A slight tangent to the thread on who owns the miles for business travel.

A couple of years ago, 2 of my direct reports went to a seminar in Las Vegas. No official events till a welcome reception Sunday night- they left Saturday planning for some R&R and paid for their own Saturday night stay. Their flight out of DFW was overbooked and they volunteered to be bumped, with the result that their flight got them there Saturday evening instead of Saturday afternoon.

The head Bean Counter claimed that the flight vouchers they got belonged to the company. I fought him on it- if they'd been bumped voluntarily and had been late to the meeting, I would have nailed 'em to the wall, but they're not that type of people and this clearly wasn't the case. My boss backed me up and they got to keep the vouchers.

What does your company do?

(Edited to correct typos.)

Athena53,

I agree with you. The company probably saved $$$ by them going over on Saturday instead of Sunday. The few hours time they spent in airport waiting for the next flight was their time, not the company's time. How did the bean counter even find out about their bumps?

I was bumped once on the return from a business trip. I kept the voucher, didn't feel like I owed it to the company.

Everyplace I've ever been anything has been yours. Miles, vouchers, etc. I would have to pay the hotels or whatever if there was a bump that included an overnight that wasn't picked up by the airline, they would pick them up if it wasn't a voluntary thing, weather, maintenance, whatever.

But, and it's a huge but, there are many companies out there that don't see it that way. They are paying the ticket, and everything is theirs, miles, bump vouchers, etc. I have a friend who travels extensivly, and gets nothing for it except airline and hotel status, they are required to use their miles and points towards company business trips, etc.

Me, I would leave the company.

There's quite a long thread on this in the CX forum. There, it was more focussed on employees offering to move from F to J, or J to Y, in exchange for cash. The prevailing opinion on the CX forum was that if employee kept cash under those circumstances, it was clearly stealing and grounds for termination. The questioni is moot to me: I wouldn't even think of downgrading!

Funny enough, last year, an employee and I were on a trip from Dallas to Nashville (via Chicago). We got into Chicago just fine. But the connecting flight to Nashville was oversold by two tickets. We volunteered to take the vouchers, and got a free flight on UA. It made up for the fact that to get us to Nashville much later than planned (originally 7 PM, reroute -- 11 PM), and we got to visit wonderful DC.

Long story short, we got on the plane for DC, and there was a 3 hour groundstop. We didn't get in to Nashville until 1 AM, to make a 5 AM flight from Nashville to BOS.

You better believe I kept the voucher. We ended up getting back on the same day as we originally planned. I mentioned it to my boss and the Controller, and neither of them asked for the vouchers.

As I saw it, we got in to BOS the day we were supposed to at the time we were supposed to. We had taken these out of the way trips anyway because we were saving the company money. The vouchers were non-transferable, and it seemed like we weren't going back on the road anyway. And I thought it would be a nice way to make it up to my employee who didn't make much anyway, since I dragged her away from her family for a week.

I actually asked our legal and finance departments about this last year.

Any bumping compensation I might receive is mine. If my original travel included a Saturday night to save money, I can expense any hotel/meals if I get bumped (they offerred that... I was shocked).

Of course, we are also able to keep our miles.

William

it should belong to the employee.
if the employee missed his flight due to his own fault, I can't see the company covering their extra costs, so, tell the bean counter he can't have it both ways.
my company policy was your kept points and vouchers, but if you incurred costs due to your fault, you had to eat the costs.

I'm just curious why anyone would tell their company about this?
It's not their business.

Dan,

For me, I do not want to do anything to have someone question my integrity.... I am a company executive... I would rather have permission than ask for it on this one... I know of people who have gotten fired because they thought something was ok when it turned out it was not.

Just a personal perspective.

William

While I tend to agree with you, the company should make it clear in advance what is appropriate and what is not. Otherwise, they will possibly lose valuable people.

William, I agree, there is no price on integrity!

Also, I think it is everyones responsibility to check before you act. Claiming the Company doesn't have a policy, or didn't tell you.....labels one as an opportunist or worse.

I have to be honest with you... I do not know a single company... and I have asked many friends on this in the past... that specifically talk about travel and how to handle situations. Many people who create policy do not fly and have no idea such a thing as bumping exists. As such, they would never even think about having to provide a policy/expectation around those situations.

Again, I ask for my own peace of mind.

William

I can appreciate that. But I also think that a company's shortcomings in relation to travel policy should not negatively accrue to an employee. People on the road are harried enough as it is: firing someone for violating a travel policy that was not preexisting is unfair and wrong.

I fully agree. It's on the company to define their travel policy clearly enough so that people will know what to expect and how to act.

As in many contexts, sanctioning behavior if the rules and guidelines were not clearly defined is not fair, since it opens the door to arbitrary and inconsistent penalties, especially if you have a lot of people with the power to sanction behavior (e.g., "violation" of an unclear travel policy).

As a personal anecdote, in a former job, I was once with my boss on a business trip. Due to some mistake by the secretary, I was booked in business, and he was in economy. Also, I had status, and he did not. The flight was oversold and they wanted to bump him. I "generously" offered to let him take my seat and fly and stayed home.

The result? I did not have to go to a meeting I did not want to go to anyway, got the compensation for the bump and went back to the office and had a pretty quiet day (since my boss was not there ).

Slight tangent here... I was on a flight with my boss, FA pulled me up to First. ( I had status with this carrier) My boss "strongly suggested" that he should have my F seat as highest ranking rep of the company. I knew that was complete B.S. and debated calling him on it, but I relented and gave him the seat.

I left the company about six months later -- better offer. During my exit interview I mentioned that scenario as one of many reasons why I though that company was not for me.

I heard through the Grapevine that his actions towards me cost him 1/3 of his bonus. :-)

Expensive ride for him!