Hotel rates displaying incorrectly

[adrotar]

Why does Concur only display the highest hotel rate during a stay instead of the average hotel rate? It is very difficult to get people to book hotels in policy with Concur when they see the rate with Concur displayed as $350/night, and the same room on the hotel website displayed as $331/night. They think they will save money booking on their own outside of policy, and they don't trust our booking tool. In reality, the total cost for the stay is actually LESS with our negotiated rates at an average of $292 per night, ($1462 for 5 nights) but it is the way that Concur displays hotels with variable rates that is the problem. Concur only displays the HIGHEST nightly rate (in this case $350 for the 2nd - 4th nights) on the selection page, instead of the average nightly rate of $292 (like every other tool and website does). 

My travel agency is saying we could put in a pop-up explaining the limitation of the tool, and that travelers should click on each hotel to look at the total price instead for a true comparison, but I can't expect people to open 10 hotel options and hand calculate the nightly rate for each one to see which one is the best deal. They already don't trust that they are getting the best rates, and this is killing the travel team's credibility. Is there a setting where we can fix the amount displayed to be correct? What am I missing?

[KevinD]

@adrotar I posted your question internally and someone from our Travel team asked me what GDS you are using. Is it Sabre? Apollo?  etc. 

[adrotar]

Amadeus in EMEA and Sabre in the Americas

[KevinD · Accepted solution]

@adrotar indeed it looks like it is a GDS issue. Here is a document you might find helpful: https://www.concurtraining.com/customers/tech_pubs/TravelDocs/FactSheets/RateChangesOverStay_FS.pdf

[adrotar]

@KevinD Thanks so much for the info. It is immensely helpful. How can I possibly expect people to book the lowest overall rate, if the rate isn't shown and we can't sort by it? I know it's not your fault, but it sure is frustrating! Can we add it to a list of improvements for the future? I can't imagine how many bookings end up outside of Concur, and how much money we lose as a company, because Concur can't display an accurate hotel rate on the booking site. 😞 

[KevinD]

@adrotar I wish I had a concrete answer for you and I understand the concern. The only thing I can think of, and I don't know if it would help or not, is to set up a rule that tells the system not to display rates over certain amounts. I don't know if you already have this rule or not. This way you know that the search results for hotels will be below a certain threshold. 

I'm just trying to offer some sort of solution. 🙂

[adrotar]

@KevinD The rule won't help because my goal is for them to book the lowest overall rate for their stay--Concur just isn't allowing them to see what that rate is. The rate is already showing "out-of-policy" when it shouldn't, but that isn't my biggest concern; I care about our traveler's knowing that they can get the best overall cost for the company through Concur. Right now the tool is failing us because our travelers can't find the lowest cost option booking through the tool we tell them they are required to use. I'm really surprised that this hasn't been a bigger deal for other companies and isn't posted as a sticky in the forums. I searched everywhere and couldn't find anything about it. How are other companies managing this?

[KevinD]

@adrotar honestly I haven't seen this issue come up here on the Community before, so I'm not sure how others handle it. I wish I had a better answer. Have you discussed this with your travel management company to see what suggestions they might have?

[adrotar]

@KevinD The TMC said it is a big issue for many of the customers, and they agree it is very frustrating. They don't have any solutions except to post a note at the beginning of the booking process telling people that if the rate varies during their stay, that is will be reflected inaccurately by the tool, and the only way to know the real rate is to open each hotel option and look at the total cost. That seems like a bad idea. Our travelers see the OBT as having one primary job, and that's allowing them to choose the best travel options for their needs and book it. If it can't do that, they would rather go to someplace else that can. They don't see the advantages of what is on the backend, they just want to quickly and easily book a flight and hotel room. I'm at a loss of what to tell them now honestly.  

[darlingwold]

Is there an improvement to this yet @KevinD ? we use Sabre and running into this issue. We are trying to improve adoption and compliance and it's extremely difficult to do so when the travelers see different rates right off the bat. It's also silly and unnecessary to be explaining to them to waste their time by opening up different rates and manually add everything up. At the very least, it should display the average. How can I fix this internally? Thank you

[KevinD]

@darlingwold I asked about this internally and was referred to the fact sheet link you'll see in this thread. From what I read it is an issue of the different GDS systems.

[darlingwold]

So are you telling me that our TMC can fix this? I'm also finding a lot of hotels are showing as not available, but when we search third party, the same property is available. lastly, the system tends to not display the rates of the properties right off the bat, but instead leaves as "see rates". Is the system equipped to have all the rates for all the properties display at the time of the search results displaying? There's a lot "development" happening, but none seem to improve these situations. I too, just like OP @adrotar are trying to herd a large group of people into compliance (using concur for bookings) and adoption. It makes it very challenging when these situations mentioned above are occurring. The answer shouldn't be "it's a GDS" issue and leave it the customer to solve. This is not new and it shocks me you mention you haven't seen this issue come up before.  Concur needs to resolve this on the travel platform and develop a rapid improvement plan or companies like Navan are going to win the Concur customer base over.

[KevinD]

@darlingwold I reached out to two of our Travel experts who are much more equipped to answer your questions. I'm not a GDS expert nor in development of our Travel product to know its logic for displaying rates. I figured I would ask some colleagues who are on our Travel team to see if they can provide any insight. I will let you know if I hear from them.

[KevinD]

@darlingwold I'm back...and I have some information to pass on. My travel contacts took a look at your company's current Travel set up and it looks like you currently have not opted in to our new Concur Travel experience which should resolve the issues you are having. Our new Concur Travel has been launched for the GDS that your company uses, so we can help you build a plan to start using it. You will need to opt in to the new Concur Travel and talk to your TMC. We would love to hear your feedback once you get started. You can even preview the new Concur Travel for yourself before rolling it out to your entire company.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

[anraley]

My company is scheduled to use the new Concur Travel experience starting quarter 2 of this year. Is this expected to fix this issue for us once we switch over? 

[KevinD]

@anraley that is what my Travel colleague's told me. 🙂

[Zapata596]

I booked a room for 2 nights through concur at the Sonesta in Princeton, NJ.  The manager told me that the price of the hotel should be $120 a night but Concur is charging $170 a night.  How do we handle this?  We are overpaying for a hotel.