Concur, a leading provider of integrated travel and expense management solutions, has partnered with United Airlines this week—an impressive move that will provide business travelers with expanded booking capabilities. With over 20,000 global clients and 25 million individual users, this will be a valuable development for Concur company value.

With this partnership, mutual Concur and United clients can gain access to corporate direct travel bookings on United.com and on United apps by leveraging Concur’s TripLink product. TripLink allows users who are booking directly with United to link their Concur and MileagePlus profiles and receive corporate benefits. The alliance of these companies’ functionalities creates an innovative travel management capability—one that is already in high demand.

“Some of our mutual customers already book directly with United and others have requested that we integrate our booking platforms with Concur,” said John Slater, United’s vice president of sales, Americas. “The flexibility offered in Concur’s TripLink product will enable these customers to realize the benefits of negotiated United corporate rates while receiving traveler authentication and integration with Concur Expense.”

Through this connection, travel management visibility and control is increased—after booking with United, users’ trip data will be sent back to Concur to populate travel and expense reports on Concur and related platforms, satisfying employers’ reporting, policy compliance and duty of care requirements. This collaboration will also bring companies greater savings through corporate program advantages, and due to out-of-program booking capability, traveler tracking is also improved. Ultimately, compliance is made easier for users and their employers through greater communication and spend management, enhancing organizations’ efficiency and productivity.

“As booking options expand, our customers have been looking for ways to gain greater control over their travel spending. This partnership really addresses this growing need – managing blind spend,” said Steve Singh, chairman and CEO at Concur. “Our goal is to work with United and other partners to give our customers a transparent view of their spending, visibility to their travel plans, and give their employees an effortless road to compliance.”

Concur’s continuous company goal has been to bring business travelers one step closer to “the Perfect Trip.” By aligning themselves with one of the most influential airline companies in the travel industry, they are certainly taking themselves nearer to that goal. For more insight into Travel and Expense Management Solutions and solution providers like Concur, download PayStream Advisors’ Travel and Expense Management 2014 Report.