I'm heading off on a conference/research trip in just under two weeks, so it seems like a suitable time to share some thoughts about the university's preferred supplier-approach to travel agencies. (you may already have guessed where this is going...)
Last year I booked my flights for my first research trip through one of the uni preferred suppliers - they managed to get reasonably cheap flights, I was paid my research allowance by Humanities and GRS to cover part costs of the flights, all was good in the land of me.
This year the same travel agency is no longer on the preferred suppliers list - apparantly there had been lots of complaints about them. So, I'm left with a choice of two preferred travel agents to go through. I send them both emails detailing my requirements (one set of flights to and from New Zealand, one set of flights to and from Europe), and wait for quotes.
And wait.
Eventually I hear from them both - one takes about a week longer than the other to get back to me. The one who was more prompt with its response had a much, much higher price for the flights than the other agency - and they didn't even get me to the airport I wanted to go to in Germany, even claiming it didn't exist. I suspect that that particular agency doesn't get special deals from the airlines that do fly to that airport, so from their point of view it might as well not exist. I sent them a link to the airport's website and soon got a new quote taking me to the right airport. Still too expensive, though.
So, I start going through the booking procedures with the cheaper agency. Since last year Humanities and GRS travel funding had increased a little, so I could tap into some additional funding. Again, not enought to cover the full cost of the flights, but a bit at least. What had also changed since last year was the payment procedure. Last year Humanities sent me a cheque, now the flights had to be paid by purchase order. Given the funds didn't cover the full flights, in practice this meant a purchase order number being issued from Humanities to pay for part of the flights, and the travel agency would then send me an invoice for the remaining costs.
How do you think this all went with a travel agency that had taken over a week to get back to my original query?
Everything did get sorted out in the end, but there was a week's sudden silence, when both I and the Humanities admin were very confused about whether anything was happening on the agency's end. There seemed to be some change in staff, or different people looking after my booking, so at some point when we wanted to know what was going on the answer basically was "sorry, I don't know - I'll have to wait until I can log on to someone else's computer to find out."
Which was nice.
A few weeks ago I received a Convocation travel award, which requires you to submit receipts to claim the money. The award would almost cover the portion of the flights I had to pay for myself, so I set out to look for the receipts for the flights. I found one for the flights to Europe, but not the one for the NZ flights. When I email the travel agent to ask for the second receipt, I get a response back from someone else to say there's nothing to worry about, the uni paid for those flights so of course they get the receipt, the agency doesn't issue separate receipts anyway.
Except uni paid for half of the flights, I paid for the other half. And the agency had issued a separate receipt for the portion I paid on the European flights, so there should be no reason they couldn't do it for the NZ flights. I point this out to them, and then get a response saying they do have a record of a suitable amount of money being charged to my credit card - they'll fax it over as soon as I send a fax number.
As someone who works from home and doesn't have a fax, I suggested they email me the receipt, just as they had done with the European receipt. Also, the amount that had been charged to the credit card looked to be different (about $70 less) to what I had written on the credit card authority form. Had the price of the flights suddenly changed?
That was Monday, I'm waiting to hear back. In the mean time I have received e-ticket receipts for my flights, so at least I know it's all been booked and confirmed.
***
I think the preferred supplier-system in travel bookings in nonsense. I don't think it encourages any great measures of customer service on the part of agency - hey, where else are you gonna go? - and I don't think it saves any money. It would have been much easier and much cheaper for me to book flights directly online. Of course, it's the purchase order system that makes this approach impossible as well, so I can't just blame the preferred supplier system for that one.
I just can't grasp why the whole process has to be made so difficult. Surely it should be enough for a student to show they've not booked business class flights, and maybe even that they haven't bought supercheap tickets on dodgy airlines. What exactly does the purchase order/preferred supplier-circus achieve? If there is some real benefit to staff members on flights that are paid in full by purchase order then great, but those who have to pay a chunk of the costs out of their own pocket would most likely appreciate the chance to encourage some good ol' free market competition.