Travel

UBC’s travel program can help ensure the safety and well-being of our Faculty, Staff and Students when they are travelling for university-related business/research. Our system provides access to emergency re-booking assistance and advice 24/7, we track travel itineraries (in emergency situations), and we send alerts in case of natural disasters, political unrest, or other potential risks (before and during travel).

UBC’s travel program compares the various negotiated discounted rates with airlines, hotels, and car rental companies against public rates, resulting in more options and cost savings for the university and the traveller (i.e. faculty, staff, students, guests). Additionally, our travel program can track and analyze travel expenses, allowing UBC to identify areas where we can save money.

Booking travel can be time-consuming, especially when you factor in the time required to research multiple vendor sites.

UBC’s Travel Program can simplify the shopping for travel process and provides a choice of booking method. Both methods are linked together (i.e. Direct Travel can help with your online booking on SAP-Concur).

• Online platform with SAP-Concur, traveller and/or delegated admin. can book simple (air, car, hotel) itineraries OR
• Book with an experienced advisor at Direct Travel, for more complicated itineraries (i.e. travel outside of Canada or a mix of business/leisure travel)

Both booking options have UBC’s negotiated rates loaded, along with public rates, including seat sales and the program offers a LOW FARE GUARANTEE, (restrictions apply, i.e. provide screenshot same business day).

UBC’s travel program has mobile applications to help manage your travel itinerary more efficiently and book online during travel disruptions, (i.e. Tripit Pro by Concur & Concur for mobile).

Using UBC’s resources to book and pay for travel can help minimize the loss of airline ticket credits and provide a more secure system to securely handle credit card information while reducing the risk of credit card fraud, including personal credit card fraud.

UBC’s program tracks travel expenses and can provide detailed reports and insight to Faculties, Units or Departments on travel spending, which can help manage financial and GHG budgets more effectively. And the consolidated financial information for all of UBC’s expenses booked through the travel program options has more weight with vendors to negotiate better rates in the future.

UBC’s travel policy is embedded into our booking systems and exceptions can be tracked. The out-of-policy notification can help prevent employees from booking unnecessary upgrades or making non-compliant travel decisions, which can result in additional costs.