Originally Posted by
wombat185
Be interesting to know how some people would view the following. I checked that there is availability to fly to Hong Kong or New York next week, did not go into the flexibility of the tickets so that could be a factor. How will some of the people who are for TA bookings being upgradeable feel if their MD, head of travel or whoever, says to them that they have booked into WTP and can use miles they have earned flying on company business to upgrade to CW.
I really think this is a non-issue.
I very much doubt most MDs, head of travel or whoever know what MFUs are today. And of those that do, I very much doubt they know that you can't MFU TA bookings today. And if they thought you could, has anyone ever been asked to do so?
And, for those that do, its possible those people use their business miles for personal travel so would not want to introduce such a policy
You cannot easily separate Avios earned via business travel from those earned via other means. So, every company would have to put a policy in place that is fair (and seen to be fair), transparent, manageable etc, and that takes effort. Who's going to track who has what miles in what scheme? What systems are need to monitor and audit such a process?
What if we propose one step further and say full bookings can be made with miles, not just redemptions. What about those in BA HHAs? My wife doesn't want her miles being used for my business trips.
There are so many complexities at play when you actually think about how you'd implement this. And you have to do that for every FF scheme out there, each with different rules for upgrades.
On top of that, even the salary to employ one person to manage such a scheme will potentially incur costs in excess of any savings made. On the up-side, if such a position exists, the best candidates are likely on FT
Them the company would have to take into account the effect it would have on staff:
- Genuinely feeling like they're losing a benefit (even though its likely non-contractual)
- Generally feeling hard-done by and not willing to go that extra mile for the company
- Staff attrition
- Complying more strictly to travel policy so, for example, refusing to add a Saturday night stay to keep the ticket cost down
Finally, would there be tax implications on the company and/or the employee if the earned miles were now being used as part of a business transaction? It might certainly raise awareness with HMRC were this to take off amongst many large employers.
I just can't see it happening.