Hi Anika,

Great question! I would have the ask additional questions regarding the vendor to determine the best payment method. Would the vendor accept a purchase order for the travel with full payment at time of check in? If not, does the vendor require payment via credit card? How far in advance does the payment need to be made? We allow for payment up to 90 days in advance of travel and preapproval would be required outside that time frame.

Hi All --

We manage a high volume of student travel where the sponsoring institution and/or third party is pre-paying all travel expenses. Issuing airfare, train tickets, bus tickets, etc. are fairly simple using a single form of payment. Most agencies should have a tracking and reporting system in place with real time updates, expense reconciliation, etc. For hotels, credit card pre-authorizations utilizing a tracking system associated to the authorization is a fairly secure payment method, and should be trackable as well. If you have an expense credit card program for your institution, one-time use and short-term credit card issuance might a solution as well. Car rentals are more challenging as you cannot pre-pay a car rental in the U.S. All car rental agencies require the driver to pay with a credit or debit card. The way around that is to establish a direct billing account with one rental company - that way you can pre-authorize rentals, and have them associated to a single form of payment.

Hope that helps.

Hello Anita,
At the UW we would allow advance payment for the booking at the campsite. We would require an invoice from the vendor and it would be run through our Accounts Payable Department.

Hello Anita,
At the UW we would allow advance payment for the booking at the campsite. We would require an invoice from the vendor and it would be run through our Accounts Payable Department.

Good Morning!
We are a community college outside Chicago and we use a college AMX to make the payment so long as it is refundable if they are unable to attend. We have the vendor send an invoice showing payment made so that the AMX can be reconciled at the end of the month. Has worked well for us.

At USD, we allow pre-payment deposits (mostly for hotel/lodging for large groups to secure pricing and placement) to be made on our corporate card (One Card). We minimize the use of out-of-pocket expenses to leverage our card program.

Drexel University oversees offsite event review under my Travel team, which the campsite rental would fall in line. For events(venue) and group hotel blocks are processed via our ERP system, something we switched from P-Card processing for transparency a couple of years ago. With any event contract payment is due upfront, we go back to vendor requesting deposit 10-20%. If they don't budget, we signing contract stipulating if the department proceeds with payment, they are making a reasonable business decision and will bare the risk. Adding, if indemnification clauses are present we loop in Legal as well as insurance clauses we loop in Risk.

Hope this helps.

Here, at the University of Alberta, we use VCN (Virtual Card Number) through our travel card provider whenever possible.
The traveler follows the pre-determined approval / application process and then we issue the virtual card to the traveler.
With payment handled centrally, it allows the institution to control the payment and any residual refunds, if travel is cancelled.

Other options would include a Procurement Card or travel advance.