The rise of the “preferred university travel supplier” was meant to take the stress out of booking tickets for conferences and field trips. But some academics have begun to question the supposed cost and convenience benefits of these one-stop travel shops by citing nightmare journeys arranged by booking firms whose fares vastly exceed those available online.
Slow booking times mean cheaper in-advance deals are often sold out, so staff and students often have to travel at unusual times to save money, a lecturer at a Scottish university told Times Higher Education.
“That ends up with absurdities such as our recent trip to London when six students were each on a different train several hours apart to save money,” he said.
The hotel bill for his group “was also double what I could’ve booked it for when making the request”, he added, claiming the “inefficient” arrangements and “premium surcharges” were “a massive waste of public money when all the UK universities are totted up together”.
