3 ms·

The future of corporate travel

15 points by jaf12duke 16y ago

far33d 16y ago
I recently used a corporate travel booking system for the first time. What a terrible terrible experience. I ended up doing exactly what the post says - I searched for flights in Kayak, found them, and then massaged the search criteria until I found the right flight in their system.
revorad 16y ago
So, what was the response of the audience?
gaius 16y ago
I've never had a good experience with corporate travel agents. Normally it goes, several weeks in advance, I need to be in this city on these days, here's the billing code. Silence. A week before, hello, did you book this? A day or two before I travel they get back to me, having booked me onto Aeroflot and into a Motel Six 2 hours away from the work site - and for the price they could have got for BA and the Four Seasons one block away if they'd pulled their fingers out of their arses when I told them. Any organization is better off letting their people just book their own travel and expensing it, I can only assume they do a much better job for the CEO's travel (or his PA does it and expenses it and he never sees them).
- potatolicious 16y ago
  One has to wonder why it isn't standard nowadays to just let people reimburse - given that 99% of the time it results in a better experience at a lower price. There must be some mad kickbacks or some other nefarious forces at play whenever such ludicrously terrible technology is being used for no apparent reason.
technomancy 16y ago
> Walled-gardens are the way of the past. One of the reasons Apple is killing it [...] Wait, what‽
janzer 16y ago
What the...? Is he serious? "Walled-gardens are the way of the past. One of the reasons Apple is killing it is they make it easy for every man, woman, and yes, child, to create an app and offer it through their store for their phones. Why haven’t Blackberry and Android been as successful with their application marketplaces to date? Because it’s not nearly as developer-friendly..."

15 points by jaf12duke 16y ago

I recently used a corporate travel booking system for the first time. What a terrible terrible experience. I ended up doing exactly what the post says - I searched for flights in Kayak, found them, and then massaged the search criteria until I found the right flight in their system.

revorad 16y ago

So, what was the response of the audience?

gaius 16y ago

I've never had a good experience with corporate travel agents. Normally it goes, several weeks in advance, I need to be in this city on these days, here's the billing code. Silence. A week before, hello, did you book this? A day or two before I travel they get back to me, having booked me onto Aeroflot and into a Motel Six 2 hours away from the work site - and for the price they could have got for BA and the Four Seasons one block away if they'd pulled their fingers out of their arses when I told them. Any organization is better off letting their people just book their own travel and expensing it, I can only assume they do a much better job for the CEO's travel (or his PA does it and expenses it and he never sees them).

potatolicious 16y ago
One has to wonder why it isn't standard nowadays to just let people reimburse - given that 99% of the time it results in a better experience at a lower price. There must be some mad kickbacks or some other nefarious forces at play whenever such ludicrously terrible technology is being used for no apparent reason.

technomancy 16y ago

> Walled-gardens are the way of the past. One of the reasons Apple is killing it [...] Wait, what‽

janzer 16y ago

What the...? Is he serious? "Walled-gardens are the way of the past. One of the reasons Apple is killing it is they make it easy for every man, woman, and yes, child, to create an app and offer it through their store for their phones. Why haven’t Blackberry and Android been as successful with their application marketplaces to date? Because it’s not nearly as developer-friendly..."