Handling office travel (Potential Ethical issue)

sriki

Level 2 Member
Almost all of us on this forum travel and/or love to travel. Many of us also travel for work. There are a few things I came across and a few dilemmas when office travel meets points earning.

1. Assuming there is no business program that the company participates in where the company gets credit for, is it OK to put up personal membership information to earn points? What if there is one but the company doesn't really have a policy regarding its use?

2. Using a regular price for a hotel/airline when a company has a rate code which doesn't always guarantee the best price. (Assuming the special rate code disqualifies participation in any promotions that a person can benefit from & the rate code is a not policy requirement)

3. Getting reimbursed for office travel booked using personal miles/points.

Add to this if there are any other conflicts that any of you came across.
 

adurham47

Level 47 Member
I think it may depend to some extent on your employer and their policies. I know my employer explicitly allows us to use loyalty programs for points/miles/rewards with the caveat that we don't pick a more expensive option just for the loyalty points.
 

bayguy

Level 2 Member
My employer has travel policies in place, so you can get your miles but charges go onto a corporate card with no exceptions. They also have a portal through which you have to book but can choose a different carrier than preferred if the price difference is not much(with justification).
 

Sesq

Level 2 Member
My company has a specified travel agent we must use and who presumably pays a rebate to the company. Except for airfare we are expected to pay for items with our personal cards. I am careful to pick the card that matches the spend to the greatest advantage. I drew the line at buying Hyatt gift certificates at a discount and using them to settle the bill and submitting the full tender receipt for reimbursement. I thought the ethical line in that instance was "reimbursement" and its not appropriate to be reimbursed in excess of the out of pocket. But earning points as a rebate is normal and approved.
I do conserve company resources by looking for more cost effective vendors and I don't use cards overseas that have forex fees. Hits my budget too. There have been instances when I could have driven the price below what the company negotiated rates are but our policy is explicit in that we aren't to do that. I have no idea what the commission rebate is, so I guess that is what they key in on. Not a battle worth fighting, even if the expense hits my budget.

A battle I do fight is my company's software routinely suggests I stay at a Day's Inn 25 miles away from an urban conference location where I don't want a rental car, traffic, etc. I don't think I have ever booked a hotel without triggering an exception report.

I don't use points and seek reimbursement. probably works in a small business but wouldn't work in my corp. Heads might explode.
 

sriki

Level 2 Member
3. Getting reimbursed for office travel booked using personal miles/points.
There are two ways (that I could think of) this comes into play.

1. You use a card, say, Citi Prestige for a flight ticket. Now, you get reimbursed upto $250 by Citi. Will that cross a line when you submit an expense report to your company with the full flight charge?

2. You need to fly somewhere on a short notice (same day or next day). The flight which is usually $200-300 is now $700-1000. But, that's a flight that needs to be taken for business reasons. Using points here usually (if a personal trip) makes very good sense on a CPM basis. But, for business trip, would using miles to fly this flight and then trying to get reimbursed for the actual price of the flight cross a line?
 

nrdk

Level 2 Member
@sriki I'd say they're very one off situations in both cases.

Would you expect to be reporting the 1 or 2% cash back on a different card as a discount on the full flight charge? I certainly wouldn't. Either way, with the $250 or the 2% CB, it is a specific card benefit for paying for something but to the employer, regardless of the card you put it on, the flight was sold for $x. Now if you turn around and manage to rebook (from the airline) at $x - $250, but submit $x, then yes I would have an issue with it, as the sold cost of the good was changed.

As far as 2 goes, that's definitely an employer by employer basis, with small businesses being the benificiary and large companies likely not caring about the discount on using miles. With a small business, I would just put it to the boss/owner that you can either book the flight on the cash basis, or say you would use your personal miles to book the flight and accept 20% less than the cash basis for the flight or something to that degree. I think it'd be understood that it's a win on both sides, however obviously depends on the employer because they could take it as an 'earned' benefit by traveling for the company that you're unwilling to use for the company, and thus enforce a policy change.

All about knowing where you work and who you work for.
 

Matt

Administrator
Staff member
The flight which is usually $200-300 is now $700-1000. But, that's a flight that needs to be taken for business reasons. Using points here usually (if a personal trip) makes very good sense on a CPM basis. But, for business trip, would using miles to fly this flight and then trying to get reimbursed for the actual price of the flight cross a line?

My feeling is that this one may be fraud, perhaps with the IRS being the aggrieved party:

You 'sell' your points to the company for say $1000 and receive 'income' that is not declared.
Your company deducts the $1000 as an expense, so taxes are not paid on it.
The airline receives no income, so no taxes are paid on the income.

So company money moved from the company to you without the IRS getting to touch it... not sure that would work.
 

SC Trojan

Level 2 Member
Generally companies will only reimburse for actual expenses not theoretical ones. So if you book a flight with miles they would not count the value of the miles, they would only count the taxes and fees for the tickets. In their mind the flight was "free" and all you paid for was the fees. I actually did something somewhat similar when I used points to stay at a hotel that I could have gotten reimbursement on as part of a relocation and wasn't given any compensation.

The $250 credit is sorta more of a grey area. Probably you could get away with it, but in my mind it's not really worth the hassle because we all travel so much that y0u should be easily able to use the $250 on a personal flight.
 
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