MSPeconomist

Rental car rates on a daily basis that cover only intermediate and full size cars. No weekend or weekly rates.

EuropeanPete

In the UK having British Airways as the "preferred" airline wastes billions. Used to be incredibly common for large corporates.

ffsim

I actually don't agree with this

If an employee is willing to save the company substantial money in exchange for giving up his or her weekend, then I'd happily pay the extra hotel nights and meals. Put differently, if an employee had >5 business days' worth of work to do on a trip, would you expect that employee to pay the 2 weekend nights and meals out of pocket?

If, on the other hand, the employee wants to bookend a business trip with a couple of personal days, then I'd expect the employee to pick up the difference in transportation costs (if any) while covering his or her own hotel nights and meals. And if those days fall on work days, then the employee should also either use vacation days or banked time to offset the time off.

Explorer789

Depends entirely on company policy. Most large corporate companies won't mind you staying the weekends as long as it doesn't cost them more and you make it clear that you will be paying for all accommodations for those extra days. Some of them are just uptight.

ffsim

I totally agree with that. I'm just saying any company policy that insists on you *not* staying the weekend so they can pay much, much more for your trip is a poor policy.

Fa Hz

Same here! in fact, I ended up hating hotel breakfasts after a while and started buying a smoothie in a nearby juice/smoothy bar.

RichMSN

My method is this -- I do exactly what I'd do if I was on the trip on my own personal time and money.....unless I'm with a client or at an event.

If I want hotel breakfast, I get it. If I don't, I don't. Sometimes I'd rather have a quick bite or a sandwich out and I'll do that.

Our company will pay for alcohol on expenses and if I want a beer or two with dinner, I have one. Oh, and I don't eat breakfast or dinner in a hotel lounge, either, although I do use them for soda, water, and coffee.

Then again, I never, ever eat in a fancy place unless I'm dragged there, so I think the company does OK in the end.

emma69

If the employee is staying to save the company that much money, the company should pick up the hotel costs, otherwise there is zero incentive for the employee to do it, and the company gets to pay the full whack. When I worked for a consulting firm on multi week projects, the deal was you could either a) fly home for the weekend b) fly anywhere else for the weekend (provided same or lower cost - no additional hotel and meals would be approved) c) stay in town and hotel and meals paid or d) stay in town, spouse flight paid to join you, but hotel and meals not covered.

Our policies around personal add on travel are reasonable - provided the end cost is the same or lower, it is ok. For example, a couple of years ago, I flew back from a business trip via the UK for a few nights instead of directly for an identical cost.

matrixwalker2012

Companies should just adopt a blanket "no morons" rule in their travel compliance departments. The worst part about dealing with a moron is how they manage to create mountains out of mole hills.

ffsim

Oooooh, I like that. Cool ^

FTFY

crazcarl

When I travel on behalf of my company we're charging incurred travel, hotel, dining expenses to the client associated with the trip. Because of that, even if it saves money to fly back after the weekend, it can look to the client as if we're spending the weekend on their dime. The client's accountants might understand, but will the rest of the employees at the client? Probably not.

We do allow employees to spend the weekend paying their own way (including the employee paying for an increase in flight costs if that's the case).

Even if you aren't billing a client for a trip, will the other employees at your company think that you're spending the weekend on the company's dime?

pinniped

This seems very reasonable. When I was traveling for a more of a traditional consulting firm, we had the first three options listed above. (I don't believe you could fly friends to you, but you could stay or go elsewhere if you chose.)

I wouldn't last long at a company that had moronic travel policies that compelled people to do stupid things that also cost the company money.

The only thing we do now is "encourage" people to use a travel agency website to book everything. The agency tacks on junk fees - and then more junk fees to change things, even hotels and airlines that don't have change fees. Fortunately, it's not a hard/fast rule, so I simply don't do it unless there's some value delivered by the agency. (e.g., Ticketing a multi-alliance itin that no one airline site seems to be able to do properly.) 75% of my trips are straightforward - all on one airline, staying at a basic Hilton or Marriott - I can book them directly and not deal with the agency.

gobluetwo

Some of our clients required review and approval for things like that. I've had situations where I had meetings in Europe Tu-Th one week and Mo the following week. Rather than purchasing 2 business class flights at around $4k each, we ended up working there Friday, staying the weekend, and flying back the following Tuesday. Made much more sense from a productivity perspective and cost less than flying back and forth. Client was completely fine with it, since it also saved them money.

As for preferred vendors costing more money, that's a maybe. The thought is that the discounts, incentives, and benefits of having preferred vendor relationships should result in a better financial position over the long term. Impossible to say that something like that costs the company money based just on one's limited anecdotal experiences.

gobluetwo

This is definitely true. As a consultant, certain clients (mostly government entities) will not reimburse alcohol. If I have a drink at dinner, it's on my own dime. For the vast majority of other clients, there is no such prohibition. In fact, when dining with clients during a project, they generally drink way more than me and expect that I'll just expense the cost.

MissJ

I'm with you. I'd ask them to send me a quick summary of the costs of flights and hotels M-F and flights and hotels T-T so I could reconcile when they file their expenses. I would probably ask them to pay for their own meals over the weekend though so I could be certain the savings would be realized. Once I did this a time or two, trust and procedure would be established and employees would see that as long as they got their work done, they could have incentives like a weekend in London if they took the time to save the company money.