kokonutz

Alright, I want no more complaining after you hear MY tales of woe. I work in the NON-PROFIT (read: cheap-...) sector. For both my current and previous jobs, the general rules are:

Fly only deeply discounted econo tix. Book and pay for them however you want, but your tix may be audited for price (ie, was it REALLY cheap enough?).

If you have a preferred carrier that you want to stick to and the tix can be had for more than 10% or so less on another carrier you can take your preferred carrier only if you make up the difference youself.

Saturday night stay? Hey, make sure you arrange your meetings on friday afternoon, Saturday or Sunday or Monday morning and there is no problem! Comp time for doing that? Sorry, IRS says comp time is illegal.

Expenses are Corporate AMEX or personally paid then reimbursed. Limits are arbitrarily set AFTER the expense report is submitted on a case-by-case basis depending on the purpose of the trip and the mood of the accountant and boss the day the exprense report comes in. Sometimes a $70 business dinner is ok, other times it is outrageous. Yet typically things like valet airport parking and hotel movies are overlooked.

Hotel: Stay wherever, but see notes on expense report above.

All in all, it is annoying as heck. But it does give me the opportunity to make the most of the bad situation myself. And it has forced me to learn the tricks of the trade, which is helpful when planning a family vacation on the cheap or giving advice to family and friends on travel on a shoestring...

But shed no tears for me; the perks of non-profit employment do make up for annoyances such as these!