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This may be a great topic to add to our upcoming Webinar on Government Policy and how it effects universities. But in the meantime, I could use some peer feedback!
UNC receives a LOT of federal funding for grants and projects. We were under the impression that travel paid for on federal funds was eligible to book the government hotel rates. I'm aware that hotels will often ask for the traveler's government or military ID upon check-in to validate that they are eligible to use this rate. While our employees do not have these IDs, it was our understanding that they could provide documentation from the funding organization which validates their eligibility.
We had a situation just arise where a hotel denied our travelers the use of the Government rate at check-in and charged them a rate about $40 higher. They asked the hotel if they would accept documentation from the funding organization in lieu of showing a government or military ID and the hotel told them no.
I'd love to hear from other universities on how you tackle this. If any of our lodging partners have insights on this from the hotel's perspective, please let me know!
Posted : 20/01/2023 6:35 am
Hi Rebecca,
Our TMC advised us that the government rates published by most hotels require proof of affiliation (ID) and are intended to be used for state or federal government employees only. University of Alaska is eligible for these rates within the state because we are a state institution. Our travelers have run into similar issues when trying to use this rate type for out of state lodging because travelers do not have this kind of ID. Each hotel has their own policy for government rates to add another layer of complexity. We have a substantial amount of federal awards so I am curious to hear others experiences with this as well.
Thanks for the great discussion topic!
Posted : 20/01/2023 7:39 am
Good afternoon Rebecca,
University of Virginia is also a state university. We qualify for Virginia state government rates as well as "generic" government rates in other states. It's important to read the fine print of the rate to ensure there is not language such as state, contractor, etc. which would disqualify us. Our UVA employee ID identifies us as VA State employees and hotels accept this regularly for government rates.
Thanks and good luck!
Posted : 20/01/2023 8:18 am
Hi Rebecca,
I'm with the University of Wisconsin. Similarly, we are a state school, and we get "state rate" for hotels in Wisconsin. For out-of-state lodging there are certain states that have policies that would allow us to get the state rate there as well, but it is at the discretion of the hotel. I would check with your school's business services department for a list of the states that fall into this category for your institution. We also have a tool that calculates the lodging maximum for any given location in the US and around the world. It lets our travelers know how much they can spend on a hotel based the location, so it falls within policy. That way they aren't surprised when they arrive. Another tool is how they book the room. We use Concur and our policies are tied into our university account. That way a traveler can reserve their hotel in Concur and it will show them the rate that we get for that specific hotel, and it will always fall within policy for that specific city.
Hope that helps!
Posted : 20/01/2023 8:36 am
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