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The Business Travel Account Guidelines Department, Travel Agency, Traveler Guidelines Responsibilities Your department-approved travel agency (TA) is your representative, delegated by you with the responsibility to obtain travel reservations for your travelers on official city or county business. Your department has applied for and been issued an American Express Business Travel Account (BTA) to pay for airline transactions and has authorized your TA to use this billing instrument to complete the airline transaction. Once the airline reservation has been generated, both the TA and airline carrier are paid by American Express, usually within three days. These are the responsibilities of the following participants: The city or county traveler: must contact the department/agency-designated travel agency and identify their department and cost center, or index/PCA coding. Reservations can typically be completed by fax, e-mail, web-site or telephone. If the traveler has a change of plans, it is essential to communicate with the TA as soon as possible to cancel or change the itinerary. This is very important if car and hotel reservation have been made. Travel Agency: is authorized through the Department of General Services to issue airline tickets including the Y-CAL fares, using proper car rental agencies, and booking lodging at the per diem rates. Some TA’s prepare monthly reconciliation reports to assist in the verification and balance approval of the BTA account. This includes the timely adjustment of mis-posted airline tickets and reconciliation of unidentified transactions ("improper" or "no cost center" information). The TA has the option of providing your department/agency with reports on the past months travel transactions or supply reconciled data in conjunction with American Express. The city or county department: It is the city or county department’s responsibility to pay their BTA in full each month. If there are reconciliation issues, it is the responsibility of the department to assemble the details and make adjustments with the TA. These issues should be identified, communicated and adjusted as soon as they are discovered. The city or county department must own this entire process. If adjustments need to be made within the department, it is suggested that you pay the bill in full and make the intra-department adjustments after the fact. If there are transactions that do not belong to your department, they must be communicated to your TA immediately, in writing. Information required will include names, dates, ticket numbers, "department charged to" and "department to be charged", if known. Your request should demand that transactions not belonging to your department be transferred within a specified amount of time (i.e. 3 days). The TA should be required to respond in written form when the transfer or adjustments have been completed (with names, dates, ticket numbers, and the account number it was transferred to). A copy of that transmission should be sent to AMEX for verification (the BTA fax line is 623-492-5339).
BTA Questions and Answers: Why does the contract stipulate that we pay American Express in full, even if we dispute a charge? American Express is the third party. The Travel Agency has processed the requested travel arrangements. The TA may provide a report or disk to the department, which details all current months’ charges received by American Express. The typical transaction is reported to American Express weekly and the Travel Agency (and airline) are paid within three days. American Express takes all the information submitted by the Travel Agency and then prepares a consolidated invoice by billing number. At the end of the billing cycle the Travel Agency has been paid. They are then responsible for submitting booking detail to the department. If preferred, AMEX sends a reconciliation disk to the TA, where they merge booking information with the billing info. including cost center data, and forward it to the BTA Accounts Payable manager. The BTA billing statement has been mailed and received, and it is time to pay American Express. Keep in mind that the TA, on behalf of each department, has arranged employee travel, supplied the information to American Express and been paid. Should there be a dispute when the AP/BTA account manager reviews the BTA statement, diskette or TA hard copy, it is at that time, they immediately call the TA to begin the adjustment process. If handled in a prompt and proactive manner, adjustments should take place well within the current billing cycle. It is the departments’ responsibility to manage the entire process, including the TA response time to reconciliation issues. Once adjustments are made to the bill, they will be reflected in the following months’ billing statement. The BTA for the State of California has been in existence since 1989 and as been approved with each contract through the Department of General Services Legal Office. Whom do we contact for a credit? The Airline? The Travel Agent? The credit needs to be processed through the Travel Agency. When there is a discrepancy, whether it is for an airline, rental cars, or hotel, and the arrangements were made through the TA, it is the TA who must correct the information. Caution! The AP/BTA manager must oversee the airline credit process through to completion. Many times if the airline charges require a debit/credit to another Card account, it may take a TA much longer to process your credit, not because it is difficult but because airline credits are not high priority issues since they do not produce revenue for a TA. It is imperative that the department manager (AP or BTA Account Manager) make sure that the corrections are processed in a timely manner (i.e. within the billing cycle).
Some of the problems that AP/BTA Account Managers have noticed: This is an unacceptable business practice. Remember that the Travel Agency is your agent in the travel process. They must follow your policies and procedures. The traveler, if they are going to travel, must have a budget to fund that travel. It is up to them to provide the correct information to the TA. The TA should not ticket with out your required information fields being completed. This should have already been discussed by the AP or BTA Account manager in conjunction with the travel agency, otherwise, how could Accounting pay for the travel without knowing the billing for that traveler.
This is considered an unauthorized use of the Travel Agency’s charter with your department. This event should be adjusted by your TA, being debited to the correct department. The TA should be communicated with in writing and should acknowledge your request within 3 days. American Express should be notified of the correction. Forward this information to the American Express BTA unit (800-492-1477,
fax: 623-492-5339). The information should include the name, ticket number
and dollar amount that is taken off your bill and to which account it has
been transferred. This may cost the TA a penalty fee (by AMEX) but this is
their business responsibility.
Mistakes do happen, but if the individual is giving the correct
identifier to the Travel Agency this should not occur. Once each BTA has
been established, either a corresponding cost center, unit number, or index/PCA
code should be given to the TA. Most Travel Agencies set up what is called a
travel profile. The profile might be a department’s requirements for booking
air, car rental and hotel information. Frequent travelers may have their own
unique profile including cost center information. If an employee does not
correct/update their travel profile, then yes, their travel could be billed
to the incorrect BTA/cost center.
At recent travel forums administrated by DGS, these problems were discussed. There were several successful solutions offered. A number of departments now address the "Pay To" line of the check differently. For Example: Where it says "Pay to:" They put the abbreviation "AMEX" followed by the last 11 digits of their billing number, so the "Pay To:" line would read "AMEX954321-12345". A number of large departments report zero posting errors using this method. Another department experienced no problems by attaching the remittance advice to the check with a staple. The Department of Health Services takes the AMEX portion (the perforated top part of the statement) and staples it behind the Remittance Advice (STD 404C) and sends it to the Controller’s Office with the Payment Schedule. SCO will take the Remittance Advice, the check and AMEX portion and remits to AMEX in the same envelope. These are options to consider. Understand that when the city or county issues a check, unless the
billing information is included somewhere on or near the check, it isn’t
going to post to the right account unless all the information is stapled
together at our end. American Express offers a toll free number available to
you to call and establish that a check has been received. If not, they can
start a search and are most often successful in finding the check.
Absolutely not! Only Travel Agencies who are on file with DGS Fleet
Administration and are department approved to use the current BTA account
are the only ones who are eligible to book YCAL fares. Each contract airline
has a current listing of approved TA for the State of California. If they
are not on file, then those Travel Agencies will receive a debit memo on
each illegal transaction – (a charge back at the full fare) and no TA wants
to get debit memos for they are solely responsible for the payment of that
debit memo.
Should a city or county departments change their TA, they should submit a
letter to the old TA stipulating that they are no longer authorized to use
the BTA billing number, that it is no longer in effect. A new BTA or BTA
supplementary number should be established with the new Travel Agency. If
you currently receive a reconciliation disk, that will need to be redirected
to the new TA. A "Third Party Authorization" form should be obtained from
American Express and completed by both the department, the TA and validated
by American Express.
Each department is different but most have their own procedures for
processing their own BTA’s. Some departments have BTA’s for car rental,
shuttle companies and lodging establishments in addition to the airlines.
DGS Office of Fleet Administration has provided assistance to departments in
their development of additional procedures.
There are several resource contacts available to you. Your Travel Agency. With most issues that arise from the BTA, your first line of communication is your Travel Agency. Keep them on your speed dial. Put your billing issues to them in writing and establish exact timeframes for completion (this should correspond to the current billing cycle). The BTA Help Desk 800-492-1477 (fax) 623-492-5339. It is recommended that any adjustments made to your BTA payment should be logged with the BTA help desk. American Express expects payment in full. They need to know why a payment is short and when it will be resolved. (It should have been resolved within the billing cycle.) Doug Browne, Manager, Account Development (AMEX) 877-462-7956 doug.browne@aexp.com If BTA issues persist, Doug will intercede to assist in its reconciliation. Make sure you have the documentation he will need to move forward. There are several reconciliation tools available to you, which you can discuss with him. Doug can also assist you with generating supplementary BTA numbers or create new BTA accounts. He is responsible for establishing new BTAs, Car Rental BTAs, new Government Card programs, reconciliation materials including Electronic Data Transmission, the Electronic Funds Transfer payment vehicle and @Work, the e-mail reporting data for your BTA and Card programs. Cheryl Kadan, Lodging Manager, (AMEX) 877-462-7972 cheryl.kadan@aexp.com Establishes new BTAs for central billing lodging of transient travel, extended stay, group travel, meetings and conferences. Liaison to hotels and other vendors for communicating state department policy and procedures on usage of these non-Card accounts. Donna Carey, Travel Programs Administrator, DGS Office of Fleet Administration (916) 327-2068 Donna administrates this program for the entire State of California including California State Universities, Community Colleges, and the Cities and Counties of California. "Although I may have a contract analyst who puts the actual contract together, I administer and work closely with American Express and each State department in all areas of the travel program. This includes answering all questions related to airlines, rental cars, lodging program, travel agencies, transportation companies and those meeting planners who plan meetings and conferences. In addition to the travel coordinators, I answer questions for all state employees who call or request travel information via our website. I also work very closely with each car rental representative, airline representative, travel agency representative and other travel administrators in other states".
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