---
title: "The business travel field guide"
canonical: https://engine.com/glossary
---

# The business travel field guide

Plain definitions of the terms used in corporate travel, hotel billing and travel expense management, written by Engine.

## Hotel rates and booking

- [Average daily rate](https://engine.com/glossary/average-daily-rate): Average daily rate (ADR) is a hotel's room revenue divided by the number of rooms sold, the average price paid for an occupied room over a period.
- [Best available rate](https://engine.com/glossary/best-available-rate): Best available rate (BAR) is the lowest price a hotel offers for a room on a given night, adjusted in real time based on occupancy and demand.
- [Blackout dates](https://engine.com/glossary/blackout-dates): Blackout dates are dates on which a hotel reward, special offer or negotiated rate can't be used.
- [Booking engine](https://engine.com/glossary/booking-engine): A booking engine is an online tool that lets people book hotel rooms directly.
- [Boutique hotels](https://engine.com/glossary/boutique-hotels): A boutique hotel is a small hotel, usually 10 to 100 rooms, known for personalized service, distinctive interior design and strong connections to the local area.
- [Concierge services](https://engine.com/glossary/concierge-services): Concierge services are personal services a hotel concierge provides to guests, such as making reservations and arranging or advising on transportation, business services and entertainment.
- [Dynamic pricing](https://engine.com/glossary/dynamic-pricing): Dynamic pricing is when a business adjusts prices rapidly and frequently in response to changing demand, a practice common in hotels, air travel and ride hailing.
- [Hotel chains](https://engine.com/glossary/hotel-chains): A hotel chain is a group of hotels operating under a shared brand and management system.
- [Hotel program](https://engine.com/glossary/hotel-program): A hotel program is a company's set of negotiated hotel rates and preferred hotels, plus the booking rules that steer travelers to them.
- [No-show fee](https://engine.com/glossary/no-show-fee): A no-show fee is what a hotel charges when a guest fails to arrive for a reservation without canceling in advance, usually at least one night's stay.
- [Off-peak travel](https://engine.com/glossary/off-peak-travel): Off-peak travel is travel on the dates when demand at a destination is lowest, which usually means lower hotel prices and fewer crowds.
- [Peak travel times](https://engine.com/glossary/peak-travel-times): Peak travel times are the days, weeks and seasons when travel demand is highest, which shows up as busier airports and a destination's highest hotel prices.
- [Rack rate](https://engine.com/glossary/rack-rate): A rack rate is a hotel's full price for a room, with no negotiated discount applied.
- [RevPAR](https://engine.com/glossary/revpar): RevPAR (revenue per available room) is a hotel's room revenue divided by the total rooms it had available for the period, whether they sold or not.

## Group stays

- [Group booking](https://engine.com/glossary/group-booking): A group booking is a hotel reservation of many rooms for people traveling together, like a crew, a team or wedding guests, usually set up as a room block under one contract.
- [MICE](https://engine.com/glossary/mice): MICE stands for meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions, the share of business travel built around group events, from one-day meetings to trade shows that run up to a week.
- [Room block](https://engine.com/glossary/room-block): A room block is a set of hotel rooms held for one group under a single contract, at a rate negotiated for the whole block.

## Paying for hotels

- [Hotel billback](https://engine.com/glossary/hotel-billback): A hotel billback is when a hotel invoices the employer after checkout instead of charging the traveler for the stay. Hotel applications call it direct bill, and so do the buyers we talk to, far more often than billback.

## Air travel

- [Airline reservation system](https://engine.com/glossary/airline-reservation-system): An airline reservation system is a computer system that holds flight schedules, seat availability and fares, and may also be used to make reservations and issue tickets.
- [Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC)](https://engine.com/glossary/airlines-reporting-corporation): The Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC) is the company that accredits US travel agencies to issue airline tickets and settles the money from those sales between agencies and airlines.
- [Automatic rebooking](https://engine.com/glossary/automatic-rebooking): Automatic rebooking is when an airline moves you to a new flight on its own after it cancels, significantly delays or significantly changes your original flight.
- [Change fee](https://engine.com/glossary/change-fee): A change fee is a charge an airline adds when you move a ticket to a different flight or date, on top of any difference in fare.
- [Flexible fare](https://engine.com/glossary/flexible-fare): A flexible fare is an airline ticket that lets travelers change details like the departure date, time or destination without penalty, in exchange for a higher price upfront.
- [Itinerary](https://engine.com/glossary/itinerary): An itinerary is the single document that lays out a trip in time order, from how you get there and where you stay to who you meet and who to call if something happens.
- [New Distribution Capability (NDC)](https://engine.com/glossary/new-distribution-capability): New Distribution Capability (NDC) is an XML-based data standard, launched by IATA, that lets travel sellers shop, order, pay for and service airline products through an API.
- [Nonrefundable ticket](https://engine.com/glossary/nonrefundable-ticket): A nonrefundable ticket is an airline ticket you can't cancel for cash; if you cancel before departure, most airlines give a travel credit instead, minus any fee.
- [Passenger name record (PNR)](https://engine.com/glossary/passenger-name-record): A passenger name record (PNR) is an airline's record of a passenger's travel requirements, holding the information needed to process and control the reservation for each journey booked.
- [Refundable ticket](https://engine.com/glossary/refundable-ticket): A refundable ticket is an airfare you can cancel and get your money back for, as long as you follow the airline's fare rules.
- [Same-day change](https://engine.com/glossary/same-day-change): A same-day change is a request to move to a different flight on the same calendar day as your original flight.

## Cars and ground transport

- [Airport transfer](https://engine.com/glossary/airport-transfer): An airport transfer is a ride that carries a traveler and their bags between an airport and another destination.
- [Car allowance](https://engine.com/glossary/car-allowance): A car allowance is an amount an employer pays employees for the business use of their own cars, usually a fixed sum each pay period regardless of miles driven.
- [Car rental agreement](https://engine.com/glossary/car-rental-agreement): A car rental agreement is the contract between a renter and a rental car company that sets who may drive, when and where the car goes back, and what the renter owes for fuel, fees and damage.
- [Collision damage waiver](https://engine.com/glossary/collision-damage-waiver): A collision damage waiver (CDW) is an optional add-on in which the rental car company agrees to waive all or part of your responsibility for damage to, or theft of, the rental car.
- [Mileage reimbursement](https://engine.com/glossary/mileage-reimbursement): Mileage reimbursement is what an employer pays employees back for driving their own vehicles for work, usually business miles times a per-mile rate such as the IRS standard rate.
- [One-way car rental](https://engine.com/glossary/one-way-car-rental): A one-way car rental is a rental car you pick up at one location and return to a different one, usually at extra cost.
- [Premium location charge](https://engine.com/glossary/premium-location-charge): A premium location charge is a fee some rental car companies add when you rent from a high-cost location, such as an airport, train station or city center, to cover the extra operating costs there.

## Travel policy and approvals

- [Approval workflow](https://engine.com/glossary/approval-workflow): A travel approval workflow is the set of rules that decides which bookings need sign-off, who approves them, how approvers are notified and how fast they need to answer.
- [Bleisure travel](https://engine.com/glossary/bleisure-travel): Bleisure travel is extending a business trip to add personal time, such as staying through the weekend after the work wraps up, so one trip covers both.
- [Corporate travel policy](https://engine.com/glossary/corporate-travel-policy): A corporate travel policy is a company's written rules for how employees book, expense and behave on work trips, including what the company pays for and who approves travel.
- [Designated booker](https://engine.com/glossary/designated-booker): A designated booker is a person authorized to book business travel for other employees, such as an office manager, executive assistant or travel coordinator, within the permissions the company sets.
- [Duty of care](https://engine.com/glossary/duty-of-care): Duty of care is an organization's moral responsibility or legal requirement to protect the people it sends on work travel from hazards and threats.
- [Preferred supplier](https://engine.com/glossary/preferred-supplier): A preferred supplier is an airline, hotel chain, rental car agency or other travel provider on a company's approved list, often one it has negotiated rates or service terms with.
- [Travel cancellation insurance](https://engine.com/glossary/travel-cancellation-insurance): Travel cancellation insurance reimburses prepaid, nonrefundable trip costs when you can't take a trip for a reason your policy covers.
- [Travel insurance](https://engine.com/glossary/travel-insurance): Travel insurance is coverage for some or all of a trip's costs, such as flights, lodging and medical emergencies, when something unexpected happens before or during the trip.
- [Travel policy compliance](https://engine.com/glossary/travel-policy-compliance): Travel policy compliance is how closely employees' bookings and travel spending follow the company's travel policy, from nightly hotel caps and cabin class to approvals and booking channels.
- [Travel request form](https://engine.com/glossary/travel-request-form): A travel request form is the document an employee submits before a business trip to get approval to spend, covering where they're going, when, why and roughly what it will cost.
- [Travel risk management](https://engine.com/glossary/travel-risk-management): Travel risk management (TRM) is the coordinated set of activities an organization uses to manage the risks, to itself and its travelers, that come from work travel.
- [Trip interruption insurance](https://engine.com/glossary/trip-interruption-insurance): Trip interruption insurance reimburses prepaid, nonrefundable travel costs when you have to delay or cut short a trip for a reason your policy covers.

## Travel management

- [Agent-assisted booking](https://engine.com/glossary/agent-assisted-booking): Agent-assisted booking is a travel reservation made with a human travel agent, by phone or in person, instead of online by the traveler.
- [Business travel](https://engine.com/glossary/business-travel): Business travel is travel for work, such as client visits, training sessions, trade shows and internal meetings, taken outside a person's usual work area.
- [Business trip](https://engine.com/glossary/business-trip): A business trip is a trip for work away from the general area where you normally work, long enough that you need sleep or rest before working again.
- [Global distribution system (GDS)](https://engine.com/glossary/global-distribution-system): A global distribution system (GDS) is a computer network that brings airlines', hotels' and rental car brands' inventory, prices and availability together for travel agencies and corporate travel departments to book.
- [Travel agent](https://engine.com/glossary/travel-agent): A travel agent is a person who plans and sells transportation and accommodations, booking flights, hotels and rental cars for customers and sometimes selling full trip packages.
- [Travel booking](https://engine.com/glossary/travel-booking): Travel booking is reserving the flights, hotels and rental cars for a trip; for work trips, each booking also has to follow company policy and show up in billing and finance reporting.
- [Travel voucher](https://engine.com/glossary/travel-voucher): A travel voucher is either a credit an airline issues toward future travel, or the form a government or institutional traveler files after a trip to claim reimbursement.
- [Traveler profile](https://engine.com/glossary/traveler-profile): A traveler profile is the stored set of details about one traveler, such as legal name, date of birth, loyalty numbers and seat or room preferences, reused on every booking.

## Expenses and budgets

- [Audit trail](https://engine.com/glossary/audit-trail): An audit trail is a chronological record that lets someone reconstruct the sequence of activities behind a transaction, from its start to its result.
- [Automated expense reporting](https://engine.com/glossary/automated-expense-reporting): Automated expense reporting is the use of software to capture, categorize and match business expenses as they happen, so the expense report is nearly done when the trip ends.
- [Business expense](https://engine.com/glossary/business-expense): A business expense is a cost of operating your business, and to be tax deductible it must be both ordinary and necessary.
- [Cost allocation](https://engine.com/glossary/cost-allocation): Cost allocation is assigning a cost, or a group of costs, to one or more cost objectives, such as a department, contract or project, so each carries its share.
- [Cost center](https://engine.com/glossary/cost-center): A cost center is a part of an organization, such as a unit, function, project or activity, set up to accumulate costs so its managers can control them.
- [Cost control](https://engine.com/glossary/cost-control): Cost control is using cost information to compare actual spending with budgets, find the reasons for any difference and act to reduce costs and avoid waste.
- [Expense approval](https://engine.com/glossary/expense-approval): Expense approval is the step where a manager, and often finance, reviews an employee's submitted business expenses and signs off before they are reimbursed.
- [Expense categories](https://engine.com/glossary/expense-categories): Expense categories are the groups, like lodging, airfare, ground transportation and meals, that a company sorts business spending into for reporting and accounting.
- [Expense claim](https://engine.com/glossary/expense-claim): An expense claim is an employee's request to be paid back for business expenses, usually made on an expense report with receipts attached.
- [Expense fraud](https://engine.com/glossary/expense-fraud): Expense fraud is when an employee claims reimbursement for business expenses that were made up, inflated, personal or already paid.
- [Expense management software](https://engine.com/glossary/expense-management-software): Expense management software runs the cycle of employee expense submission, approval and payment, from capturing receipts to routing reports for approval and triggering reimbursement.
- [Expense policy](https://engine.com/glossary/expense-policy): An expense policy is a company's written rules for which work expenses it pays for, the spending limits, how to document them and how employees get reimbursed.
- [Expense reconciliation](https://engine.com/glossary/expense-reconciliation): Expense reconciliation is matching each charge, such as a line on a card statement, to its proof (a receipt, invoice or folio) and coding it so the general ledger stays accurate.
- [Expense report](https://engine.com/glossary/expense-report): An expense report is the document an employee submits after a work trip to request reimbursement, itemizing what was spent, when and on what, with the total owed.
- [Expense tracking](https://engine.com/glossary/expense-tracking): Expense tracking is recording each business expense as it happens, with a receipt or other document that proves it, so the books show where money went.
- [Itemized receipt](https://engine.com/glossary/itemized-receipt): An itemized receipt is a receipt that lists each charge in a transaction separately, such as items, taxes and tips, instead of showing only the total.
- [Out-of-pocket expense](https://engine.com/glossary/out-of-pocket-expense): An out-of-pocket expense is a work cost an employee pays with their own money, such as a hotel night or a meal on a business trip, and then claims back from the employer.
- [Per diem](https://engine.com/glossary/per-diem): Per diem is a fixed daily allowance an employer pays for lodging and meals and incidental expenses (M&IE) when an employee travels away from home on business.
- [Receipt management](https://engine.com/glossary/receipt-management): Receipt management is how a business collects, checks and stores the receipts behind employee expenses, so it can reimburse people, hold spending to policy and support its tax records.
- [Reimbursable expense](https://engine.com/glossary/reimbursable-expense): A reimbursable expense is a work cost an employee pays that the company has agreed to pay back, such as airfare, a hotel stay, transport, meals or parking on a business trip.
- [Reimbursement](https://engine.com/glossary/reimbursement): Reimbursement is an employer paying an employee back for business expenses the employee paid upfront, such as a hotel, meal or mileage, after the employee submits proof of the expense.
- [Spend management](https://engine.com/glossary/spend-management): Spend management is how a company controls and tracks its spending across the business, from procurement and supplier contracts to employee expenses like travel, using set rules, tools and spending data.
- [Spend visibility](https://engine.com/glossary/spend-visibility): Spend visibility is a company's ability to see what it is spending and where, filterable by department, project, team or cost code. Real-time spend visibility means seeing those costs before the invoices arrive.
- [Travel and expense (T&E)](https://engine.com/glossary/travel-and-expense): Travel and expense (T&E) is the cost of employee business travel, typically airfare, ground transportation, lodging and meals, plus incidentals like tips and laundry.
- [Travel budget](https://engine.com/glossary/travel-budget): A travel budget is a company's planned spend on business travel, broken into categories like flights, lodging, meals, ground transportation and incidentals, for one trip or a longer period.
- [Travel expense management](https://engine.com/glossary/travel-expense-management): Travel expense management is the process a company uses to set rules for, pay, document, reimburse and reconcile employee travel costs.
- [VAT reclaim](https://engine.com/glossary/vat-reclaim): VAT reclaim is how a business gets back value added tax (VAT) it paid on business costs in a country where it isn't registered for VAT, by filing a refund claim under that country's rules.

## Cards and payments

- [Blanket purchase order](https://engine.com/glossary/blanket-purchase-order): A blanket purchase order is a purchase order set up to allow repeated purchases from one vendor, up to a dollar limit, under a single agreement.
- [Cash advance](https://engine.com/glossary/cash-advance): A cash advance, in business travel, is an expense allowance an employer pays before the trip, which the employee later accounts for and returns any part not spent.
- [Corporate card](https://engine.com/glossary/corporate-card): A corporate card is a card a company issues to employees for work-related expenses, commonly business travel and client entertainment.
- [Dunning](https://engine.com/glossary/dunning): Dunning is the process of sending notices to a customer whose invoice is past due, alerting them to the delinquency and asking for payment.
- [Electronic funds transfer (EFT)](https://engine.com/glossary/electronic-funds-transfer): An electronic funds transfer (EFT) is any transfer of money, other than one started by cash or paper check, initiated through a terminal, phone or computer to debit or credit an account.
- [Foreign currency exchange](https://engine.com/glossary/foreign-currency-exchange): Foreign currency exchange is converting money from one currency into another at an exchange rate, the rate at which one currency may be converted into another.
- [Foreign transaction fee](https://engine.com/glossary/foreign-transaction-fee): A foreign transaction fee is a card fee charged when you pay in a foreign currency, buy outside the U.S. or buy from a foreign merchant, usually a percentage of the purchase.
- [Level 3 data](https://engine.com/glossary/level-3-data): Level 3 data is invoice detail sent with a card transaction that breaks the purchase into its individual items, with information such as quantity, unit price and tax.
- [Merchant category code](https://engine.com/glossary/merchant-category-code): A merchant category code (MCC) is a four-digit number assigned to a merchant to describe its primary business, such as 7011 for hotels, motels and resorts.
- [Petty cash](https://engine.com/glossary/petty-cash): Petty cash is a fixed fund of currency or coin, held by a cashier, that a business uses to make small payments without writing checks for small amounts.
- [Purchasing card (P-card)](https://engine.com/glossary/purchasing-card): A purchasing card (P-card) is a charge card an organization gives employees to order and pay for supplies and services, with spending limits and merchant blocks it controls.
- [Virtual card](https://engine.com/glossary/virtual-card): A virtual card is a digital payment card, issued through a website or app from a financial institution, that can be limited to a set amount, merchant or time period.