I know of a government employee who was able to purchase government fares on their personal credit card. The ticket agent had to do some creative typing in to the system to get it to issue the ticket at the gov fare on a non gov card, but they did issue it. That being said, and I'm sure some gov employees will chime in, I know that sometimes the gov likes to make an example out of an employee doing just this, etc. I would suspect the practice goes on somewhat, and evry once in a while, they really bust someone and throw the book at them to try to scare others away from trying this.
PS: You can much more easily use the gov hotel rates, and I've never heard of a gov employee getting in to trouble for doing this.

[This message has been edited by jetsetter (edited 11-10-2003).]