Effective January 1, 2025, U-M’s mileage reimbursement rate increased to 70.0 cents per mile to reflect federal guidelines. The rate applies to the use of personal vehicles for travel related to university business. If you are submitting mileage for travel that commenced on or before December 31, the 2024 rate of 67.0 cents per mile will apply.

For more information on mileage reimbursement, see Expense Reporting.

Effective February 7, 2025, base rates for Metro Cars rides will increase by $5 per ride. The new rates will continue to reflect the 10 percent discount applied to Metro Car’s retail rates and an 18 percent automatic gratuity.

For more information, please visit  Metro Car’s supplier pages for executive car and charter bus/shuttle services.

Recently updated University-Wide Agreements with hotels in the Ann Arbor area allow units to take advantage of a simplified event planning process. These agreements cover terms and conditions for booking guest rooms, meeting and banquet spaces, food and beverage services, and audio-visual services. Pricing is market-based and, therefore, rates are not negotiated as part of the agreements.

The agreements also permit departments to directly approve event confirmations without approval from Procurement Services, as long as the event:

• Is within the scope of the master agreement 
• Totals $75,000 or less
• References the master agreement or contract number on the confirmation

Approval may include signing the event confirmation or another method requested by the local hotel, such as agreeing via email.

This Knowledge Base Article includes a list of local hotel contracts and details about payment methods, taxes, and pricing.

Note: Approval by departments does not supersede the terms and conditions of the master agreements negotiated by Procurement Services or the signature authority of Procurement Services.

As of last November, U.S. nationals are now required to obtain Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) to enter the UK. 

United States nationals have the following options to apply for an ETA:

• Direct: Travelers can apply via the official UK government website for a non-refundable rate of £10 (approximately $12.50).
• Third-party: CIBTvisas facilitates the application process between the traveler and destination country. As such, CIBTvisas has its own service rate and fee structure. 

The December 2024 issue of Travel Program News featured an article with more details about the ETA requirement. 

We encourage you to thoroughly review the ETA information, rates and fees, and terms for any agency or service you consider before submitting your application.

U-M employees sometimes ask about the differences in airfare pricing between Lightning and airline websites. Some even compare the two to determine if using Collegiate Travel Planners (CTP), U-M’s designated travel partner, is worth it from a pricing standpoint.

While it’s perfectly fine to compare prices, it’s crucial to ensure that an apples-to-apples comparison is done. In most cases, it’s more cost effective—and convenient—to use Lightning when booking airfare.

That’s because the discounts negotiated through U-M’s preferred airlines—Delta Airlines, United Airlines, and Southwest Airlines—are loaded into the CTP Lightning booking tool. Thanks to these negotiated discounts, booking travel through CTP is generally less expensive than booking directly with airlines. And beyond cost savings, booking through CTP offers the added advantage of 24/7 agent support if your travel plans are disrupted in any way.

Key points:

• Price alerts in Lightning: The initial pricing in Lightning reflects the base fare for your selected flights. At the bottom of the page, a “PRICE ALERT!” message indicates that Lightning will search for a lower price before your booking is finalized. The bundled, discounted fare (if applicable) is displayed on the final confirmation page after clicking “Continue (Skip Seat Selection).” In most cases, this final price is lower than that shown on airline websites.
• Booking flexibility: Lightning allows users to select flights from different carriers for each leg of a trip. This flexibility means the bundled fare isn’t displayed until the final step.
• Price matching: If you encounter the rare scenario where Lightning’s final price is higher than the price shown on an airline’s website, this Knowledge Base Article provides step-by-step guidance on resolving the discrepancy.
• Planned enhancements: To improve the booking experience, we’re testing a feature that will display bundled fares upfront on the initial search results page. This enhancement will reduce confusion and streamline the process.

Recent price comparisons:

Recent airfare searches with three of U-M’s preferred airlines indicated that Lightning consistently provided lower fares than the airlines’ websites. The findings are shown in the screenshot links below:

• Delta Airlines
• United Airlines
• Southwest Airlines

We appreciate your attention to U-M travel guidelines and support of our partnership with CTP. By booking through CTP, you’re not only saving money for your unit, but also ensuring a seamless travel experience backed by 24/7 support.

CTP recently added the following features to Lightning’s search capabilities: 

• SAF scores—CTP added Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) scores to each flight option when booking online in Lightning. The score represents the airline’s overall SAF score and informs travelers of how well that particular airline is doing with its commitments, purchases, and adoption of alternative jet fuels.

• New flight sort options—Flight search results can now be sorted by two new options: latest departure and latest arrival. These two options sort available flights according to the time entered on the search page (e.g., search results for 11 a.m. flights that are sorted by latest departure will list the flights closest to that departure time, with earlier flights listed in descending order). 

• New car rental sort options—Car rental search results can now be sorted by daily rate or total amount. The daily rate sort will list the options according to the lowest daily rate. The total amount sort option takes into account the total number of days and calculates the lowest amount of the car rental and sorts according to the lowest total amount. This sort option may be preferable when daily rates fluctuate throughout the duration of the rental period.

All rail bookings made through Collegiate Travel Planners (CTP) are now charged directly to the university’s Central Travel Account (CTA). This updated process simplifies payments and ensures a more seamless and consistent experience for travelers.

These charges will appear in the arranger’s Emburse Enterprise profile and the receipt will follow within a few days. The same process already occurs with airfare and service fee charges. A CTA transaction should only be added to an expense report once it is matched to the receipt.

U-M business travelers can earn up to 30,000 Rapid Rewards bonus points this semester by taking advantage of an offer from Southwest Airlines.

The only requirements are to book through CTP, the university’s designated travel partner, ensure your Rapid Rewards number is added to your profile, and complete your qualifying flights between January 15 and April 15, 2025.

The bonus point reward tiers are:

• Earn 5,000 bonus points: Book and fly two qualifying round trip flights (or four qualifying one-way flights).

• Earn 15,000 bonus points: Book and fly three qualifying round trip flights (or six qualifying one-way flights).

• Earn 30,000 bonus points: Book and fly four qualifying round trip flights (or eight qualifying one-way flights).

Learn more about and register for this opportunity at Southwest's Loyalty Offer page. You will be prompted to log in to your Rapid Rewards account to access the offer.

A number of enhancements were recently made to Emburse Enterprise (formerly known as Chrome River). Many of the updates—listed below—resulted from user feedback. 

• Additional vacation delegate—Employees can now add a second vacation delegate to their profile, provided the dates for each do not overlap.

• Unpaid cash advance burst reports—Default approvers will now receive a notification when the expense owner has unreconciled cash advance expenses. The expense owner already receives an automated notification.

• Hosting category added to hotel itemization—The Hosting expense type has been added as an option under the Hotel Itemization interface. It should be used when restaurant meals charged to a room are related to hosting a guest, donor, or in rare cases, colleagues during which business discussions take place. As a reminder, all room service and personal meals should be itemized as personal expenses for payroll deduction. Employees traveling for U-M business should claim per diem to cover personal meals and mark all hosted meals as provided in the per diem wizard.

• Emburse Enterprise expanded reporting—Emburse Enterprise reporting is now available in Tableau and Business Objects. Department managers receive monthly email reminders to review these reports. Tableau has the ability to email reports directly to recipients. For more information, refer to this Knowledge Base Article.

We welcome your feedback on these changes and any suggestions for future updates to Emburse Enterprise.

As CTP’s #1 customer for its proprietary online travel booking tool, U-M is offering Lightning Feedback Sessions in February and April. You are invited to join us at our upcoming sessions to share your suggestions and feedback about Lightning.

Office hours Q&A and training sessions will continue, with representatives from both CTP and the U-M Travel Program available to answer your travel-related questions.

Please see the schedule below for details on the upcoming sessions. We look forward to seeing you and encourage you to add these dates to your calendar.

• February 6, 2025, 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.—Q&A
• February 12, 2025, 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.—Training
• February 20, 2025, 2 p.m. to 3 p.m.—Lightning Feedback Session (New!)
• March 6, 2025,1 p.m. to 2 p.m.—Q&A
• March 12, 2025, 2 p.m. to 3 p.m.—Training
• April 2, 2025, 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.—Lightning Feedback Session (New!)

Note: The Zoom link and passcode below can be used for all sessions:

https://umich.zoom.us/j/96013633019

Passcode: 684564

Dates for additional sessions will be published on the Procurement Services travel webpage as they are scheduled.

We encourage you to join the U-M Travel Program’s Slack channel, #travel-program, to stay up-to-date on all things related to U-M travel, including program updates, announcements, travel tips, events, and more. 

If you haven’t heard of Slack, we encourage you to check it out! Creating an account is easy and we hope to see you on Slack soon!