Originally Posted by
Proudelitist
And policies that restrict employees to just one carrier, hotel chain, rental car company etc are always a bad idea. Inevitably you end up paying more..even with a corporate rate..when competitors slash their prices for whatever reason. I worked for a company that was all about WN because they thought it was cheapest...it's not. I have had the conversation too many times...I save the company a few hundred (and in once case, 2k) and get asked why I didn't spend more to stick with their preferred vendor. Yeah..maybe there is another contractual incentive somewhere..but my bottom line is my budget, and that's my responsibility.
Not always true! Lot of large companies have framework agreements with hotels and airlines and will get benefits (even with decent kick-backs at the end of the year or discounts to the tickets behind the scenes) based on the number of flights and nights booked. So, if a smart employee undermines that by booking the $200 cheaper flight on the non preferred carrier or a different hotel chain, at some point might mean the company will not be able to negotiate favorable rates for next year as they won’t make their quota. This eventually could mean more cost to the company! As an example my last company lost the company rate at chain where we had a flat rate fee 365days a year at a specific property where we have to stay quite often (only decent hotel around...). So instead of paying a flat $200 now we had to pay anything between $230 and $500 (e.g. during high season and trade shows). Losing the company rate costed the company thousands of $$$ which might not have happened if they would have enforced to have everybody stay at properties of that chain.
Sure, if you have to manage your departments budget you might not see it. I think the company needs to make it clear to their managers why a policy like that makes a lot of sense.