Stop Overpaying Legacy TMCs. Audit Your Corporate Travel Spend & Re-Engineer Your RFP.
Independent fiduciary consulting for CFOs and Procurement Leaders. We audit opaque TMC fee schedules, recover expiring airline ticket credits, eliminate NDC surcharges, and run apples-to-apples RFPs across Amex GBT, BCD, FCM, Navan, TravelPerk, and Engine.
Model your recoverable T&E savings in 60 seconds
Six inputs, benchmarked against the fee, breakage and hotel attachment levels we see in top-quartile programs. Every figure updates live; lock it in and it travels to the intake form with your request.
Air + hotel + ground + meals across all entities, last 12 months.
Share of transactions booked touchless. Offline agent touches typically cost $38–$55 vs an $8 touchless benchmark.
What top-quartile programs actually pay
Market median is what we find in unaudited mid-market and enterprise contracts. Top-quartile is what a fiduciary negotiation secures. The gap is your recovery.
| Commercial term | Market median (unaudited) | Top-quartile fiduciary benchmark | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online (OBT) transaction fee | $15–$22 | $5–$12 | Touchless bookings cost the TMC almost nothing to service. |
| Offline agent-assisted fee | $50–$75+ | $25–$42 | Separate exchange, refund, VIP and after-hours line items inflate the real figure. |
| NDC / non-GDS content surcharge | $8–$18 / segment | $0 content-agnostic | Without a content-agnostic clause, NDC fees wipe out negotiated fare discounts. |
| Unused ticket breakage | 6–14% of air | <2.0% | Automated credit tracking, name-change waivers and SLA enforcement. |
| Hotel attachment rate | 45–65% | >75% | Off-channel nights miss negotiated rates and Duty of Care visibility. |
| GDS override & hotel commission rebates | Retained by TMC | 100% open-book | Incentives earned on your volume should be credited back to you. |
| SLA financial credits | None / reporting only | 2–5% of fees at risk | Call answer time, accuracy and ticketing SLAs with money behind them. |
Sources: Business Travel Consulting engagement data 2024–2026 and published TMC fee schedules. Ranges in USD, per transaction unless stated.
Sample 21-Day Forensic Audit Readout — $8.4M Mid-Market Program
What a finished readout looks like: four recovery buckets, each tied to an invoice line, a contract clause or a recovered credit. Client name and identifying details removed.
| Recovery bucket | What we found and fixed | Verified annual recovery |
|---|---|---|
| Terminated-employee & expiring airline ticket credits recovered | Unused credits aged by carrier and expiry; credits of departed travelers pooled, transferred or refunded before expiry | $118,400 /yr |
| Uncontracted $12 NDC segment surcharges removed | NDC / non-GDS servicing fees billed without a contract clause, refunded and replaced by a content-agnostic flat fee | $64,200 /yr |
| Closed-book hotel commissions flipped to open-book pass-through | Hotel commissions and GDS incentives earned on client volume now credited back quarterly | $91,000 /yr |
| Offline agent touch reclassifications | Touchless bookings billed at the $48 offline rate re-priced to the contracted online fee | $48,500 /yr |
| Total verified recovery | 17.4× ROI on an $18,500 fixed-fee audit | $322,100 /yr |
Four ways we put money back in the T&E budget
Forensic spend audit
Line-by-line TMC invoice reconciliation, unused ticket aging, NDC defense and hotel leakage mapping.
Spend audit & recovery →TMC RFP & negotiation
Normalized TCO across transaction, subscription and open-book bids, scored on a 140-point matrix.
TMC RFP & sourcing →Air & hotel sourcing
Corporate airline agreements, soft-dollar waiver banks and LRA hotel RFPs with GDS rate-loading audits.
Air & hotel sourcing →Policy & tech stack
OBT and expense architecture, travel policy redesign and ISO 31030 Duty of Care governance.
Policy & tech stack →Transparent fees, paid only by you
Every engagement is scoped in writing before work starts. No supplier ever pays us, so no supplier can influence our recommendation.
Fixed-fee forensic audit
or 25% gain-share of verified 12-month savings
- 21 business days
- Invoice, NDC, breakage & hotel leakage
- CFO readout & recovery plan
End-to-end TMC RFP
- 6-week governed process
- 140-point scoring matrix
- Contract & SLA negotiation
Air & hotel sourcing
- Route & city-pair analysis
- Carrier & hotel negotiations
- GDS rate-loading audit
Fractional travel manager
- Quarterly TMC SLA audits
- Supplier QBRs
- Policy & Duty of Care governance
Executive FAQ
Are you really independent of the TMCs and booking platforms you evaluate?
Yes. We are paid only by the client, through a fixed fee or a gain-share on verified savings. We take no commissions, GDS segment incentives, overrides, implementation bounties or referral fees from any travel management company, booking platform, airline or hotel group, and we disclose that in every engagement letter.
Should we choose a fixed-fee audit or the 25% gain-share option?
Fixed fee ($9,500–$24,000 depending on spend, entities and data quality) suits finance teams that want a predictable budget line and keep 100% of the savings. Gain-share (25% of verified 12-month savings, nothing if we find nothing) suits teams that want zero upfront cost. Savings only count once they are confirmed in your invoices, contracts or recovered credits.
How long does a forensic TMC and T&E audit take?
21 business days from receiving data. Week 1 is data intake (TMC invoices, OBT and GDS booking data, card feeds, unused ticket reports and the current contract); weeks 2–3 are fee reconciliation, breakage aging and hotel leakage mapping; week 4 is the CFO readout with a quantified recovery plan.
Do we have to switch travel management companies to capture the savings?
No. Most programs recover the majority of savings by renegotiating the existing contract: content-agnostic NDC pricing, open-book commission pass-through, unused ticket automation and SLA credits. We recommend a full TMC RFP only when the incumbent will not move or the commercial model no longer fits your volume.
What data do you need, and how is it protected?
Twelve months of TMC invoices and transaction data, your current TMC agreement and fee schedule, the unused ticket report and card or expense extracts. We work under a mutual NDA, store files in an encrypted workspace with named access, and delete working copies at the end of the engagement unless you ask us to keep them.
Confidential T&E Audit & Consultation Request
Tell us where your program stands: current TMC and booking tool, approximate annual travel spend and the contract renewal window. A senior consultant replies within one business day with a scoping call proposal, a fee range and a mutual NDA if you need one.
- 100% vendor-neutral: we take no commissions, overrides or referral fees from any TMC, airline or hotel
- Mutual NDA available before you share a single invoice
- Fixed-fee or 25% gain-share audit options, scoped in writing
- Prefer email? Write to hello@businesstravelconsulting.com