cazoz

Thanks all for the responses. I think there's an asusmption that I wouldn't of course raise it with my boss (COO who approves all travel) - which I would. We have a good relationship and he travels to NY a lot, so I would hope he'd allow it.

Often I think people go out Y and then upgrade for cash and expense that, which is a decent compromise. But, don't ask, don't get. We'll see.

For the exact wording, it does specify 'greater':

Class of Travel Premium economy or equivalent if air flight time is greater than 8 hours
Economy Class or equivalent for all other flights (unless pre-approved)
Pre-approved here is where a client will allow differently (or individuals' exemptions).

Mart81

My previous employer (global electronics company) corporate travel policy became significantly cumbersome about 2 years ago.

They use a flight/travel booking system on the intranet that allows you to enter your destination and dates, the system will then find the cheapest flights.
You can select any flight of preference (for timings and dates) as long as it is no more than 20% more expensive than the cheapest.
This was all good, until they added Easyjet to the mix.

I've been juggling departure times, dates and airports many times in order to eliminate Easyjet and be able to select BA instead.

I'd certainly refer to this as gamesmanship

mjuler

We use a similar online system, it gives us a little bit of leeway as standard, but in general tries to make us take the cheapest flight.

Living in central London I normally search for flights using LON but this will now bring up easyJet/Ryanair out of STN, LTN and SEN, so to avoid these on the system using LHR, LCY (and LGW to an extent) removes them and the system is non the wiser.

The system is supposed to be used for all travel bookings, including rail, plus for hotels, but really doesn't offer good value at times (plus the company has to pay a transaction fee). Take a trip up to EDI I've got in a few weeks. I'm taking a hand baggage only flight up with BA (the system would only offer the cheapest fare with baggage), I've booked an advance purchase deal it a hotel near our office (£40 less than what the system would offer, our corporate rate), and I'm travelling back first class on East Coast for £30 (the system wanted £45 for standard- first class rail isn't allowed despite the fact I'll not be claiming for an evening meal)! So for this trip I quickly got authorisation and booked it myself before claiming it back through expenses.

Paralytic

Sometime policies can be downright stupid.

Back in the days when I did consulting, we had our own policy, but the customer's published policy could override that.

I had to fly to London, and our own Project Manager tried to get me to book an early morning EDI-LTN flight on EZY, then expect me to get public transport to the centre of London. This was instead of my suggested direct EDI-LHR and then the Heathrow express and a short walk to the client.

The EZY flight was around £80 cheaper but our Project Manager was trying to protect his budget.

I pointed that I would have to get up at 4am to get the EZY flight, around 2 1/2 hours earlier than I would have to do for the BA flight, and with the client being charged over £1000 for my time that day, perhaps they would get more value for money if I was still awake at 3pm.

He quickly relented.

Captain Schmidt

Odd wording. I assume they mean the scheduled length of the flight gate-to-gate, but that could be read as meaning the actual time in the air in which case it's economy for you.......

HighLife

In my business there is a tier of people who have no idea that there are airfares in existence other than full fare F

chris1922Mk2

This seems like a sensible compromise to me.......

paulwuk

I assume that would be the "GGLfL" tier

Or perhaps Premier. Is there Premier for life?

OT: If you're a premier you don't earn tier points according to the calculator, which means not earning towards the for-life tiers. Seems a little unfair.

paulwuk

And therefore has no place in the corporate world

Polomarc

I do not travel for work, just curious are you able to book your flights for the entire year or you find out each month where you have to be?

cazoz

Just found out my next trip is actually a SIN, so I'm well and truly good for WT+. That's definitely an Avios upgrade jobby...

paulwuk

Each Month?! How envious. My boss and I decided on Wednesday afternoon it was high time one of us went to Bangkok. 48 hours later off I go.

Due to fly to Delhi on Tuesday, now going from BKK rather than LHR. However due to a situation with my visa I need to work out whether instead I'll fly to Beijing instead, but that's days away so no need to stress.

I have a high confidence I'll be going somewhere, leaving the UK between the 14th and 18th of Feb. Current hot tips are:

* Jerusalem
* Kabul
* Nairobi
* Washington

So I'll probably end up in Sao Paulo


Good luck - CW availability on SIN? It's barely open in J.

SteveF

+1. A colleague of mine back in the late 80's was booking his annual home trip from Australia to the UK. He could fly full-fare J as per the company policy, but not F. At the time BA were offering an RTW which included a Concorde leg from NY to London, which was cheaper than the return J fare but includied an F leg so it was rejected by the travel section. He did finally manage to get someone to see sense and allow him to save the company some money. And fly on Concorde for free.

reft

Discussed here on FT: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...-expenses.html

CT-UK

In your dreams......... You will have to be very lucky to get a redemption seat on the day you want to SIN they are like rocking horse sh*t