50 Shades of Savings

Spreadsheets aren’t sexy. However, CIRE’s travel reports contain some pretty intriguing, juicy details for our corporate travel clients. Depending on your preferences and needs, our travel reports are delivered on a monthly or quarterly basis. They are tailored to each client and provide an in-depth look at travel expenditures and cost savings (gross and net) achieved through your relationship with CIRE Travel and our parent company, First in Service Travel.

CIRE partners exclusively with small to midsize companies to bring them the buying power, perks and favors that they could not achieve on their own. We help them compete in their markets against larger companies and their big travel budgets.

Rather than tell, CIRE travel reports show. We know it’s one thing to be promised savings on your corporate travel expenses. It’s another to see those savings monetized. A valued part of our service happens behind the scenes, such as:

• Making dozens of calls to secure an aisle seat if one wasn’t available at time of booking
• Calling in a favor with an associate for upgrades
• Taking a proactive approach to rerouting flights when weather or other events are threatening to snarl travel anywhere in the world
• Maximizing hotel, air and transportation perks available via our buying power through First in Service Travel

There is no shame in micromanaging, especially when it comes to corporate travel

Micromanaging has a negative connotation, but CIRE Travel wouldn’t do anything but micromanage every single corporate travel reservation for maximum savings and value. Our business travel planners make it our priority to understand the big picture of your company’s travel program. Then we leverage our buying power to waive change fees and advance purchase on fares. When possible, we recommend alternate routings to save on costs without sacrificing travelers’ comfort or schedule.

How do you assign value to a favor or a suggested alternative?

CIRE Travel reports show actual expenditures, savings and how they were achieved (i.e., First in Service Travel exclusive rate, waiver/favor, suggesting another route) aggregated in an easy-to-read format. It’s a helpful layout compared to sifting through piles of invoices. That’s the reporting side of things.

Duty of Care is on the other side, and is just as important a reporting feature as the cost/savings spreadsheets. At times, even more so. Under Duty of Care, CIRE Travel runs reports for all of our clients’ corporate travelers in the event of advance or immediate warnings of world events or weather that could force travel delays or cancellations. In the event of a possible or imminent delay, our team goes into a proactive contingency mode rerouting and rescheduling as necessary.

During the 2015 terrorist attacks on Paris, we were concerned about the safety of one of our client’s CEOs. Emails and phone calls to personal email addresses and phone numbers to both the CEO and the company human resource manager verified his safety. In this situation, the CEO was out of harm’s way. Since companies are responsible for employees while traveling for business, it is imperative that companies can pinpoint their executive and staff’s whereabouts and upcoming itineraries.

CIRE Travel’s Duty of Care promise

There are advantages beyond the financial and accountability benefits of choosing CIRE Travel to manage your corporate travel planning. Every traveler and travel arranger is a VIP and our connections work in their favor. We want your travelers to fly on their preferred airline, sit in their preferred seat and earn bonus points. If a middle seat is the only option at the time of ticketing, we keep checking right up to departure to get an aisle or window confirmed. It’s not always possible, but we have a 90% success rate.

CIRE Travel’s corporate travel planners are not 9-to-5 employees. They are career agents who love what they do and genuinely care about our clients. You can reach out to them or the agency’s owner, Eric Hrubant, at 3:00 am in case of an emergency. That’s not a remote possibility with travel booking sites. This is our Duty of Care promise to each and every employee and executive who travel for our clients. This level of genuine care and savings isn’t sexy, but it is definitely the foundation for a long-lasting relationship.

Does saving 10% to 45% on your monthly travel expenses sound intriguing?

We think so, and so do our clients. That’s the average amount of savings our clients see in their travel reports. Let us do the same for your travel expenses. Contact CIRE Travel to find out more.