German employer - keep business related miles?
 

Hey there!

This is a question for those working in Germany. (working anywhere else may of course contribute as well, please just indicate)

Does your employer allow you to keep the (award) miles that you earn on flights that you do for business? How about hotel stays, rental car miles, etc.?

I know that theoretically those miles would basically increase your gross income, leading to a higher tax and social welfare obligations.

How do your employers handle that? Do some "not care" and hope to get away with it? Do they not allow you to use these miles for private travel at all? Do some even wish to separate the accounts (business / private) so you don't even profit from the status miles?

I am currently a student, so my miles are my miles but I start to work soon and my soon to be employer insists that I sign a "Abtretungserklärung" (= declaration of assignment), allowing them to use miles earned for business for business travel.

We can keep the miles, points, etc.. I think no one at our company cares about what you do with them.

Still it is the company's right to take your miles (they are not really your miles since the company payed for them) to use them for business travel. I even think Lufthansa has a program for companies where automatically miles earned by company employees go into a company account. I would say you are out of luck.

I absolutely understand and don't complain at all. It would just be a "nice to have" thing (especially as a Flyertalker ;) )

Just checking how common it is that the employer "takes the miles away from their employers".

Hi,
if your employer is somehow connected to the goverment, your travel will be regulated by the "bundesreisekostengesetz" (federal travel expense law) you are not allowed to keep your frequent flyer miles.
cheers
757DUD

PS: If the bundesreisekostengesetz applies to you, I suggest to read this and everything connect to this, since there it regulated what travel expenses can be reclaimed.

My employer's travel policy explicitly allows to keep miles for personal or business use, whatever I choose to do with it. Only fair in light of a worldwide Y class travel policy... The several airline programs where businesses can earn the same amount of miles their employees get for flights paid by the employer (often called 'business reward' programs) usually do apply only if travel department doesn't buy ticket fares that are based on indvidually negotiated fare contracts with the respective airline.

I have to use he miles earned by business travel for business travel (but not the additional 25% I get from my status, since this was not earned by business travel).

I do no want to push the issues with hotel points, since I pay the difference between the 80 EUR I am allowed to spent and that what I pay for a nice hotel (sic) out of my own pocket.

By the way, LH has an agreement with the local tax authorities for that what's called "geldwertervorteil", so that the Germans have not to pay taxes for this.

Very interesting so far.

No, my work is not related to the government.

Thanks for the heads-up, FLYGVA about the "geldwerter Vorteil" and "LH". I might mention that if I find out that's the reason for them wanting to keep the miles :-)

FWIW, my husband works for a large US company, in the USA. First they allowed employees to keep their FF miles, then in a cost cutting measure they force them to turn over to the company. When the employees just "forgot" to sign up with their FF miles, and the company wasn't getting anything, they changed the policy back to allowing employees to keep the miles.

In this case, you might be interested in the following topic
"Bonus-Punkte aus Kundenbindungsprogrammen - Zuordnung und Versteuerung / Lösung der praktischen Schwierigkeiten durch Pauschalversteuerung?" by Lühn in the printed issue of Betriebsberater (Lühn, BB 2007, 2713-2717)

Phil,

in my company, we sign an agreement that miles earned on business trips will only be used for business trips. Corporate Travel Service accesses your account.

You might want to read this thread which gives comprehensive insight into the topic:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...e-flights.html

Cheers.

Thanks everybody.

So far I see the additional status miles as an advantage to have it easier to keep my status.... :o

You are entitled to you opinion of course.

However, in the US, for most business travel, we work our 8-10 hours, _then_ are required to get on a flight for a total trip time of 3-6 hours, and almost always (at least in the US), we are not paid for any of this travel time.

IMHO - this absolutely makes the miles MINE!

When the company pays me for ALL of my travel time, they are welcome to the miles.

In my (German) company we get to keep the miles/points for our private use (flights/hotels). However we regularly (read: always) leave for our trips on Sundays and arrive back on Saturdays.
Basically it is a mutual understanding if the company would keep the miles we would start travelling weekdays. That would mean instaed of 5 full working days at the destination we would only have three (TUE-THU) as we would travel on MON and FRI.
In my opinion that is a win-win situation and workable for all involved.

I work in Boston and we are allowed to keep all miles from air, hotel and rental activity in our own FF accounts. Never even seen this come up. I agree with rsercely and feel that this is reasonable. I have gone on several vacations as a result of this, so I can't knock it!

I do not know whether you and others pleading this are paid by hourly wages. After my bar exam I never got paid for any hour I worked but I received a package. And this always was for the job I did and not for the hours I was present.

As long as I am/was satisfied with the package I had no reason to complain. However, I would have never argued "I need to travel and need extra compensation for travel time" - my job involves international business. Given that I cannot really appreciate and argument "we understand this as extra compensation" (if so, it should be taxed accordingly :D)

Having said this, I use my miles regularily to upgrade my business flights which gives me greater personal comfort.