Because UW System is changing travel vendors on July 1, airline industry restrictions would not allow UW System to transfer all unused tickets from one vendor to another. Instead, UW System was able to convert the value of the unused tickets to UATP (Universal Air Travel Plan) prepaid airline cards. This will apply only to unused tickets from Delta, United, American, and Southwest. This process allows UW System to utilize the $3M of unused tickets when campuses resume travel without expending new funds to purchase tickets.
We will be working with the airline to covert these Delta, United, American and Southwest tickets and will no longer be on file for individual use. We are also working with Delta to process some tickets that a refundable in June prior to the conversion onto the UATP card.
The remaining unused tickets on all other carriers will transition to the new travel agency (mostly international tickets and some domestic carriers such as Jet Blue and Alaska Airlines).
Summary of unused airline ticket process with Travel Incorporated:
- UW System will receive credit on a UATP card for the value of their unused tickets only from Delta, United, American, and Southwest
- UW Madison will have their own UATP cards issued by each airline carrier, and all other campuses will have a shared UATP card
- We hope to have the UATP card by end of July
- Campuses will use the credits on the UATP cards for their travel on a first-come first-serve basis
- The expense funding will be obtained from P-Card and e-Reimbursement data and will later be reversed when UW System does a “true up” with each campus two months after the values of UATP cards are used
- Those booking airline travel will use the same booking procedure using Concur through the UW TravelWIse website or through the new travel vendor, Travel Incorporated
- Employees will need to pay attention to invoice receipts when booking with Travel Incorporated to confirm if the UATP card paid for the airfare or if it was charged to the card on file for the individual or campus