Corporate Travel Ticket Prices
 

Can someone tell me where corporate travel comes up with their fares? I am deviating home next week. The travel allowance was like $525, travel quoted me a ticket price on American for $650.....in coach. American Airlines is showing an unrestricted coach ticket on that same flight for $188 and first class is $450. Seems like my ticket is the most expensive on the plane and I’m sitting in the back.

The Bar and Grill is the best place for questions like this.

I agree but I have a couple months left on probation and I stay far away from the B&G until that’s up

Those prices are changing rapidly . Id give it a little time and call travel back. Their prices shouldn't deviate much from what you can buy yourself. Just ask them any questions like you've asked here. They are very accommodating

I don’t understand that logic, but you do you.

No need to post, just read. If you really need the question asked, just ask. The company isn’t looking to fire probies right now unless you have strong idiot tendencies or belong to fight club and talk about it.

I will attempt to help out. First of all, it is OK to post on the B&G to ask for help, when on probation. You just want to avoid getting into any of the "discussions" there.

Did you look at all airlines or just AA?

you can book a non-refundable ticket which would be a lot cheaper, but it is risky if your trip changes.

do you have any money in your ticket bank? make sure you book at least 7 days out if you want to deviate and use ticket bank money

you can book a ticket now (refundable) and if the price goes down, they will re-book it at the lower price.

Commercial travel is really busy now with all the cancellations, but give them a call and see if they have time to give you some suggestions. That said it is better if you have the itinerary you want, and can book it online (CMS)

on the AA website, go to advanced search, then check "flexible fares". sometimes flexible (refundable) business/first is less than fully flexible coach. You can book it in first/business but you have to call commercial travel to do this, if you have a coach index. anything over index in this situation is payroll deduct (if you ticket in First but have a coach index) . The fares that we (UPS) pays is about 10% discount on what AA.com shows .

good luck and I hope this helped.

Thanks for the info Nav. I have money in my travel bank, it’s not going to cost me anything. I just don’t understand the huge disparity between travels fare and AA’s. I would just figure they are getting the most accurate and up-to-date pricing. If anything, I would figure they might actually be lower than what’s advertised based on a volume discount.

Pricing is pretty dynamic right now. Prices could have been significantly higher when they booked the ticket vs what they are today. If you can’t get a hold of travel you could always go into CMS, plan commercial travel cancel the ticket they bought you and rebuy it on the same flight.

Altour is a corporate travel agency which UPS uses to book their crew member commercial deadheads. Altour negotiates privileged rates for tickets with most airlines around the world. The index is basically a snapshot of a particular ticket’s negotiated value at the time the bid pack was created. I’ve never been able to get a better rate with my delta status than altour provides.

Normally, fares fluctuate a bit here and there, though IMHO, not that much and not that often. You can rebook if you discover a cheaper one. This is assuming normal Times. We are not under normal times. Everything is changing by the minute. As others have said, just call travel and they can get you that cheaper fare. Always good to bank the difference.

Non refundables are a good option to stay below index but not a toy for guys on probation unless you can swallow the cost of an entire ticket without a gag reflex. Yes, perfectly contractual, but consult with your mentor before exercising this option.