Worked for a company that had a 3rd party manage all travel which included air and ground. We were told they were able to save the company money due to their purchasing power and tap into more "knowledgeable" professionals. I suspect they were paid based on the most ingenious torture method used. Some of the greatest hits include:
- No individual trips to the airport. All employees meet at the office and then bused to the airport. The promise was no more costs associated with reimbursements for parking, mileage, tolls, taxis, or shuttles. The reality was riding to the airport in vans of questionable reliability driven by someone with less wheel time than a typical teenager. Because the shuttle only left a few times per day. It usually meant showing up at the office Sunday at noon for a 4PM flight then driven an hour to BOS. Since I lived an hour from the office but a 5 - 10 minute cab ride from BOS, I simply ate the cab fare.

- No rental cars at cities with major corporate sites. Instead, the company was leased a certain number of cars and those in town on business was assigned one from the pool. The promise was no more costs associated with rentals, gas, insurance, etc. The reality, the company paid alot for crapboxes. Once in town, you met at with another questionable company shuttle. Again, they ran at fixed times. Arrive at 2PM? Hang around for the 4PM shuttle. Then driven to the parking lot of a corporate office, goto your assigned space, open up a lockbox, take the keys and drive off. As expected thing did not always go right. Cars were not always gassed up, some would not start, etc. Not so bad during business hours but being ditched at 8PM mid-December on a Sunday night in a desolate office park sucked. Not wanting to strand a colleague, the group often waited together for road service to show. Oh, the vehicles, bare bones Ford Tauruses (Taurii). No ABS, nothing power accessories, AM/FM cassette radio.....

- Cheapest possible flights on US Airways. Nothing against US but this company put me off on them forever. The promise was cost savings and preferred fares. The reality was crazy routings to presumably save a few bucks. On one trip I flew BOS-RIC non-stop outbound but on the return fly RIC-CLT-LGA-BOS inbound. Nothing more depressing than flying CLT-LGA only to look out the window and see the airport I left 90 minutes ago. That itinerary ended adding 6 hours to the trip.

I left the job 4 months later as did many other people. Found out later that the company was very quickly dumped as soon as the contract expired. Not sure what happened to the moron that signed off on the original agreement but I suspect he was probably promoted.