tmcmatchSwitching travel management company
The most common way a travel review fails has nothing to do with suppliers, nothing to do with price and nothing to do with service. It is a notice period in an agreement signed three years ago, discovered two months too late.
The same diagram as a table
| Milestone | When | Who controls it |
|---|---|---|
| Contract ends | Month 36 | Fixed by the contract |
| Last date to serve notice | Month 33 | Fixed by the contract — this is the real deadline |
| Tender begins in this example | Month 34 | You |
| Result | The tender began inside the notice window. The contract has already renewed. | |
The months above are illustrative. The notice period in your own agreement is the number that matters, and it is the first thing to read before anything else in a review begins.
Read your own contract before you talk to anybody
Three sentences in your existing agreement decide the whole timetable, and all three were written before you started thinking about this:
- The notice period. Three to six months is common in this market, though we publish no average because we have no source for one. Whatever yours is, it converts your contract end date into a much earlier real deadline.
- The mechanism for serving notice. Usually specified — in writing, to a named address or officer, sometimes by a particular method. Also usually ignored. Notice served the wrong way may not be notice at all.
- The renewal clause. Whether the agreement rolls on automatically if nobody does anything, and for how long it rolls.
If the date has already passedThat is worth knowing now rather than in three months, and it is not the end of the exercise. A renewal you did not choose is still a term you can use to prepare properly for the next one, and a tender run early against a known date is a stronger position than one run in a hurry against a date you missed.
The sequence
- Read your own contract first. Find the notice period, the notice mechanism and the address for service, and the renewal clause. Those three sentences decide the whole timetable, and they were written before you started thinking about this.
- Fix the real deadline. Contract end date minus notice period. That is the date everything works backwards from. A plan built forwards from today will miss it, and missing it means a renewal you did not choose.
- Establish what you actually have. Spend including whatever is booked outside the channel, traveller count, routes, and the list of what has gone wrong. Suppliers price what you tell them and this is the part that makes proposals comparable.
- Decide whether you are tendering or renegotiating. These are different exercises. A renegotiation with a credible alternative is a negotiation; one without is a request. Deciding which you are running changes who you involve and what you say.
- Issue the document. Same structure to everyone, responses section by section, clarifications in writing and circulated to all. The template on this site is written for exactly this.
- Score capability before price. Financial standing and protection as pass-or-fail, then service, technology, duty of care and implementation, then commercials separately and last.
- Serve notice, in the manner the contract requires. Not by email to your account manager unless the contract says so. The mechanism is usually specified and is usually ignored, and a notice served the wrong way may not be notice.
- Implement, then verify. Data migration, traveller communication, policy configuration, and a test of the out-of-hours route before you need it rather than after.
- Get your data out. On the last day, in the format and within the period the contract specifies. If that was not agreed at the start, this is the step that does not happen.
Steps one and two are the ones that cost us enquiries, because a reader who discovers the date has passed is a reader who will not send anything today. They are first on the page anyway. Our fee is fixed per enquiry and agreed in advance, so an enquiry sent at the wrong moment is worth no more to us than one that is never sent, and it is worth considerably less to you.
The three things that actually go wrong
1. The notice date passes
Covered above, and the reason it is first. It is not a failure of the review; it is a failure of sequencing, and sequencing is free to fix.
2. Bookings in flight land in the gap
On the day the supplier changes, there is a population of trips that are booked but not yet taken, changes that are in progress, and refunds that have not settled. Who services those, on what terms, and what happens to a change at 02:00 on a booking made through the outgoing system, is a question with an answer only if somebody asked it.
It belongs in the implementation section of the tender document, answered by the incoming supplier in writing, and in a conversation with the outgoing one about what it will and will not continue to service.
3. The data does not come back
This one does no damage on the day, which is exactly why it is the most expensive. Three years of booking history — routes, fares, class mix, change rates, out-of-policy rates — is the thing that makes your next tender a competition rather than a formality. Without it you are asking suppliers to price a programme you cannot describe, and the incumbent is the only party in the room who knows what it looks like.
Ask for it before signature: the full history for the whole term, machine-readable, within a stated number of days. On the last day of a contract there is no leverage left to ask with.
What also changes when the supplier changes
Three things that are easy to assume carry over and do not necessarily:
| Item | Why it may not carry over | What to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Financial protection of your money | Business travel under a general business travel agreement is outside the Package Travel Regulations 2018 (reg 3(2)(c)) and the supplier may be ATOL-exempt (reg 10(1)(h)). Whatever protected your funds before was a term of the old contract. | Which basis do you operate on, and how are lodged funds held? Both provisions |
| The VAT treatment of your travel | paragraph 3.2 of VAT Notice 709/5 lets an operator opt to treat wholesale supplies outside the Tour Operators Margin Scheme. Two suppliers can quote the same headline price and deliver different net costs. | Will supplies to us be under TOMS? Provide a sample invoice. Why it matters |
| Negotiated rates | Rates you negotiated directly with an airline or hotel are generally yours. Rates the agency negotiated on your behalf generally are not. | Which of our current rates are ours and which are yours? Establish it before comparing any proposal against current cost. |
Know your notice date?
Send the requirement with the contract end date and let suppliers work to it. Five clicks, details last.
Before you issue anything
The RFP and ITT template is free and ungated, and its section 1 is the part to complete first: spend, travellers, routes, incumbent end date, and what has gone wrong. Section 10 is the exit section, which is the one this page exists to make you keep.
Then the eleven comparison criteria, each with the public register that verifies the answer, so that scoring is against something checkable rather than against how good the presentation was.
Common questions
When should we start looking for a new travel management company?
Work backwards from the notice date in your current agreement rather than forwards from today. Notice periods of three to six months are common in this market, and a review that begins two months before the contract ends has usually already passed the point at which anything could change. The first action is to read the contract, not to call suppliers.
What notice do we have to give?
Whatever your agreement says, and in the manner it says. This site does not publish a market average for notice periods because it has no source for one. Two things are worth checking beyond the length: the mechanism for serving notice, which is often specified and often ignored, and whether the agreement renews automatically if notice is not served.
What actually goes wrong when switching?
Three things, in order of frequency. The notice date is missed and the contract renews. Bookings already made with the outgoing supplier are not properly handled and land in a gap. And the historical data is not recovered, which does no damage immediately and makes the next tender uncompetitive three years later.
How long does implementation take?
It depends on how much configuration your policy needs and how many systems have to talk to each other, and this site does not publish an average it has not measured. What is worth doing is making the supplier state a plan with a duration and named roles in its tender response, and making it state what it needs from you and when, because that is the half that usually slips.
Can we keep our negotiated airline and hotel rates?
Rates you negotiated directly with a supplier are generally yours and travel with you; rates negotiated by the agency on your behalf generally do not. Which is which is worth establishing early, because it changes what a comparison between your current cost and a proposal actually means.
What data should we ask for on exit?
The full booking history for the whole term, in a machine-readable format, within a stated number of days — not a summary and not a set of PDF reports. It is the asset that makes your next tender a competition. Ask for it before signature, because on the last day of a contract a supplier has no reason to improve the terms.
Should we tell our current supplier we are looking?
That is a judgement about your own relationship rather than a rule, and a site paid by suppliers is not the right source for it. Two practical points: the notice mechanism in your contract will tell them eventually and on a fixed date, and a renegotiation conducted without a credible alternative is a request rather than a negotiation.
Is there a cost to switching?
Usually implementation effort on your side, possibly an implementation charge on theirs, and the internal time of running the process. What is worth separating is a genuine implementation cost from an implementation charge that exists to justify a longer initial term. Ask for it as a separate line and ask what term it assumes.
Sources cited on this page
- Civil Aviation (ATOL) Regulations 2012, reg 10 — exemptions
- Package Travel and Linked Travel Arrangements Regulations 2018, reg 3
- VAT Notice 709/5 — Tour Operators Margin Scheme
- Companies House — company information service
Every figure above was read from the source it is attributed to on 20 September 2026. How we check this.
Send your requirement
Five questions you answer by clicking. Company and contact details are the last step, never the first.
Your requirement is ready to send
Here is what happens after you submit:
- Your answers go to travel management companies advertising on this site.
- No more than three of them may contact you, once each, about this requirement.
- You decide who, if anyone, you speak to. You are committed to nothing.
We are not a travel management company and we do not book travel.