Originally Posted by
RichMSN
Lap of luxury? No.
I have seen this from both sides -- from a company that lets me book everything myself and trusts that I won't buy J tickets or tickets that cost $1000 more than the competitors (but understands the concept of "penny wise, pond foolish") and a company that would try to force a 4 hour layover to save $12 on a ticket. I have never had to buy an airline ticket away from my preferred carrier, but I have bought red eye flights to save $300 and booked 5:30AM departures to save money as well. I stay in mid-tier hotels (every stay, when possible, with SPG). I rent from one agency. Never has this cost my company money I wouldn't have spent myself.
A middle ground is required. The people that set travel policies, IMO, should be frequent travelers themselves, not beancounters that think business travel is glamorous and that we're out eating foie gras every night on the company dime.
haha, for the record, I'm not the "beancounter who thinks business travel is glamorous". I haven't been home in three months and have hit 8 countries/5 continents in that time. I'm not exactly sitting in my office counting every dollar my staff spends...but I'm not eating foie gras every night either (though the bife de chorizo is quite delicious here in Buenos Aires).
But if my staff, for example, have the option to go home from HKG for one week, and because we travel so much, it's a biz class ticket, they shouldn't spend the full $5500 fare in one week, there's no reason for it. They can have "alternative travel" and stay in very nice hotels in HKG, in China, in Thailand, wherever else they want to go, and stay well under the $5500. Heck, if they want to fly out their spouse on a coach ticket and spend the week, odds are they can stay under that amount. Why the need to spend every penny? A budget doesn't mean they can reward themselves just because they travel so much, that's the quickest way to get perks taken away.