pinniped

I'd have a hard time asking someone to use a vacation day during a long business trip where they're traveling+working 50-60 hours (or more) per week to begin with.

One of our common trips is South America...Lima, Buenos Aires, and/or Santiago. Meetings are often Monday-Thursday...really long days, usually with Sunday travel...but it's semi-common for people to spend the weekend down there. We don't have any weird varying airfare dynamic in play, so there's no question you pay your own expenses on the weekend. But nobody would expect you to burn a vacation day on Friday: my people would probably quit or at least think I was a world class A.H. if I even suggested it.

ffsim

That's a fair point, but if they're working 50-60 hours per week, it sounds like they've already accumulated a couple days off

In any case, I don't think there's anything unfair or inappropriate about asking people to come back once they're done their work on a business trip. If someone wants to stay a little longer, we're happy to accommodate provided it doesn't cost the company any money. By that metric, I'd have a hard time justifying paying them a day's worth of work when they're taking pictures in Trafalgar Square.

pinniped

Yes - I agree it's fair that if they stay longer, and the airfare portion is cost-neutral, they cover their own expenses for the weekend.

I've taken a lot of TATL trips for work, and it's always a crazy long week...especially considering that the week is inevitably starting at about 2PM on Sunday coming from a smaller airport in the Midwest.

Often1

There are two separate issues here:

As to using preferred vendors and other services which may not appear to save money to some, that may well not be the case. The cheapest car rental does not always cost the least if it involves processing extra invoices as opposed to a corporate TA which feeds directly into the company's accounting software. That software may conform to client billing requirements and the like. There may also be other rebates and the like of which you are not aware.

As to issues relating to extra nights in hotels and the like, this is a reason to push travel policies and approvals down the organization and to make those managers responsible for their people. Forcing people to choose between flying an extra TATL round-trip to avoid 2 nights in a London hotel is not just a money issue but a wear-and-tear issue. How one bills clients is also an issue. If meetings end on Friday, clearly the client invoice needs to explain why there are invoices for the weekend.

People who are not producing and who appear to be slacking so that they can drag a Thursday trip to Friday and then Monday so that they can spend the weekend, are people who need to be gone from the organization. This is not a question of travel policy alone, but rather performance overall.

Efrem

Not so. The incentive is a short stay in London or some other attractive location (to those who don't already live there) with no air fare, just the cost of the stay itself. In my experience - as a traveler who would do that, as a middle manager who approved expenses of travelers who did that, and a top manager who set travel policies for a small corporation - that's a real incentive.

sbm12

Not to mention back-end discounts, additional benefits like insurance or fuel included and similar things that get negotiated in the contract. If you're getting 30% off every flight via a rebate at the end of the year then buying the ticket that's 20% more expensive at retail isn't such a bad deal.

CPRich

I believe we still have this, though client-site hotel/meals are still covered with spouse travel, as long as it stays under just the airfare home.

Client optics do need to be considered. I needed to stop one of my staff from flying to Hawaii every other weekend when we were working in LA.

krazykanuck

In the consulting dept of my former employer, this was extremely common, IAH-EZE/LIM/etc. people usually just stayed the weekend in SA and used it as a mini vacation because there was no point flying home to Houston for the weekend. Usually wasn't questioned as it was overall cheaper and people liked the weekends off.

As for increasing travel expenses,

my company recently rolled out Rocketrip to us. On the surface it makes sense, you plug in a trip and it assigns a base/average cost to it. If you beat the cost, you as the employee get a rebate of X% of the savings. Our agreement is the employee nets 40% of the savings of the actual trip costs vs Rocketrip's base cost. While I understand the attempt to align incentives, I'm curious how this will play out. Because I plugged in a personal trip just to see what the base cost would be. It was a friday-Sunday weekend trip to NYC. The service gave me a base cost of ~$600. My actual cost was ~$475. So had I been travelling for work, my rebate would have been about $50. But I'd probably rather have spent another $30/nt on a better hotel and had no rebate. I mean $50 doesn't move the needle for me. if I'm travelling for work I want to stay where I need to stay (geography and comfort wise) and not worry about it.

FlyingUnderTheRadar

Years ago I had foreign move. Even though a round trip was much much less I had to buy a one-way ticket. Had to do the same on the return. The finance person agreed it was silly but if I bought a round trip they would only reimburse me for half.

chrisl137

Depends on how much the person is traveling and has had to travel. I've traveled enough, and if you've got me in London, or anywhere else, over a weekend, you're paying my expenses.

If I'm not going to my own home after a regular day and having my choice to do what I want in the evening, my employer is paying my expenses. I'm also not going to fly a transcon on friday and fly back monday to save somebody a weekend of hotel and per diem (plus getting to from airports at both ends). Fortunately my employer agrees with that. I've worked with people whose employers make them fly home every weekend - I wouldn't work for their employer (for other reasons, as well). If I'm working on travel and finish early, I'm on the next plane out.

Mudfish

At my company if you want to stay the weekend, and you can show that the airfare is lower by staying, you can actually get paid the difference and use it to fund your weekend hotel and meals. If you spend more than the difference you have to cover that, if you spend less you don't get paid out but you get a free weekend. I think it is a holdover from the days when a Saturday stay used to dramatically lower airfare. I should really try to take advantage of this more.

eigenvector

If our company has a "preferred" hotel in a city, we have to stay there. So for example, instead of staying a non-chain hotel within walking distance to the event I was attending for $140/night, I stayed at a Hilton 9 miles away for $170/night and had to expense a car rental, parking and fuel.

Silver Fox

We started to rollout Concur, but in our company's inimitable fashion we have "customized" it heavily, which means we have bolloxed it up totally and the internal fora are flooded with the most minor things that do not work. So, it is costing time, money, rebookings, and numerous examples of people turning up for flights that although it said were ticketed, were not...turning up at hotels where they had a confirmed booking, only they didn't.

Also, preferred routes for our preferred suppliers (BA springs to mind) and absolutely gouged on the prices with imaginative routings where cheaper direct flights exist.

Artpen100

Managing travel costs and reducing travel costs are not necessarily the same things. I've known companies where they have policies to try to keep costs from going crazy or creating charge-thru problems by allowing too much discretion, when there are clearly better and cheaper hotels and flights. And to be honest, I've seen some of the behavior they are trying to rein in.

Efrem

Of course it does. Nobody is suggesting that a company should force employees to stay anywhere longer than business requires in order to save the company a few dollars in air fare. All I said, in the context of a thread that pointed out how some companies forbid it and a post that said it isn't an incentive, was that the opportunity to do that can be one. If it isn't one for you, don't stay on. Simple.