TMC Business Rule – 24-Hour Ticketing Early in our E-Gov travel system implementation, we realized that the driving force for reservation ticketing, the approval, resulted in some travelers arriving at the airport without ticketed reservations. To help correct this issue, ARC Travel Services worked with Northrop Grumman and our TMCs to initiate a business rule to ticket all unapproved reservations 24 hours prior to departure.

While the 24-hour ticketing rule has been a benefit to many travelers, it has not been without issues: Unauthorized trips ticketed Test documents with reservations ticketed Tickets issued at a much higher cost than the agency would normally pay Special reports created by the TMC to identify and track unapproved authorizations Manual ticketing resulting in higher transaction fees Automation errors resulting in duplicate TMC fees on lodging and rental car only reservations

ARC Travel Services recommendation is to eliminate this business rule. To help ensure timely ticketing, customers may: Issue a “Blanket Authority” to travel and activate the auto approve feature in GovTrip Add back-up approvers to all routing lists Provide additional training and guidance to travelers Provide additional training to authorizing officials

Additional Info - Debit Memo Bill generated by an airline to a TMC for a booking violation. Airlines have established strict booking parameters for the handling of their inventory, and a violation is likely to result in a debit memo. Primary Causes: Churning Rebooking of identical flights after they have been cancelled. In an automated system, cancelling is removing the flight and selecting new Duplicate bookings Holding 2 or more reservations over the same routing within a defined time frame.

GSA organized the Debit Memo Focus Group in June Comprised of representatives of airlines, TMCs, and eTravel vendors. Debit memos are more prevalent in the automated environment, in particular involving government fares with no advance purchase requirements. Outcome: Contract fares are exempt from debit memos caused by churning. The education of federal travelers is imperative to help mitigate memo issuance, as traveler behavior accounts for a vast majority of instances. We must prepare for the issuance of debit memos for un-ticketed reservations that are not cancelled