London – American
Express Global Business Travel plans to release its pre-trip Expert Approval
tool in the United Kingdom and the United States in July. It already is
available in Australia.
Amex GBT products and digital platforms project manager
Elissa Dymke announced the launch during The BTN Group's
Tech Talk Europe conference. "We found that many companies still have a
manual process to manage travel demand and, as a result, they had poor
visibility into travel costs. [This tool] answers the question: Should I be
traveling?"
Designed for mobile and desktop use, the cloud-based tool prompts
users to indicate whether a trip will involve flights, hotel and ground
transport and whether the traveler will book online or offline, plus "all
other expenses related to the trip, not just the components from the booking
tool," Dymke said. Expert Approval's expense-cost calculator then estimates
a total trip cost using fares and rates it pulls from Sabre via an application
programming interface.
It also displays visa requirements, as well as risks related
to the destination, based on risk tables defined by the company, government
websites or Amex GBT's partnership with iJet.
Companies can input travel policy elements and configure approval
paths. For instance, a company can require additional pre-trip approvals for more
dangerous locations. An approver also can set a flexible cost window for a
booking, allowing, for instance, a booking that's 10 percent higher than the tool's
estimated cost.
Once the trip is approved, the tool will email the
traveler, who can click through to an online booking tool; Expert Approval
integrates with Serko in Australia, and Dymke said Amex GBT is working on
partnerships with other major booking tools.