Raffles

bisonrav

Or not. It depends on the job, and you'd be amazed how few companies these days see value in paying 4x the going rate for public transport for a fairly uncomfortable lie flat bed, a bit of extra space, and a poor quality meal. If I were negotiating with a supplier who sent their people over in J, I'd probably ask a few awkward questions on pricing. Keeping a lid on travel costs - a very big overhead for many global businesses - isn't shafting anyone, is part of fiduciary responsibility to shareholders, and is generally non-negotiable. And so if the choice is between 3 grand and a day off post travel, in a hotel outbound (or at home inbound) which will cost a fraction of that, it's a reasonable compromise. Shafting employees does also include things like reductions in staffing levels to reduce overheads, I know which option I prefer.

One observation from above - don't even start to feel vaguely tempted by photoshopping receipts. This is probably obvious and I doubt it was suggested seriously, but that is a dismissable offence under any internal code of conduct and may have follow-on consequences which could be life-altering. If you get a reputation for being trustworthy, it is possible to slip the odd questionable booking window through.

I agree about the day flights, though they do bear some extra costs as they tend to be at stupid o'clock so I tend to use an airport hotel (Hilton at BOS for example), and you end up hungry as the main meal is breakfast and there's only a snack later, the lights do tend to go out and the blinds come down as well which is the tiring part - you need daylight. But perfect for a 6 hour hop.

orbitmic

That would be an incredibly bad idea.

dddc

I would just change jobs!!

A company that took over one of my old companies had an all Y policy and given some of the global service centres were in the far east, and they had to hit the ground running, ie meeting straight after a flight to save hotel costs, made me glad I wasn't staying!!

_fx

First, avoiding Y is not worth getting fired over, so check with your colleagues / manager before doing anything sneaky. That said, I used to work at a company with a similar policy, here are tricks I used to increase the cost of Y:

• Use the fastest route with fewest stops.
• Exclude LCCs (argue they are more prone to delays and IRROPS that could impact your travel).
• Stay as few days as possible (hoping to snare a minimum stay fare restriction).
• Filter departure/return times to exactly when you need to fly (e.g., if your business meeting ends at 2pm, price the next available flight).
• If booking an int'l trip with stops in multiple cities, price it as a series of one-ways (this trick almost always works as int'l one-ways are notoriously expensive, especially if you filter LCCs).
• Compare refundable Y to discount J (you assume the risk of cancellation fee if your trip is cancelled).

Lastly, this doesn't avoid Y, but I'd argue because I was flying in Y, I needed 1-2 days rest time to recover from jet lag. Getting a free vacation in a cool city plus a few days off at home when I
returned from a trip was often more enjoyable than J.

andrewr1985

Same policy at my employer, Y only regardless of flight length/tenure/level, etc. There is one exception which is if a premium cabin is cheaper than Y then you can do that. I keep track of this myself and out of my last 8 TATL sectors, 3 have been in W as it was cheaper than Y. I have found that Concur can be massaged into giving you better results, and with some manual effort I've found CWT (our TA) to be pretty good at managing exceptions.

My normal approach is to find the flights that suit my agenda, then use ITA Matrix to find out if there are any W or J fares on similarly timed flights for the same or less. A quick e-mail to CWT and this all get's booked in a few hours

However we do have understanding managers, so additional days at the destination to adjust and getting days in lieu back for travel is automatic, we don't need to ask for approval.

Whatever you do, don't commit anything that looks like fraud (doctoring receipts for example)!

UKtravelbear

hotelboy

So just to get this right...you are asking on how to defraud your employer?

flyer_tom

TravelLawyer

FlyerTalker39574

FlyerTalker39574

Swanhunter

lydiamight

Not related to fares as such but back in the 1980's I worked for a UK bank where the travel policy was such that following any journey where the door to door time was in excess of 6-1/2 hours then you were not allowed to have any client contact for 24 hours (presumably because you were so tired and stressed by the journey)
Noticed that staff travelling to the USA for client meetings always seemed to travel out on a Thursday, no client contact on the Friday and Saturday and Sunday at leisure in a nice hotel paid for by the bank.
Client meetings in the USA on Monday and Tuesday, travel back to the UK on the Wednesday, no client contact on the Thursday and back into work on the Friday.
The bank could never seem to work out why people were out of the office for so long for a few client meetings in the USA.
Doubt if you could get away with it today

antichef

I do work for a client that specifies that travel booked by contractors for their work should be fully flex and refundable economy travel tickets booked as that is their internal travel policy. If we want to fly higher class we can but they will only pay the economy fare.
I often find that Club can be cheaper and just screen shot the page or do an "email the fare" on BA to prove the differences.

You may find that your colleagues are using the above technique or pricing the full flex fare and possibly taking the higher class by avios upgrade or taking a restricted fare and bearing the cost of any changes.