Refunds for Business Travelers Who Have to Cancel

Business trips are essential in bringing deals to the finish line, but they can also be incredibly inconvenient. Over the course of a year, meetings inevitably get canceled, flights are delayed, and sometimes a polar vortex visits town; it might not be any skin off your nose, but it can cost companies thousands of dollars.

But Barcelona-based startup TravelPerk, a business-travel tool that was juiced earlier this month with $60 million in Series C funding, has a nifty, game-changing solution. The service just debuted FlexiPerk, a tool available that ensures companies can collect a 90% refund from any canceled booking.

It sounds too good to be true, but it’s really kind of simple. When booking “elements” through TravelPerk (flights, rooms, transportation), TravelPerk collects a 10% fee for each. Then, if it looks like a trip isn’t going to happen, business travelers can cancel flights through TravelPerk up to two hours before it takes off, and hotel rooms until 4 p.m. of the first day of their stay. Companies will receive a 90% refund from their original total purchase, with some reasonable caveats: no more than eight “elements” can be booked, each traveler’s individual cost must be under $5,600, and the total cost of the trip must be under $33,500.

TravelPerk has been testing FlexiPerk for a little while now, and claims companies using the service have enjoyed an average of 26% savings. Fortunately for interested parties, it’s not that daunting of a commitment to try it out. A premium account with TravelPerk costs $12 per trip, while FlexiPerk’s cost is really dependent on how often your employees take business trips (minus how many cancellations they might incur). Ending a subscription might be less stressful than deactivating Hulu, too: simply cancel your contract with seven days written notice.

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Meet your guide

Tanner Garrity

Tanner Garrity is a senior editor at InsideHook, where he’s covered wellness, travel, sports and pop culture since 2017. He also authors The Charge, InsideHook’s weekly wellness newsletter. Beyond the newsroom, he can usually be found running, skating, reading, writing fiction or playing tennis. He lives in Brooklyn.