Concur, provider of integrated travel and expense management services, announced on July 23 that Avis Car Rental and Hertz, along with some hotel companies, will participate in Concur Open Booking.

The option lets business travelers book hotels and rental cars outside Concur Travel while capturing and providing all travel transaction data to Concur Travel & Expense for a complete itinerary.

Through Concur's T&E Cloud, hotels and car companies participating in Concur Open Booking will be able to link a traveler's Concur Travel profile with the respective loyalty accounts, enabling the supplier to automatically grant access to the traveler for a corporate discount — even when the booking occurs on the hotel or car rental website.

"All companies have some aspect of supplier direct bookings as a component of their travel program," said Michael Koetting, EVP of supplier management at Concur. "And whether they acknowledge it or not, even the best run programs see a meaningful percentage of their hotel and car bookings happen outside of the corporate booking tool.

"Concur Open Booking gives companies of all sizes a convenient way to not only manage those bookings, but also get accurate information on expense reports. Just as importantly, Concur Open Booking makes travelers' lives incredibly simple, by enabling them to book hotel and car reservations directly on the sites that provide them with a superior user experience."