The Travel team is regularly adding to the list of preferred partners for air travel, lodging and car rentals, helping to keep costs lower for you and the university. There’s also a dedicated group of employees constantly evaluating and negotiating rates to ensure maximum value.  

Additionally, if the cost of a traveler’s airfare or hotel rates go down after the initial booking, their ticket and hotel may be rebooked at the lower rate.  

• Airfare: Post-ticketing re-shopping continues to search for lower fares and will automatically rebook a flight up to 12 hours prior to departure. Your itinerary will automatically update with the lower fare while maintaining the original booking. 

• Hotel/Lodging: Post-booking, re-shopping checks for lower hotel rates occur up to 24 hours prior to check-in, ensuring you receive the best room rate if prices drop. Your itinerary automatically updates with lower rates while maintaining the original booking. 

When you book through Concur, you’ll have direct access to expert travel agents with Christopherson Business Travel (CBT). These agents can help you navigate ticket changes and trip cancellations, travel emergencies, and can help convert cancelled tickets into usable credits.  

Consider CBT your personal travel agents—available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

The university offers multiple payment solutions to help reduce or eliminate the need for employees to pay for business travel personally and the need to wait for reimbursement after travel. Whenever possible, travelers and arrangers should use one of the following options:  

University Airfare Card 

A company card that can be used to book flights for employees and guests. Reservations and expenses automatically load into Concur and can be reassigned to the appropriate traveler and chartfield.  

Hotel Card (Conferma) 

A virtual company card that can be used to secure and pay for hotel lodging for employees and guests. Reservations and expenses automatically load into Concur and can be reassigned to the appropriate traveler and chartfield.  

Travel Cards (Individual & Arranger) 

Travel cards are issued to employees and can be used to pay for travel expenses directly. These are managed by the Card Services team – see Card Basics – Purchasing 

• Individual Travel Card: For a traveler’s own trip expenses 

• Arranger Card: For booking travel on behalf of others or groups 

Booking in Concur maximizes efficiency in several ways.  

Using the Concur mobile app, you can capture and upload receipts as they occur in real time. This eliminates the need to retain paper receipts for documentation; once uploaded, the system retains them for you.  

When you upload those receipts directly to Concur (either through the app or the website), an AI assistant automatically categorizes and itemizes the receipt, so all you need to do is review the report for accuracy before submitting.  

Booking through Concur also lowers the processing fee required to generate expense reports.  

When the university pays expenses directly, the transactions are automatically loaded into your Concur profile for easier processing overall.  

When you’re on the road for the University of Utah, the institution has a duty to account for your location and take immediate action to help you in the event of an emergency. This includes both emergencies in your location and elsewhere in the travel network.  

If the travel network is impacted, it may impact your ability to travel home safely. When you book directly in network—through Concur or CBT—resources are available to help get you home safely.  

All employees and students participating in University-related international travel are covered by a centrally funded blanket insurance plan. Learn how to enroll here.

Booking travel through the University of Utah’s approved systems makes it easier to stay on track. Airfare, lodging and car rentals booked in-system make guidelines visible to travelers and automatically flow into Concur, helping simplify expense reporting.  

These tools give you the compliant choices—including contracted vendors, economical rates and requirements such as Fly America—so you don’t have to navigate policies on your own. By using these options, travelers can feel confident they’re meeting university requirements while keeping things simple and organized.