Trip bookings

A booking is one trip for one traveler or client: a record number, a subject such as “Chicago customer visit”, the traveler’s name, start and end dates, the quoted amount in US dollars, the supplier and the coordinator who owns it. It moves through Requested, Held, Confirmed, In Progress and Completed, or ends as Cancelled or no show. Every change raises the booking’s revision, so approvals and payments always refer to the version they saw.

When a fare is approved, the coordinator places a hold with the supplier. The hold expires if it is not confirmed in time. Reserved resource lines record what is claimed against the supplier’s capacity: the resource, the units reserved, any buffer time before and after, and the confirmation date once the supplier confirms.

• Request first. Every trip starts as Requested with dates, traveler, quoted amount and supplier, before any fare is booked.
• Hold, then confirm. An approved trip is Held with its reserved units. It becomes Confirmed only when verified payment evidence exists.
• Travel and close. The trip moves In Progress when travel starts and Completed when it ends, with the completion date recorded.

Agree how subjects are written so the board reads well: purpose, then destination. Agree how long a hold may stay open before it expires, by supplier type. Agree what reserved units mean for each supplier, such as seats for a flight or rooms for a hotel. Decide who owns a trip when the requesting coordinator is away. Agree how far ahead trips should be requested.

A coordinator records a booking for a sales engineer: Chicago customer visit, March 10 to 13, quoted at 1,450 USD with the hotel group HG-CHI. The fare option is approved the same day. The coordinator holds three room nights; the reserved line shows one room for three nights against the hotel’s allocation, and the hold expires in 24 hours.

The card payment is captured that afternoon and the booking moves to Confirmed, with the supplier’s confirmation date on the reserved line. On March 10 the trip moves In Progress and on March 13 it is Completed. If the payment had not arrived before the hold expired, the room would have been released and the coordinator would have placed a new hold.

• Trip Calendar — Held, confirmed and in-progress trips by start and end date, with traveler and supplier.
• My Bookings — The signed-in coordinator’s own trips with dates, quoted amount, revision and status.
• Reserved Resources — Reserved units, capacity and confirmation dates by booking and supplier.

• Request to approved fare: Request the trip and approve its fare.
• Hold to confirmed booking: Hold, pay and confirm.
• Cancellation and no-show: Cancel or close a trip that did not happen.

Plan the rollout with your coordinators.