The Secret Guide to Negotiating Rates and Fares With Travel Agents. Shhh… Don’t Tell Anyone!

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Want to reduce spending on business travel? Who doesn’t want to get the most from their expense budgets? The money you don’t have to spend on travel can go into growing your company or providing incentives to your most productive employees. Here is the secret guide to negotiating rates and fares with travel agents:

Get Help From a Travel Management Company

First tip? Don’t go it alone. No business can really compete in an online search with the volume and resources available to business travel agency management. A management agency can make sure you have access to discount rates only available to corporate travel agencies. In addition, they can further assist you in assessing your travel needs clearly and setting goals that help you:

  • Guide to Negotiating with Travel Agents, GTI TravelDetermine your actual travel needs.
  • Understand how much you are spending.
  • Determine what travel policies would improve effectiveness and satisfaction.

Examine Travel Expenditures for Negotiating Leverage

You can never negotiate effectively if you aren’t sure of your own position, so one of the first things you need to do is to make sure you understand your current travel expenditures. Corporate travel consultants can help you:

  • Consolidate your travel expense information.
  • Analyze patterns of travel.
  • Determine where you have the most volume of travel that you can use as leverage in travel negotiations.

For example, if you always book a hotel in a certain city for twenty employees for a week, you can use that information to negotiate for a better rate.

Review Your Travel Policy

When was the last time you reviewed your travel policies? An excellent travel policy which reflects the needs of your particular company can help make sure your dedicated business travelers get everything they need to drive your business without adding unnecessary expenses. A travel agency consultant who knows the best practices for travel policies for your industry is able to:

  • Develop travel policies that make for better business travel experiences.
  • Train your employees on implementing policies.
  • Be a resource for questions and concerns.
  • Help you understand industry trends and benchmarks.

Use Professional Corporate Travel Agent Help

The best secret? Make sure you let a professional with extensive connections do the negotiations for you. What will really eat into your company budget is:

  • Missed connections that cause travelers to be delayed.
  • Travelers who have medical or other emergencies.
  • Lost employee time due to poor travel arrangements.
  • Too much employee time lost trying to make travel arrangements.

GTI travel agents know how to make sure that business travel is negotiated so that your travelers get where they need to go and back safely, efficiently and in the most cost-effective way. By providing 24/7 live help to any traveler, they make sure that no one needs to make last-minute negotiations on their own. Shh…Don’t tell anyone! You can skip all the negotiations and relax. Why? GTI travel take care of all the hassles of negotiating and get you the best deal every time!