Fragmented booking cost calculator

What unmanaged travel booking quietly costs you

When trips get booked across personal cards, random sites and email threads, money leaks in three places: agency fees, out-of-policy overspend, and admin time. Enter your numbers, every assumption is editable.

Your numbers

Three quick questions. Open the assumptions to tune the rest.

Business trips per year

Average cost per trip SGDAll-in cost of one trip: flights + hotel + ground.

Show amounts in

Adjust assumptions

% booked outside policy 25%GBTA 2026: hotel leakage is ~a third (n=269, blended, hotel bookings only). We default lower to stay conservative. Full citation below.

Out-of-policy bookings cost this much more 20%Forrester TEI 2024 (vendor-commissioned, n=5): policy-adherent spend runs ~20% less, implying a ~25% premium on non-compliant bookings. We default conservatively to 20%.

Admin time per trip (hrs)GBTA 2015: ~20 min just to process one expense report; the 0.5 hr default also allows for booking and reconciliation across the trip. Tune to your process.

Fully-loaded hourly cost SGD your estimateSalary + overhead of the person doing the admin. Not cited, a starting point for your market, please edit.

Booking / agency fee per trip SGD your estimateIllustrative industry range: online self-serve ~US$5–10; agent-assisted ~US$25–35. Edit to your actual fee.

Your annual leakage

Enter trips per year and average trip cost to see the result.

Booking feesOut-of-policy overspendAdmin time

Where it leaks	Per year
Agency / booking fees
Out-of-policy overspend
Admin time

You vs. the cited industry benchmark Directional comparison only: the GBTA benchmark measures hotel booking leakage, while your figure is an all-spend out-of-policy rate, so treat the gap as a signal, not a like-for-like match.

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Scenario analysis, what tightening policy is actually worth
A 5-year outlook & your leakage in working-days and funded-trips
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How we estimated this

Out-of-policy overspend, Forrester TEI study, 2024 (vendor-commissioned by TravelBank; 5 interviews). It reports adherent spend ~20% less, implying a ~25% premium on non-compliant bookings; we default to 20% to stay conservative, and count only the recoverable excess (p ÷ (1+p)), not the full premium.
Leakage (~a third booked off-channel), GBTA “Perfect Business Trip”, 2026 (n=269, North America + Europe). A blended all-company average, not segmented by size or industry; hotel-only scope. Directionally solid; we default conservatively at 25%.
Admin anchor (~20 min & US$58 per expense report), GBTA + HRS, 2015. The industry-standard citation, though dated.
Booking fee & loaded hourly cost, your estimates. We don’t cite these; edit them to your business.

We deliberately don’t use the widely-repeated “38% hotel premium” or “20–30% total savings” figures, we couldn’t verify a primary source.

This is an estimate for planning purposes only, not tax, legal or accounting advice. Figures are based on published third-party research and your own inputs.

FAQ

What is unmanaged or fragmented travel booking?

It is when trips are booked across personal cards, random websites and email threads instead of one managed channel. Cost leaks in three places: agency and booking fees, out-of-policy overspend, and admin time.

What counts as an out-of-policy booking?

Any trip booked outside your managed channel or above policy, for example a hotel booked on a personal card at a walk-up rate, or a flight outside the approved fare class. These usually cost more and are harder to track.

How is the recoverable amount calculated?

The tool takes your annual spend, your out-of-policy rate and the premium those bookings carry, then counts only the recoverable excess (spend times p divided by (1+p)), not the full premium. The recoverability ranges are an illustrative assumption you can adjust.

What information do I need to use it?

Just two figures to start: business trips per year and the average cost per trip. You can then fine-tune the off-policy rate, premium, admin time and fees under Adjust assumptions.

Is this a real quote or a benchmark for my company?

No. It is a planning estimate built from published third-party research (GBTA 2026, Forrester TEI 2024) and your own inputs, so treat the output as directional, not a like-for-like benchmark.

How would we actually recover this leakage?

By consolidating booking, policy and expense into one managed channel so overspend is caught at the point of booking rather than in a spreadsheet afterwards. That is what the Accomy platform does; a demo shows how.