Originally Posted by
bisonrav
A policy is a policy. If you don't like the policy then the route is to go to HR or the travel people and propose a route to what you want to self fund. There is usually a section in the employee manual or you can get clarification by, well, asking?
Apart from the fact that as I said I don't currently have a policy (or an employee manual worth its salt), all I was saying is that I would take issue with this *interpretation* if the policy merely states that only Economy travel can be expensed, which is how all the ones I have had in the past have been worded. I have not yet had a policy that explicitly stateed that I am not allowed to *travel* in anything other than Economy. And in my line of work I don't have "customers" that I would ever meet on a flight (that's why I'm flying, to get to them), or that I would "negotiate pricing with" (they get me for free), so I'm not quite sure why travel in business class should be a generalised concern, to either them or my employer.
Originally Posted by
bisonrav
it doesn't sound like you have the best of relationships with the company anyway
That's what I meant with it being a two-way street, they are great at some things and crap at others, and I acommodate accordingly. Even not having competent back office departments can have its benefits - it just sucks when you're trying to do anything by the book.
Originally Posted by
bisonrav
... you'll find that most if not all businesses are now quite prescriptive, a very large proportion use corporate TAs via tools such as Concur which are used to enforce policy.
Yep, as I said not mine though. If they did, I'd be in a position where I could do this above board, i.e. by speaking to someone that knows what they are doing.
Originally Posted by
bisonrav
getting permission is the best thing to do.
I get that regarding the "sneaky workaround", but business class travel in general? Do people really do that when they either don't have a policy at all (like me), or have a policy that just states that only economy travel can be expensed? I really think that asking for permission to upgrade e.g. on a POUG is taking things a bit too far if the policy doesn't explicitly disallow *travel* in any other class than economy?