Gone are the days where being a corporate travel manager began and ended with simply being responsible for booking business travel. Now the role involves spinning all kinds of extra plates – from reviewing expense reports and managing traveler wellbeing, to ensuring sustainability goals are upheld. And of course, you still have to schedule and book all that travel. It can all get a bit unwieldy, especially when you’re having to use multiple platforms and systems to cover different tasks. That’s where Amex GBT Select comes in. Designed to be flexible, it slots in with your existing systems, filling gaps and helping link tools and services. Sounds good, right? That’s just the teaser. We’ve put together five reasons travel managers love using Select to manage their corporate travel.
1. Select is made to measure
Every business is unique. And that means that travel managers face unique challenges when it comes to looking after corporate travel for their organization. Rather than trying to bulldoze through your current platforms and systems like a square peg in a round hole, Select seamlessly fits into your existing tech. Because it’s flexible and customizable, Select gives you everything you need, and nothing you don’t. A fully end-to-end corporate management system that plugs any gaps in your existing tools and services. And With a 95% retention rate1, and over 11,000 Amex GBT clients, we’re confident that this flexibility is a big hit among travel managers just like you.
2. Select gets expenses done (with no extra expense)
Nothing sparks up a headache harder and faster for a travel manager that trying to untangle the knotty process of corporate travel expenses. After all, endless excel sheets do not a happy manager make. So managing those expenses efficiently and effectively is a common challenge. That’s why Select’s flexibility is designed to make life easier. Our unified tools smooth out those complex processes and drive opportunities for better compliance – win win.
Let’s face it, no traveler is infallible. How many times have you had to try and make sense of expenses with no paper receipts to speak of (or even worse…a mountain of paper receipts.) With on-the-go expenses, travelers can quickly snap photos and upload their receipts for approval through in real-time for expense management in their back pocket. Select is also designed to automate many processes to help overall efficiency and accuracy when expensing. Things like the automatic calculation of allowances and reimbursable amounts make it easier to review and approve expense reports when they’re following your company policy. In short, Select means less time pulling your hair out manually inputting expense reports, so you get more time to focus on all the other “fun” parts of being a travel manager.
3. Select supports you to support your travelers
Delays, cancellations, even critical disruption – there’s no getting around it, travel “turbulence” happens. The trick is being prepared to get your travelers flying again, regardless of where and when those setbacks strike. If your job is to put people in front of people, ours to help you have everything you need to make it happen smoothly. With Select, your travelers get an experience that’s personal, proactive, and always ready to go. With timely support via 24/7 chat and automatic disruption management tools, we’ve got you covered.
These days it’s not enough to simply book your traveler’s schedule and send them out into the world – as a travel manager their wellbeing is also your responsibility. With Select your travelers (and by extension, you) get the comfort and confidence that they’ll be able to conduct their business without any hiccups. That’s because any unexpected issues will be addressed with prompt worldwide support and 24/7 chat assistance.
Unexpected cancellations and disruption don’t just affect your travelers though – they also hits you as a travel manager. Select makes rebooking a breeze. Our tools do it for you automatically. Plus, your travelers can easily modify their bookings, view their itineraries, check their flight gate, and more in our Amex GBT Mobile app.
Finally, between last-minute airline cancellations, oversold hotels and complicated car bookings, travel can be incredibly involved. But keeping travelers in the loop gives them agency when situations get away from them. Select offers streamlined communications so travelers receive important notifications in an instant. And our specialists and tools make a complete on call concierge, safety net, and go to team.
4. Select saves time, saves money, saves the day
Good business ultimately boils down to the bottom line. Managed travel is no different. But business travel costs can pretty easily fly away from you if you’re not careful. Whether that’s hours spent searching for the best and lowest cost flights and accommodation, or trying to untangle last minute complications – inefficiencies waste time and money like nothing else. Lucky for all you travel managers out there, Select’s user-friendly tools and seamless third-party technology integration makes booking business travel a breeze.
For starters, we do the hard work of securing lower rates from suppliers for you. That’s because we’ve already negotiated discounted rates and automatically scan your travelers’ booked flights for lower rates. Our pre-trip booking approval tool also checks against your policy to help keep trips compliant and in budget.
Which means reduced hours searching around for the best and lowest cost hotels, flights, and more. Not only that, but because everything can be booked and reviewed in one place, gone are the days of endless tabs cluttering up your browser. Our tools take your travelers through their trip from start to finish.
5. Select is clear and convenient
As a travel manger for a large business, you know that getting a bird’s eye view of the comings and goings of your job can be a hard ask. There can be a lot of data to make sense of, and not a lot of ways to streamline it into a digestible form. Select makes this simpler for you, saving time with clear data. You can quickly get the information you need without digging for answers. Our intuitive tools display areas of improvement – whether you want to cap overspending or reign in compliance – meaning you’ll have business case for new policies, backed by numbers, in no time.
And when you add our smart analytics tools to your toolbox, you’ll get clear steps to act on missed savings opportunities including highlighted insights and recommendations on potential savings based on avoidable costs and out-of-policy activities.
But all of this isn’t worth a dime if the experience your traveler’s undergo is far from pleasant – they’re wellbeing is critical to a successful business travel program. Our benchmarking tool creates satisfaction scores for your company based on improvement areas and positive aspects of your travel program.
Large businesses can be notoriously inflexible, but when your role as a travel manager involves so many elements that are dependent on responsiveness, real-time changes, and clarity of data, you need systems, tools and process with more flexibility than a circus performer. That’s why travel managers love Select. Not only does it have tools and systems that simplify the entire business travel process, from booking flights and accommodations, right through the managing itineraries, expenses and reporting, but it does all that in a way that seamlessly slots into your current operations model. Discover more now.
