Originally Posted by
darthbimmer
The popular notion that computerized travel services book crazy itineraries with multiple connections, alternate airports, and undesirable departure times just because they're $20 cheaper than a nonstop is not true in my experience. I've used computerized systems for the past 8 years across 3 different employers, and they're easily configurable to select reasonable itineraries. In fact the one my current employer uses shows a "Most logical airfare" atop the list of search results, and it's nearly always the flight I identified as most desirable from my own searching beforehand.
My biggest issues were:
a) Time of flight - certain destinations they would try to book your travel starting or finishing at absurd times that would eat into your productivity. Scheduling me on a flight at 2pm is just stupid where there are either 8am or 6pm options (depending on if I am coming or going). 2pm just means the travel eats pretty much the whole day unnecessarily. I was frequently 'out of policy' because I took slightly more expensive flights that let me spend the day working, either at home or at the destination.
b) Silly cross-city connections - London came up a few times, into Heathrow (because AC were a preferred airline it would try to select AC or codeshare flight as default) but then Gatwick or once even Stanstead to connect to another European city, but also had people having to change airports in Chicago and New York.
c) Hotels that simply made no sense in relation to where you had to be - there was one city where there was a metro line pretty much door to door hotel to office, but because of the slightly higher hotel cost it was 'out of policy'. The fact the difference in cost was far less than a taxi there and back, and that hotel gave you breakfast when the in policy one did not, eluded them.