[Protest of Army Contract Award for Travel Management Services]

A firm protested an Army contract award for travel management services, contending that the Army: (1) significantly understated the savings associated with its solicitation's discriminators and, as a result, the advantages offered by its proposal were not adequately considered in the source selection decision; (2) unreasonably determined that the Department of Defense could take advantage of only 6 months of its proposed accelerated deployment schedule; (3) failed to conduct meaningful discussions; and (4) made a flawed source selection decision. GAO noted that: (1) the protester failed to prove that any additional savings that could reasonably be expected to result from its discriminators would have altered the technical evaluation and offset the awardee's significant price advantage in the cost/technical tradeoff; (2) the Army appropriately credited the protester's bid for its proposed accelerated travel system deployment schedule and assigned the proposal a technical strength on this account; and (3) the Army properly made the source selection decision, since it determined that the awardee's proposed staffing levels were not significant due to its price advantage and favorable technical evaluation. Accordingly, the protest was denied.