If the company will pay for F or business class tickets, I would be more than happy to give them the miles (since I only use miles for upgrades).

The same is true for airline employees. They get unlimited NRSA travel as part of their compensation. If the airline wanted to reduce their fuel cost slightly by ending the NRSA program, they would have to pay higher wages so that the employees could buy tickets instead. The marginal fuel cost is much, much less than the value of an airline ticket, so the airlines stick with the NRSA travel.

The same is true for employers of business travelers. If my employer wanted to pay me 2 cents per mile, they can have the miles. I would much prefer to use the cash to buy tickets rather than issue award tickets. Of course, it would be cheaper for my employer to let me keep the miles at no cost to them than to use my miles but pay me 2 cents per mile.

If an employer wanted to keep the miles but not pay the business traveler 2 cents per mile, that is no different than a pay cut. In the same vein, it would be cheaper to cut an employee's salary than to keep miles from business travel.

Of course, the company could simply fire you and hire someone else who is willing to travel on weekends, evenings etc without grumbling.

I don't really buy the argument that employees should be allowed to keep their FF miles as compensation for the "extra" time they spend traveling. Lots of employees (myself included) work weekends, evenings, early mornings without traveling and do not get any additional compensation. Moreover, there are numerous people who travel a lot for work and do not work any additional hours (i.e., they take a "travel" day to fly to/from destination, they don't take weekend flights, red-eyes, late evening flights or early morning flights, they combine a leisure trip with a business trip, etc).

Admittedly, an intense travel schedule can be a grind, but so can work without travel.

And if your company wants you to work late or on a weekend for some other reason, such as a customer proposal to finish or a design review to prepare for? If it made sense and was generally considered part of the job, you would - and you wouldn't expect, or get, frequent flyer miles for it. Travel is no different.

It comes down to this: the job is what it is, and the compensation is what it is. When the job involves travel, miles can be part of the compensation, but (even though we on FT have a strange emotional attachment to them) they're not some special animal that needs to be treated differently. The approach of outoftown, where s/he said in effect "No miles? OK, more $$" makes sense. Getting hung up on miles to where we lose sight of the overall picture doesn't.

Therefore you are giving them loads of time in exchange for just the miles? Looks like somebody is getting a bad deal.
If your explicitly agreed hours are 9 to 5 and your employer regularly requires you to work or do things connected to your employment outside normal working hours without extra compensation or at least time in lieu, the terms you are working under aren't good (that's not saying they're "unfair" as you may well not care about that, e.g. you might love doing more work or if the regular pay is stellar), and whether or not they give you any miles is almost completely irrelevant.

That's the same as saying that if the company wanted you to fly on Sunday outbound and Saturday return because you have enough work to do to fill up all of Monday through Friday for one visit, you would probably do it. But would you do that every single time you had a business trip with no additional compensation? I hope not.

I have a policy like this for my small consulting company (with only 3-5 traveling employees each year) where the matter is one that I presented to the employees and explained my reasoning.

The options were essentially for employees to keep their own miles, but that the company travel policy would essentially require travel on the lowest fare regardless of airline. Alternatively, the company would commit to keeping them on a specific alliance as far as possible to allow them to earn the perks of elite status, but that we would reserve the right to use about 80% of the miles earned for business trips when needed. The savings we realized from using miles in lieu of our travel budget would be plowed into a pool, part of which would be distributed among the employees at the end of each year as an incentive/bonus.

The employees unanimously chose to adopt my suggestion and we've been using it for 3 years now without any gripes. Of course, if an individual client project has their own travel policy then we defer to that, but I try to negotiate most of our fees on a per-project basis (inc. travel budgets) so we have more control of costs.

Do those who think miles as additional compensation think that if someone in the company (usually a regional salesperson, etc.) does most of travel by car (still out 3-4 nights per week), they should be paid more?

Also, if additional compensation, do they agree that it should be taxed?

Just some thoughts

All compensation should be taxed. I am not talking about reimbursement of travel expenses, but compensation.

Many of the FT community see FF miles as being "earned." I disagree. FF miles are promotions by the airlines to buy loyalty. Nothing more or less. I have no problem with anyone getting or using them (or switching airlines for better FF benefits). But because someone chooses to spend a lot of time in airplanes, I do not think they are "entitled" to FF miles any more than I am for using a credit card or telephone service that offers FF miles.

As a matter of fact, I could argue the opposite. Selling FF miles to other vendors is very profitable. From what I have researched, the airlines get about 2 cents per FF mile they sell to other vendors. A 25,000 reward ticket, if the miles were acquired only from vendor purchases, will have made the airline more money than if the miles were accumulated from flying. Flying revenues do not cover costs. The miles sold to vendors do.

I am sure I will be beaten unmercifully by many for this post, but I don't care. There will probably be a day when FF programs will all go away and we will all be flying in coach anyway.

Personally, I wonder why anyone would even want to work for a company who keeps your miles. It speaks volumes about their larger attitude toward their employees. I once worked for a company like that, keeping miles, scheduling out-of-town meetings on the weekend to get a cheaper fare, etc. The company didn't give a rip about their employees. Do what I did, quit and go work for a company that gets it. Now, I not only get to keep all my miles, but they even pay for an airline lounge membership for any employee who travels more than 25% of the time. And you know what? It is a much more enjoyable place to work. Whatever a company's policy toward frequent flyer benefits, consider it a reflection of their overall treatment of employees.

"More?" More than what? More than an accountant who doesn't travel? More than a sales rep with a different territory? More than the sales VP?

The total compensation, all things included, should be appropriate for the job, all things considered. The package for a sales rep who travels should be competitive with other firms' compensation for sales reps who travel - and, if the company wants to keep this rep, with other jobs a person with the same background could get.

If a person hates to spend time on the road, s/he will gravitate toward jobs that don't require it. Those who take these jobs will, all things being equal, be those who don't mind that much or whose tradeoffs say that tolerating it is still better than their available alternatives.

Travel is far from the only problem involved in careers. I know people who walk knowingly into burning buildings in case someone is in there, some who stop speeding cars knowing that the driver may be an armed psychopath, and others who can be called at any hour of the day or night. Many would say these are worse than travel, but the people I have in mind are happy with their career choices. It's the whole picture that matters.

In today's world, the only 9 to 5 jobs left are those where you wear a uniform and get to say something like "Want fries with that?" Most professional and managerial positions require you to work lots of overtime without extra compensation (or time in lieu). In fact, the only professional jobs that I am aware of that have a 9 to 5 schedule anymore are those that start at 9 am UK time and end at 5 pm California time.

I keep my miles whenever I travel, for work or for leisure. That is 100% non-negotiable. If that's a make-or-break for my employer, then so be it. He/She can take my job and restaff it.

I don't care who paid for the ticket. I flew the miles, I keep the miles.

Yeah. I'm staying here for another two years because the hours aren't bad, so I have time to study for some professional exams. I'm just surprised that it is technically possible for an employer to take your miles. I always thought that if you fly the miles, they get put on your FF card and that's the end of it.

When I hear something official, I'll pass it along.

It is technically not possible for an employer to "take" your miles. It is possible for an employer to know how much you travel for work, figure how many miles you will have earned for that travel, know how many miles are required for an award ticket and require you to get an award for your or a colleague's business travel after you've traveled enough for work to have earned that many.

Possible, yes. A good idea? That's what most of this thread is about.