TMC comparison · Head-to-head

Amex GBT (& Egencia) vs. Navan: 2026 Independent Procurement & Fee Teardown

Q: Is Navan cheaper than Amex GBT?

On online transaction fees, Navan proposals usually come in lower than Amex GBT’s line-item schedule. The total depends on your offline share, how hotel commission is handled, whether travel pricing is tied to card adoption, and how traveler rewards are funded. On a normalized $3.5M program the difference between a default and a negotiated contract with either vendor is often larger than the difference between the two vendors, so compare full-basket cost, not the headline online fee.

Q: Is Amex GBT the same company as American Express?

No. American Express Global Business Travel is a separately listed company trading on the NYSE as GBTG, operating the American Express brand under licence. American Express the card issuer is a separate company. That matters for contracts: your Amex GBT travel agreement and any American Express corporate card agreement are different documents with different counterparties, and neither should silently change the other’s pricing.

Q: What is the difference between Egencia and Amex GBT?

Egencia is the booking platform and service model Amex GBT acquired from Expedia Group in 2021, aimed mainly at small and mid-sized programs. Larger Amex GBT accounts are typically served through its Neo booking tool or a third-party OBT such as SAP Concur, with a different fee schedule. When an incumbent proposes moving you between platforms, request the fee schedule for the new platform and treat the move as a renegotiation point.

Q: Which contract clause matters most when comparing Amex GBT and Navan?

For Amex GBT, the transaction definition and complexity-tier cap, because agent-assisted fees drive most of the cost. For Navan, the decoupled-pricing clause, because travel fees linked to card or expense adoption make it expensive to leave one product without the other. For both, hotel commission pass-through of 80%–100% and a free full data export at exit protect you regardless of which vendor wins.

Q: How long does a neutral Amex GBT vs Navan benchmark take?

A contract benchmark on an existing proposal pair takes about two weeks if you can supply 12 months of booking data, TMC invoices and ARC/BSP air files. A full RFP with a mock basket, normalized price sheet, best-and-final round and redlined contract typically runs 60 to 90 days. Programs above $1.5M usually recover the cost in the first contract year through fee and commission terms alone.

Amex GBT and Navan rarely lose on headline online fees; they lose on the lines nobody normalizes. Amex GBT’s cost sits in agent-assisted servicing, complexity tiers and retained hotel commission. Navan’s sits in what is bundled around the booking: card program economics, traveler rewards and fees on bookings that leave the core platform.

On a normalized $3.5M program at 70% online adoption, the gap between a well-negotiated and a default contract with either vendor is often larger than the gap between the two vendors. Buy the contract, not the logo.

Updated 6 Nov 2026 · 8 min read · Independent TMC Head-to-Head Comparisons & Merger Teardowns

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$6–$12Typical Amex GBT online fee range in RFP responses

$0–$10Typical Navan per-trip fee range, or bundled

$25–$45Agent-assisted domestic fee range seen for both

80%–100%Hotel commission pass-through to demand

Two different businesses behind the same RFP line

American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) is a separately listed company (NYSE: GBTG) that operates the American Express brand under licence; it is not the card issuer. It bought Egencia from Expedia Group in 2021 and completed its acquisition of CWT in 2025. In a bid it typically offers Egencia for small and mid-sized programs, its Neo booking tool for larger accounts, or a third-party OBT such as SAP Concur, plus a global agent network for offline and complex trips.

Navan, formerly TripActions, sells one platform that combines booking, in-house travel agents, Navan Expense and a corporate card program, with a traveler incentive called Navan Rewards. The commercial model is software-led: per-trip fees or subscription pricing on travel, and economics tied to card spend on the expense side.

An Amex GBT bid is priced line by line; a Navan bid is priced as a bundle, which is only cheaper if you can see inside it. Normalize both into the twelve lines below, as the 2026 TMC fee benchmark report does for any pricing model.

Normalized 12-row Fee & SLA Comparison Table

Ranges below are typical contracted ranges we see in RFP responses and invoices for $1M–$10M programs, not either vendor’s current price list. Treat every cell as an audit question to verify against your own proposal.

Fee or SLA line	Amex GBT (Egencia / Neo)	Navan	Top-quartile contract target
Online air transaction fee	$6–$12	$0–$10 or bundled	$5–$8 all-in
Online hotel / car-only booking	$3–$8	$0–$5	$0–$4
Agent-assisted domestic booking	$30–$45	$25–$40	$18–$28
Complex international / multi-leg	$45–$65	$40–$60	≤ $45 flat
Exchange, refund or void	$25–$40	$20–$35	$15–$25, voids free
After-hours / emergency contact	$15–$40 per call	Often included; verify	Included in SLA
NDC servicing fee per ticket	$0–$15	$0–$10	$0 at channel parity
GDS / EDIFACT surcharge exposure	$12–$24 per affected segment	$12–$24 per affected segment	$0 via NDC routing rule
Unused ticket forfeiture	1.5%–3.0% of air	0.8%–2.0% of air	< 0.8% of air
Hotel commission returned to client	0%–50% unless contracted	0%–50%; check rate markups	80%–100% or fee offset
Average speed to answer	60–120 sec	60–120 sec (chat and voice)	≤ 60 sec, credits on miss
Data export at exit	On request; check fees	Reports / API; check card data	Full raw export, 30 days, $0

Two rows decide most comparisons. Agent-assisted fees multiply by your offline share. Hotel commission never appears on the invoice; at $1.3M of hotel spend, 0% versus 80% pass-through on commissionable stays is often worth $15,000–$40,000 a year.

Interactive tool · Fee & leakage simulator

Head-to-Head Annual Fee & Leakage Simulator

Set your spend, online adoption and traveler count to see the annual fee and leakage each contract model produces on the same basket.

Modeled annual cost of service + leakage

Annual line	Amex GBT (Egencia / Neo)	Navan

Amex GBT (Egencia / Neo): Line-item service fees; cost rises fastest with offline share and with complex-itinerary billing.
Navan: Lower per-trip fees; verify card-linked pricing, rewards funding and hotel content margin.

Vendor figures are normalized benchmark assumptions for a typical mid-market contract drawn from Business Travel Consulting 2026 benchmarks, not quotes or either vendor’s price list; trips = spend / $1,150, air 45% and hotel 38% of spend.

Where each vendor’s real cost hides

Amex GBT: servicing tiers and retained revenue

Offline complexity tiers. Proposals often define “complex” loosely, so a simple round trip with a hotel can bill at the international or multi-leg rate. Ask for the exact tier definitions and a sample of 50 billed transactions.
Supplier-side revenue. GDS incentives, airline override programs and hotel commissions are legitimate TMC income, but they affect how hard the TMC pushes channel and content choices. Ask for annual disclosure in the QBR pack.
Platform choice. Egencia, Neo and a third-party OBT carry different fee schedules. A move from Egencia to Neo, or to SAP Concur, can change the online fee and add an OBT licence line; see the Amex GBT pricing and contract audit guide.

Navan: the bundle around the booking

Card-linked economics. When travel pricing improves only if you adopt the corporate card, the card rebate and the travel fee are one deal. Price them separately so you can leave one without repricing the other.
Navan Rewards. Rewards paid to travelers for booking under budget are funded from the savings they report. Ask how the budget baseline is set, because a generous baseline turns rewards into a cost, not a saving.
Out-of-platform servicing. Group bookings, complex itineraries and events may route to agents or partners on a different fee basis. The Navan pricing and contract audit guide lists the lines to request.

The exact contract clauses to demand from each vendor

Paste these into the redline. Each one converts a soft promise into a measurable obligation with a remedy.

From Amex GBT

Schedule B · Transaction definition
A transaction is one ticketed itinerary, one hotel stay or one car rental per traveler, regardless of segments or PNRs. The complex-itinerary fee applies only to itineraries with three or more carriers or four or more international segments, and no more than 12% of agent-assisted transactions per quarter may bill at that rate without written approval.

Clause 7.3 · Hotel commission pass-through
The TMC shall remit no less than 85% of all commissions earned on Client hotel bookings, including non-negotiated properties, quarterly, with a property-level statement reconciled to the Client’s booking data.

Clause 9.1 · Channel neutrality
Where an airline offers a lower total fare or lower surcharge through NDC than through EDIFACT, the TMC shall book and service through the lower-cost channel at no additional fee, and shall report NDC versus EDIFACT volume by carrier each quarter.

From Navan

Clause 3.4 · Decoupled pricing
Travel fees in Schedule A do not depend on the Client’s adoption of any card, expense or payment product. Termination of any non-travel product shall not change travel pricing for the remainder of the term.

Clause 5.2 · Rewards and savings baseline
Any traveler incentive shall be calculated against a budget baseline approved in writing by the Client, and the Provider shall report incentives paid, by traveler and by month, against verified savings versus the Client’s negotiated rates.

Clause 6.1 · Negotiated rate loading
The Provider shall load and display all Client-negotiated hotel and air rates, including LRA rates, within 10 business days of receipt, and shall not display a Provider-sourced rate above the Client rate for the same room type and conditions.

When each vendor fits

Amex GBT fits: Multinational programs above roughly $10M with complex itineraries, VIP or executive travel, meetings and events in scope, multi-country invoicing and a duty-of-care requirement that needs a 24/7 human network. Egencia can fit a $1M–$5M program that wants a known brand with mostly online booking.
Navan fits: Programs where online adoption can run above 80%, travelers are comfortable on mobile, and finance wants travel and expense on one platform. It suits fast-growing companies moving from unmanaged to managed travel where speed of rollout matters more than country-by-country servicing.
Neither, yet: Below 60% online adoption with no policy owner, fix the policy first with the policy clause builder; either vendor bills that program heavily on agent fees.

For buyers also considering BCD or a cloud-native alternative, the Amex GBT vs BCD Travel and Navan vs TravelPerk vs Spotnana teardowns use the same normalized lines.

Running a neutral RFP or contract benchmark

Neither vendor can benchmark the other neutrally. A neutral benchmark replaces both proposals with one cost model built from your own data.

Week 1 — Build the mock basket. Take 12 months of bookings and build a basket of 1,000 transactions that matches your real online/offline mix, international share and exchange rate. The TMC RFP guide has the basket template.
Week 2 — Force a common price sheet. Both bidders price the same basket on the same twelve lines, including card, rewards and OBT licence lines. Bundles must be unbundled or the bid is scored as incomplete.
Week 3 — Price the invisible lines. Model unused ticket forfeiture, NDC and GDS surcharge exposure and hotel commission retention from your ARC/BSP and hotel data, using the air surcharge and unused ticket calculator.
Week 4 — Negotiate on the delta. Take the clause set above into best-and-final offers and score the result in a weighted matrix, not on the online fee alone.

Executive FAQ

Questions procurement teams ask about this

Is Navan cheaper than Amex GBT?

On online transaction fees, Navan proposals usually come in lower than Amex GBT’s line-item schedule. The total depends on your offline share, how hotel commission is handled, whether travel pricing is tied to card adoption, and how traveler rewards are funded. On a normalized $3.5M program the difference between a default and a negotiated contract with either vendor is often larger than the difference between the two vendors, so compare full-basket cost, not the headline online fee.

Is Amex GBT the same company as American Express?

No. American Express Global Business Travel is a separately listed company trading on the NYSE as GBTG, operating the American Express brand under licence. American Express the card issuer is a separate company. That matters for contracts: your Amex GBT travel agreement and any American Express corporate card agreement are different documents with different counterparties, and neither should silently change the other’s pricing.

What is the difference between Egencia and Amex GBT?

Egencia is the booking platform and service model Amex GBT acquired from Expedia Group in 2021, aimed mainly at small and mid-sized programs. Larger Amex GBT accounts are typically served through its Neo booking tool or a third-party OBT such as SAP Concur, with a different fee schedule. When an incumbent proposes moving you between platforms, request the fee schedule for the new platform and treat the move as a renegotiation point.

Which contract clause matters most when comparing Amex GBT and Navan?

For Amex GBT, the transaction definition and complexity-tier cap, because agent-assisted fees drive most of the cost. For Navan, the decoupled-pricing clause, because travel fees linked to card or expense adoption make it expensive to leave one product without the other. For both, hotel commission pass-through of 80%–100% and a free full data export at exit protect you regardless of which vendor wins.

How long does a neutral Amex GBT vs Navan benchmark take?