How We Save You Money

We continually seek the lowest costs by checking new inventory channels such as web fares and consolidator fares.

We also focus on the following areas to save you and your company money:

• Consolidation of Travel Services
• Travel Supplier Negotiations
• Developing and Communicating an Effective Travel Policy
• Reservation Controls
• Use of an Efficient Payment Method and
• Educating Travelers and Travel Arrangers.

Consolidation of Travel Services
There are a number of benefits to be derived form consolidating your travel purchasing, including:

• Cost Savings through more effective purchasing of travel and related services, easier negotiations for lower rates with airlines, hotels and car companies and leveraged purchasing power.
• Controlled purchasing with channeled purchasing through selected vendors and the ability to develop and implement policy changes immediately.
• Consistent and superior level of services to the traveler and the company as all reservation personnel will be dedicated agents and trained as such with the sole purpose of serving your company.
• Redeployment of your work force through the utilization of outside travel experts for the development of meetings, incentive and other group travel business.
• Uniformity in management of your corporate travel program.

Travel Supplier Negotiations
Stratton Travel Management has a separate department which handles negotiations and develops and analyzes the necessary data which forms the basis for extremely successful 3-way negotiations.

Another new process in reducing corporate travel services costs is “Reverse Hotel and Rental Car Program Auctions”.

A reverse auction is the opposite of a regular auction. It is an offer to buy a product, presented by a buyer to multiple sellers. The sellers bid and usually the buyer purchases the product from whoever offers the lowest price. Thus, a reverse auction reverses the roles and relationship that buyers and sellers have in a regular auction.

Corporate travel services are not auctioned as easily as goods but they can and have been purchased through a reverse auction. This purchasing approach is more suited to hotel and rental car services better than airline sourcing because there are fewer concerns about antitrust violations. For a corporation, reverse auctions can be a powerful tool for finding new travel suppliers and realizing savings.

On the positive side, an electronic reverse auction can bring savings through lower prices and a streamlined process. A reverse auction can bring a shorter sourcing cycle, more accurate comparisons of the bids due to the common format and less time needed for sorting through individual travel supplier responses for Request For Pricing (RFP).

On the negative side, a reverse auction could hurt a corporation's business relationship with its travel suppliers. There are tangible and intangible aspects in car rental service. Some tangible aspects for example include, type of car, counter bypass products, insurance, fuel, return processing, staffing, locations and proximity. Some intangibles aspects include account management, customer service, performance and reputation. The intangibles areas are what make a relationship between a corporation and a rental car company successful both in terms of problem solving and creating sustainable partnerships over the long term. With regards to hotels, price points in a reverse auction are not always equal, they do not always account for levels of service, physical conditions of the property and various amenities offered.

Conducting a successful reverse auction is not a simple process. Travel managers considering a reverse auction for the first time might want to check whether their company has already contracted third party vendors to provide this service for all of purchasing and procurement. Stratton Travel Management will provide first-time travel or purchasing manager with consultation and referrals if there is further interest in pursuing reverse auctions.

Developing and Communicating an Effective Travel Policy
A carefully written and well–enforced policy is the backbone of any travel management program. Stratton Travel Management has the experience and expertise you help you develop a new, or review and enhance your existing travel policy.

A policy is the list of guidelines explaining who can travel, how much can be spent with which vendor, which payment method to use, and how to report these expenses.

A well–enforced policy can ensure significant savings. Companies can save up to 20% of their T & E costs if they're willing to put their teeth in their policies. This means mandating things like taking the lowest logical airfare, even if it means longer travel time; flying coach; staying only at hotels where the company has negotiated rates; requiring high–level authorizations for any trip. Monitoring employees who are accustomed to autonomy when they travel may seem overly cautious, but an unenforced policy is most likely to become an ineffective one.

Reservation Controls
All reservations are subject to the following controls which include, but are not limited to:

• General use of preferential airline, hotel and car rental companies.
• Specific use of airlines for certain city-pair routes.
• Use of preferred hotel or car company in selected cities.
• Class of airline service limitation by flight time hours, miles and/or destinations.
• Limitation on hotel room rates booked with exceptions where necessary for certain higher priced locations.
• Specific exceptions to above policies for certain designated management officials. When an exception to policy is noted, the booking agent must enter the reason for noncompliance before the transaction can be ended. Such notations are included in Stratton Travel Management's online exception report.

This process ensures adherence to policy for maximum savings. It is useful to demonstrate that your company is in a position to monitor and direct business to a preferred supplier, thereby putting your company in a stronger position during negotiations. Stratton Travel Management will ensure that all travel will be booked at the lowest reasonable airfare consistent with your corporate travel policy.

Use of an Efficient Payment Method
Corporate card payment systems help companies accomplish two essential objectives: they improve cash flow and capture travel data. The data can be refined to pinpoint specific spending patterns, identify wasteful spending practices, evaluate cost–saving programs and identify where policy works and where it's weak. Improved cash flow can be accomplished simply by reducing cash advances, which are inordinately costly to reconcile even without lost interest factored in.

We accept all major credit cards, whether individual or corporate, as the form of payment for airline tickets, transaction fees and as a guarantee for rental car, hotel room and limousine reservations. Stratton is also pleased to consult companies by presenting various credit card programs as well as billing programs whereby no plastic cards need to be issued.

Educate Travelers and Travel Arrangers
We regularly hold seminars and discussion groups for travelers and travel arrangers to discuss the most efficient ways to book travel and to discuss travel issues and problems.

Our expertise in account management evolved from our careful selection of professionals from the airline industry, corporate travel management positions and former agency owners. We believe the right mix of talent will drive a company sensitive to the needs of a wide range of client specialties. Drawing upon the resources of our multi talented team, we are able to meet the needs of our business partners. We provide the services mega agencies offer and the personal attention they simply cannot offer. The success of this approach has been demonstrated by our clients’ satisfaction and longevity.