Create a travel policy, estimate its cost, and validate it against real prices.

What actually goes in a travel policy

Real corporate travel policies are organised in four sections. Flight is fare/cabin by flight length — economy for domestic, premium economy or business once a flight passes a set number of hours. Hotel is a universal per-night cap with higher caps carved out for expensive metros (San Francisco, New York). Car fixes a size class (mid-size is typical), often with one preferred supplier. Meals are a daily per-diem cap, again with high-cost-city exceptions. Set all four here with defaults you can adjust in a minute.

Will your caps hold up in expensive markets?

A cap that looks fine on paper can be unbookable in the field. Estimate your annual T&E from trip volume and destinations, then validate the caps against real market prices: see how many hotels in a given city and date range come in under your cap, and whether your daily meal cap covers a normal lunch and dinner there. That's how you catch a $250 cap that blocks every downtown room in San Francisco before it becomes an exception queue.

Fewer exceptions, better compliance

Caps keep spend in line, but they don't decide the close calls: the cheapest flight is a red-eye before a 9am meeting, or the only under-cap hotel is 40 minutes from the client. Left to each traveler, those turn into exceptions and back-and-forth. Otto applies your policy to every flight and hotel at booking, so more trips stay on policy and fewer land in the approval queue.

How the T&E estimate works

The annual T&E estimate prices each trip from your own caps plus baked market data. Flight uses typical round-trip corporate fares for the major US metro pairs (advance-purchase low to short-notice high); any other route, including international, is priced by a great-circle distance model — and each fare is scaled by the cabin your policy allows for that route's flight time. Hotel is your nightly cap (including any high-cost-city exception) times nights per trip. Meals are your daily cap times trip days (nights plus one). Car is a typical daily rate for the size class your policy allows, applied to the share of trips that need a rental. All figures were baked in July 2026 and are planning estimates, not live quotes — use the hotel reality-test above for a live read on any city.

Frequently asked questions

What goes into a corporate travel policy?

Most policies have four sections. Flight: cabin by flight length (economy domestic; premium or business over set hours). Hotel: a nightly cap, higher in metros like SF and NYC. Car: a size class (e.g. mid-size), often a preferred supplier. Meals: a daily per-diem cap with high-cost-city exceptions.

How much will my travel policy cost per year?

Enter your trip volume and top destinations and the builder estimates annual spend under your caps — flight (typical fares for the cabin your policy allows), hotel cap × nights, meal cap × days, and car per day. You get a low–high range with a per-category and per-destination breakdown.

Will my caps actually work in expensive cities?

Validate them. Enter a city and date range to see how many hotels come in at or under your cap — so you know whether a $250 cap is realistic in San Francisco or needs an exception. It also checks whether your daily meal cap covers a typical lunch and dinner in each city.

How do I keep travel compliant without a wall of exceptions?

Publish clear caps, validate them against real prices so they're realistic, and apply the policy at the point of booking. Otto checks each flight and hotel against your policy when a trip is booked, so more bookings stay on policy and fewer need manual approval.

Is it free and do I need to sign up?

The builder, the cost estimate, and the market check are free with no signup. Export a shareable policy document and a structured JSON file right away. Bring in Otto when you want the policy applied to bookings automatically.