What's your company travel policy?

[Tejas57]

For those of you who travel for work, I'm curious as to how flexible and generous (or not) your employer's travel policy is.

Which class of travel/ticket types are you permitted to book? And do you get to choose your own airline, or is it purely BFOD (Best Fare Of Day)? Or are you perhaps obliged to fly with one particular airline?

i work for a big law firm. we fly qantas as a preferred carrier but we can fly anyone else if we want.

if our travel is less than 4 hours we are obligated to go non-flexible economy but anything over 4 hours or overseas is business class

hotels are off an approved list (mostly those within a block or 2 of our offices) unless the client is paying or client wants you near there office for meetings

oh and ffrequent flyer and status points we get to keep

 

[aaspro]

We are a small to medium HR Management consultancy with offices Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne Perth. Business travel is 95% domestic. We use QF with link to their Business Rewards Program. Generally, discounted Y. Flexibility to purchase yourself or via company.

 

[HockeyMonkey]

I work for a US based software company with an office in Melbourne.

Travel policy is economy only and must be BFOD within $50USD and must be booked at least 14 days in advance.

Employees at the level of Director of above are permitted to book upgradeable fares and use their own points for upgrade.

 

[nerdinary]

Very generous travel policy here.

We have set fare caps between cities, which is typically the average J fare in the prior 6 week rolling window. Within that cap, you're free to choose whatever airlines / class / route you want. You can include personal legs in that route, as long as the total fare is below the pre-determined cap for getting between A-B.

You're also "rewarded" for picking a fare below the assigned cap. For instance, if the fare cap is $X and you spent $Y (below cap), then next time you're flying, you get an additional $(X-Y)/2 to spend above the cap. This "reward" can be stacked - I've used it in the past to fly F when otherwise I could have only gotten J

Edit: Also to add, policy is the same for everyone. Day 1 employee vs Director vs Manager - everyone has the same rule.

 

[Lynda2475]

Up until June 30 ours was:

• Domestic
  • Qantas (unless don't fly to destination at suitable time) . Must take cheapest fare within 1 hour of preferred travel time.​
  • Discount Y outbound,​
  • Flex Y return.​
  • Have to fly outside of core business hours i.e. land by 9:30am, not take-off before 5pm (effectively flying in your own time)​
• International - discount/non flex J (excluding NZ which is considered domestic). also atm no transit via HKG due to potential for disruption.
• AUD $90 for meals total, no more than 1 alcoholic beverage at dinner (non reimbursed for a lunch), and can only claim for actual $ spent i.e. it isn't a per diem.
• Hotel booked from preferred list with a price guide (city dependent). So usually can direct to a property I get membership benefits for, btu not always.
• Ability to salary sacrifice a Qantas Club membership
• Uber (on corporate account) over taxis, unless in a non uber area or more than 15min wait.

Since 1 July:

• Domestic has to be discount Y both ways (so only get 20 SCs for SYD-MEL return now instead of 30)
• Crack down on travel; means fewer flights i.e. not a single trip for me in AUgust

It was always my personal travel that topped up SCs to get silver/gold.but loss of Flex return flights is really hurting this year, and will mean no chance to qualify for Gold this year.

 

[MattA]

Small software company. Flexible choice of airline and some flexibility about including some personal travel before or after a work trip (within reason) but Y only, no matter how far. I've been to the UK, South Africa and Asia, all in Y. Grr...

 

[sausagefingers]

Mine is cheapest fare outside of Low cost airlines.
only Board members can fly Y+ or J if over 8 hours.
which means I have to fly Y everywhere, including US or India.

so I am now travelling to India next week in Y on the cheapest fare which was Malaysian airlines, meaning my VA WP means nothing.. FML

 

[Tassieoptom]

Slightly left of centre view on this from myself.
I am my own boss so i get what i want/can afford at the time.
In addition I am a board member of a not for profit education provider. As such we regularly fly international speakers over for meeting/workshops and conferences. And this is where it gets interesting in recent years due to the increasing compliance restrictions.
Past norms:- were if a company offered to sponsor a speaker they paid for PE or J flights and the speaker had freedom to fly on dates they wanted, giving them the option of a little sightseeing before or after the event.

Current norms:- Now if a company sponsors flights they book the latest flight arrival pre-conference that is possible, even if that means several legs of travel. They also have to start the journey home on the same day that the last lecture is given, even if that means an overnight in another city, and more legs of travel. So speakers arrive here jetlagged and get home jetlagged and are generally less happy to come these days.

Current work around:- is the company sponsors the event, pay us, at the same rate the flights would cost. We shop for the best price fare in PE or J and the speaker can arrive early or stay later and the compliance issue is moot.

 

[Babesofy]

Concur....actually....is much better...than what we had before... *shudder*

Work for a large multi-national company with HQ in Europe. Took yrs for HQ to put out a global travel policy as each country was doing their own thing. When the official global policy finally came out it allowed business (for air and rail) for any trip over 6 hrs. The Europeans and Amercians were up in arms cause 6 hrs for them is like trekking across the world. In Australia however 6 hours barely gets you into Asia. Hence Australia, and alot of other countries, treat the global policy as the upper threshold, and some will be more stingey. E.g, in Aust anyone who is CEO or CEO minus 1 can follow global policy, but anyone below this rank will be PE for > 6 hrs trip. Trouble is PE doesnt cover all the routes so sometimes PE may end up more expensive than Business.

Besides BFOD, booked at least 14day in advance, there's no airline restriction (though we do have a blacklist of 'unsafe' airlines that we can't fly on), and we must use AMEX travel bookings as the company gets cashback, even if they don't always produce the best fare/routing. Hotels should be from the approved list, unless its not available. Daily meal allowance is $50 but its flexible depending on travel destination.

An earlier post wrote that employee's Business tix could be traded for PE/Economy so their family can fly as well. We got rid of that rule many moons ago.

We're allowed to keep the points and SCs.

 

[trentusjuventus]

I work for a Taiwan-based tech company at their HQ and all travel is international from Taipei. Anyone below dept head or executive level is in Y. Tickets are booked using a corporate travel agent and either the company or the agent seems to have a preference for EVA air so we usually end up on them. Option to pay for the flights with own credit card and be reimbursed.
My travel is usually for major trade shows, which means peak times on those routes (eg: TPE-LAX/SFO in early January for CES) so even Y+ can be extremely costly so sometimes even the dept heads end up in Y. That said, we are usually booked in full Y which means full miles and status which we get to keep. Hotels usually have a given limit depending on city but that is again waived during trade shows when the company bulk books all attendees at one hotel.
Interestingly the company also has an age-based policy where employees over 55 are entitled to one class up depending on their position and flight duration (managers Y -> Y+ or dept heads Y+ -> J).

 

[siri]

Optus used to be Bus class for more than 6 hrs and if not available, auto upgrade to 1st class... This policy changed late 90's to all economy..
One major US network company: All travel economy and if you are taller than 6'4" business class. I had a terrible back and neck issues so I was Bus class.
Major Network company Sweden: All economy unless you are a expat and travel business from spore or Bangkok .. I was given business once I refused to travel overseas.
Present Co: All business above 6 hrs and paid by the client.

 

[Denali]

....... Have to fly outside of core business hours i.e. land by 9:30am, not take-off before 5pm (effectively flying in your own time)

Forgot to mention that if we fly long haul on a weekend, we get a day 2 days in lieu.

 

[fiejh]

For those of you who travel for work, I'm curious as to how flexible and generous (or not) your employer's travel policy is.

Which class of travel/ticket types are you permitted to book? And do you get to choose your own airline, or is it purely BFOD (Best Fare Of Day)? Or are you perhaps obliged to fly with one particular airline?

I work on international contracts which all provide door-to-door travel Economy Class. My approach is to get a quote for that cost and use that as an umbrella within which to work. Canberra is my base and using Murrays buses to Sydney (almost as fast as Qantas) gives me a little surplus to play with. Shopping around for Business fares, always interesting, can generate good results, and I can usually get to Asia, Europe or America with only a small additional expense. Doesn't apply for any travel to Africa which must be the most uncompetitive air fare market in the world. Chinese airlines are particularly good with low Business class fares sometimes with a reasonable lead time for booking. I've spent nearly 20 years travelling in comfort for quite small outlays over the reimbursed economy fares.

 

[wanderer_au]

Private sector here. All domestic travel is QF Y - which suits me fine as around half of my travel is SYD-CBR return on the Dash 8. I usually book Red E-Deals going down, and then fully flex coming back, unless I'm travelling with the CEO, in which case it's not only fully flex all round, and then usually its J if we're on the 717!!! Happy days...

Overseas, it's Y under 8 hours, J for 8 and up. We interpret SIN as being more than 8 hours away.

I'd also like to add my support to those critics of Concur, although the camera operation to take pictures of cab receipts has become much better so I don't pfaff around for 20 minutes trying to get one receipt loaded up, anymore.

 

[TomJones]

Dom: BFOD +/- 2hrs in Y
Intl: Y up to 10 hours, Y+ anything longer.
Hotels: any hotel within a certain price band.

Rigorously enforced by SAP Concur.

 

[Wanderlust_tim]

DOM: BFOD +/-1 hour in Discount Y

I don't fly international for work anymore but when I did I was discount Y again but I had free reign on airlines and flight times.

 

[eagleflyer]

ceo + direct reports - greater than 4 hours fly business, otherwise economy. BFOD but with full service carriers. All others need to fly economy.

 

[TomJones]

Far more people in this thread than I was expecting with Y only international travel policies, and far fewer with J allowed to/from Perth than I was expecting.

I'm a newcomer to the whole work travel thing. Were policies always like this, or was there a time where policies allowing J were more common?

 

[ish]

Used to be a lot better..... even dom > 4 hrs used to qualify for J (most places), but alas no longer!!

 

[Forg]

Used to be a lot better..... even dom > 4 hrs used to qualify for J (most places), but alas no longer!!

I suspect it’s a business-culture thing in Straya ... doesn’t seem to be such a big issue in Europe, where it seems less normal to force employees to painfully squeeze into the tiny Y torture-chamber when wrenching said employees away from home. Removing employee comfort during travel has become an accepted way of reducing costs here.