Travel Center

Putnam University Center
Willamette University
900 State Street
Salem, Oregon 97301

503-370-6388

travel@willamette.edu

Expedia Corporate FAQ

Can I book personal travel on Expedia Corporate Travel?

Yes. You may book personal travel on your Expedia Corporate account to take advantage of discount available to Willamette employees, but all expenses must be charged to a personal credit card.

Will Expedia Corporate consultants book travel for me?

Yes, Expedia Corporate consultants are available to book travel for you. Please be aware that there is a booking fee of $20.

What are the fees associated with using Expedia Corporate Travel?

Normal booking fees are $5. Fees associated with booking a negotiated rate (special rates available because of contracts between Willamette and various vendors) are $10. The fee for an Expedia Corporate Consultant to book your travel for you is $20. Please note: Consultants are available to answer questions for you at any time and no extra fee will apply if you book the travel arrangements yourself.

Consultants can be reached toll-free at 1-866-397-2677, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

What's the difference between Expedia Corporate and Expedia.com?
What's in it for me? Why should I use Expedia Corporate?
What's in it for the University?
What are the costs?
Why can't I use any online site that I want?
Can I plan my personal travel on Expedia Corporate?
How does using Expedia Corporate help me earn free tickets and upgrades?
Is the Travel Center still available to help me? Where does the Travel Center fit into all of this?
What about our current discounts, will those still be available?
How do I know that Expedia Corporate is offering the best prices?
What equipment do I need to operate Expedia Corporate?
What do I need to make a reservation?
Will there be any training?
Is there interactive help on the Expedia Corporate site to answer my questions after hours?
What is the ICW/OICA travel consortium?
How was Expedia Corporate chosen?

What's the difference between Expedia Corporate and Expedia.com?

Expedia Corporate Travel (ECT) Benefits:

Secure website provides more stringent security standards than the leisure site, protecting not only your payment and personal information, but also your log-in and password.
Direct access to a wide range of airfares, including web fares, published fares, and company-specific negotiated fares (only available on ECT), all in a single display.
Access to discount carriers, such as Southwest's SWABIZ (through direct connection from the Expedia Corporate website) and JetBlue.
New hotel inventory - Expedia Corporate Rates (ECR) offering your traveler more flexibility and fewer restrictions. This inventory is exclusive to ECT.
Corporate travel reporting enables departments to better track their travel spending patterns by accessing over 100 detailed reports, viewable online and downloadable into Excel.
Traveler support available 24x7 and staffed by experienced coporate travel specialists. Expedia's customer service goal has been established that 80 percent of all calls will be answered within 20 seconds.
Travel Arranger functionality allows for simple travel booking on behalf of others within the same department or company.
On-line ticket exchange and unused ticket tracking that allows you to apply the ticket toward future purchases; not available on Expedia.com.
Concierge-style seating as well as seat tracking, which notifies the traveler when a preferred seat becomes available. Allows you to pick your own seat on many airlines.
Automatic upgrades available on request; based on frequent flier status.
Traveler control over reservations and confirmations with easy access to his/her trip records.

Expedia.com Benefits:

Vacation packages that include multiple combinations of travel options at discounted rates. This feature is currently unavailable on the corporate site, due to the inflexibility of these packages. Cruises are also only available on Expedia.com.
Ability to book multiple people at the same time, which is unavailable on the corporate site at this time. Expedia Corporate Travel is currently working on updating their site to include multiple traveler itineraries.
Expedia Special Rate hotels are available on the leisure and corporate sites. These rates offer discounts, but with greater restrictions than Expedia Corporate Rates.

What's in it for me? Why should I use Expedia Corporate?

Simplicity: With one simple search you can view results from all airlines, including low-fare carriers such as JetBlue, as well as direct access to Southwest's SWABIZ page.

Discounts: Expedia Corporate offers discounted hotel rates, as well as Willamette negotiated rates. There are two types of discounts offered by Expedia Corporate: Expedia Special Rates and Expedia Corporate Rates. These rates are available for both business and personal travel. To find out more about the two types of hotels, click here.

Options: With Expedia Corporate's new concierge-style seat search, you are able to pick your own seats (not currently available on all airlines). If your preferred seats are unavailable, Expedia Corporate will continue to search and notify you if they become available.

Secure: Expedia Corporate uses Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption technology and Private Communication Technology (PCT) security standards to keep everything from your login to credit card information safe. For more information about credit card safety please click here.

Convenient: A number of aspects make Expedia Corporate quick and easy to use. The convenient reservation process allows you to modify, save, and cancel reservations on-line. Upgrades can be requested on-line based on frequent flier status. In addition, unused tickets (purchased with Expedia) will be tracked for possible use on future tickets/reservations.

Savings: Expedia Corporate offers the lowest service fee in the travel management industry ($5 for an on-line reservation).

What's in it for the University?

Savings: Using Expedia Corporate provides the University an opportunity to save an estimated 18-20% on total travel costs. In addition, the use of Expedia Corporate is completely free of all set-up and maintenance costs. The ICW/OICA travel consortium has absorbed the costs.

Customization: Expedia Corporate allows Willamette to add University logos to the website, as well as negotiated rates and discounts.

Simple: Reports can be quickly generated for each department or the entire university, allowing for easier tracking of travel costs.

Communication: Expedia Corporate allows the Travel Center to alert and advise travelers of any important travel related information.

Recall: Expedia Corporate gives the University the ability to save itineraries for up to a year.

What are the costs?

There is no cost to the University to implement Expedia Corporate Travel. However, there are costs to the indidual traveler/department in the form of service fees. The basic fee for an on-line transaction is $5. There is no charge for a hotel or carreservation completed on-line. For a full list and explanation of fees, please click here.

Why can't I use any online site that I want?

That is between you and your budget officer. The Travel Center offers Expedia Corporate as an on-line option. Here are a couple of reasons to use Expedia Corporate:

Expedia Corporate allows you to use the company ghost card, enter an account number, track unused tickets, track travelers in case of an emergency, and generate reports, as well as offers a 24-hour fee free Void period.
Using Expedia Corporate also allows the Unversity to negotiate rates and discounts through the ICW/OICA travel consortium. These negotiations will be based on travel volume, so the more Expedia Corporate is used, the better the negotiated rates and discounts.

Can I plan my personal travel on Expedia Corporate?

Yes! All your personal travel can be booked through Expedia Corporate. You will have access to all the corporate rates, as well as Willamette negotiated rates.

How does using Expedia Corporate help me earn free tickets and upgrades?

By purchasing your travel through Expedia Corporate you are helping the University pool its resources (along with those of the ICW/OICA travel consortium) to negotiate with airlines, hotels, and car rental companies for better rates, free tickets, and free upgrades. Expedia will help in the negotiation process, acting as the consortium representative. The process of allotting free tickets and upgrades will be determined by the On-line Booking Committee, who will determine how best to distribute them.

Is the Travel Center still available to help me? Where does the Travel Center fit into all of this?

The Travel Center will continue to be open to the Willamette University community. We are available to help plan and book university-funded travel, group travel, as well as booking on-line personal travel through Expedia Corporate. We are also here to answer all your Expedia Corporate and travel related questions.

What about our current discounts, will those still be available?

All of Willamette's vendor agreements remain in place both through the Travel Center and on the Expedia Corporate site. More discounts will be negotiated based on travel volume.

How do I know that Expedia Corporate is offering the best prices?

Independent research has shown that Expedia displays the lowest fare 81% of the time. To put this in perspective, Orbitz displays the lowest fare 78% of the time and Travelocity 72%.

What equipment do I need to operate Expedia Corporate?

The minimum system requirements to run Expedia Corporate are:

A web browser that supports frames, such as the latest versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer and/or Netscape Navigator.
Super VGA 256-color monitor.
A browser supporting Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), such as Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 and later.
Display resolution of 800x600 or greater.
You will also need to set your web browswer to allow cookies.

What do I need to make a reservation?

To start you need an Expedia Corporate account. To make air reservations you will need an account number. if the air reservations are personal, you will also need to have a personal credit card. A personal credit card will also be necessary to make all hotel and car reservations - personal and business. For hotel and car reservations made for business you will also need an account number for reimbursement purposes. For more information on getting an Expedia Corporate account, please click here.

Will there be any training?

The Travel Center will facilitate training sessions for departments, as well as individual travelers.
Training sessions will be short (30-60 minutes) as Expedia Corporate is simple to use and easy to learn
Training will occur a few times throughout fall semester - notification will be sent in advance.

Is there interactive help on the Expedia Corporate site to answer my questions after hours?

No, however, Expedia Corporate offers a Customer Support Center that will answer the most frequently asked questions on a variety of topics. There is information on setting up and changing accounts; reservations and searching for flights, hotels and cars; security and privacy; cancellations and trip assistance; etc. You may also call Expedia Corporate's 24-hour hotline.

What is the ICW/OICA travel consortium?

The Independent Colleges of Washington (ICW) and the Oregon Independent Colleges Association (OICA) agreed to form a consortium in order to pool their travel costs and volume. Together the ICW/OICA established a "Travel Task Force" to compare and review various travel management options, choosing Expedia in the end as the preferred online travel vendor.

How was Expedia Corporate chosen?

After forming the ICW/OICA travel consortium, a Travel Task Force was created to determine the best option for travel management. A number of options were researched, including Orbitz, Travelocity, and other travel management companies. In the end, Expedia Corporate offered the most cost-effective solution. For a full account on how Expedia Corporate was chosen as Willamette's on-line booking product, please click here.