Corporate travel glossary
Online booking tool (OBT)
Also called: OBT · self-booking tool · SBT · corporate booking platform
An online booking tool is the software employees use to book their own business travel within policy. It searches fares and rates, applies the travel policy at the moment of booking, routes the request for approval where a rule demands it, and issues the booking through an agency or directly with the supplier.
In practice
- Fares come from a GDS, direct airline connections, an aggregator, or a combination
- Policy is applied while the traveller is choosing, not reviewed after the fact
- Out-of-policy options are hidden, flagged, or allowed against a reason code
- Approval is triggered by rule — cost, class, destination or advance-purchase window
- Completed bookings feed expense, traveller tracking and spend reporting
Why it matters
A tool that reports violations after booking changes nothing, because the fare is already committed and a change carries a cost. Enforcement at the point of booking is the difference between a policy that holds and a policy that gets quoted in a quarterly review.