Corporate Pooling??

[kaskie]

One of my friends is travel coordinator in a business that has a corporate accelerate account with Virgin. She's been boasting that she's supplied her own Velocity number for the whole company's travel (about 20 people flying weekly) and will get everyone's points and status credits accrued to her account (even though she isn't doing any of the travel!)

Is this even possible? I can't seem to find anything about it online, so I'm not sure. If it is true, I'm jealous, as I've had to claw my way up the hard way!

 

[MarkD]

Master of Bull****. It does not happen. She may get gold straight away, but that would be all.

 

[haydensydney]

Sounds a bit dodgy (unless it was agreed by management?)

 

[ric_melb]

I would think that Virgin would put a halt to any such thing if they found it happening. And frankly unlikely that it does.
Frequent flyer accounts are meant to attach to the person, and certainly would not in this case.
There would be a suspicion of fraud if such things were allowed, ethically I think it is incorrect, and I suspect the taxman would take a dim view of it.
Fringe benefits tax springs to mind at the very least!

 

[oz_mark]

Depends on whether the system checks that the Velocity Number belongs to the person named on the ticket. Airlines vary in how rigidly they check these things.

 

[robd]

One of my friends is travel coordinator in a business that has a corporate accelerate account with Virgin. She's been boasting that she's supplied her own Velocity number for the whole company's travel (about 20 people flying weekly) and will get everyone's points and status credits accrued to her account (even though she isn't doing any of the travel!)

Is this even possible? I can't seem to find anything about it online, so I'm not sure. If it is true, I'm jealous, as I've had to claw my way up the hard way!

I know you can do it with the Company credit card (Qantas NAB). If there are two or more credit cards on the one account, you nominate who gets the points. So, the boss (or whoever set up the account) could have all the points posting to their own FF account.

 

[smit0847]

Must be a really dynamic company if 20 people fly weekly and never enquire what happens to their FF points and SCs.....

 

[haydensydney]

Related story from my past employer.

An employee was sacked after it was found that she was using her corporate credit card for massive personal spend - though she always 'paid back' the amount she spent on her personal items by the due date, her excuse was that she was using the un-official credit source for earning points. Turns out that she put through some whoppers (five figure purchases) for friends and family etc, just so she would get the points. Management weren't amused.

With points being a form of currency (in that it results in tangible benefits) it can lead to people doing stupid things. I can see the value in corporate pooling if the business gets to use those points for employee travel - not for 'madam travel coordinator' who gets to pocket the points. In fact there could be a conflict of sorts if she was booking flights etc to maximise her return of points, rather than BFOD or whatever... if management weren't aware of this, I can imagine they soon will be.

If management were aware of this and are happy for the travel coordinator to pocket the points (unlikely!) - then good for her