Business travel is a necessary cost: client visits, trade fairs, team meetings and trips between offices are a normal part of work. Left unmanaged, though, travel spend can become one of the fastest-growing lines in the budget. The good news is that controlling business travel costs does not mean travelling less; most of the time it simply means working in a more orderly way. This article sets out eight practical steps and how the LONDONOS corporate portal helps with each.
For the wider picture, see our corporate travel management guide; for the portal’s features, visit the corporate travel portal page.
1. Make spending visible
You cannot control what you cannot see. The first step is to bring every travel booking into one place. On the LONDONOS corporate portal, all of the company’s bookings appear in the manager’s panel and can be filtered by employee, date and product, with total spend shown. Employees see only their own bookings; the manager sees everything.
2. Centralise payment
When employees pay on their own cards and claim expenses, spend surfaces only afterwards. On the portal, bookings are charged to the company card the manager added, and employees never enter a card. Every payment goes through one card with one record, and the bank statement matches the booking list easily.
3. Require approval where it matters
When you want to watch the budget closely, manager approval is the most effective tool. In approval mode, an employee’s booking waits for the manager; on approval, price and availability are checked again before the card is charged. A booking not approved within 24 hours is cancelled. We explain how to set it up in our guide to the business travel approval process on our corporate travel portal page.
4. Use your company’s own rates
For companies that travel regularly, discounts set per product add up over time. On the portal, the discounts agreed for your company on hotels, flights, tours and transfers are applied directly to the prices your employees see. Nobody has to enter a code or do the maths.
5. Plan early
Flight and hotel prices usually rise as the date approaches. Put known trips, trade fairs, meetings and client visits, in the calendar early and book as soon as the dates are fixed. Where dates are flexible, comparing a few options can also save money.
6. Choose the location carefully
A hotel that looks cheap but sits far from the meeting can end up costing more once taxis and lost time are counted. Ask employees to weigh distance to the meeting and transport links when choosing a hotel. A pre-booked airport transfer brings predictability in both time and cost, especially for late arrivals.
7. Write a simple travel policy
When rules such as hotel standard, flight class, how far ahead to book and who approves are written down, employees get bookings right the first time. The policy does not need to be long; one page is enough for most companies. The portal does not enforce per-employee spending limits; you apply your rules through approval mode and reports.
8. Review every month
Cost control is not a one-off job. You can opt in to a monthly e-mail summarising your company’s travel bookings, and you can export every record from the panel to Excel or CSV. In a monthly review, ask: which trips cost the most? How many bookings were last minute? Which people or teams travel most often? The answers shape next month’s plans.
Balancing control and the traveller’s experience
Controlling costs should not make life hard for the people who travel. Not having to pay on a personal card, being kept informed at every step and getting quick approvals make travel easier for employees too. On the portal, confirmations go to both the employee and the manager, so nobody has to forward anything.
Where the savings usually come from
In most small companies the biggest wins are not dramatic. They come from fewer last-minute bookings, hotels chosen closer to where the work happens, no duplicated bookings because everything is in one panel, and a clear owner who looks at the numbers every month. Each of these is a habit rather than a project, which is why they last.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Looking only at the lowest price: a distant hotel or a badly timed flight can cost more once taxis, lost time and tiredness are counted.
- Sitting on approvals: the price of a booking waiting for approval can change; approving the same day protects both the budget and the traveller.
- Leaving rules unwritten: unwritten rules get argued over on every booking.
- Ignoring the reports: the panel exports and the optional monthly summary only help if someone actually reads them.
- Forgetting the traveller: tightening control while ignoring the comfort of the people travelling reduces how well the rules are followed.
Questions for your monthly review
- How has total spend changed? Compare it with last month and the same period last year.
- Which products cost the most? Hotels, flights or transfers?
- How much is booked last minute? If a large share is booked days before travel, bring planning forward.
- Why were bookings declined or cancelled? Are the rules unclear, or are approvals slow?
- Which teams travel most? Planning ahead for regular travellers makes the biggest difference.
Filtering the panel export by employee, date and product is enough to answer all of these. Once the review becomes a habit, it soon becomes clear which rules work.
Conclusion
The keys to controlling business travel costs are visibility, central payment, approval where it matters and a regular review. The LONDONOS corporate portal brings those together for hotel, flight, tour and transfer bookings in one panel. To get started, apply for a corporate account.