Product Update: add GSA Lodging per diems to your travel policy

This month AmTrav added a new travel policy option allowing companies to invoke General Services Administration (GSA) per diem rates as a hotel nightly rate in their AmTrav travel policies.

GSA per diems are critical for any traveler on government or government-related travel since travelers can only claim hotel rate reimbursement up to the GSA per diem. GSA per diems are most often used by travelers for government and government agency travelers, but also hundreds of thousands of tier 1 government suppliers and contractors across defense, aerospace, health, consulting and other industries. Every year the GSA sets per diem hotel rates that vary by month across hundreds of city and state geographic areas – 33 in California alone.

Without GSA per diems automatically applied by travel policy, travelers who needed to follow GSA hotel per diem rates either have to manually check and apply those limits themselves or rely on exception city hotel rates painstakingly entered into their travel policy by their travel manager.

With AmTrav’s new GSA per diem option, travel managers can invoke GSA per diem rates as the maximum nightly rate in a travel policy with just two clicks. AmTrav then applies the relevant GSA per diem as the maximum nightly rate for the destination and dates of travel for travelers under that policy (including guest and meeting travelers invited via AmTrav Gather).* The policy is applied consistently to both bookings made online in AmTrav’s a2b booking tool and bookings made offline with AmTrav’s all-employee Travel Advisors who are ready to help 24x7.

Several AmTrav customers are already using the GSA hotel per diem option in their travel policies. "As an integrated technology solutions provider that supports the government, Sentrillion travelers have to follow GSA per diems for most of our hotel stays,” said Sentrillion Chief Administrative Officer Bryan Ackerman. “We activated the new AmTrav GSA per diem travel policy option with two clicks and now our travelers can easily find hotel options that meet federal travel requirements every time they search for lodging.”

AmTrav customer Diagnostica Stago Inc. concurs: "The addition of the GSA rates to the Amtrav platform allows the platform to have a current market value for major cities without worrying if the rates are too high or too low," said travel administrator and Executive Assistant Erika Peralta. "Not having to look them up and Amtrav updating the platform automatically is a major plus and a time saving factor for us, the addition has made it much easier to keep up with our travel policy standards — thank you Amtrav!"

“At AmTrav we think unconventionally, embracing ideas from everywhere and upgrading our one connected platform to make it even easier and faster for our administrators, our travelers and our colleagues,” said AmTrav Chief Technology Officer Gaurav Patel. This is AmTrav’s latest upgrade made at customer request, following upgrades to allow bookers and travelers to change their whole trip online, support travelers’ nicknames, allowing users to clone travel policies and edit optional billing fields on bookings, and more.

The GSA hotel per diem rate is available in travel policies for all AmTrav customers, along with an existing option to turn on or off government hotel rates. Reach out to AmTrav to learn more about the GSA per diem option and accessing AmTrav’s complete travel software & service solution for your company.

It's simple to apply GSA per diems to your hotel policies, simply follow these steps:

1. Browse to your Travel Policies located on the right under Travel Policy

2. Scroll down to the Hotel Policy section, located the white box labeled "Permitted Nightly Rate & Payment", then click blue button labeled Edit Permitted Nightly Rate, expanding the permitted nightly rate options

3. Look for "Use GSA Data for Max Nightly Rate" and select Yes to automatically apply them, or No if you prefer to use your own maximum nightly rates.

4. Once you've selected your preference, click the blue button labeled Save in the bottom right corner and you're set!

*Very precise details: GSA provides rates by zip code so AmTrav matches hotels to the GSA geographies based on hotel zip code. Since GSA rates vary month-to-month (e.g. the per diem for Boston is $197 per night for February stays but $281 for March stays), AmTrav calculates the rates for the relevant dates and month that the traveler is searching for and booking. Per diems are applied to the hotel rate without lodging tax, following GSA regulation. And since the GSA updates per diems annually for the upcoming federal fiscal year starting October 1, AmTrav likewise updates lodging per diems for the upcoming fiscal year. Travel administrators can also require pre-trip approval for out-of-policy bookings that exceed the GSA per diem and track policy compliance in AmTrav’s real-time travel reports.