Corporate travel management for growing companies
Your travel spend, managed. Your family trip, planned. Same person.
I handle corporate travel for US companies, and the personal trips those same people take once the work is done. A small business travel agency: one advisor, one phone number, both sides covered.
Nobody decided this should sit with you
Travel volume grows. The way it gets managed does not. So it lands on whoever has the least room to say no, usually an assistant, sometimes you, at 11pm, answering a traveler's text about a canceled flight.
Then the statement arrives and nothing matches the booking history. When the CFO asks what last quarter cost, there is no clean answer, because it was never managed in one place.
Research from GBTA and Amex GBT puts the gap between managed and unmanaged travel at 10% to 20% a year. On $50,000 of travel, that is $5,000 to $10,000 nobody chose to spend.
Booking travel and managing travel are different jobs
Booking travel is buying a ticket. Managing travel is making sure the trip holds together after the ticket is bought, and building the record finance will ask for later.
I take the second job, the one that starts when most people think it is finished.
Before this I ran operations teams of 150 people. Budgets, breakdowns, and the real mess of things going wrong in the moment, including the night the building next door caught fire and we moved an entire operation to another island before morning. Travel management asks for the same instinct. A plan, a backup, and someone who minds when it goes sideways.
Between January and August this year I booked 342 trips. I work independently within the Avoya Travel Network, so there is no brand badge, no supplier quota, and no reason for me to point you toward one airline or one hotel chain.
How it works
Brief me once
Who, where, when. One conversation instead of an afternoon of tabs and hold music.
Options come back fast
Real costs, held where I can, so you are choosing between 2 good options rather than 12 mediocre ones.
It is covered, quietly
Confirmations documented, changes handled without you hearing about most of them, and a real person to call at 10pm when a schedule falls apart.
Your travelers get the whole trip in one app, so the boarding pass, the hotel and the car sit in a single place instead of across 15 confirmation emails.
What this looks like once it is running
Your travelers stop asking you things
They open one app and the flights, hotels, cars and reservations are all in it, updated as things change. If a flight cancels while they are in the air, it is rebooked before they land. Their assistant gets access too, so nobody has to text "did you land?"
Somebody gets their evenings back
Whoever has been holding this is not decoding fare rules on a Sunday or chasing a flight credit that expired in March.
Finance gets one folder
Flights, hotels and rentals matched and filed before the statement arrives. You know the number before anyone asks you for it.
Corporate travel services I handle
Flights, chosen for schedule logic rather than the cheapest fare on the screen, and rebooked by me when they break.
Hotels near the office, the venue or the client, at rates and inclusions negotiated where possible.
Conferences, including delegate travel, room blocks and arrival logistics.
Company events, client hospitality and celebrations, run as one program.
Retreats and incentive trips, with rooming lists, dietary needs and arrivals coordinated in one place.
Whether this is a fit
Headcount and industry matter less than volume and spend. The companies I work best with book regularly, have watched that volume grow, and have not changed how they manage it in years.
I am probably wrong for you if you want someone to send options and disappear, or if the lowest fare matters more to you than the trip working.
What it costs
- No charge when there is a hotel in the booking.
- Flights only, $25 a ticket.
- Monthly volume, a retainer instead.
- Group programs, quoted individually.
The hotel pays me a commission when I book it. That is how the industry has always worked, and you should know it rather than wonder about it. It does not compromise the advice, because I am paid the same whichever property you choose. The only thing I am working toward is you calling me again next time.
The personal trips your people take work the same way personal travel does, and cost nothing at all. Retreats and off-sites can run as group travel planning instead.
If you book every month
At real volume you are not buying bookings anymore. You are buying someone who already knows your routes, your preferred hotels, and where your policy quietly falls apart in practice. A retainer covers that, priced against your volume and spend, so it is a conversation rather than a number on this page.
Mention it when we talk.
What's ad hoc travel actually costing you?
Add your annual travel spend and I'll show you the range most unmanaged programs lose.
What clients say
Working with her is like planning your trip with your well traveled, adventurous best friend with expensive tastes. At work, things can constantly change with our travel. I rest assured that I have a true partner on my team to help us when those last minute changes need to be made.
Manilynn Mannone
Director of Operations, Trellis Law
When I was intending to go to Japan on business and pleasure, I was overwhelmed with options for hotels, tours, dining. Alexandra not only came up with an excellent itinerary, she helped me discover options that I would never have thought of that would have made this trip unforgettable. I highly recommend Alexandra for all corporate and personal travel requirements.
David Solomon
Japan, business and personal
What it costs to leave it as it is
Another year of travel spend nobody can account for. Another run of Sunday nights for the person who never asked for this job. And when they move on, everything they worked out about your routes, your travelers and your preferred hotels goes with them, because none of it was ever written down anywhere.
Most companies I speak to do not know the size of it until they look.
For companies, asked often
Do you work with companies as well as individuals?
Yes, and often the same people on both sides. I manage corporate travel for US companies, and I book the personal trips those same people take when the work is done. One advisor who already knows how you travel is faster than two who each know half.
Is my company big enough to need this?
It isn't about headcount or industry. It's about how much you travel and what you spend. A four-person consultancy flying every week needs this more than a hundred-person business that barely leaves the office. If travel has grown and the way you manage it hasn't, that's the signal.
How is this different from a corporate booking tool?
Booking tools are good at expense tracking and policy compliance, and you should keep yours for that. What they can't do is think. A tool sees a $50 saving on a 45 minute connection. It doesn't know your VP will miss the client dinner when that connection fails. I do.
What does my finance team get out of it?
A clean month end. While your traveler is in the air I'm pulling every invoice and matching flights, hotels and rentals into one folder. By the time the card statement lands, the audit trail is already waiting. No chasing folios, no reconciling from memory.
We book travel every month. Is there a better arrangement?
Yes. A retainer usually works out better than paying per trip, because at that volume you're not buying bookings, you're buying someone who already knows your routes, your hotels and where your policy falls apart. What it costs depends on your volume and spend, so it's worth a conversation.
Start with a call
20 minutes. Tell me what your travel looks like now, and who is currently the unofficial travel department. If I am the right fit I will say so. If I am not, I will say that too.
Book a callOr send the details instead
Tell me what your team needs, from a single flight to a full conference program, and I will come back with options and real costs.