Who Owns the Miles?
 

My employer intends to set a Travel Policy by which all Frequent Flyer miles earned on trips paid by the company belong to the company and are to be used only for company business.

Surely she isn't the first person to think this one up. Has such a policy ever been challenged? What was the outcome?

As far as I know, frequent flyer programs don't permit the scenario you describe. Mileage belongs to the individual who flies, according to the airlines' rules.

Kathy

The US government used to bar employees from earning miles for personal use from US govt business flights. Also, there are some startups out there that have a similar policy where award tickets are to be returned to the company for use as corporate travel.

I used to work for a company that let me keep my miles, but made me fly on AAdvantage awards for some business flights. It wasn't that bad because I could add stopovers for my own personal use on these tix. Just hated the fact that I had to ride in the back and could earn qualifying miles.

The one cool part was that I could buy paid upgrades to F/J and not have to wait for the upgrade window. I'm glad I work for a large corporate now and can earn as much as I want.

I recall several years ago one of the Big X accounting firms (5<X<9 and X mod 2=0) tried to do this. The practice ended very quickly once employees started quitting their jobs and working for competitors that didn't confiscate their miles.

Given the more fragile state of the economy right now, such a policy may have a better time sticking.