Booking travel through Navan

Navan is our source of truth for booking Company trips. All teammate travel (i.e. flights, hotel, rental cars, trains) must be booked through this platform to be considered within your travel budgets. Any travel booked outside of Navan unfortunately will not be reimbursed.

All Company travel costs incurred in Navan will be added to a Sourcegraph invoice, and no credit card is needed. While it is possible to find a cheaper flight outside of Navan, we get overall better rates in the aggregate with the buying power of the whole company.

The Navan platform facilitates tracking budgets both for teammates on an individual level, and for managers on a team level. The platform also provides the locations of teammate Company travel throughout the world so we can monitor teammate safety and the changing conditions of Covid-19 through their tool Sherpa.

How to setup your Navan account

Below are steps to help you get set up with your Navan account.

  • Follow the link in your onboarding email to create your Navan account and set a secure password.
  • Once you are in your dashboard, add and/or review the following information in your profile:
    • Traveler Info (i.e. KTN, Seat/Other Preferences, Passport information)
    • Health documents (optional/as-needed)
    • Personal credit card (for personal bookings)
    • Airline Credits
    • Loyalty Program IDs (i.e. Hotel, Airline)
    • Carbon Footprint of travels-to-date
    • Calendar, Slack & Email sync

How to book a trip

  • Once you login, the Navan dashboard provides the option to start a booking directly. The possibilities are to book flights, hotels, trains, or rental cars.
  • Input information for the flight you want to book. You can pick return as a combination or each leg of your flight separately.
  • Select “continue to checkout” and fill out the reasons for booking.
  • Once confirming all details are correct, you can select “complete booking.” If your trip is out of policy, you will have the ability to continue booking the trip and a “soft” approval email will be sent to your direct manager.
  • You can add a hotel or car by clicking the boxes between the flight details and “complete booking” and go through the same steps.

Dynamic Pricing

We set up our bookings policy within Navan as a benchmark based on the market prices for selected destinations and travel dates. For any accomodation search, TripAction looks at all reasonable results and then calculates a Median Price, or fair price, for the search called the “Price to Beat.” For bookings under the “Price to Beat,” the Company provides rewards points (i.e. Amazon gift card) as shown within Navan.

Booking shows Out of Policy

If you receive an out-of-policy notification upon booking, an email will be sent to your direct manager for approval. We understand that there may be a time when there is no way around booking a flight or hotel that is out of our policy. Additionally, we understand that for some travel types, such as team travel, teammates may spend above the Navan platform policy, such as for a hotel room, as long as they are within the specified total budget (i.e. $4k per teammate). Please provide the out-of-policy detail to make approval easier and faster. After 24 hours without any manual action (approved/denied), the booking will automatically be accepted. All out-of-policy related questions can be sent to travel@sourcegraph.com and #expense-inquiries in Slack.

New Teammates Joining Trips

If you are planning a trip and would like to include a new teammate who has not yet been onboarded but will be onboarded by the trip date, we can support their inclusion through guest bookings. Keep in mind that teammates can only join trips after their start date.

We have designated Navan delegates for each department and onboarding, and as such, these teammates can assist with sending guest invitations. You will need to provide location and dates when requesting a guest invitation. Please reachout to people-ops@sourcegraph.com to ask for a guest invite in cases where the start date coincides with a trip or teammates won’t have enough time between start date and trip date to book everything with the following information:

  • Teammate’s name
  • Teammate’s start date
  • Trip dates
  • Trip destination
  • Hotel (if you’ve already chosen one)
  • Type of company sponsored travel

Managers will be the point of contact in these cases. Managers, please take some time to talk to the future new teammate about guidelines and what to expect. Indicate if this is an optional trip or not and be sure to point them towards these two handbook pages: Company sponsored travel and Navan.

Please reach out to travel@sourcegraph.com or #expense-inquiries in Slack for any questions.

Travel Assistance

24/7 Global Travel Agent Support

Within Navan, teammates global 24/7 access to live travel agents (via chat, phone and email) that proactively monitor each step of the journey and can assist with any travel issues that arise.

Personal Bookings

In Navan, you can book personal travel. This benefit allows for teammates to have streamlined travel arrangements with business-preferred rates and 24/7 travel agent service. Note that when selecting this option, a personal credit card will be required at the time of booking. Personal trips cannot be added to the Sourcegraph invoice.

Using the Sherpa Integration for International Travel

Navan provides easy access to up-to-date information critical to booking international business travel. Through a partnership with Sherpa, they have eliminated the guesswork that can surround international travel, particularly when booking amidst COVID-19.

Prior to booking, all travelers have the ability to review:

  • International travel restrictions, such as temporary entry bans
  • COVID-19 related quarantine and mask requirements, required health documents, and mandatory health screenings
  • Visa requirements, with the option to apply for and purchase a Visa directly within Navan

Accessing this information:

  • Go to the booking search homepage
  • Click Check it out in the blue bar
  • Note: This feature is currently only available on the web platform and not on mobile.