Hotel Rates includes tax now making them over GSA and out of policy

[Slk210]

Hello, 

Has anyone noticed that when searching a hotel and then going to view rooms, it now says Includes taxes. Additional fees may be applicable instead of excludes taxes? This is causing an alert on the hotels and making them out of policy because it's now over the GSA rate. 

Thanks, 

Susie

[Slk210]

To add to my post, as early as June, the rate showed 'Excludes taxes' in between the hotel rate and View Rate Details link. Now it says 'Includes taxes. Additional fees may be applicable.' 

[StaceyJo]

Yes, we discovered on Friday, thought it might correct itself over the weekend.   It is hard to do business when every person booking in Concur has to call our help desk.  Is there an update from Concur on this issue? 

[KevinD]

@Slk210 are they showing as out of policy during the booking process, on the expense report or both? 

[StaceyJo]

It only started on Friday, so we only see all bookings made in Concur as "out of policy" which makes the traveler have to select a reason.  Why do they change things in Travel and not communicate?  

[KevinD]

@StaceyJo this was discussed in our May Release notes: https://help.sap.com/docs/concur-travel/concur-travel-release-notes/new-concur-travel-new-policy-rul.... 

[StaceyJo]

No, the release notes address when a hotel has multiple nightly rates.  This is not the issue,  it is the hotel rate is including both room and taxes which will make every booking out of policy.  I think when they first rolled out the evolution, it had this glitch but quickly changed it.  On the expense side it will also be out of policy until they itemize the bill and put in comment before taxes. 

[Slk210]

It is showing on the booking side in the View Room section. It's affecting our contracted rates as well as non-contracted rates to be over GSA per diem. 

[KevinD]

@Slk210 I see you have a rule to flag hotel if it is $1 greater than the GSA rate. Would adjusting this to rate + (designated amount or percentage) higher than government rate help things? This would then help account for taxes being included. 

Also, on the expense side of things, would these also get flagged as over the GSA per diem rate? 

Our May Release Notes discussed this new change. You might consider using the new conditions that were released to help avoid the issue you are having.

[Slk210]

Kevin, 

It shouldn't have to do anything with the rules we have set. We've had that GSA+$1 for a long time which was due to some hotels in PA going over GSA by $1. The issue is that they all of a sudden changed the wording and the calculations from excludes taxes to includes taxes and fees. How can we get that back to say excludes taxes and only populates the base hotel rate? I don't see how we can add an amount or percentage + the GSA amount and keep employees in policy and stay at our contracted hotels that are at GSA or lower. Hotel rates, GSA, and taxes applied differ from county to county, state to state, as well as our rates from contract to contract. Is there a rule we can create that excludes taxes and fees from hotel rates? 

[Slk210 · Accepted solution]

Hi Kevin, 

Apparently they turned on the nightly rule. So, we changed our rule to the nightly rule and it's no longer triggering the alert over GSA when adding the base rate and taxes together. 

Thanks, 

Susie 

[sharon-mcmanus]

We have had our City Rate caps set for the base rate (before taxes) for 14 years and suddenly our travelers are being called OOP due to over rate cap as they are now including tax. How are you supposed to set a rate cap when the taxes are different in EVERY city.

[Slk210]

I was thinking the same thing about adding an amount or percentage over the GSA. Every rate is different, everywhere. I don't know if the Nightly rule will help your rate caps, but it appears to be picking up just the base rate now instead of the total to determine if it's within GSA .