Can my corporate client's manager approve a trip before it gets booked instead of me calling them to check?
Yes, an approval step can sit inside the booking process so nothing is confirmed until the right person at the company has agreed to it. The traveller or the office assistant builds the trip as normal, but instead of going straight to payment it is held as a request and sent to the named approver. The approver sees the traveller, the dates, the itinerary and the total, and can approve or decline it from a link, usually without needing to learn the whole system.
Who approves what is set up per company, so you are not handling it by phone. Requests can be routed to the traveller's own manager, to a travel desk, or to a finance person for anything above the limit the company has agreed. A trip can pass through more than one person where the client wants that, and reminders can go out if an approval is sitting untouched. Your staff can see which requests are waiting and which were declined, so nobody has to guess.
The honest limit is time. Flight fares in particular are only held for a short window, and some suppliers do not allow a hold at all, so if an approver takes a day to reply the original price may no longer be live and the trip has to be priced again before it is issued. Which suppliers allow a hold, and for how long, depends on the airline or hotel connection and on the plan you are on, so this is worth confirming rather than assuming.
Before setting this up, ask your corporate client who should approve which kinds of trips, and check with us which of your connected suppliers can hold a booking long enough for that approval to come back.
