The challenge
- Air spend represented 82% of travel expenditure, with limited supplier optimisation against it.
- Out-of-hours booking requests were slow to turn around - critical given how often operational plans changed at short notice.
- Hold periods on itineraries were not disclosed up front, so pricing changed unexpectedly at ticketing.
- Booking errors, including misspelled passenger names, disrupted travel at the airport.
- Hotel billing complications left travellers paying out of pocket and reclaiming later.
What we did
- Established two separate travel accounts so costs could be segmented cleanly across entities and projects.
- Implemented an intuitive booking platform with preferred suppliers integrated directly.
- Integrated automated pre-trip approvals alongside airline reassurance features.
- Deployed compliance robotics to track unused tickets and recover what was refundable.
- Established preferred hotel partnerships with Barclaycard Conferma payment processing, so crews no longer fronted the cost.
The results
- £126k in reward flights via Lufthansa PartnerPlus and Air France BlueBiz.
- 92% adoption of preferred hotels, at 18% below standard daily rates.
- 100% success rate on pre-arranged hotel bill-backs.
- £33.9k recovered in permitted refunds from tracked unused tickets.
- £19.1k saved through bundled transaction fee pricing.
- 412 employee and sub-contractor travel profiles built, with automated visa and passport expiry alerts.
