MilesBuzz! - Experiences with corporate policies of unused tickets?

Hopefully there isn't a better place I should have posted this.

I am having a discussion in my company about what to do with unused, nonrefundable tickets for employees who have left the company. The money is already spent, the question is to cancel the ticket outright (everyone looses) or let the former employee use the value of the ticket (company gets karma points).

The only wrinkle I can see is that the ticket was bought with a corporate credit card, so that is associated with the e-ticket so how to prevent the former employee from making a ticketing change and have it charged back to the company.

Do others have experience with this situation or thoughts? Thanks!

The ticket belongs to the company, and I don't see how the former employee thinks they have any right to the funds.

Naturally the company could give the former employee the tickets for their personal use, but you could be creating a problem in the future where all former employees want any non-refundable ticket they did not use.

As far as the past employee reusing the ticket and having the original card used to pay any fare difference, that isn't going to happen, unless the former employee requests it, and then you have another issue. My experience has been the airline could care less what the method of payment was originally, and if there is an additional fare they want a credit card number to pay for it.

You didn't say how much the tickets were, but another option might be to see how much of a change fee it would be to change the name on the ticket if another person could use the ticket. Non-refundable tickets have all sorts of stipulations, some allow name change, some allow other people to use the funds, depends on the airline and the fare. They might not be totally worthless if you cancel them.

If it were me, and I had to let someone go because of reasons not based on the performance of the individual, and they asked for the tickets I would tell them they could have them.

You didn't say how much the tickets were, but another option might be to see how much of a change fee it would be to change the name on the ticket if another person could use the ticket. Non-refundable tickets have all sorts of stipulations, some allow name change, some allow other people to use the funds, depends on the airline and the fare. They might not be totally worthless if you cancel them.I didn't think it was really a problem using a cancelled unused ticket to book a ticket for someone else (e.g., someone still employed by the company). If you're talking about half a ticket though (i.e., the return portion of a restricted one-way) there are issues involved in some cases, and the ticket is likely worthless except for the exact route it was purchased for anyway.

I don't think you want to let former employees keep unneeded tickets, it creates the potential for abuse by employees who may know in advance they are leaving the company.

... it creates the potential for abuse by employees who may know in advance they are leaving the company.

While the chance of this is small, it was the first thing that I thought about after reading the OP.

I would also imagine the chance the former employee would want a ticket on the same route would be small. Rather than have a policy, I would think something like this should be done a case-by-case basis.

I seem to recall that when I worked for a large Fortune 500 company, they had "preferred airlines" toward which they directed as much corporate travel as possible. In exchange, I believe they were able to recoup some of the lost value of unused non-refundable tickets, perhaps in the form of a larger price discount based on total dollar amount of purchased tickets.

That said, when I left the company (in good standing, just needed less travel with teenagers at home), my manager told me to just keep any unused tickets I had. The residual value was modest, but the paperwork and budget accounting for him to return them was substantial.

Many airlines will allow a name change on a nonrefundable ticket when an employee leaves a company - each has it's own requirements. If the tickets were purchased through a corporate travel agency, the agency should be able to get authorization. If not, contact the local sales office of the airline in question and ask what they need to authorize a name change. Often just a letter on company letterhead saying the passenger no longer works for the company is sufficient.

My company books with AMEX Corporate Travel and all travel is booked on our corporate cards.

They actually monitor two things for us.

First, they monitor the expiration date of airline credits from canceled flights for reallocation to other employees going on trips in the future (I think they are "administratively" applied on the backend, vs. on a ticket-by-ticket basis) as onlyairfare mentioned.

Second, they also monitor the credits from people who have left the firm, and like above, will "administrative" recoup the monies at some point (I think 3 months prior to the expiration).

My old employer didn't give us corporate cards and thus, all travel was done on personal cards + expense reports. In theory, we would have to report the credit refund to the company who reduced expense reimbursements by the same amount, and you could keep the credit from the airline, but I saw it done both ways (where they either did report the credit, or didn't bother).

Absent a corporate agreement that lets you recover some of the ticket's value, and assuming the employee left on good terms without burning any bridges, I don't see why you couldn't share the value. If it's a $550 ticket with a $150 change fee, it's essentially a $400 voucher with one-year validity. Sell it to the employee for $200. It's a win-win. (The employee comes out ahead if s/he really wants to be in Cleveland on November 17, but what are the chances of that?)

The employee charging any changes to a corporate card is, in my experience, not a real issue. In my experience each employee's company credit card has a unique number and is cancelled when an employee leaves. If s/he calls to use the credit and says "put the rest of the fare on the same card," it will be rejected.

The employee charging any changes to a corporate card is, in my experience, not a real issue. In my experience each employee's company credit card has a unique number and is cancelled when an employee leaves. If s/he calls to use the credit and says "put the rest of the fare on the same card," it will be rejected.

There is one small problem here. If the passenger books a new ticket at a fare lower than the unused ticket, many airlines allow one to take the $150 penalty out of the fare difference. So if the original ticket was $550 and the new ticket is $400 or less, there will be no payment due to the airline and the passenger can easily reuse the residual value of the ticket.

I still say - contact the corporate travel agency that booked the ticket or the sales office of the airline and get a waiver to do a name change, if it is an airline that doesn't usually allow name changes. If it is on Southwest or AirTran, however, name changes are permitted at no additional fee.

If the passenger books a new ticket at a fare lower than the unused ticket, many airlines allow one to take the $150 penalty out of the fare difference. So if the original ticket was $550 and the new ticket is $400 or less, there will be no payment due to the airline and the passenger can easily reuse the residual value of the ticket.

Just a minor note on this since I just had this experience 2 weeks ago - United Airlines does not let you take the $150 change fee out of the fare difference... so, yes, my fare was cheaper, but I had to pay $150 out of pocket and then have a remaining nonrefundable credit to use in the future. Very frustrating - and this was booked through my corporate travel agency.

Slightly off-topic, but I also find it frustrating that you can only apply nonrefundable credit to future nonrefundable flights, so if you purchase a full-fare economy ticket (because that's all that's available), you can't use it. However, corporate travel agents definitely have leeway because once when I was in this situation, my travel agent spoke to Continental directly and got permission to apply a nonrefundable credit to a full-fare refundable flight because she told them that I was leaving the company and needed to use that credit.

United Airlines does not let you take the $150 change fee out of the fare difference...That's not true. In most cases, the $150 fee is supposed to come out of the original fare. I don't know why they didn't do it in your case, but they're supposed to do so. The official policy even states as much.

Slightly off-topic, but I also find it frustrating that you can only apply nonrefundable credit to future nonrefundable flights, so if you purchase a full-fare economy ticket (because that's all that's available), you can't use it.Also not true on United. You can use nonrefundable credit towards a refundable ticket, but the nonrefundable portion remains nonrefundable, so if you cancel the refundable ticket, you will receive a refund to your CC only in the amount that you paid; the nonrefundable portion is refunded as a voucher, just as it was originally.

Thanks cepheid for clarifying that about United. My corporate travel agent did it, so I assumed she would had applied it if she could instead of charging more, but I think she was just lazy. That's rather frustrating, but good to know in the future so I can avoid that.

To clarify about the vent about not being able to use the nonrefundable credit on a refundable fare, that was regarding Continental, and that happened last year. I haven't tried it on United yet, and I'm not sure if Continental's policies have changed since then. I guess I should check whether the stickies on each airline forum have the current policies about credits, sorry about the misinformation.