The Business Travel Booking Tool Features Checklist

Selecting a corporate travel booking tool, often called an Online Booking Tool or OBT, is a critical technology decision for any company. This is the platform your employees will interact with every time they need to travel for work. The quality of this tool will directly impact your travel program's user adoption, your ability to control costs, and your travelers' overall satisfaction. With dozens of options on the market, it can be difficult to know what to look for.

A simple feature list from a vendor can be misleading. You need to focus on the features that have a real, tangible impact on the core goals of a travel program: cost control, efficiency, and traveler well-being. This checklist is designed to help you evaluate corporate travel booking tools by focusing on the features that truly matter.

The Essential Features Checklist

Use this checklist to rate potential vendors and ensure you are choosing a modern, effective platform.

1. User Experience and Interface

This is the most important category. If the tool is not easy to use, it will not be used.

[ ] Intuitive, Consumer-Grade Design. Does the interface look and feel as clean, fast, and easy to navigate as a modern consumer travel website (like Google Flights or Airbnb)? A clunky, outdated interface is a major red flag.
[ ] Fast Search and Response Times. How quickly do flight and hotel search results load? A slow, laggy tool will frustrate users and lead them to book elsewhere.
[ ] Powerful, User-Friendly Mobile App. Is there a fully functional native app for iOS and Android? Can users search, book, and manage their entire trip easily from their phone?

2. Travel Inventory and Content

The booking tool must provide a comprehensive and competitive range of travel options.

[ ] Comprehensive Air Inventory. Does the tool aggregate fares from multiple sources, including the GDS, direct airline connections (NDC), and low-cost carriers? A lack of NDC content is a major weakness in today's market.
[ ] Extensive Hotel Inventory. Does the platform offer a wide range of accommodation options, including major chains, independent hotels, and serviced apartments?
[ ] Integrated Ground Transportation. Can users book rental cars and, ideally, other forms of ground transport like rail or airport transfers within the same workflow?

3. Policy Enforcement and Control

The tool must be able to automate your travel policy to control costs proactively.

[ ] Flexible Policy Engine. Can you create granular, tiered policies for different groups of employees? Can you set different rules for domestic vs. international travel?
[ ] Dynamic Hotel Rate Caps. Can the tool set hotel price caps based on the real-time market average for a city, rather than just a single, static cap? This is a key feature for a smart policy.
[ ] Real-Time Policy Flags and Guidance. As a user searches, does the tool clearly flag out-of-policy options and explain why they are non-compliant?
[ ] Configurable Approval Workflows. Can you build multi-level approval chains that are automatically triggered by cost, policy exceptions, or destination risk?

4. Traveler-Centric Features

These are the features that make a traveler's life easier and improve their experience.

[ ] Detailed Traveler Profiles. Can the system securely store traveler information like passport details, visa information, loyalty program numbers, and seating preferences to speed up the booking process?
[ ] Automated Unused Ticket Credit Management. Does the platform have an automated system to track and prompt users to apply unused flight credits? This is a major and often overlooked source of savings.
[ ] AI-Powered Personalization. Does the tool use AI to learn traveler preferences and prioritize relevant options in the search results?
[ ] Centralized Payment Options. Does the tool allow for direct company payment of flights and hotels, eliminating the need for employees to use their personal cards? This is a huge satisfier.

5. Integration and Support

The booking tool should be part of a larger, integrated ecosystem.

[ ] Native Expense Management Integration. The gold standard. Is the booking tool part of a unified platform where travel bookings automatically create expense report entries, like in Routespring? A simple "integration" with a separate expense tool is not the same and will still require manual work.
[ ] 24/7 Expert Support. Is the tool backed by a 24/7 support team of professional travel agents who can help with complex bookings and, most importantly, manage travel disruptions?
[ ] Risk Management Integration. Does the platform have a built-in "live traveler map" and a system for sending risk alerts to fulfill your Duty of Care?

How to Use the Checklist in Your Evaluation

When you are getting a demo from a potential travel software provider, don't just let them show you their standard pitch. Use this checklist to guide the conversation.

Ask for a Live Demo of Specific Features. "Show me exactly how you would configure a dynamic hotel policy." "Show me the workflow for applying an unused ticket credit." "Show me what the approval request looks like on a manager's phone."
Request a Sandbox Account. The best way to evaluate the user experience is to get your hands on the tool yourself. A confident vendor will be happy to provide a trial environment for you and a few of your team members to test.
Focus on the Workflow, Not Just the Feature. A vendor might say they "have" a feature, but you need to see how it works in practice. How many clicks does it take? How much manual work is still required? The efficiency of the end-to-end workflow is what really matters.

Choosing the right corporate travel booking tool is a critical decision. By using a structured, feature-based checklist that focuses on what truly matters for control, efficiency, and user experience, you can make an informed choice and select a platform that will be a long-term asset for your business.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is the single most important feature to look for in a booking tool?

While all are important, a truly intuitive, consumer-grade user experience is arguably the most critical. If the tool is hard to use, your employees will not adopt it, and all the other powerful features for policy and control become useless because the bookings are happening off-channel.

2. Is a powerful mobile app really that important?

Yes. Business travel is an inherently mobile activity. Your travelers need to be able to search for and book travel, make changes, check their itinerary, and get support directly from their smartphone. A weak or limited mobile app is a major failure point for a modern travel program.

3. What is NDC and why is it an important inventory feature?

NDC (New Distribution Capability) is a new technology standard that allows airlines to offer a wider range of products and fares through third-party platforms. A booking tool must have a robust NDC integration to ensure you are getting access to the best and most complete airline content, as airlines are increasingly making their best fares available only through this channel.

4. What's the difference between a standalone booking tool and a unified platform?

A standalone OBT is just for booking. You still need a separate system for managing expenses. A unified platform, like Routespring, combines booking and expense management into a single, seamless system. This is far more efficient as it automates the creation of expense reports from booking data, eliminating a huge amount of manual work.

5. How can a booking tool help with our Duty of Care?

By centralizing all bookings, the tool creates a single, real-time record of all your traveler itineraries. This data powers a "live traveler map," which is the essential tool for locating your employees in a crisis. Without a central booking tool, fulfilling your Duty of care is nearly impossible.