After months of designing, planning and testing work, today we are excited to unveil a number of new enhancements to our travel booking tool, Concur Cliqbook Travel, and our flagship product, Concur Travel & Expense. We’ve made some big changes to the look, feel and performance of Concur Cliqbook Travel, and hope that travelers will enjoy using it as much as we do. The new user interface is easy to navigate, customize and in our opinion is downright good looking.

I’m one of the original architects and principal software engineers behind Concur’s market-leading travel technology. Back in the late 90’s, while at Outtask, I helped develop the original travel booking tool that eventually became Concur Cliqbook Travel. In 2005, we rewrote the user interface, and in 2006, after Concur acquired Outtask, I was thrilled to stay on and help integrate it into Concur Travel & Expense.

I’ve been involved in several iterations of this travel booking tool and am thrilled with the updates we’ve made to it; we hope you will be too. In approaching the redesign and update process, I, along with a team of engineers, designers and a small army of software testers, set out to create what we feel is the best corporate travel booking tool available today.

How often do you travel by train? In FY 2009, Amtrak welcomed aboard over 27.1 million passengers, an average of more than 74,000 passengers per day, riding more than 300 Amtrak trains per day. Whether you use Amtrak or not, one thing’s for sure: millions of people rely on Amtrak to get them where they need to go everyday.

As a business traveler, you know changes in travel plans are imminent. Without a doubt, you’ve faced delayed flights or terminal gate changes. But how do you stay on top of those changes?

Today, Concur announced an extension of our partnership with OAG (or the Official Airline Guide). And the partnership is all about helping you stay informed while you’re on the road. With OAG, travelers booking through Concur’s services will have immediate access and full availability of flight status information such as departure and arrival times, delays, cancellations, terminal/gate updates and baggage claim information.

Now, when any of that information is changed, Concur will automatically generate a notification for you to keep you informed. In fact, we’ll send updates right to your mobile device – after all, you likely already use your mobile phone to stay informed while on the road. Now, you can take that one step farther and virtually eliminate moments of frustration when your flight changes.

Think back to the last time you received an invoice from a supplier. You likely submitted it to your Accounts Payable (A/P) department for processing and payment and then thought: My job is done here. I submitted the invoice. That is until your supplier contacted you weeks later, wondering when they’re going to be paid.

Now what? You don’t know when the supplier will be paid – after all, you’re not in A/P. So, you likely spend your valuable time working with A/P to determine when the invoice will be paid, because you want to keep your supplier happy. Then, you work with your supplier and keep them posted about their expected reimbursement date. Seems like a lot of work, doesn’t it?

What if there was a way for the supplier to go online and with just a couple of clicks and get complete visibility into where their invoice is within your company’s reimbursement process? Better still, what if they could do all that without you even being involved? No more getting stuck in the middle, trying to keep the peace between A/P and your supplier. Well, the good news is that Concur now offers a better way to bridge the gap between the supplier and A/P department.

Continuing the expansion of Concur® Connect, the global program that provides Concur clients with access to content otherwise unavailable through traditional travel programs, Concur today announced partnerships with both hotel.info and HRS.

With the addition of Google Maps integration to car mileage, it’s now amazingly simple for any user to submit an accurate accounting of their miles driven, while reducing the company’s exposure to fraud as full route details are now accessible through the map. With the addition of Google Maps integration to car mileage, it is both quick and easy for users to calculate the distance driven:

One of the hottest topics in corporate travel right now is undoubtedly airline ancillary fees. This topic is creating quite a stir and Concur’s doing something about it.

According to a forecast issued by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the airline industry will take in $58 billion in ancillary fees in 2010. Those fees may include—but are not limited to—the charges for airport club access, checked baggage, seat assignments, extra leg room, on-board meals, entertainment and Internet access; even blankets and pillows that airlines have unbundled from their ticket prices in an effort to find new sources of revenue for an ailing air travel industry. The effort is working: airlines in the U.S. are set to earn $4 billion in baggage fees alone in 2010.

While travelers are forced to purchase these basic flight needs for an additional fee, there’s no consistency in the way in which these fees are documented. Organizations are left in the dark about what these fees represent; only learning during the expense reporting process that an extra charge was made, outside of the airline ticket. With the increase in ancillary fees, how do organizations know what each fee represents and if the charge is within corporate policy? Let alone, how does a travel manager budget and report on these fees?