gradboozer

Anything > 6 hours or international is Business (> 3 for execs). SWU, miles, etc. allowed for upgrades regardless of flight time. Typically we are required to choose the lowest fare and must be booked through corporate travel desk.

Can usually book any hotel you want that you wouldn't feel uneasy explaining to senior management with exceptions for major metro areas such as NYC, Paris, Tokyo, etc. where you can go up to $500/night.

I've stayed at the Ritz in NYC on several occasions for 3-5 nights and nobody ever questioned it. Other trips I usually choose whatever is most comfortable at a reasonable price.

Metanoia

US based multinational.

US Domestic: Coach, unless SVP or above if segment > 5 hours.
International: All segments in J over 6 hours. SVP+ in F.
Intra-Europe: Coach only.

Hard limits on hotel costs per city in local currency, but per diem is in USD.

sts603

Top 50 law firm:

Business Class over 6 hours, international. Discretion whether to book refundable. The system will try to point you to lower cost options but its easy to waive out of them (especially since you can just change between non-refundable and refundable to see how different schedules stack up differently).

Partners I believe have greater latitude but i know many, but not all, travel coach domestically as well.

cyclogenesis

Wow.. quite the mixed bag! It would be interesting to contrast Job security with travel policy..

Besides the fact it would be near impossible to do my job on anything BUT the public penny (Scientist.. ) one of the things I like about my job is the security, to the point I am willing to sacrifice the perk of premium travel (you have to be super senior to get ANY premium cabin tix.. )

Also would be interesting (but a severe invasion of privacy ) to contrast employee cost (ie fully burdened wages) against policy..

(yes.. I am envious of those that get Biz for a mere 6 hours! )

Metanoia

I'm guessing my policy was specifically engineered to ensure everyone was in J for NYC-LHR

chinatraderjmr

For my employees, anything international or US Transcon is business class, Other US domestic or short haul Europe is economy.

I will let my employees play around to get into F - An example is DXB-USA...thats always a J class ticket on EK. However, if an employee wants to spend the week end in Doha on his own dime, ill let him fly F on EK via DXB to the US as the fare is almost the same
(DXB-USA J is same as DOH-DXB-USA in F) or last year BA had a F class fare DXB-NYC that was half the normal F fare. We allowed our employees to go one way in F and the other in J, thus saving us money and giving them a better flight.

My business partner and I fly paid F. We are certainly not rich although business is good. But we both spend a lot of hours in the air and made a decision a number of years ago that as long as we are profitable, we would prefer to fly F and make a few less dollars per order.

I know a lot of business' that are NYC based that make employees fly Y to Europe. This is quite normal but to Asia, not so much although some companies require Y only. I dont care how good the job is, Asia in Y is bad enough if going on vacation...it must be pure torture to do it and then have to hit the ground running....no job is worth that

Elfstar

10 hours and over qualifies for business; if the employee voluntarily stays in coach, however, he get a bonus of $1,000 for doing so.

mandolino

Depends how many are doing it, how often. And a Business Class return to Australia from Europe or North America bought at short notice will more likely cost you $10k more than Economy.

badgersfly

Wow, that's an interesting one. Any feel for what percentage of the time employees take the $1,000? I have got to imagine that I might torture myself for 14 hours for $1,000!

mandolino

That reminds me of a job where the client did actually pay for business class, and the employees came to me and asked if they could just fly economy and pocket the difference (which was probably more than $1000)
Sadly for them, the client was arranging and paying for the flights and there was no cash alternative.

Even further back, I worked for an offshore drilling contractor in the UK working out of ABZ whose employees lived all over UK & Ireland. For many years they hassled and petitioned for air fares instead of train fares, and finally succeeded, whereupon most of them took the train and pocketed the difference.

FlyingCow

Quite large multinational, European HQ. Any training related travel is Y, regardless of length/destination. Otherwise, anything over four hours is C, and those four hours include layovers. So I have been in (intra-EU) C several times because total flight time was above four hours, but had to endure Y to the US because I was going there for a course. Guess which flight was more expensive...

Good thing is we can choose whichever airline and flight combinations we want - but have to give explanations if chosen option is not the cheapest - and also are able to extend duration of the stay or add a stopover if we want to do sightseeing or side-trips.

chinatraderjmr

I would imagine very few would take this. A $100-200K a year employee is not gonna care about $1000 if it means torturing himself in Y for 14 hours. Of course all employees dont make 100-200K but Ive got to think that a great percentage of employees who are worth spending 5-10K on a ticket for must make a pretty good living. Not many minimum wage or 40K a year people have jobs that pay for J class flights

I would absolutely forbid any employee from flying Y on a flight over 10 hours if I am sending him to do some important work. The reason I as an employer am willing to spend this kind of money is not cuz an such a nice guy and I care so much how comfortable my employee is (although I am happy when they are happy) The reason employers spend this kind of money is so the employee is well rested and ready to get ot work and put 100pct into it. A over tired, het lagged employee with a sore back is no good to me

badgersfly

Well I guess that's why everyone is always telling me how cheap I am! $1000 is a $1000, and I'm all about it. However, I certainly understand your point. Maybe on those long flights it has diminishing returns for the company to give out $1,000.

Swanhunter

Anything over 6 hours is J. Only exception would be NYC/BOS which are Premium Economy westbound but J on the return. We have preferred carrier deals on most routes which discount by 10-30% and offer full fare flexbility to cheaper fare buckets.

Within Europe it is chepaest full service or direct option. So for IST it would be a toss up between TK and BA but no expectation to fly Sleazyjet. For Tenerife, it would be Easyjet but no-one would mind if you chose indirect with IB to avoid the holiday makers.

Travel HAS to be booked 28 days out. Any exceptions require a directors (VP in US speak) approval.

This is pretty typical for most big UK multinationals that I know of. Financial services get it far better.

chinatraderjmr

Some of the richest people I know would not scoff at taking $1000. I didnt mean to sound condescending. It just my opinion (and my policy as a boss) that the reason we spend so much on employee airfare is we get it back in productivity. The $1000 deal you speak of kind of diminishes the point of the premium class ticket. If your employer is willing to give you a $1000 bonus to fly Y, Im surprised he does not just require everyone to fly Y anyway since he obviously does not think the J class ticket is very important to incrase productivity