invisible

At my wife's company (small wholly owned subsidiary of very large multi-national company) there is a policy - any fare (booked thru corporate travel portal provided by AMEX) which is more than $100 of the cheapest available - even for international flight - requires approval.

This obviously generates quite weird results. An example - a round trip from Singapore to US: cheapest flights are on Air China/China Eastern and other Chinese carriers in US $780-$900 range with two connections inside China and 12-14h between connections with total travel time of 38h and more.

Well, if one selects one connection, then there are better options available, but the most logical ones are outside the policy.

Does your company has similar flight booking policy and how do you overcome this?

jrl767

usually there's a block on the online travel request form where you can enter your rationale for not accepting the lowest fare; the travel request goes into the system normally, and if the approving supervisor/manager doesn't have an issue with your rationale they just approve and send on ... if anyone rejects the request, the system should automatically send it back to you; alternatively, that individual may call or email you directly to discuss before rejecting or approving

a succinct statement ("lowest cost route was 2 connections and 38 hours vs 1 connection and 26 hours") should generally be sufficient

Duke787

My old company (consulting firm) had this type of policy and jrl767's response is basically how it was managed.

From time to time I would violate the cheapest airfare policy, would enter in the reason, and never once had it flagged for further evaluation (probably since expenses were being paid by clients).

Most of the time it was when I was traveling weekly to CMH from DCA/IAD and there was a DCA - CMH RT direct on US (then part of *A so okay for me since I was heavy on UA) and it was always $100+ more than DCA - ORD - CMH RT but still within reason for the project expense budget.

darthbimmer

It looks like the company's travel portal is poorly configured. All the major third-party travel engines have limits that can be set to exclude flights with excessive connections from the lowest-fare computation. Indeed, on some sites I've used the result is presented as "Lowest logical fare" (emphasis mine). The company's travel team needs to learn how to configure their system with reasonable constraints.

CPRich

I use the "why I didn't select the cheapest fare" tool quite often. It's mostly for our Federal practitioners - I don't know if mine are even reviewed.

I don't have a problem with reasonable controls being in place, as long as they're used correctly. Paying thousand more because "I heard Singapore was good, I wanted to try them" isn't a good business decision. But neither is forcing multiple connections and delays to save a few hundred.

Often1

So, the answer is that most businesses have a policy similar to OP's wife's company. It is simply executed in a more efficient manner.

It's possible that the sub. simply didn't configure the portal properly. But, if the features aren't available, I wouldn't let it bother me. The same sort of approval which can be handled through a notes section in travel software can be handled via email.

mfkne

In my company (< 2.500 employees) every flight of more than EUR 250 needs approval

LoveHateRelationship

We have a similar policy of booking the lowest fare. I usually get around it by saying that I need to be at a meeting by a certain time and that's the only flight available. You also say that you can't leave till a certain time because you have meetings before too. That pretty much means you have to fly the most direct way possible.

mdkowals

Per our travel policy: Fly the cheapest available flight that meets your business needs.


Enforced by: Flights that cost over $200 over the cheapest (domestic) or $1000 over the cheapest (transatlantic/transpacific) that have the same number of connections and arrive/depart within 2 hours of the selected fare will be flagged for supervisor approval. On international flights there is usually enough leverage built into that flagging system to get the flight you want.

darthbimmer

Having to wait for approval on a minor exception is frustrating, especially if the system is poorly configured such that it nearly always flags exceptions because, e.g. it finds the cheapest flight of the day without regard to departure time or number of connections. Some systems can be configured such that minor exceptions are merely reported to management, not sent for approval. But that would require smart configuration from the same people who have already demonstrated they lack such capability.

Proudelitist

My company does something similar. If I went with what it spat out as flight options, I would be flying Spirit all the time and stopping in 3 cities to get where I am going.

I deal with it by taking the exception and writing the reason in as something like "the flight I chose fits the schedule I require to conduct field meetings".

It has never come back to me rejected.

Often1

All of this is avoidable and the problems are self-inflicted. While many people hate compliance overlay software such as Concur, it can also be programmed to eliminate options which are not acceptable to the employer.

These can include Spirit (safety), WN (no interlining), BE fares, and the like. Smarter employers also flag non-compliant tickets for review, but don't stop the ticketing.

When the same employee is routinely spending more and producing less, that is someone to get rid of. But, the same employee who produces on the road ---- who cares if that guy spends an extra $500 or so?

d3vi0uz

Agreed.

I was one of those employees and fortunately my boss (the CEO) understood this.

I remember I got a first class ticket from SFO to JFK approved and my rationale was, "Need the most comfortable seat due to lower back and neck pains, and the the comfort of flying first for 6+ hours is the only 'weekend' I'll have this month."

I was working non stop, and did not have a weekend off that entire month, not to mention was producing major results for the company.

​​​​​​No one ever made a fuss about it...

jrl767

for about a year after leaving Flight Test, I was making at least one trip a month to the Westinghouse (now Northrop Grumman) facility adjacent to BWI in support of the B-1B radar program (WEC was converting an ex-DanAir BAC 1-11 to a flying testbed; I was the Boeing equipment manager for that project and was also providing some technical support to their certification program) in addition to occasional trips to the Air Force program office in Dayton and the test site at Edwards AFB

then came the seven weeks from hell:

1. Mon 0645 SEA-BWI, Thu 1730 BWI-SEA
2. Mon 0645 SEA-BWI, Fri 1500 BWI-SEA
3. Tue 0645 SEA-DAY, Wed 1830 DAY-IAD, Fri 1730 BWI-SEA
4. Tue 1245 SEA-DCA, Fri 1330 BWI-SEA
5. Mon 2300 SEA-BWI, Thu 1730 BWI-SEA
6. Mon 0645 SEA-DAY, Wed 1800 DAY-SEA
7. Tue 1245 SEA-BWI, Fri 1730 BWI-SEA

week 8 was light: Thu afternoon meeting at Edwards, down-and-back -- 0630 SEA-BUR, 1845 BUR-SEA ... Wed as I was leaving the office my boss said I needed to be at WEC for a Fri meeting starting at 0830

"Okay, but only with (a) F ticket LAX-BWI on Thu night, (b) hotel on Fri, (c) F ticket BWI-SEA on Sat, (d) 6 hrs paid overtime for both Thurs and Sat"

"You know we can't pay you overtime for Sat"

andyh64000

Mine does something similar...you can play around with the variables but if there is a flight more than $200 less then it will be flagged and you need to add an explanation for approval. So far I have only had to add a justification once; "I don't care how much cheaper it is, I am not flying Spirit Airlines".