You can book one trip for a group of colleagues traveling to the same place at the same time, for example, a Berlin conference from June 12 to 14.
You plan and track it as one trip, but the Travel AI Agent books each traveler separately. Every traveler gets their own booking, approval, card, travel allowance, itinerary, and expense report, each with its own confirmation number.
Separate bookings keep each traveler independent, so one person's change, cancellation, or failed booking never disrupts the rest of the group. Flights are always booked individually. Two travelers can share a hotel room as a single booking split between them.
To book for one person, see submitting trip requests and booking travel on behalf of other employees.
Notes on group trips
A group trip can include up to 10 travelers. All travelers share one trip type, one origin and destination, and one timing window.
A group trip uses one trip type, set by the booker. The Travel AI Agent blocks any traveler whose role requires a different trip type, or who'd only share a hotel room with no flight or allowance of their own.
For a shared hotel room, the booker picks the two travelers who share it. The room appears in the request and approval of only one traveler. The policy check still applies per person, for example, a EUR 120 room under a EUR 100 policy is in policy, because each share is EUR 60.
Booking group trips
To book a single trip for a group of travelers:
Start a new booking conversation with the Travel AI Agent.
Tag the travelers on the trip at the start of the conversation. You only tag them once, not for each search. To tag someone, type @ followed by their name, type the name directly, or use the email the employee registered with in Payhawk.
Search and book for the whole group:
For flights, the search works the same as for one traveler - every tagged traveler gets the flights you choose.
For hotels, tell the Travel AI Agent the room setup you need, for example, a room for two, single rooms, or a room for three.
When a room holds more than one traveler, choose who shares it at the room selection step.
The Travel AI Agent returns options for the whole group, with enough flight seats and rooms for everyone. The per-person price is shown as the primary number, with the group total alongside it.
Complete the booking as usual. Your company travel policies apply to each traveler individually.
Since policies apply per traveler, a director and a team member on the same trip can have different limits, based on their different travel policies. If an option is over a traveler's limit, the Agent flags it for that individual traveler, so you can pick a different option for them, or add a justification and continue.
Approving group trips
Each traveler's approver reviews their request on its own, and all approvals run in parallel. When an approval is received, the system creates the expense report for that traveler and books their trip right away, a slow approver never holds up the travelers who are already set.
If an approver rejects a traveler, the booker gets notified right away. They can exclude the rejected traveler and continue with the rest of the travelers, or cancel the whole trip. When the booker is also traveling, their own request still goes to their manager for approval.
An approver who covers several travelers on the same trip can approve them together from the Trips app by using the team filter.
For more information, see reviewing and approving trip requests.
Receiving confirmations and itineraries
The booker receives a trip-confirmed summary.
Each traveler receives their own confirmation email, calendar entry, and mobile itinerary. Disruption alerts, such as a delay or a gate change, go straight to the affected traveler.
The itinerary shows your own bookings such as your flights and hotels. Other travelers' bookings stay private. If you booked the trip, or you are a Payhawk Administrator or a travel manager, the itinerary shows the flights and hotels for everyone on the trip.
Changing or cancelling bookings
From day one, each traveler can change or cancel their own flight without going through the booker. If the traveler changes or cancels their flight, the booker is notified. All changes to a trip and its individual bookings are also recorded in the trip's audit log, which the booker can view at any time.
Whole-trip changes that affect more than one traveler, such as moving the dates of an entire trip, are managed by the booker. Since each booking is separate, the booker can change one traveler's booking without affecting anyone else's itinerary.
For shared hotel rooms, any traveler staying in the room, not just the booker, can change or cancel the booking, so no one is left waiting on the booker to act. Before you change or cancel a shared room, the system warns you that the room is booked for more than one person.
Handling payment and booking failures
Prices aren’t held during approval, so Payhawk re-quotes each booking at confirmation:
If the new price is within 10% of the approved price, the booking proceeds.
If the new price is more than 10% higher, the booking returns to the booker to accept and re-approve or cancel without blocking the rest of the trip.
Since each traveler has a separate booking, a failure stays with the one booking that failed. Every other booking on the trip still goes through, and only the failed one needs another attempt.
You always see why a booking failed, such as a room that is no longer available or a payment that didn’t go through. The booker decides what to do next - for example, search for an alternative, leave that traveler pending, or cancel and re-search.