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Ridiculous things your company has done to reduce travel expenses

Ridiculous things your company has done to reduce travel expenses

Old Aug 23, 2012, 6:58 pm
  #46  
 
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Originally Posted by h15t0r1an
in one example of a company not paying for employees to watch videos in their hotel rooms, I was told it was in case you were watching porn. Which the company would not finance. So just in case, the company would not pay for any in-room videos at all.
I don't have a problem with this. The company won't pay for you to go to the AMC Theater to see Batman, why would you expect them to pay for an in-room movie, porn or not?
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Old Aug 23, 2012, 7:14 pm
  #47  
 
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Common sense things like:

1) Hotel rates that just are over the max. but include meals.
2) Hotels that might be very close to an event etc. but are over the max. However, booking that hotel prevents need for cab or rental car.

We have to included itemized receipts for meals. We are allowed two alcoholic bvgs with dinner. $65/day for all meals.

(The above items are usually approved, but the system won't allow automatic booking.)
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Old Aug 23, 2012, 7:31 pm
  #48  
 
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I'm asked (nicely) to limit my car rental use (not expense specifically) while traveling and that I need to justify the expense in writing ahead of time..... but only if I fly.

If take the train it's ok to rent. If I need to drive, I'm encouraged to rent instead of use my own car. But flying? Needs written explanation.

Because my boss is awesomesauce, he asked me to make a couple of my trips without a rental car so he could show that our department is making an attempt to comply with the new policy.

I told him that would mean staying at more expensive hotels rather than the Residences and Courtyards I typically stay at.... FS Marriott and Renaissances would be the norm.

His reply: "Enjoy"

I really don't get this policy... but whatever. I'm platinum with Marriott now, so I'll take the upgrades at the nice hotels.

Edit: and when I say that expenses aren't questioned... I recently dumped $600 for a week car rental out of ORD because there was very little selection. All I had to do was write my little note.
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Old Aug 23, 2012, 7:42 pm
  #49  
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Back in the 90s, for a while, we needed receipts for everything. So I had to use the slow manned lane at the tollbooth instead of the exact change machine lane if I wanted my 50 cents. By the way, have you ever tried to get a receipt from a NYC hot dog vendor?

All this was just a rounding error, of course, as the plane tickets often exceeded $1500.
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Old Aug 23, 2012, 10:17 pm
  #50  
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Originally Posted by CMK10
My last company started buying employee's old cars and using them as company cars. I ended up with a 9 year old Land Rover Discovery with over 100,000 miles. They also didn't replace the windshield wipers because "it rarely rains in Las Vegas". Sure enough, a big rain storm happened and I could see out the windshield better with the wipers off
I live in Vegas and I consider wipers something to replace every fall. The summer heat will have left the old ones not doing a decent job anymore. It doesn't rain often but it does rain on occasion and you do need wipers.
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Old Aug 23, 2012, 11:44 pm
  #51  
 
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Back in the '80s I worked for a local TV station that had an old London open top double-decker bus that was used for promotional purposes. We used to televise college football games, and also did the away games. Someone in management decided it would be a huge cost saving to use the bus to take the crew to the airport, to save on parking company cars at the airport. So we loaded up about a dozen people on this bus that was in effect a rolling billboard with the station's logos plastered all over it, complete with huge pictures of all the newscasters. There was absolutely no doubt who owned this bus.

Problem was the bus only went 35 mph, and had a not so eco-friendly diesel engine, something management possibly was not aware of, as the bus was only used in parades or parked at events for promotional purposes. Needless to say it was not quite the public relations the station wanted as it crawled down the highway to the airport at top speed. Many drivers let us know by their gestures as they passed us that they thought the station was "number one".

This was the only trip the bus ever made to the airport. On a positive note the station was also the first in the market to have a helicopter, but fortunately they never thought about a Thanksgiving promotion that involved live turkeys and the helicopter.
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Old Aug 24, 2012, 12:02 am
  #52  
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The only ridiculous thing is the 3x receipt submission policy.

#1- Scan them and upload them to the intranet expense site
#2- Fax them to the expense office
#3- Mail them to the expense office

Everything else is pretty standard. Coach if domestic (Y-Up is allowed)/Biz or F if international, $100 per day for meals in most locations, closest approved hotel to your work or meeting location, and only National, Enterprise or Europcar for rental cars.

Most of those restrictions are moot though, since due to large numbers of travelers my company has (over 150k, and almost half travel regularly), we either get automatic elite status on most airlines, hotels, and car rental companies that we have contracts with; or we get automatic upgrades due to our fare codes/rate codes.
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Old Aug 24, 2012, 12:25 am
  #53  
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Originally Posted by ctuttle
Back in the '80s I worked for a local TV station that had an old London open top double-decker bus that was used for promotional purposes. We used to televise college football games, and also did the away games. Someone in management decided it would be a huge cost saving to use the bus to take the crew to the airport, to save on parking company cars at the airport. So we loaded up about a dozen people on this bus that was in effect a rolling billboard with the station's logos plastered all over it, complete with huge pictures of all the newscasters. There was absolutely no doubt who owned this bus.

Problem was the bus only went 35 mph, and had a not so eco-friendly diesel engine, something management possibly was not aware of, as the bus was only used in parades or parked at events for promotional purposes. Needless to say it was not quite the public relations the station wanted as it crawled down the highway to the airport at top speed. Many drivers let us know by their gestures as they passed us that they thought the station was "number one".

This was the only trip the bus ever made to the airport. On a positive note the station was also the first in the market to have a helicopter, but fortunately they never thought about a Thanksgiving promotion that involved live turkeys and the helicopter.
Post of the day. This is funny.
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Old Aug 24, 2012, 1:50 am
  #54  
 
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Originally Posted by MSPeconomist
Post of the day. This is funny.
Yes, reminds me of the story of the Beatles not so magical mystery tour
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Old Aug 24, 2012, 6:00 am
  #55  
 
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Originally Posted by mapleg
Do you work for either government or a non-profit agency?
I do a bit of freelance stuff with non-profit agencies and/or as a government contractor but my primary gig (the one that my budget comment referrs to) is with a major organisation in the resources industry.

Originally Posted by Mr. Vker
We have to included itemized receipts for meals. We are allowed two alcoholic bvgs with dinner. $65/day for all meals.
I usually get $100/day for all meals and drinks. No alcohol (unless you can talk the hotel into listing it as "dinner beverage" ) and receipts for everything unless charged back to my room.

Last edited by Ocn Vw 1K; Aug 27, 2012 at 10:54 am Reason: Merge consecutive posts of same member.
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Old Aug 24, 2012, 8:22 am
  #56  
 
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Originally Posted by rwmiller56
Wow, the no alcohol restriction seems very draconian. I'm glad my company doesn't restrict that. I love to have a beer with my meals when traveling. They will pay for that. I suppose if I sat in a bar and ran up a tab on just alcohol, they would probably not pay for that. But I haven't tried that, nor would I. That would come out of my own pocket.
Please note that if you are traveling for billable job reasons, some clients (note, not your employer) will not pay for alcohol. So it's not necessarily the employer's decision, but that of what they can bill the client and what the client will reimburse your employer.
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Old Aug 24, 2012, 8:28 am
  #57  
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I'm surprised that all companies haven't by now gone to flat per diems for everything except the air, hotel, and ground transportation.

Totally eliminates all of the receipt silliness, surely eliminates a ton of costs on the admin end, and makes employees' lives easier. The company can simply point to IRS per diem rates if it doesn't want to be seen as the bad guy for setting rates considered too high or low in various cities.

If Employee A wants to spend his per diem on Cheetos and in-room pr0nz and Employee B wants to spend it on lobster and wine, so be it...

I forgot about one from almost 20 years ago: our company rental car policy was to rent standard cars from Hertz. One day I was traveling somewhere where they were sold out of standard, but I had a good promo code for a premium car for $1/day more. (I'm almost 100% sure this was a Crown Vic or Grand Marquis - not some sort of "desirable" upgrade.) Submitted the expense report and had the whole thing rejected until I backed out $1 per day, plus applicable taxes. I was told that if standard cars where unavailable, I should have booked a midsize or compact for less money. Under our corp rates, all car types from standard on down were basically the same rate - sometimes $1 increments per car class.
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Old Aug 24, 2012, 9:10 am
  #58  
 
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This thread is about ridiculous things, and present company is very sensible. However .....

A number of the guys worked for the same erstwhile competitor. Being the UK, the consulting days were often of one day only at a time, so they would get through several in a week. There was a consultants organiser (who of course had never done a job on the road) who had no clue about geography and who used to organise all sorts of longwinded combinations, up north Monday and Tuesday, south on Wednesday, back north on Thursday, etc, with them driving through several evenings. Any comments or attempts to reorganise were met with prima-donna attitude, and statements that changes were impossible, they were being difficult, just shut up, etc. So at the annual Christmas staff dinner, when various awards were being given, the Lead Consultant got the microphone and said they had a special present for the organiser, who came forward smiling and unwrapped it in front of everyone ..... it was a road atlas of the UK She left early in the New Year.

Originally Posted by PJinNH
Please note that if you are traveling for billable job reasons, some clients (note, not your employer) will not pay for alcohol.
This varies by country, and it seems the USA in particular has got a "thing" about alcohol; sort of goes with the way that US major airlines all charge for it whereas mainstream carriers elsewhere do not. In the UK it's MOSTLY quite acceptable to have one on the receipt. In Ireland, where the client invariably insists they will be billed directly by your hotel rather than reimburse expenses, it would be thought grossly inhospitable not to have a drink in the bar in the evening when you've travelled over there. As for France, nobody would dream of saying anything. Incidentally, none of this permits you to act impaired at any time or order over-the-top things.

However, one major client years ago in the north (very north !) of the UK was a fundamentalist about this, so the first month I submitted all the staff reimbursable accommodation etc expenses, which came straight back - there were bar items on the receipts. So I extracted all these from the totals, writing this off to overhead, and resubmitted them. Back they came again. Not just not to be repaid, but the words "bar" must not appear on any of the receipts. So had to Tippex the lines out, overtype (remember typewriters ?) with "Company expense", and submit finally. Everyone had to do two receipts from the hotel thereafter, one for non-bar (for submission) and one for bar. Just for that client.
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Old Aug 24, 2012, 12:27 pm
  #59  
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The timing is brilliant, I just received a memo about a new expense process. I am now expected to be able to tell the accounting department exactly who will attend dinners in advance - when the invitations to the dinner haven't even been sent. Because apparently telling them after the dinner 'results in delays in reimbursements back'. That is beyond special.

Very tempted to send up a list that reads 'Madonna, Bon Jovi, The Queen, Obama etc.' because 'I am hoping they will be able to attend...'
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Old Aug 24, 2012, 1:08 pm
  #60  
 
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Bravo

Originally Posted by Often1
1. Many of these fall into the trap of well-minded small-mindedness. Others are rooted in common sense but sometimes work a hardship.

2. Here is what we do:

A. We don't preset spending and we don't require the use of prefered carriers, hotels or car rental companies. But, our corporate TA site does have a pop-up form which needs to be completed when non-prefered carriers are used or a flight is booked in F when it doesn't meet F criteria (by position, distance, etc).

B. Some savings are not self-evident. For instance, we require the use of issued corporate Amex cards, but our TA is equipped to "strip" air and rail charges off the card and send them straight to the accounting software. All that the individual sees is the charge information and $0.00 on the monthly statement. This automated accounting interface is a substantial cost savings.

C. We monitor the reasons people list for spending more than they should or using non-prefered carriers. Those who pop up as "regulars" are counseled. Sometimes it's just a matter of a series of trips. Sometimes, it's been bad judgment.

D. We don't look at meal expenses to see who had how much to drink, but when a person starts to spend way too much, someone may look at the tab to see how it got to where it was.

In the end, if you treat your people like dirt, they will treat you like dirt. The good people will move on and you will be left with the dregs. But, the real key is that you explain your policies. There are sometimes good reasons for doing things in a way which is not apparent to all. While an employer does not need to walk through every minor change in policy, it really does help when you explain to your people the basics of why you do things the way you do. Yes, doing it a different way may occasionally be cheaper, but overall, it may be better to do it another way. Spending the 5 mins. to explain it, pays dividends.
Well said!
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