Originally Posted by stimpy

IME self-booking tools are only in the rather large corporations. I've never seen it in companies that only have a few thousand or less employees. And there are a whole lot more of those than the bigger corporations.

Originally Posted by brunos

Why would self-booking tools be only in large corporations? This is a fairly simple generic software where only the parameters are set for each company/employee. If anything, i would think that they are less needed for large corporations with dedicated guys looking after travel.
And even if bookings are made through a dedicated travel agent, as used to be the case, the TA has clear instructions on what is allowed by the corporate policy or not. I think that the time of "vague" travel policies is gone.

Originally Posted by brunos

I do understand that you have an experience that spreads over many years. But things have changed in the recent past and cost controls have spread like a bad virus.

Admittedly France is very slow to adapt to change and to internet tools. Nevertheless, many medium-sized French companies with a corporate contract with AF ask employees to use a self-booking tool if they book AF. Otherwise (other airlines), they have to go through the company's official TA who does the control or report to the company's travel official. You quickly get flagged if you don't adhere to travel policy.

Originally Posted by orbitmic

I can confirm that it is definitely not limited to large companies, and is indeed, no "trouble". In most European countries, there are a few travel agents which concentrate well over 90% of the company travel markets (both small and large) and they have come up with the self booking tools long ago.

Self booking tools are part of what those TAs offer when trying to win contracts with smaller companies even more than with large ones. There is absolutely zero need to adapt the tool to individual companies as the TA simply enters the parameters of each policy for each type of account user, and what you get is a self-booking tool just like Expedia's or Opodo's and when you log on, it lets you book whatever you need/want except that it then signals you (1) if your choice is out of policy, (2) if there were other cheaper alternatives available even if your trip was within policy (with most employers you will then need to select a justification for why you chose that instead, like flight times, number of stop, airline's choice, etc).

I don't like self-booking tools and am glad for you that your company has not chosen to use one, but I can guarantee you that across most of Europe, companies both large and small (I mean, maybe not with 5 employees, but most companies with even 20 or 50 employees!) have made that choice long ago. And indeed, when they have, PE is definitely flagged as outside of policy if the policy says Y.