Managing Brex travel

Overview

Brex travel is your all-in-one solution for booking and managing travel and group events, integrated with our expense management software and corporate cards. This is a managed travel solution that gives you complete control over your team’s travel bookings. You can use it to track company booking, set policies, and manage travel-related expenses, all from within your Brex app or dashboard. Once you’ve set up all of your preferences, your team can start booking for themselves just as easily. Compare this to an unmanaged travel experience, where your team may have to book on a third-party platform and manually keep track of the details. Many organizations who start with unmanaged travel often transition to a managed travel program for greater control, cost savings, and employee safety.

Enabling travel

To book and manage trips with Brex travel, you can use the Trips tab in your Brex dashboard or also your Brex app’s Trips page. Add personal details to your traveler profile like loyalty programs and other travel preferences. Essentials Account and card admins can enable Brex travel in Company settings > Plan by clicking Enable travel. PremiumEnterpriseSmart card Account and card admins can request that a Brex representative enable Brex travel for them by going to Company settings > Plan > and clicking Talk to Sales.

Add and edit users

If you have Brex travel enabled on your account, account admins, card admins, and user management admins can customize a user’s permission. To do so, go to Team and click on the team member whose permissions you want to adjust. Under Roles & access toggle Access Brex travel on or off. Note: You can only add users for business travel/non-leisure purposes. All Brex travel users must be 18 years of age or older. Users can access the Trips tab in their dashboard after they’ve accepted their invitation to Brex. Employees, account admins, card admins, and travel admins can request travel spend limits, book travel, and enable other employees at the company to book travel on their behalf. This includes designated managers with these role types.

Deactivated users

Upcoming trips

If a user's account is deactivated, any upcoming bookings made under that account will remain valid unless they are canceled. To view and manage these bookings, account and card admins can either generate a booking report or contact Brex travel support. There are two options for handling these bookings:

1. Cancel the booking(s) and forfeit any payment made.
2. Cancel the booking(s) and request a refund or credit directly from the provider.

Airline credits

Depending on the circumstances, you might be able to transfer airline credits from a deactivated user account to a collective company pool of credits. Please reach out to Brex travel support to begin this process.

Traveler profile

To start booking with Brex travel, start by completing your traveler profile under Trips > Manage profile in your Brex dashboard or tapping the settings icon in the top right of your screen in your Brex app and going to Travel > Traveler profile. Customize your profile with your contact information, preferences, loyalty programs, etc. to make the booking process faster in the future.

Add booking to calendar

You can add your bookings to Google Calendar, Outlook, Apple Calendar, Office 365, and Yahoo Calendar from the dashboard or app by following these steps: Step 1: Go to Trips or, after you’ve booked a trip, click Manage booking in your confirmation email. Step 2: Click the booking. Step 3: Under the Booked on date, click Add to calendar.

Travel spend limits

Choose a travel spend limit

With Brex travel, every trip will be assigned to the travel spend limit that you designate prior to booking. Travel can be booked using the card tied to the travel spend limit or, if eligible, a personal credit card. The designated spend limit must be able to accommodate the cost of the trip or the booking will fail. A travel spend limit is often provided to you if you’re invited to an event but if there is no spend limit listed, you can request a new travel spend limit. PremiumEnterpriseSmart card In your travel spend limit request, you can provide a trip name, the purpose of the trip, means of travel, destination, proposed departure dates, and a spend limit. Once the requested spend limit has been approved, you can begin booking. 

Create/request travel spend limit

Step 1: Request a travel spend limit. Note: You won’t be able to modify the existing fields. Step 2: Under How you are traveling, select either round trip air, one-way air, or other. Step 3: Under From, enter in your departing airport. Under To, enter in your arrival airport. Step 4: Under Depart on, enter in your departing date. Under Return on, enter in your arrival date. Step 5: Under Location of stay, enter your city of stay. Step 6: Toggle I don’t know my travel dates to either on or off.

• If you don’t know your travel dates or if your trip involves multiple cities, toggle the button on.
• If you do know your travel dates or if your travel does not involve multiple cities, leave the toggle off.

Whether the toggle is on or off, you can manually enter the spend limit amount you think you need to take your trip under Spend limit to request. If you’re not sure what limit to give your travel spend limit, your dashboard can generate a suggested dollar amount after you enter your trip details.

Assign travel spend limit

Assign your travel spend limit to your Brex card prior to your trip so that your current and future incurred travel expenses map correctly. Before your trip, we’ll send a push notification to your mobile device reminding you to switch your card to the correct travel spend limit. By tapping the notification and following the in-app instructions, you can select the right travel spend limit. You can also press and hold the notification directly to activate your travel spend limit. Travel spend limits generally aren’t relevant anymore after your trip ends, so we’ll send you another push notification after your trip to reassign your card to your original spend limit. You can tap the notification to follow the in-app instructions and select the right spend limit. You can also press and hold the notification directly to change your spend limit.

Manage travel spend limit requests

To manage and view travel spend limit requests, the spend limit approver will see approval requests in their dashboard. When a spend limit is given a soft limit, employees can spend above their limit threshold but the transaction will be flagged for review. By default, account, card, and travel admins are set as approvers of these transactions, though they can either designate a different user to act as final approver or add an additional approver. Adding an additional approver creates a chain of approvals that will go to the designated approver first and the admin second. Approvers — account, card, travel admin, or someone they’ve designated — can view, manage, and approve trip spend limit requests or flexible spend limit overages in their dashboard Tasks.

Approvals

Configure approvals

You can customize your approval settings on a policy-by-policy basis by editing the policy and enabling Brex travel airline, lodging, or car spend policy categories. You cannot configure policies at the policy rule level.

Out-of-policy booking approvals

Out-of-policy booking approvals let you determine how your employees’ out-of-policy bookings will be addressed so that your organization maintains travel compliance. You can either require that the booking be sent to you for approval or have the booking automatically confirmed. If the booking is automatically confirmed, you’ll receive a notification and can cancel the booking if you choose to. If you choose to require admin approval, bookings will be canceled automatically if not approved before the booking void window* expires. If you choose to receive notifications, you can cancel an employee’s travel booking before the void window expires at no charge. You won’t need to take any action if you choose to forgo out-of-policy booking approvals. *The booking void window is the time period between the travel being booked and the payment being processed. The length of the void window depends on the travel vendor—some vendors may delay the charge while others process it shortly after booking.

Trip fees

Brex may charge a single fee per trip, which can include an itinerary with multiple bookings. A trip is created by booking a flight, hotel, or rental car with additional bookings added. You can add another booking to an existing trip without a charge, but every new trip created will incur a trip fee.

Receipts

If enabled, receipts are automatically generated and attached to bookings whenever we can match your booking details to the amount of the transaction on your Brex card for airfare, prepaid lodging, or prepaid car rental purchases. If we cannot automatically generate a receipt but your travel expense requires one, you can provide documentation using one of the following methods:

Option 1: Booking confirmation email

You can download the original booking confirmation email in your inbox—which typically includes a PDF version of your booking—and upload it to the corresponding transaction.

Option 2: Download itinerary via the Brex dashboard or mobile app

To retrieve the itinerary from your Brex account: Step 1: From your Brex dashboard or mobile app, go to Trips. Step 2: Click or tap the relevant trip and, in the Booking details window, click or tap View booking. Step 3: Choose Download and attach the downloaded itinerary to the related expense in Expenses. For more information, please refer to this help article.

Option 3: Hotel folio

You can ask the hotel for a hotel folio upon checkout if it isn’t automatically provided at the front desk or sent via email following your stay. For more information, please refer to this help article.

Refunds

Trip fee refunds

We understand that unexpected changes can happen, but trip fees are generally nonrefundable. However, in the unlikely event of a ticketing failure, a refund will be issued for the trip fee. Note: Refunds cannot be provided in the form of Brex points. If the airline cancels the flight, we’ll refund the booking fee you incurred as part of your ticket purchase. This refund only applies when the airline initiates the cancellation, and not when you cancel your booking on your own accord.

Booking refunds

If the reservation you’re canceling is refundable, you may be eligible for a full or partial refund based on the terms and conditions of the reservation. Contact the travel website or the airline/hotel directly for the status of your refund request. You may need to provide documentation, such as a confirmation number, booking details, and payment information to process the refund. The refund process can take several days or weeks to complete, however, the US Department of Transportation advises that airlines issue refunds within seven business days. If your reservation is nonrefundable, you may not be entitled to a refund. Nonrefundable reservations are typically less expensive than refundable ones, but come with stricter cancellation policies. If you initiate the refund due to a change in plans, the refund policies depend on whether the booking was made as refundable or nonrefundable. If the airline cancels the flight, you are generally entitled to a full refund, regardless of the booking type. Please carefully review the terms and conditions of your booking before confirming your reservation, and contact the travel website or airline/hotel directly if you have any questions about their refund policies.

Reports

New for Spring Travel admins can see Brex travel booking data through Reports > Travel to evaluate how their travel program is performing, which they can customize to see the insights most relevant to their company.

These default stock reports can include widgets like top booking policy violations, top booked flights/airlines, top hotels, top destinations, top departments booking travel, top travelers, domestic and international booking, and unused credit reports that can be customized. Travel admins can even create custom filters or download the booking table, which contains all fields available across all types of bookings, i.e., flights, lodging, car rental, and rail.

To create the reports, you can add additional widgets by clicking `Add Widget` in the top right corner.

Troubleshooting/FAQs

Add booking to an existing trip

By consolidating related bookings into a trip, you only need to pay a single trip fee, rather than a trip fee per booking. You can do this by changing New trip in the trip’s drop-down on the Trips page while making a new booking to that of your desired existing booking.

Brex travel trip IDs

A Brex travel trip ID is generated whenever you make a booking for a new trip via Brex. This 10-digit number can be found on the Trips page in both the Brex app and dashboard, or in the booking confirmation email. You’ll need to provide this ID when contacting Brex travel support. To copy the number, click or tap on the ID.

Credit card authorization

When you book a trip or select a paid seat, our systems verify your payment method by requesting authorization for the total amount of your booking, which can result in multiple charges appearing on your card. This authorization is a temporary hold on your funds that ensures your payment method is valid and has sufficient funds to cover the transaction. These authorizations are temporary holds and won’t result in multiple charges to your account. Typically, the authorizations will automatically expire within a few business days. Note: Authorizations may fail due to insufficient funds, an expired card, etc. If this happens, we’ll reattempt to authorize the payment method. This can result in multiple authorizations being placed on your account until getting a successful authorization.

Copilot

If you have copilots enabled, they can enter copilot mode and book on behalf of others. When Person A (the copilot) books on behalf of Person B (the delegator), Person B’s spend limit will be used for the booking, and both A & B will receive the booking confirmation.

Currencies

Your search results will be visible in the currency of the spend limit used for your booking. Once you select a booking option, you will see the currency of the transaction based on your assigned entity and the local currency of the inventory.

New Distribution Capability (NDC)

For more information on how Brex travel supports NDC integrations or what an NDC is, please see these articles:

• What is NDC (New Distribution Capability)
• How Brex travel supports NDC

Travel insurance

Please review World Elite Mastercard benefits to learn more about the coverage options available with your Brex card.