Online Booking Tool (OBT) Comparison: Concur vs Egencia vs Navan vs SAP
TL;DR: SAP Concur leads enterprise deployments on the strength of deep ERP integration; Egencia (now part of Amex GBT) fits mid-market programs that want a bundled TMC; Navan wins on modern UX and unified card-plus-expense; SAP's broader suite suits companies already standardized on S/4HANA. A BYOD overlay like Travel Code runs on top of any OBT to add continuous re-shopping and unified duty of care.
Drawing from 8+ years building AI-powered corporate travel platforms, the patterns that hold up across hundreds of programs are simple: buyers rarely choose an OBT on features alone — they choose on adoption, integration cost, and how well it survives contact with policy exceptions. This guide compares the four booking tools that show up in nearly every corporate RFP, and explains where an overlay approach beats a rip-and-replace migration.
Why OBT selection matters more in 2026
Managed corporate travel spend is projected to reach $1.64 trillion globally in 2025, per the GBTA 2025 Business Travel Index Outlook, with North American programs growing 6.8% year over year. That growth has re-opened OBT procurement cycles that had been frozen since 2020. The 2025 Business Travel News Corporate Travel Index shows average trip cost — airfare, hotel, and ground — climbing 4.3% year over year, which magnifies the compounding cost of a poorly-adopted booking tool: every leakage booking outside the OBT is a lost duty-of-care record, a missed negotiated rate, and a data gap in the year-end supplier RFP. Per IATA's 2025 Global Passenger Survey, 74% of business travelers now expect to complete bookings on mobile in under three minutes — a bar most legacy OBTs still miss.
The four OBTs at a glance
| Platform | Best for | Pricing model | Servicing model | Expense integration | Mobile UX |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SAP Concur Travel | Enterprise (5,000+ travelers) | Per-transaction + subscription | OBT only (bring your own TMC) | Native Concur Expense | Legacy — improving |
| Egencia (Amex GBT) | Mid-market to upper-mid | Per-transaction + TMC fees | Bundled TMC servicing | Integrations (Concur, Chrome River) | Modern — post-Amex GBT refresh |
| Navan (formerly TripActions) | Growth-stage & mid-market | Free OBT; monetized via card/expense | In-app agents + partner TMCs | Native Navan Expense + Card | Consumer-grade — best in class |
| SAP (S/4HANA + Concur Travel) | S/4HANA-standardized enterprises | Enterprise license + per-transaction | OBT only (TMC via partner) | Native to S/4HANA finance | Legacy — S/4 Fiori shell |
| Travel Code (BYOD overlay) | Any OBT — runs alongside | 25% of validated savings (RateGuard) | No servicing — overlay only | Feeds any expense/GL system | N/A (does not replace OBT UX) |
SAP Concur Travel: the enterprise incumbent
SAP Concur remains the default OBT for programs above 5,000 travelers, driven less by product superiority and more by the switching cost of Concur Expense, which is embedded in most large finance stacks. Per SAP's 2025 investor materials, Concur processes $190B+ in annual T&E spend across 46,000+ customer companies. The 2025 GBTA Buyer Sentiment Survey found that 61% of North American programs above 2,000 travelers use Concur Travel — but satisfaction scores lag Navan and Egencia by 12–18 points, particularly on mobile booking completion and NDC support. Concur's Concur Travel — New Experience (rolled out 2024–2025) modernizes the shopping UI and adds NDC content from United, American, Lufthansa Group, and IAG carriers. It still requires a bundled TMC — CWT, BCD, Amex GBT, or a regional partner — for offline servicing.
Egencia: the bundled TMC-plus-OBT
Egencia was acquired by American Express Global Business Travel in November 2021 and rebranded operationally as "Egencia, an Amex GBT company" (per the Amex GBT 2021 Q4 shareholder letter). It uniquely bundles the OBT with full TMC servicing under a single contract — attractive for mid-market programs (500–5,000 travelers) that do not want to source a separate TMC. Post-acquisition, Egencia adopted Amex GBT's Neo1 pricing framework and Global Travel Intelligence dashboards. Per Amex GBT's 2024 10-K filing, transaction volumes across the combined Egencia and Amex GBT SME businesses grew 22% year-over-year — the fastest of any segment. The trade-off: fees are TMC-style (bundled service fees per transaction) rather than SaaS-style, so cost visibility is harder for procurement to model in advance.
Navan: the modern challenger
Navan (formerly TripActions, rebranded February 2023) has pushed the OBT category toward consumer-grade UX and a free-OBT-plus-paid-card business model. Per Navan's 2024 investor updates, the platform serves 10,000+ customers and processes over $10B in annual travel spend, with mobile booking completion rates roughly 2.4x higher than legacy OBTs (Navan internal benchmarking, cited in the 2024 Skift Corporate Travel Report). Navan differentiates on three axes: (1) in-app AI agent for shopping and re-accommodation, (2) native corporate card issuance with policy-at-swipe controls, and (3) unified expense with automated receipt matching. The gap for enterprise buyers is depth in Asia-Pacific and Middle East content, and the requirement to move card issuance to Navan to capture full margin — a friction point for companies already on Brex, Ramp, or Amex Corporate.
SAP (S/4HANA + Concur Travel): the finance-first choice
For companies standardized on SAP S/4HANA, the SAP Concur Travel plus S/4HANA combination reduces integration surface area — travel bookings, expense claims, GL postings, and vendor payments all move through SAP APIs. This is not a separate OBT product but rather Concur Travel deployed inside the S/4 architecture. The value is tightest for CFOs who prioritize a single financial system of record and are willing to accept a less-polished traveler experience. For a broader view of how OBTs, TMCs, and overlays differ, see our Corporate Travel Booking Tool Comparison: OBT vs TMC vs BYOD Overlay.
Where Travel Code Fits
Travel Code is not an OBT. It is a BYOD (bring-your-own-data) overlay that runs alongside whichever OBT you have chosen — Concur, Egencia, Navan, SAP, or a regional TMC's booking tool. The overlay reads your PNRs from the GDS or OBT feed and adds three capabilities the OBT does not: (1) RateGuard continuously re-shops booked hotel and air segments and rebooks when a lower fare or rate appears, priced at 25% of validated savings; (2) real-time duty-of-care correlation across every booked itinerary regardless of channel; and (3) unified analytics across all booking channels — including leakage bookings the OBT does not see. For companies mid-cycle on a Concur or Navan implementation, the overlay is additive: it does not require IT migration, contract renegotiation, or a traveler-facing UX change. Learn more at Travel Code BYOD or on the comparison pages below.
Travel Code vs a traditional TMC
| Dimension | Traditional TMC | Travel Code (BYOD overlay) |
|---|---|---|
| Replaces the OBT? | Often (proprietary OBT bundled) | No — runs on top of any OBT |
| Servicing (offline agents) | Yes (24/7 agents, GDS access) | No — TMC handles servicing |
| Continuous re-shopping | Rare, one-time at booking | Yes — RateGuard runs post-booking |
| Duty of care coverage | Only bookings made through TMC | All channels — including leakage |
| Pricing | Per-transaction fees + subscription | 25% of validated savings only |
| Migration required? | Yes — 6–12 months typical | No — activate via existing feed |
How to choose between Concur, Egencia, Navan, and SAP
For programs above 5,000 travelers with a Concur Expense footprint, SAP Concur Travel is the default answer, layered with a separate TMC contract. Mid-market programs that want a single vendor for OBT and servicing gravitate to Egencia. Growth-stage companies without an incumbent OBT or expense platform choose Navan for speed to value and traveler adoption. Enterprises deep in S/4HANA choose the SAP stack for finance-first standardization. Whichever you choose, an overlay handles the two things every OBT is weak at: post-booking savings and full-channel duty of care. Compare directly: Travel Code vs SAP Concur, Travel Code vs Navan, or Travel Code vs Egencia.
For a broader competitive scan across all major TMCs and OBTs, see our Best Corporate Travel Agencies & TMCs 2026. Procurement teams working an active RFP can start at Travel Code for Procurement.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which OBT has the largest corporate market share?
SAP Concur Travel holds the largest share of the managed corporate OBT market — 61% penetration among North American programs with more than 2,000 travelers, per the 2025 GBTA Buyer Sentiment Survey. Amex GBT (including Egencia) is second, and Navan is the fastest-growing on new-logo wins in the mid-market and growth-stage segments.
How much does Concur Travel cost versus Navan?
Concur Travel is priced per booked transaction (typically $8–$15 per air ticket depending on volume) plus an annual subscription. Navan's OBT is free at the transaction level; Navan monetizes through its corporate card and expense products. Total cost of ownership depends on volume, integration scope, and TMC bundling. Get concrete pricing at Travel Code pricing.
Can we use more than one OBT at the same time?
Yes. Multi-OBT setups are common in multinational programs — for example Concur in North America and a regional OBT in APAC. The trade-off is fragmented analytics and duty-of-care coverage, which a BYOD overlay resolves by consolidating all channels into a single data model, regardless of which OBT booked the trip.
Is Travel Code a TMC?
No. Travel Code is a BYOD overlay platform, not a TMC. It does not replace your OBT, does not employ travel agents, and does not touch the servicing workflow. It runs on top of whichever OBT and TMC you already use, adding continuous rate re-shopping (RateGuard, priced at 25% of validated savings), real-time duty of care across every channel, and unified analytics.
How long does an OBT implementation take?
Concur Travel enterprise implementations typically run 4–9 months including SSO, HR feed, expense integration, and traveler enrollment. Egencia bundled implementations run 3–6 months. Navan can go live in 2–6 weeks for growth-stage programs without complex ERP integrations. Overlay activation via BYOD generally takes 2–4 weeks, since no traveler-facing migration is required.
What integrations should we require from an modern OBT?
The 2025 Deloitte Corporate Travel Study flags five must-haves for RFPs: (1) NDC content from at least the top three carriers in your program, (2) live HR feed for profile sync, (3) SAML SSO and SCIM provisioning, (4) native expense integration or a documented API for Concur/Expensify/Ramp, and (5) an open data API for BYOD overlays and BI tools. Missing item five is a common source of long-term lock-in.
Sources
- GBTA 2025 Business Travel Index Outlook (published July 2025)
- GBTA 2025 Buyer Sentiment Survey
- Business Travel News Corporate Travel Index 2025
- IATA 2025 Global Passenger Survey
- American Express Global Business Travel 2024 Form 10-K
- SAP 2025 Investor Presentation (Concur segment)
- Skift Corporate Travel Report 2024
- Deloitte 2025 Corporate Travel Study
Reviewed by Egor Karpovich, CEO & Founder of Travel Code. Travel Code is a BYOD corporate travel overlay platform that runs alongside any OBT or TMC. Published September 2026.
