Traveling is a huge part of my life. Over the past five years, I have gone bungee jumping in New Zealand, drove through fields of lupine in Iceland, ate my way across Italy, and left my heart in the Virgin Islands. At this point, I truly consider myself a master at navigating a crowded airport, moving quickly through security, and living out of my carry-on for weeks on end.

This past January, I flew to New Orleans, Louisiana for the Rising Tide leader retreat where I had the opportunity to connect with TravelBank—an incredible company that is working to revolutionize the way business owners and modern professionals travel. In preparation for my upcoming trips abroad, it seemed like the perfect time to share this post and introduce you to my favorite travel app!

Special gift for you:
TravelBank is sponsoring today’s post and offering my readers 25% off their next flight booked in TravelBank with promo code NATALIE25 — so be sure to download the app before booking your next flight and save some dough! (Full details at the end of this post)

What is TravelBank?

TravelBank is an all-in-one travel and expense platform for solopreneurs, start-ups, and small-to-medium sized businesses that uses an intelligent algorithm to predict travel costs, tracks expenses on the go, and enables you to build budgets with real-time price estimations.

It’s essentially like having a travel agent, accountant, and operations manager in your pocket. The app houses everything that you need to know about your trip in one place and gives you the freedom to manage your adventure from anywhere.

 

What I Love Most About the App:

1) Expense Tracking on the Go: No more stuffing piles of receipts into your bag or stressing over currency conversions when tracking expenses abroad. TravelBank’s app contains a camera-first experience for capturing receipts, converting currency back to US dollars, and keeping you organized.

I want to repeat that just incase it didn’t sink in the first time. The TravelBank app has a multi-currency feature that enables you to convert expenses in more than 150 global currencies back to USD. This will save you and your accountant a ton of time. (Coming from the girl that currently has shekels and pesos in her backpack… this feature alone was a reason to download the app.)

2) Booking Made Easy: One of the best parts about TravelBank is the travel bookings portal that offers special corporate rates for business travel.

When you are a solopreneur and run your own business—you rarely get access to big corporate discounts. That’s one of the magical things about using TravelBank. They have built partnerships with the best travel brands in the business and you get to take advantage of those savings.

3) Creating Budgets is a Breeze: Having the ability to estimate travel expenses in advance is one of the most important parts of staying within budget when traveling for business. There was one time, early in my business, when I underestimated my travel costs and ended up losing money on a destination wedding. It sucked.

Every TravelBank trip starts with a predictive budget, which lets you know how much your trip is going to cost you. How does it work? The app uses an intelligent algorithm that combines real-time market data with industry standards for business travel to generate accurate trip budgets.

By default, TravelBank uses these benchmarks when estimating your trip budget:
Nonstop economy flights (whenever possible)
3-star hotels or higher
Economy-class rental cars
GSA rates for Parking
Daily Allowance (‘per diem’)

They have found that these benchmarks mimic modern traveler behavior and creates a realistic budget that helps you to prepare for your trip.

4) Concierge Available 24/7: TravelBank’s travel concierge is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to help with changes and cancellations to travel booked through the platform. I love knowing that I can get help whenever I need it—because sometimes life happens and trip plans change.

5) Quickbooks Integration: I’ve been a Quickbooks Online user for years and when I choose a platforms to trust with my business finances—it must integrate into my current account system. TravelBank integrates seamlessly with Quickbooks and they even have a step by step guide to get you setup.

Ready for the best part?

It is free to use TravelBank to create budgets and expense reports—for as long as you want!

I wish I had TravelBank back when I was estimating my travel budgets for destination weddings—building a cost estimate to share with a potential client was such a pain! I also can’t count the number of times I lost receipts while moving from location to location. (There are probably still receipts buried in the dark and dusty corners of my old suitcases!) Having an easy way to track expenses would have made life a lot easier.

This post was sponsored by TravelBank—all opinions shared in this post are 100% my own. I’m honored to work with a brand that is working to make travel easier for small business owners and I hope that you download the TravelBank app for your next trip!

And if you’d like to save on your next flight…

Get 25% off your next flight booked in TravelBank with promo code NATALIE25.

Steps: Download the TravelBank app. Create an account. Book a flight with the code NATALIE25 and you’re done.

Here are the terms: The maximum value of this discount is capped at $250 and the promo code expires May 31, 2018 (this is the date you must book your flight by). The promo code is eligible for flights before May 31, 2019 (this is the date your must fly by) and the promo code is limited to one use per user.