Your help please - anecdotal travel policy research
 

Dear all,

I started a new job earlier in the year and I’m doing a bit of research into staff travel policies as ours is causing some disagreements. It’s an education organisation with operations all around the world. Under the current policy all staff travel in Y except for directors who can fly J for any distance. I don’t want to get into the arguments for this in our particular situation.

Everywhere I’ve worked before, the policy has been based on distance (all Y 1-4/5 hours, thereafter J, no F for anyone). Maybe I’ve just been lucky, I don’t know. This is where you come in. I’d be really interested to get a better idea of what travel policies are out there. Obviously all of this will be anecdotal, but it would give me some idea of what goes on.

Would you be able to say what your policy is, the sector you work in, the size of the organisation and anything else you can think of that might be useful (corporate discounts etc.)? If you’re not happy to post work details, you can always PM me if you'd rather. I understand that you may not want to say what industry you’re in. I’m not trying to lobby on behalf of anyone – I am just trying to find out what practices are in different areas!

Thanks in advance.

Our policy is discounted Y anywhere. Company about 150 people and about 50 of us travel extensively globally.

If I want to fly J or even W then I pay for it myself.

Most of my travel is booked to clients - occasionally they will sanction W travel but even that's pretty rare.

My old company was all J for all staff, even to Paris. Which was nice.

My wife (German bank in London) is, I think, Y up to 4/5 hours. I know Moscow just makes the cut.

Y on short haul, W on long haul. Same for everyone from the MD down.

Small software company.

Even if I can find a J flight on a different carrier (that doesn't offer W) cheaper than the best W price, then I still cannot book it as "business class travel will not be reimbursed".

Y for less than 5 hours, J for over, no F. The exceptions to that are F is allowed instead of J on services that only offer Y and F (usually domestic US flights), and J allowed for red-eyes even if under 5 hours (with F being allowed if only Y and F are offered).

I work for a large US-headquartered, non-profit. My experience of the UK non-profit sector is that it's generally all Y or Y for short haul and J for long-haul. If there's a differentiaition made for who can do what, in my experience it's been by volume of travel rather than by seniority.

Large government owned company in Qatar

Executive: F everywhere, or J if F not operated
Management: J everywhere, or F if J not operated
Staff: J on flights >= 6 hours, Y otherwise

Note: executive = strategic autonomy, management = tactical or operational autonomy, staff = no autonomy

Strategy consultancy specialising in communications

Official policy: W (longhaul), Y (short haul)
In practice (sales effort): W (longhaul), Y (short haul)
In practice (sold projects, or sales effort with overnight flight leading to meeting): J (everywhere)

OK to book J on another carrier where fare is less than W on BA. OK to take advantage of buy-J-get-F promos. Free choice of carrier to all staff and all free to book own travel, using miles to upgrade.

Rail: all staff free to buy reasonably priced 1ST tickets, but STD used by all staff between the company's offices in London and Cambridge

Applied to all staff.

Large professional services firm, London

Cheapest Y <3 hours
Cheapest J >3 hours
No F unless J not offered (US domestic)

Two Large London UK University policies:

1st: Official - cheapest Y everywhere, J if a business case can be made for needing to be functional on arrival if long haul

(Unofficial - WT+ if >6hrs often let pass, Profs often go business)

2nd: Cheapest Y everywhere, including Profs, unless specific exemption from Principle/Head of department

This is for college money - if using soft funds, people book based on line manager/individual group policy; if on grant funding (not central university money) cheapest Y always, no exceptions.

Global IT company.

Same policy across all staff.

Y in all circumstances, except for:

1. Travelers with disabilities;
2. Client travel arrangements taking precedence;
3. Total flight length (time in the air) exceeds 5h.

Exceptions above (and 3 is pretty big!) need management (not director) approval.

To my mind, short-haul J/F doesn't bring significant benefits (except the lounge, perhaps) but if you're charging someone out at four figures per day it doesn't make sense to have them fly eight hours (usually overnight) and then rock up to a meeting at anything other than firing on all cylinders.

My company policy (Large engineering multi-national) is as follows -

1-6 hours - Economy
6-10 hours - Premium Economy (if offered, otherwise Economy)
10-15 hours - Business (unless you opt to fly economy - in which case there is an incentive scheme that pays 25% difference of the fare or £1000, whichever is lower, to you in cash)
15+ - Business only (not eligible for the incentive scheme)

Note the flight time is not by segment but by total duration including layovers (not including overnight stopover though).

small private company

cheapest Y on short haul, W on long haul. Same for everyone from the MD down.

(W longhaul, only because we can UUA to CW!)

I now work for myself and most of my travel is leisure.

However, the last company I worked for had a travel policy that I think was fair.

Shorthaul (up to 4 hours): economy (encouraged to buy cheapest unless flexibility was needed).

Daytime transatlantic: Premium Economy (could be business if no PE on route or TA could find a business fare cheaper than BA/VS PE).

Other longhaul: Business

Rail: 1st class over 2 hours (not regional rail services except during peak times as seating is not much different)

Eurostar: Leisure Select (now Standard Premier, effectively 1st class seats but reduced catering).

Global Software Company

• Official: J > 7 hours, otherwise economy, but J requires cost-centre owner approval
• Reality: Local travel budgets means staff are "encouraged" to fly economy if J is expensive; flexibility to go with airline of choice
• Services division: If client is paying, above can be overridden by client's policy
• No official different policy depending on grade/status but reality is the executive are more likely to fly business
• Flights booked through corporate travel agent - previously CWT, now Amex. No evidence of special corporate rates but I believe non-status passengers get seat-selection at time of booking on BA.

Two private companies, UK based with global ops and 500 employees.

<6 hours - all staff in Y
>6 hours - directors in J, all other staff in Y. Occasional exceptions to allow staff in W for very long haul (> 10 hours) overnight on a case by case basis.

No F.

Global Consultancy with >100k employees:

Official policy is Y up to 8 hours, J over that but approvals can be sought to go short haul J if meeting a client on arrival.

However, there is a "temporary" freeze on J travel which means you have to book the cheapest seat available on the flight you need to travel on (i.e. Y unless it is sold out, in which case W until that sells out, then J etc). This temporary ban is now in it's fourth year with no end in sight.

Applies to everyone in the company except the board of directors who have a fleet of private jets to ferry them around :rolleyes: