In many companies business travel still works like this: an employee books a hotel and a flight on their own card, keeps the receipts, fills in an expense claim and waits to be paid back at the end of the month. Finance checks documents in a dozen formats one by one, and the manager only finds out who went where, and at what cost, after the event. Corporate travel management is about replacing that patchwork with one simple routine. This guide covers the building blocks of corporate travel management for small and mid-sized companies, and how the LONDONOS corporate portal handles them.
You can see every feature on our corporate travel portal page and apply on the corporate application page.
What is corporate travel management?
Corporate travel management brings the planning, booking, payment and reporting of employees’ business trips under one roof. It has three aims: make travel easy for the employee, make spending visible to the company, and keep it clear who approved what. Large organisations run dedicated travel teams. Smaller companies usually leave the job to a manager or the finance team, and the right tool makes it far easier for them.
The hidden costs of ad-hoc travel booking
- Personal cards: employees fund company spending on their own cards and wait for reimbursement, which is neither fair nor good for morale.
- Invisible spend: managers hear about bookings after they are made, with no approval step.
- Admin load: receipts from different websites have to be matched by hand.
- Lost information: who is staying where, and when is the flight home? In an emergency that information is hard to find.
The building blocks of a good set-up
- One account: all of the company’s travel sits under one account.
- Central payment: the company pays, not the employee.
- Approval: where needed, bookings pass through a manager.
- Notifications: both the traveller and the manager know about every booking.
- Reporting: spend can be followed by employee, date and product, and handed to finance easily.
How the LONDONOS corporate portal works
LONDONOS is a London-based travel company selling hotels, flights, tours, airport transfers and packages in Türkiye and the UK. The corporate portal lets a company use those products through a single company account:
- Company account and employees: the manager registers the company, invites employees by e-mail and can deactivate an employee when needed.
- Company card: the manager adds the company card once in the panel. Card details are held by our payment provider Stripe; we keep only the card brand, last four digits and expiry date.
- No cards for employees: employees never enter a card at checkout; the screen shows which company card will be charged.
- Instant or approved: the manager chooses whether bookings are paid straight away or each one waits for approval.
- Company rates: discounts set for your company on hotels, flights, tours and transfers are applied directly to the prices employees see.
- Notifications and reports: confirmations go to both the manager and the employee; the panel exports every booking to Excel or CSV, and you can opt in to a monthly summary e-mail.
Which trips is it for?
The portal suits any business trip: a client visit in Istanbul, a trade fair in London, a meeting in Antalya or a team travelling between cities. Employees search the فنادق, flights and airport transfers pages just as anyone would; the difference is that payment comes from the company card and follows the company’s rules.
Why manager approval matters
Not every company wants to approve every booking, but for some, approval is the simplest form of spend control. With approval mode switched on, the employee’s booking is saved and the manager receives an e-mail with links to approve or decline it. On approval, price and availability are checked again before the card is charged; for flights, if the fare has changed, the manager sees the current amount before paying. A booking not approved within 24 hours is cancelled and the employee is told.
Getting started
- Choose an owner: decide who will manage the account and the company card.
- Pick a mode: instant booking or manager approval? Small teams gain speed with instant mode; companies that want a close eye on spend often prefer approval.
- Write a short travel policy: put the basic rules, hotel standard, flight class and who approves, on a single page.
- Invite the team: employees set their password from the invitation e-mail and log in on the corporate login page.
- Review monthly: use the panel exports, and the optional monthly summary if you receive it, to see where travel spend goes and adjust your policy if needed.
Duty of care made easier
Knowing where your people are is part of looking after them. Because every booking sits in one panel and the manager receives each confirmation, finding out who is staying where, or when someone flies home, takes seconds rather than a round of phone calls.
A typical small-company scenario
Picture a twenty-person software company. The sales team visits clients in Istanbul every month and attends trade fairs in London a few times a year. Until now, everyone booked hotels and flights on their own cards and filed expense claims at month end. With a corporate account, the manager adds the company card once and invites the sales team. Instant mode is enough for routine Istanbul visits; during trade fair season the manager switches approval on and sees the larger bookings one by one. At month end, finance exports the list from the panel and matches it with the bank statement, and nobody waits to be reimbursed any more.
Conclusion
Corporate travel management is not only for large corporations. One account, central payment on the company card, optional manager approval and regular reports make even a small team’s travel far more orderly. The LONDONOS corporate portal brings all of that together for travel in Türkiye and the UK. To get started, apply for a corporate account.