Booking travel
All travel on University business must be booked in line with the Travel and expenses policy.
The University's contracted Travel Management Company is Clarity, and their online booking tool is Go2Book.
Before making your booking you should have permission from your line manager and have considered appropriate risk assessments in line with the Fieldwork safety standard.
Travel services you can book through Clarity
You can book most of your travel needs through Clarity. You must book flights, standard hotels and pre-booked UK rail via Clarity. Straightforward bookings should be made online via Go2Book, with more complicated journeys using the phone/email route.
Hotels do not need to be booked via Clarity where they are part of a conference booking, or rates are exclusively available through a partner institution, or where suitable accommodation is only available on another booking platform.
Services Clarity can book include:
- UK rail and Eurostar tickets, collect at station or e-tickets
- flights
- hotels, including Bath hotels
- airport parking, lounges and non-local taxis
- car hire
- coach tickets
- ferry tickets
- visas
Clarity Service Level Agreement
UK rail tickets, point to point air tickets and straightforward hotel bookings should normally be booked online via Go2Book rather contacting Clarity by phone or email to make the booking.
When a request is made to Clarity via email, a substantive response should be received within 3 hours (during the hours 9am to 5.30pm). When the service level falls short of this response time, it is permitted that the booking can be completed by another means. In this case, payment may be made through an advance, University purchase card or claimed via the expenses process.
Where this option is exercised, the initial acknowledgement response from Clarity must be replied to, advising them to take no further action, in order to avoid duplicated effort.
Training and user guide
Regular training webinars are available to help make best use of Go2Book. You can register to access recordings to watch at your convenience.
Create your profile
You will need to set up your traveller profile in Go2Book before you can make your first booking. You will not need to input this information again on future bookings.
To create your profile:
- Go to Go2Book.
- On the login screen, enter your University email address.
- Click 'Recover Password'.
- You will receive an email from Clarity within a few minutes. Click the link in the email.
- Follow the instructions to create your password, then log in to Go2Book.
- Check your basic information is correct.
Information you need to create your profile
Your travel profile will contain all the information Clarity needs to make your travel arrangements. When you have checked your basic information, you can add your:
- mobile number
- passport number
- Agresso project number
- employee number (your 'PersonID' on Person Finder)
- seat preferences
- dietary requirements
- special needs
- loyalty points details
- other booking information
- if you need to book for other people, contact Simon Holt to update your profile
Clarity asks for a mobile number so they can contact you to provide assistance and change your bookings in the case of a major disruption.
Price Match
There will be occasions where a traveller finds a price online for a trip that is cheaper than shows up on Clarity's system. This is most often due to the search criteria used, but some websites quote low fares which then increase when you get to the point of purchase. Clarity operate a Price Match Guarantee. If you find a better offer for the same travel arrangements within 30 minutes from accepting their quote, they will book and match the same flight/hotel they you have sourced.
Please email pricematch@claritybt.com quoting ‘price match’ in the subject line and any Clarity reference. Please include a screenshot to enable us to verify against their terms & conditions
Exemptions to the Travel and expenses policy
Disability/accessibility
If you are unable to make your travel arrangements within the constraints of the Travel and Expenses Policy due to individuals needs associated with disability or accessibility, then proceed with your booking ensuring that your profile within Go2Book has the “preferences” page updated with the relevant information.
Any other reason
Exemptions for any other reason require written approval from your Dean or respective member of the University Executive Board prior to making any bookings.
Procedure
The permission must be obtained by exchange of email with your Dean/member of University Executive Board and will include the following information -
- Reason for trip:
- Destination:
- Aspect of policy not complied with:
- Reason for exemption:
- Approximate difference in cost:
- Approximate difference in carbon:
- Is this exemption permanent / time-bound / one-off
A copy of the exemption approval email must be sent to payments@bath.ac.uk in order to ensure consistency of approach and effectiveness of the Policy
Online bookings will require you to confirm that you have the exemption agreed.
Where this exception will be ongoing, a permanent dispensation will be agreed and automatically applied so you will not have to go through this process every time you book.
Insurance
As the University has the details of your trip recorded by Clarity, there is no need for us to separately log trips. Your trip will be automatically covered by the University's travel cover and assistance services provided by UMAL. Visit their Travel Hub for full details of help available.
You should download the Summary of Cover and take the details with you.
Should you need a personalised letter for a visa or similar, please email Simon Holt at s.c.holt@bath.ac.uk
How your booking data may be used
The University of Bath is committed to tackling climate change, through cutting emissions and embedding climate action in how we do business, sector-leading research and high-quality teaching. These commitments are set out in the University’s Climate Action Framework Principles and we have an ambitious target to achieve Net Zero carbon emissions by 2040 (across all scopes).
When making a booking using the University of Bath account, information regarding your trip including your name, travel dates, destination, and reasons for travel are logged but are only shared with a limited number of teams within the University. This information is only accessible to colleagues in Human Resources, the International Relations Office, Student Recruitment Teams, Development and Alumni Relations, Student Placements and Careers Teams. You may be contacted by one of these teams to request wider university support during your trip should there be the scope to do so. Support requested could range from meeting with a university partner, dropping in to visit a student on placement, making a visit to a school careers fair or supporting with an Alumni event.
It is intended that having this insight available will improve efficiency, facilitate more cross-departmental collaboration, save money, and enable the university to reduce its travel emissions, helping us to achieve our commitment to being Net Zero by 2040.
Where you are making a booking on behalf of someone else, please ensure that the person travelling is informed of the contents of this notice before the booking is completed (by copying and sending this information to them) and is aware that they may be contacted by one of the teams noted above for the reasons specified.