Brex launches in-app travel solution

The new feature also works with all the budget and policies functions of Empower. Besides seeking to snag market share from incumbents such as Concur, Brex is also taking on startups such as Navan (formerly called TripActions) — which started its business focused on travel expense management before broadening its offering — and also Ramp, which itself expanded into travel in 2023 with a tool that gives employees the ability to book with third parties.

Brex had been building the product for over a year and was in private beta for several months before making it available to the public. Part of the aim of the new offering is to apply to travel expenses the budgeting capabilities that Empower has, the company said.

The Brex approach to travel

In an attempt to reduce unnecessary trips, finance teams can see information and spend across corporate cards in real time and can then decide which trips should take priority. The new travel feature provides receipts automatically so that an employee doesn’t have to say, check out of a hotel and then upload the receipt. It also does things like let an employee know if something is out of policy and would need extra approval. And if a company requests it, employees can only see flight and hotel options that are in policy.

Brex opted not to accept commissions from airlines or hotels that would not provide less expensive flights or hotels as alternatives. The company generates revenue on the new offering by charging a per-trip fee, which, depending on the travel volume, can vary by company.

Another feature designed to simplify travel booking is giving employees the ability to book flights to another country and within a country at the same time. Typically, the two bookings are required to be done separately. The app also aims to make it easier to help employees who work in different countries to travel domestically and pay for travel in different currencies.

Creating the travel app

Notably, in building out its new travel offering, Brex partnered with a company called Spotnana and is white-labeling its ‘travel-as-a-service’ software, which provides back-end infrastructure that integrates with global airlines and hotels.

The company integrated Spotnana’s travel-related capabilities with its mobile app, card and spend management capabilities to support travel policies, traveler profiles, and workflows for booking and reporting. The company says it did build customisation on top of Spotnana, in an effort to make expenses easy and seamless. Also, Spotnana’s inventory search API is what helps Brex provide a trip budget estimate to users.