wolf72

Look,

if a company has business all the way in Asia (and australia) and is looking at it from a long term venture and is willing to send an employee all the way out to asia and wants the employee to be able to do what he or she needs to do efficiently and in the time frame he or she has with time zone/jet lag factored in and then to fly on to Australia for more meetings/work, they could do the company a big favour and at least invest in a business class seat for the person..or try to ensure the person gets a front row seat with leg room and space..whatever..as long as it helps the person be productive and efficient with the time they have and to do a good job.

A better rested employee or executive or manager or project leader is good for everyone rather than one who is tired and haggered after a long haul flight.

A friend of mine who handles a massive amount of work and projects for his company and works long hours to meet deadlines and middle of the night meetings online on skype gets sent to australia, new zealand and some regional destinations on economy.

The thing is the company bills the clients for his flight and hotel..but what is the point if he is going to get there haggered as he is and then have to go straight into meetings tired and to do project presentations and then be expected to fly back the next day and be back at work the following morning.

You can tell how much a company values it's key employee's sometimes by how they treat them. Or lack of looking after them.

Tchiowa

^^

brewdog11

And you know, there are many key employees who are unappreciated and undervalued by their employees, at least here in the US. Maybe that's why working people--the people who keep everything moving day-to-day--are looked down upon with such scorn and derision.

BRITINJAPAN3

My company had a simple policy, you fly on buisness so buisness calss, however if you go straight from the airport to the office you can go First.

I always planned to go straight to the office, of course, plans can change !

invisible

I would prefer this policy to the policy when senior executives/board members are allowed to book C if the flight is longer than 2 hours while for everybody else rule is that they can book C only if the flight is longer than 10 hours and they already took two flights in Y in the calendar year for longer than 10 hours.

P.S. seems some in this forum think that travelling in C is fundamental human right. It is not.

P.P.S. Finally, travel policy does not really matter, other things matter more. I discuss with the upper management what are goals/deliverables for the year and I need to make it within the budget. Job requires 4-5 TPAC flights per year and all are in Y. Would I change this to a job which gives me 30% more income, with travel in C, but need to send timesheet every day, take crap from management and wake up in the middle of the night thinking what would happen if I won't make my quota?

No thanks, already had that.

mandolino

That "simple policy" usually goes out the window when they see the price of a First Class flight to Australia.

Exactly.

jrl767

+ a lot to this ... focus on tangible outcome rather than mindless compliance with process

Artpen100

I would agree with this policy, too. This addresses what I perceive to be one of the reasons why some companies (like my own) only pay economy regardless of time in the air, and that is to provide an incentive to employees who don't pay much attention to find the cheapest business class available, and upgrade with miles or instruments whenever possible. Because, frankly, many of my colleagues would buy $7K business class when $4K was available (or $2K plus 40K miles) if we didn't have the "only economy" rule. Our company has mostly domestic travel, and even on domestic flights, we have an issue with procrastinators paying $1K+ at the last minute when with a little planning they'd pay half that. I've sometimes bought early and taken a cheap upgrade offer out of my own pocket to get into domestic first when my colleagues on the same flight have paid much more to sit in the rear row. It still surprises me that there are a lot of people out there who have assistants book their travel, don't pay attention to minimizing the expense by booking early, to the quality of the airline, to whether they are on a large plane or regional jet, to their mileage accounts, to their connections, to SDCs, don't check in online, and so on, not to mention not bother about upgrades (though they will let you know if they see you in the front cabin).

mike_la_jolla

I did not know that 'Y' vs 'J' vs 'F' is the only way a company can tell a valued employee that they are 'looking after them'.

HMO

It's not the only way, but it might be one of the ways.

mike_la_jolla

If it is possible to measure. And it isn't ...

BRITINJAPAN3

pWei

Then of course you get the vindictive employee who somehow only books super expensive flights, all in Y, of course.

Doesn't help that certain US airlines are moving to a revenue based FFP.

IIIIIIIIIIllllllllll

Whatever I feel like

But usually I will set it at about 30% - 50% of the direct biz class tickets (for long distance... JFK-SYD, keep it under $4k, JFK-LHR, keep it under $3k, etc) I can find OR cheap flights for short/mid distance... doesn't have to be the cheapest (i.e. if UA goes for $450 and DL goes for $500, you can take DL).

However, I will be very mad if you try to pull fast on this policy...
For example) SYD->PER, Cheapest - Jetstar for $218. I will tolerate VA for $246, but taking Qantas for $608 is a big no-no.

Boraxo

+1 thankfully my current employer provides business class to EVERY employee from the newest clerk to the CEO for any 6+ hour flight. High level managers get paid F. Seems very fair and wise to me. We can all tolerate a transcontinental in economy, but few people are productive coming off a 10-20 hour itinerary. We are paid for brainpower and the stakes are high. Some do TPAC and TATL monthly or more, and some of the destinations are not too attractive.

As for leisure travel I am more than happy to blow extra miles to fly C/F on the same schedule. And honestly I'd rather fly my family in F to Cabo or Hawaii than save miles for what - more depreciation? No thanks.