Preferred Booking Program (Direct Billing System)

Welcome to the UC Davis Preferred Booking Program, formerly known as Central Travel System (CTS).  This direct billing system can be used by employees booking airfare in AggieExpense, reserving local hotels, and arranging catering through campus Olive & Vine Catering.

The Travel Itinerary Site offers BCD Travelers access to travel related documents for current and previous trips in one convenient site.
If you need to charter a bus, please review the Charter Bus page first.

What Does It Cover?

The UC Davis Preferred Booking Program provides direct billing for airfare in AggieExpense, local hotel lodging, and campus catering Olive & Vine:
  • This program allows participating hotels in Davis and Sacramento to charge lodging expenses directly to university employees using their own Preferred Booking Program account.
  • The Preferred Booking Program offers a direct billing option for university guests, and for those without a Travel card conducting official university business.
  •  This program will eventually include cover ground transportation, as well as other expenses.

NOTE: The Preferred Booking Program is NOT to be used for hotel room rental expenses related to entertainment. The Travel Card should be used for those types of expenses.

Participating Hotels

The following hotels are currently part of the Preferred Booking Program.  Each of the links below will take you to the specific reservation form (PDF) for that hotel.  Refer to the instructions in the following section on how to complete the form so that your reservation is properly processed.

Preferred Booking Program Hotel Reservation Instructions

1.  Contact hotel first to confirm availability.

2.  Complete the Reservation Information on the appropriate hotel form.

  • Individual-Enter the trip name, traveler’s name and 8-digit AggieExpense ID number.
  • Group/Entertainment -Enter the group/eventname, coordinator’s name, and the coordinator’s 8-digit AggieExpense ID number and attach a list of traveler names for room reservations.

3.  Hotel Information

  • Enter the preferred room type, number of nights, number of rooms, and check in/out dates.

4.  Department Contact Information

  • Enter the campus department arranger’s name, phone, email and the name of the department.
  • Enter your active and valid 4-digit departmental billing ID.

5.  Department Head or Fiscal Officer Approval

  • Enter the name and title of the approver.
  • Obtain approver’s signature.

6A.  For individual travel : Submit the completed form to the hotel by email or fax.

6B.  For Group Travel: Attach a list of travelers to the completed form and submit to the hotel by email or fax. 

7.  The hotel will email a reservation confirmation to the arranger, typically within 24 hours.

8. The completed and signed form should be attached to the applicable AggieExpense report when the transaction is reconciled.

NOTE: If an incorrect Traveler ID is entered, or if the hotel supplies an incorrect ID on the billing feed, the transaction will not import and may require manual revision by the UC Davis Banking Card team. If the transaction does not import into AggieExpense within two weeks from date of departure, verify a valid Billing ID is entered in the traveler’s AggieExpense profile, and contact expensehelp@ucdavis.edu for assistance.

Preferred Booking Program Olive & Vine Instructions

Campus catering Olive & Vine orders must be placed through their website, and the expenses will be automatically billed through the Preferred Booking Program.

Preferred Booking Program Airline Instructions

Airfare purchased directly through AggieExpense will be automatically billed through the Preferred Booking Program.

Reconciling Transactions in AggieTravel

After a purchase is made using the Preferred Booking Program, the expenses import directly into AggieExpense, appearing in the Available Expenses list, and are identified by both the expense type and the mobile device icon.

mobile expense iconThe expenses also appear on the various AggieExpense reports in FIS Decision Support (DS). 

  • These transactions should be reconciled in AggieExpense within 60 calendar days of the trip or event end date.   Refer to the AggieExpense Unreconciled Expenses (FIS421) report for a list of transactions that are unreconciled. 
  • Refer to the information further below on this page on what to do if the transactions do not appear in AggieExpense.

Managing Credits for Refunded Transactions

  • When a refund is issued for lodging or airfare booked through the Preferred Booking Program, the credit will automatically upload and display in AggieExpense.
  • Reconcile the credit as you did the original expense.  An expense report can be submitted with a negative dollar amount when it only includes Preferred Booking Program credits.

Missing Preferred Booking Program Transactions: Employees

Before contacting the Help Desk about missing Preferred Booking Program transactions, follow these steps:

  1. Check Decision Support FIS421. If the Related Full Accounting Unit (FAU) column does not display a chart-account, it means your department does not have a default billing account on file. 
    1. Contact your department's fiscal officer or budget analyst and request they send a Preferred Booking Program default billing account to expensehelp@ucdavis.edu. 
    2. Once the default billing account is received and entered by the Travel team, the Preferred Booking Program Transaction should automatically import the following day.
  2. If a chart-account does display on Decision Support FIS421, email the Help Desk:
    • Subject line = Preferred Booking Program: [Traveler’s Name], [Traveler ID#]
    • Attach = Airfare Itinerary or Local Hotel Preferred Booking Program form corresponding to the missing transaction.

Missing Preferred Booking Program Transactions: Non-Employees

  1. Before contacting the Travel Help Desk about missing Preferred Booking Program transactions, you must first confirm that the Non-Employee traveler has the correct traveler ID.
  2. If the traveler ID is not formatted as “N1000####” the first step is to create their profile using the Non-Employee Application.
  3. Confirm the correct Non-Employee AggieExpense traveler ID was used for the reservation.
  4. For local hotels, confirm the traveler ID is correct on both the Preferred Booking Program form and the hotel invoice.
  5. For airfare, confirm the traveler ID is correct on the airfare itinerary.
  6. If the Traveler ID is valid, email the Travel Help Desk: 
    1. Subject line = Preferred Booking Program: [Traveler’s Name], [Traveler ID#]. 
    2. Attach = Airfare Itinerary or Local Hotel Preferred Booking Program  form corresponding to the missing transaction.
  7. If the wrong Traveler ID was used, email the Travel Help Desk:
    1. Subject line = Preferred Booking Program : [Traveler’s Name], [Traveler ID#] (Use the correct ID here)
    2. In the email, note the incorrect ID that was used, and the correct ID that should be used. If the expense has not been imported into another (incorrect) profile, the Travel card team will import the transaction into the correct traveler’s profile.
    3. Attach = Airfare Itinerary or Local Hotel Preferred Booking Program form corresponding to the missing transaction.

Unreconciled Preferred Booking Program Transactions (> 1 year old)

Unreconciled Preferred Booking Program expenses which have not been added to an AggieExpense report for over 1 year are no longer available for reconciliation.

These expenses were already charged to the department account when originally imported. As a reminder, all expenses must be reconciled in AggieExpense within 60 days of the trip or event end date. 

If there is a need to change the charge account for a direct billed expense that is no longer available in AggieExpense due to its age, please complete a KFS General Error Correction (GEC) document. Please note: a GEC should only be processed when the transaction is no longer available in AggieExpense. 

For more information about the GEC document visit General Error Correction: Importing Accounting Lines Procedures or contact fishelp@ucdavis.edu.