Originally Posted by
Goldorak
And in many companies, travel policies are often written by people who never travel which makes the travelers very unhappy because those people are very far from the reality of frequent business travel. And I'm not talking here only about air travel, but also hotels, meals, taxis, etc.
You are 100% correct here and this is the real problem. And it is psychological rather than economic. Those back office bean counters do not travel, yet they sit back and review our expenses and are jealous of us jetting around the world and eating at nice restaurants, etc. They take their once-a-year jet holiday in the back of the plane and get steamed about how they have to approve our business class expenses. This is why I make sure that the CEO, or some such upper level manager, knows all about my travels before the AP people come running to him to complain.
One particular incident I recall that fits this. I had to attend a conference at a Four Seasons hotel. I almost never stay at FS on business travel, but this time I had to. And due to a good conference rate, it wasn't terribly expensive. However I heard the the entire accounting department wanted my head on a platter because I turned in a Four Seasons receipt! To them, this was worse than the business class RTW tickets I paid many thousands for. Fortunately the CEO knew about this conference and in fact had asked me to attend so he had a laugh about the whole thing. However he still asked me to never stay at an FS hotel again because he didn't want the grief.
