Miles for employer payroll?

Is it possible that an employer could somehow earn miles from their weekly payroll? In other words, has anyone heard of a way of charging their payroll (ADP) to a mileage card (any type or airline) so I could earn those miles, and then just pay off the credit card balance each month.

Thanks!

Flyin' Mike

[This message has been edited by Flyin' Mike (edited 03-01-2001).]

You might be able to do this with the Citibank AAdvantage Business Card. You can call 1.888.662.7759 to apply (you get 7,500 bonus miles when you do). Their customer service people can then tell you how to set-up your payroll onto the card. I seriously doubt that the phone reps at the application centre would be able to you how so you might meed to make the desicion to apply first.

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I wish I were 1,000 miles away

Wow! if this is doable - It would be amazing!

Charging payroll to my credit card. WOW

More details please. I have never heard of this, but I would be VERY interested.

I talked to customer service at Citibank and they weren't much help on the subject. I'm thinking the best route is that I need to find a payroll company or bank(?) that will instead of doing an automatic withdrawl from my business checking account, will in turn put the charge on a credit card. If you own a business, depending upon the size, you could rack up some good miles. I'll keep looking. Any more help is appreciated!


Flyin' Mike

What's the incentive to a payroll processing company to lose 2-2.5% to the credit card? I don't think that they have enough margin to make it worth their while to try to attract more business this way.

On a slightly different note, a friend of mine, who had no idea I was so interested in ff programs, recently told me that when attempting to rectify a phone related matter for the company switchboard when he asked, not having any idea whether he could do this or not, if he could earn frequent flyer points from the company’s work lines. Amazingly the rep said yes and now months later, he is earning a significant number of miles as a result, I’ve never heard of such a thing, and I’m not referring to a single home business line, this is a large business.

While I guess that might ultimately be feasible for a small company could charge their payroll to a credit card, as a prior post notes it would not be economically viable. I.e., the interchange fee charged would undoubtedly be higher than the value of the miles. This assumes that it could even be accomplished, which is debatable.

As for the miles being earned on business long distance charges, yes this can be done. I was CFO for a small company with a long distance bill of $5k-$8k per month. We earned miles via a program with AT&T and these miles were utilized to offset flight costs which we would otherwise have incurred. Hence, no one directly received the benefit.

As a follow-up to the above, as soon as our long distance contract with AT&T expired (not my call initially), I signed up with a vastly cheaper and arguably better carrier. We had a huge reduction in our LD bills and no more miles.

I do not see an economically viable way to accomplish either of the above. I.e., charging payroll to a card may not be possible, and even if it were it would be too expensive due to the interchange fee. You can receive miles via a business line, but your LD costs will be high.

One thought for you which I almost employed at my prior gig. We had three corporate credit cards which the CEO/CFO/COO used for dinners out, etc. By chance, the restaurants that we frequented were largely within the Dining Miles programs. I signed up my card and earned a number of miles. I came really close to signing up the cards for the other exec officers (I had the #'s, of course), but did not think that this would have been an ethical action. Hence, I passed. -Might be an idea for others, you never know.

I can't comment about the payroll issue but a number of phone / long distance / pager / internet providers ect. are now accepting credit cards over the phone or via the www for payment. When they accept AmEx the Delta Skymiles card pays 2 miles per dollar spent on this type of expenditure.

Would anyone care the enlighten me on how to earn miles on a business account with AT&T?

I once asked a customer service rep about it, but they had no idea what I was talking about.

(Pushing travel-related threads ahead).