own record of travellers’
bookings and that your policy outlines this process clearly.

Emergency Procedure
Do you have a process for travellers to follow in the event of an emergency? It will be wise to document this within your travel policy, so travellers know what to do if they are affected by an incident.

Managing Risk

How can travellers prepare for their trip? Consider the destinations your business
travels to and classify which are ‘high risk’ for your company. Ensure travellers
understand any risks before they travel and what they can do to mitigate their
occurrence.

Other wellbeing topics you may wish to cover include:

• Changes to travel entitlements in certain circumstances, such as, providing a chauffeur driven car after a long-haul flight as travellers may be too tired to drive safely.
• Your policy on drinking alcohol whilst away on business.
• Providing destination guides for so travellers are as prepared as possible when visiting unfamiliar destinations.
• Checking city safe scores, so that they are aware of any ‘no go’ areas in that location.
• Lone female travellers, does the hotel had a policy for managing risk in this area?

Did you know? During and post Covid19 businesses were/are actively adding out of policy locations, which control the cities an employee can travel to for their trip.