How trip pre-approvals work

A pre-approval gets you a sign-off on a trip before you start looking at flights and hotels. You submit the reason for your trip and approximately when you'll travel, your approver reviews the request and either approves or declines it, and Perk emails you the decision. If you're the person deciding on someone else's request, skip to If you're the approver.

Note: Pre-approvals are in a closed beta, so you might not see them in your account yet. In accounts that have them, the setting carries a Beta badge. If you’d like to take part in the beta, reach out to your Account Manager.

When you need a pre-approval request

Whether you need a pre-approval request in Perk depends on how your company set things up. Your account admins decide: some make it mandatory for everyone, some for certain teams, and some make it optional. If it's mandatory, you can't complete a booking until you link an approved pre-approval request to it. If it's optional, check with your travel or finance team about which trips to request one for.

You send a pre-approval request with the Request pre-approval button—on the Trips page on web, or from the itinerary page and checkout on both web and mobile. Because you're asking before you book, the request is based on rough estimates. You don't need exact times or final prices.

Note: One approved pre-approval request covers everything you book for that trip—flights, hotels, trains, and cars. You can keep reusing it until its end date passes.

What to put in your pre-approval request

The pre-approval form in Perk asks for a Title, Approximate dates, and a Travel request where you explain the trip. The What to include panel lists the four things to cover:

Your reason for travel.
The destination.
The transportation and accommodation you'll need.
An estimated budget if you know it.

Your approver is deciding whether the trip is worth the time and money, often with less context than you have. More detail can help you get a faster yes: "On-site meeting with the product team in San Francisco. I’ll be there for 1 night and will need flights and a hotel near the client office in SoMa. It should be around $500 this time of year."

Compare that with “Going to San Francisco for work.” Your approver would have to guess how long you’re going, what you’ll book, and what it costs—which usually means a round of messages before they can decide.

What happens after you send your request

In the beta, everything after you send a pre-approval request happens over email. Perk emails your approver with the details and confirms to you that your request went out. When your approver decides, Perk emails you their decision, and the approval email gives you a button to go book your travel. You can't edit or cancel a request once you've sent it, so it's worth a read-through before you send.

If your approver declines, the email won't include a reason—follow up with them directly, then send a new request once you've sorted it out. While you wait, keep building your trip. If you reach the itinerary page or checkout without an approved pre-approval request, Perk saves the booking as a draft. When pre-approval is mandatory, Continue to checkout stays turned off until you have one.

Note: Perk saves your booking as a draft, but it can't hold the price or the seat. Fares and availability move while your request is being reviewed, so send it as early as you can for trips where the fare matters.

Linking your pre-approval request when you book

At checkout, Perk shows a Pre-approval field where you link your approved request to the booking. You link the same pre-approval request to every booking for that trip.

If you're the approver

Perk emails you when someone you approve for sends a pre-approval request, and in the beta that email is your way in. Open the request from the link and you'll see the trip title, the dates, the travel request with the information the traveler shared, and who they are.

From there you approve or decline, and Perk emails them the outcome. What you're deciding is whether the trip should happen at all—not whether a particular flight is within policy. Once you approve, the traveler can book everything they need for that trip against your single decision. Approving a pre-approval request doesn't always mean the trip is signed off for good.

Depending on how your company set things up, a separate booking-level approval can still fire at checkout, sometimes going to a different approver. Your decision covers the trip; that one covers the booking.

Note: The traveler can't book until you decide, and fares move while they wait.