Summary
In 2026, the travel management landscape has shifted from basic booking tools to “all-in-one” ecosystems. Many businesses are moving away from Perk (formerly TravelPerk) due to its percentage-based fees and inventory gaps. If you are evaluating Perk alternatives, finding a platform that balances cost-efficiency with wide and competitive inventory is the key
Perk competitors: A Quick comparison
| Alternative | Best For | Key Features | Key Differences vs. Perk |
|---|---|---|---|
| ITILITE | Mid-market & enterprise teams | -Saving incentives for employees -500+ airlines, 800k+ hotels -Virtual cards -Auto-tagging of expenses to ERP | -Flat $10 fee (no commissions) -10-sec human support -Significantly richer inventory. |
| Navan | Mobile-first & tech-savvy teams | -Personal loyalty rewards -Sleek mobile app -Automated expense reconciliation. | -AI-led support (instant bot fixes) -Focused on traveler experience and gamified savings. |
| SAP Concur | Large global corporations | -Complex approval flows -High-accuracy OCR -Robust partner ecosystem | -Built for intricate compliance and external TMC connections rather than simple self-service |
| Amex GBT (Egencia) | Companies needing scale + data | -AI Savings Finder (auto-rebooking) -Huge Expedia hotel supply -Global duty of care | -Deeper hotel inventory -Focuses on data and passive ROI over just a “cool” interface. |
| BCD Travel | Regulated or high-risk industries | -TripSource platform -Sustainability tracking -High-touch agency service | -Agency-first model -Better for complex, high-touch international travel |
Why are companies looking for alternatives to Perk?
1. The inventory gaps are costing you money: The most common complaint we hear is simple: the flights aren’t there. Employees frequently find routes or low-cost carriers on Google that simply don’t appear in Perk. This forces them to book “out of policy” just to get the right schedule or price. If your platform doesn’t show the full market, you lose control over spend.
- Key difference that alternatives bring in: Alternatives like ITILITE often surface up to 4x more inventory options, including the budget carriers and hotels that actually keep travel costs down.
2. Pricing model is unsustainable: Most platforms charge a fee per booking, which is fair—you pay for the volume you process. Perk, however, charges a commission based on a percentage of the total booking value.
- What this means: you pay significantly higher fees for a long-haul international flight or a week-long hotel stay than for a quick domestic trip, even though the booking effort is exactly the same
3.Support struggles when plans change: Booking a trip on Perk is generally smooth, but modifying one is where the pain begins. Users report that changing a flight or hotel often requires long hold times or navigating a slow support loop. In the world of business travel, plans change constantly; if your customer support can’t react in real-time, your travelers are left stranded and frustrated.
What are the top alternatives to Perk?
1.Itilite
a. Best for:
Mid-market and enterprise companies wanting a unified Travel & Expense platform that actively reduces spend with best in class support and global capabilities
b. Key features of ITILITE:
- Saving incentives for employees: Instead of just forcing policy, ITILITE incentivizes smart spending. If a traveler chooses a cost-effective hotel or flight, they earn personal credits. This small shift saves the company money without the friction of strict mandates
- Dense hotel / flight inventory: You get visibility into 500+ airlines (including the low-cost carriers Perk often misses) and over 800,000 hotels. This includes negotiated rates and discounts that are otherwise hard to access.
- Group booking: Managing offsites or conferences is usually a logistical headache. ITILITE lets you handle bulk group bookings, track RSVPs, and monitor event-specific budgets in one dashboard.
- Policy and approvals: You can set dynamic policies that adjust based on employee level, city tiers, or booking windows. The approval workflows are flexible, letting you build the logic that actually fits your internal hierarchy.
- Auto tagging of expenses: Finance teams love this. Expenses are automatically tagged to the correct GL code in your ERP based on the merchant, and receipt scanning handles the heavy lifting on data entry.
- Credit Card authorization: You can issue virtual cards for specific trips, eliminating the painful “credit card authorization” forms employees often have to deal with at hotel check-ins.
c.How does ITILITE compare with Perk?
- Favourable pricing: This is the clearest win for your budget. ITILITE charges a simple flat $10 per trip – no monthly subscription costs and no commissions based on how expensive the hotel is. On a like-for-like basis, companies typically spend ~70% less on fees compared to Perk.
- Best-in-class customer support: Support is handled entirely by humans, not bots. With response times averaging under 10 seconds and zero hold time, your travelers get immediate help rather than getting stuck in a queue when flights get cancelled.
- Better inventory and discounts: ITILITE integrates deeply with low-cost carriers and global hotel chains to surface the budget-friendly options that Perk often misses. This richer inventory means your team can actually book the flights they find on Google / flight / hotel websites without leaving the platform.
ITILITE’s pricing:
- Travel – $10 per trip. No monthly fees, no integration fees
- Expense – $9 per user per month. Can submit unlimited expense reports
[blog_cta image=”https://6378157.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/6378157/hub_generated/resized/0a5b1df9-605e-45c7-89af-1963460b8d43.png”]
2. BCD Travel
a. Best for:
Massive global organizations and highly regulated industries (like Pharma or Energy) that need high-touch service and deep international compliance across dozens of countries.
b. Key features of BCD Travel:
- TripSource Platform: Their central hub for travelers to book, manage itineraries, and receive risk alerts. It’s a solid, functional tool that brings their vast agency resources into a single mobile and web view.
- Sustainability & Carbon Tracking: BCD is a leader in “green” travel. They offer detailed carbon footprint reporting and can actually bias your search results to prioritize lower-emission flights or hotels to meet ESG goals.
- Global Duty of Care (Traveler Tracker): Because of their scale, their risk management is world-class. You can see exactly where every employee is globally on a live map and push instant emergency instructions to them during a crisis.
c. How does BCD Travel compare with Perk?
- Agency-First vs. Tech-First: Perk is built to be self-service. BCD is built to be “supported.” While TripSource is good, the expectation with BCD is that you’ll often call or email a dedicated travel counselor for complex international itineraries that a self-service tool like Perk might struggle to handle
- Support Wait Times: This is the trade-off. While Perk prides itself on speed, BCD’s size can be a double-edged sword. During major global travel disruptions, users often report long wait times to reach their dedicated agents, as the system is human-heavy rather than bot-heavy.
d. BCD Pricing:
- Custom Enterprise Fees: BCD typically doesn’t do “one size fits all.” You’ll likely pay a management fee plus transaction fees (e.g., $15–$30 per booking depending on whether it’s online or agent-assisted)
3. Amex GBT (via Egencia)
a. Best for:
Mid-market and large global companies that want the scale of a legacy player with a modern interface
b. Key features of Amex GBT
- “Big Data” Inventory: Because Egencia was born from the Expedia family, their inventory is massive.
- Smart Mix technology: The search engine uses machine learning to prioritize the best options for your specific travelers based on their past history and company policy, so they aren’t scrolling through 20 pages of results.
- Global Duty of Care: Their “Traveler Tracker” and real-time alerts are highly rated. If there is a strike or weather event, you can instantly see where every employee is and push emergency notifications to their app.
c. How does Amex GBT compare with Perk:
- Inventory vs. User Experience: Perk focuses on making the booking feel like a consumer app. Amex GBT/Egencia focuses on the data behind the booking. While Perk is often faster to use, Egencia often has better “niche” inventory in international markets where Perk might have gaps.
- AI Support vs. Human Support: This is a major differentiator. Perk prides itself on human response times. Egencia leans heavily on its AI chat for support. While the AI is great for quick seat changes, some users report long hold times for human agents when travel plans get truly messy.
- Global Scale: If your company operates in dozens of countries with different tax requirements and currencies, Egencia handles that complexity more reliably than Perk.
d. Amex GBT’s Pricing
- Involves online booking fee, agent booking fee, support fee
4. Navan
a. Best for:
Companies that prioritize a sleek mobile app and a consumer-grade user interface.
b. Key features of Navan
- Mobile-first experience: The Navan app is polished and intuitive. Travelers can manage their entire itinerary and expenses directly from their phone with very little friction.
- Loyalty integration: A popular perk for employees is the ability to earn loyalty points on their personal accounts. If they book options that save the company money, they can also earn “Navan Rewards” for personal use.
- Automated expense reporting: Like ITILITE, Navan offers robust expense features where transactions are automatically categorized, reducing the manual workload for finance teams.
c. How does Navan compare to Perk?
- Better Rewards Incentives: While Perk focuses on the booking, Navan actively gamifies saving money. The ability for employees to earn personal travel credits for saving company money is a unique feature that drives adoption without you needing to nag anyone.
- Faster, AI-Led Support: Navan uses an AI agent (“Ava”) to handle routine changes instantly. Unlike Perk, where you might wait for a human agent for simple tasks, Navan’s AI can instantly change a flight or re-send a voucher. (Note: For complex, messy travel disasters, some users still prefer jumping straight to a human).
- Expense-First DNA: Navan built its own robust expense platform early on, whereas Perk’s expense module is a newer addition. For finance teams, Navan’s expense reconciliation often feels more mature and seamless.
d. Navan’s Pricing
- $10-$25 / trip depending on account size, also offers free plan.
5. SAP Concur
a. Best for:
Large enterprises and global corporations with complex compliance needs.
b. Key features of SAP Concur:
- OCR & Receipt Scanning (ExpenseIt): Concur’s mobile app uses robust OCR technology to scan receipts and automatically populate expense reports. It’s highly accurate and reduces manual data entry for road warriors.
- Complex Policy & Workflows: This is Concur’s superpower. You can build incredibly intricate approval flows – e.g., “If a VP spends >$500 in London, auto-approve; if a Manager does, require two levels of sign-off.”
- Partner Ecosystem: Because it’s the market leader, it integrates with everything. Uber, Lyft, Delta, and Marriott all have direct connections, so receipts from those apps flow straight into Concur without user intervention.
c. How does SAP Concur compare with Perk?
- Inventory Control: Perk acts as your travel agency. Concur, however, is an “Online Booking Tool” (OBT) that connects to an external travel agency (TMC) of your choice. This gives you massive flexibility to negotiate your own corporate rates, but it adds a layer of complexity to the setup.
- Workflow Depth: Perk is great for straightforward approvals. Concur is built for companies where a single trip might need to be split across five different cost centers and approved by three different departments.
- Support Model: With Perk (or ITILITE), you get direct support. With Concur, your support experience depends heavily on the external TMC you hire to manage the bookings, which can create a disjointed experience if things go wrong.
d. Concur Pricing:
- Custom Pricing You typically pay a mix of per-trip fees (via your TMC), rescheduling / support charges, per-report fees (for expenses)
