joeyvegaz

In the military, and found this looking for an answer related to travel pay:

How can I use my earned frequent flyer points for personal travel?

The rule is that frequent traveler benefits earned in connection with official travel may be used only for official travel. Employees may not retain and use such benefits for personal travel. If both personal and official frequent flyer bonus points are co-mingled into one account, all those points belong to the Federal Government unless the employee can separate the accounts for the personal mileage. Since the law says that frequent flyer benefits earned in connection with official travel may be used only for official travel, the points may no longer be donated to a charity. Some agencies are using a gain sharing program to encourage their employees to participate in various frequent traveler programs offered by airlines, hotels, and car rental vendors. See your agency's ITMC representative.

I guess they need those miles when they shell out $1200-$1500 for a flight from Baltimore to Charlotte...

guv1976

You may have gotten outdated information. Federal law was changed a couple of years ago to allow federal employees, including those in military service, to keep, for personal use, frequent flyer benefits earned while on official travel.

http://www.defenselink.mil/dodgc/def...s/ADV_0202.htm

Suggest that you contact your command's ethics officer, or equivalent person, for a definitive ruling, and refer him/her to the above if the initial response is, "No, you can't."

rebadc

This is under FTR Part 301-53:
Part 301-53—Using Promotional Materials and Frequent Traveler Programs
Authority: 5 U.S.C. 5707; 31 U.S.C. 1353.

§301-53.1 To whom do the pronouns “I,” “you”, and their variants refer throughout this part?
The pronouns “I”, “you”, and their variants throughout this part refer to the employee.

§301-53.2 What may I do with promotional benefits or materials I receive from a travel service provider?
Any promotional benefits or materials received from a travel service provider in connection with official travel may be retained for personal use, if such items are obtained under the same conditions as those offered to the general public and at no additional cost to the Government.

Note to §301-53.2: Promotional benefits or materials you receive from a travel service provider in connection with your planning and/or scheduling an official conference or other group travel (as opposed to performing official travel yourself) are considered property of the Government, and you may only accept the benefits or materials on behalf of the Federal Government (see §301-74.1(d) of this chapter).

§301-53.3 How may I use promotional materials and frequent traveler benefits?
Promotional materials and frequent traveler benefits may be used as follows:

(a) You may use frequent traveler benefits earned on official travel to obtain travel services for a subsequent official travel assignment(s); however, you may also retain such benefits for your personal use, including upgrading to a higher class of service while on official travel.

(b) If you are offered such benefits as a result of your role as a conference planner or as a planner for other group travel, you may not retain such benefits for your personal use (see §301-53.2 of this chapter). Rather, you may only accept such benefits on behalf of the Federal Government. Such accepted benefits may only be used for official Government business.

2TallSeaFlyer

My dad simply waited for retirement to get around the "old" rule. Over a million FF miles were finally "unlocked" after his last day.

It was a better bet than his previous decision to use miles to buy a lifetime membership in the Ionosphere Club (from the now defunct Eastern Airlines).

PT22064

I think that your dad's reading of the old rule is flawed. Under the old rule, if the FF miles were earned based on official travel, then those miles must be used for government travel. In essence, the miles belong to the government. Retirement does not change the status of the miles; they still belong to the government. Of course, it is unlikely that he would be prosecuted, but nevertheless he broke the law IMHO when he used those miles for personal use.

Many years ago, I worked for one year for the federal government. Because of the rule, I never used my FF number when I flew. As I recall, I had two work-related trips during that year and basically gave up several thousand miles.

pterostyrax

I've been flying with the Federal Government for over 20 years. There never was a restriction on using miles obtained on official government travel until the Clinton years for my branch of the service - the US Army Corps of Engineers. There has never, to my knowledge, been a government wide official policy on frequent flyer mile usage. During the years we were restricted from using miles (no upgrades, travel to conferences had to use frequent flyer miles if you had them, etc.), other branches of the government had no restrictions and could use them anyway they saw fit.

Even when there were restrictions for USACE personnel, there were no "mileage police" to enforce the policy. So, I always did whatever I wanted to with the miles for, in my eyes anyways, compensation of leaving home at 4:30 AM and arriving back home at 1:30 AM in order to get back to work the next day so I wouldn't lose a day of work.

I am no longer stupid enough to do this now.

Alpha Golf

At my agency, we were told that it was the law and that some other agencies just ignored it (as many now ignore premium class regulations).

We were told that when we travelled officially, we were not to register our accounts. A tragic, tragic waste.

I think your federal salary was your compensation for being away from home.

SPN Lifer

The change in the law applied to all miles already accrued. S. 1498, 107th Cong. (signed into law 28 Dec 01). Title XI, Section 1116, provides for federal employee retention of travel promotion items. See Section 1116(b). "This section shall apply with respect to promotional items received before, on, or after the date of enactment of this Act." Section 1116(f).

So any formerly government-owned miles in one's account were legally "unlocked" on 28 Dec 01. As for any miles illegally spent after retirement up to 28 Dec 01, the federal statute of limitations on prosecution for such theft is five years.

And yes, at least one Deputy U.S. Marshal who earned miles escorting prisoners, but spent them on personal travel, lost his job and served time in federal prison.Penny wise and pound foolish, wouldn't you say? Or cutting off you nose to spite your face?

I kept records of personal and government mileage -- allocating the miles (including bonuses) on the basis of the type of travel without regard to whether commingled personal travel resulted in higher elite bonuses on government travel, or vice versa, and spent some of those miles for another employee's travel at my Administrative Officer's request. After 28 Dec 01, however, they legally became all mine.

Technically you were supposed to establish separate accounts for business and personal travel if the airline programs allowed, which fortunately for status accrual they did not. I'm glad the U.S. Congress has spoken definitively on this issue, giving federal employees comparable benefits to those enjoyed in the private sector.

kanerf

The problem with the former government policy on frequent flyer miles was enforcement. The airline rules stated that the miles belonged to the flyer, so the government could not put the mileage into an account that it owned. It would also be difficult to force the flyer to use these miles for official travel as the government was often so late in cutting orders that it would be almost impossible to get an award seat (as most leisure travelers have found). The same reason would make it very difficult to force a flyer to sign over an award ticket to another official traveler. Also, how would the original flyer be reimbursed for taxes and other fees that might accrue on an award ticket?

erik123

In government it is all about perception (of voters/taxpayers) - logic doesn't really come into it.

Marathon Man

I have to say that if I were employed in such a way and with such rules on some federal job, I would have signed up for all the FFPs anyway and just not said anything. Yup, I would have basically lied by failing to come forward with any truths. In other words, I would have played dumb and just let the miles rack up as if I had no concept of any rule. I would have cheated and thereby deceived the general public but gotten away with it anyway. .

Now, that could be very well WHY I do not work for the federal government, or maybe, if I am such a good liar, I SHOULD work for the current administration!

it IS all perception, isnt it?

MM

chinstrap

Good thing that you didn't work for the government. At the slightest hint that you were abusing the frequent flier system, an inspector general - assigned to each department to root out waste, fraud, and abuse - would check out your account with the airlines (they paid for the ticket remember) and you would be in very big trouble. Indeed, I have even heard of individuals who got someone ticked off at them who then suggested that they might be abusing the system when they were not; their life was made miserable anyway.

The government can be very, very strict in its enforcement of travel regulations. For example, suppose you live in Baltimore, work in DC, and have to drive in a government car to Philadelphia on official business. Logic would tell you that you would drive the government car home the night before your trip and leave for Philadelphia the next morning. That is a big no no. Instead, you are required to drive to DC and pick up the car the day of the trip and then drive north. The worry is that a neighbor will see a government car in your driveway and think you are commuting at his expense. It is the perception thing.

On more than one occasion, I used my government earned frequent flier miles to pay for the official travel of another government employee. When the local ticket office closed, that cost more money to do than it was worth and thereafter, I only used mine for my own official travel. All through this period we were instructed to keep detailed records of which miles were which in our accounts – Boy am I glad that is over!

CherylLump

I traveled for the government for over 25 years. I accrued hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of miles on every airline. After reading about a group of SES employees challenging the law in Federal Court in the mid-1990's, and the court placing a stay on all future enforcement activities, I ignored the silly rule and used my miles freely for personal use. Eventually, the statute of limitations passed for every personal trip I had previously taken, and I kept doing it every year of my entire career. Every year of my career the statute of limitations would expire for former personal trips older than the statute of limitations. At the Deputy Department level for my government agency branch, a Legal memo was promulgated that enforcement was impractical, and that employees should use their own judgement, and that the rule would not not be enforced unless it was connected with other more serious wrongdoing. And finally the rule was done away with. I still have a ton of miles, and use them every year.

Some "rules" just do not pass the smell test. This one sure did not. And I still travel for almost free each year as a result.

Often1

It was certainly a silly rule, but there were many people not so lucky as you. They got caught. I never heard that anybody was terminated, but there were certainly people who had that counted against them when promotions and bonuses were considered.

It is worth noting that there are still private employers which require employees to use FF awards earned on business travel for business purposes.

CherylLump

I think it varied widely by department/agency. Enforcement was sparse and spotty at best. Especially after the federal court injunction.

True, but they do not carry the force of law.