Not sure about specifics, but I'm guessing they would track # of miles flow and then once we have reached the award redemption point, have us book the flight either for ourseleves or another colleague.

Hotel points can be used in a similar manner.

I would consider such a policy acceptable only when:
- Travel is during working hours (e.g. 8 to 5)
- The fastest and most convenient itinerary is chosen regardless of cost
- A policy is in place that calls for business or first class when travel is greater than a certain length (e.g. 4 hrs)

Why?

Because if I had to travel outside of working hours, even if the ticket was paid for by the company, that's my time. Therefore my miles.
If the company is trying to save money by making me fly longer routes through additional cities, then that's unnecessary wear and tear. My miles.
Why have miles in the first place? To afford me the luxury associated with frequent business travellers. If the company won't pay for first/business under certain circumstances, why can't I use my miles to upgrade longer fares, as I would if it were my own travel. No pay? My miles.

Thankfully, if I ever join a company that requires travel and has such a policy, I'd steer clear!

"Sorry, no availability!"

Amen.

They'd do better to find ways to cut back on travel. I work for an international company (hope it's not the same one!) and am in daily contact with people in London, Munich and India, in addition to teleworkers here in the US (boss works from home in Phila., one team member works from home in Cleveland). While face-to-face contact is great, we have a lot of high-tech tools to connect in other ways. If the company sends you on a $3,000 trip (and that's lowballing it for a week in Europe) and keeps the points/miles, how much of that do they recoup? Maybe $50? If that trip is avoided, they save $3,000 minus the cost of whatever tech magic it takes for all of you to connect. You can't cut back on all travel, but you'd save more $$ this way and it wouldn't hurt employee morale as much.

I've never been forced to use a company credit card. It's been strongly suggested, but my stance is that unless the company is going to accept the liability associated with the card, I'm not interested in having yet another credit card show up on my credit history for the next 7 years, just so they can get some corporate benefit. The fact that they're *requiring* you to apply for and accept an additional credit card where you are personally liable (regardless of any corporate branding on the card face) is nonsensical. I've heard stories of big companies refusing to pay expense reports because they weren't on a company card, but they're always FOAF stories -- nothing I've ever been able to verify directly with the person they supposedly wouldn't pay...

Of course, once you buckle and accept their offer of a company card, you're generally stuck using it...

Well, my company requires use of corporate Amex for airfare, car, and hotel or reimbursement requires approval of CFO. While not an absolute requirement, how long would I last if I did this every week? My guess is not very long.

My company also requires the use of a corporate card. I don't have as much of a problem with that as I would with their keeping miles. If I charge something on another card, my boss gets an "exception report" from the expense-processing system. Too many will generate attention. Not worth it.

I'm surprised so many companies are requiring the use of a specific card for reimbursement. I've seen companies that say "If you can't qualify for a Corporate AMEX, we can't hire you" because of the travel reqirements of the job, but I've yet to find one that when they tell me to get a corporate card and I reply, "No thanks, I have several personal cards already and don't need another showing up in my credit reports" they just accept it and move on.... Of course, once you accept their offer and get the card, you have very little room to negotiate whether or not it's used for travel expenses.

I think my employer would have had a hard time with that. We have a high-tech expense account system and our corporate card charges are automatically entered into the expense account system. If it's a hotel folio you need to break out meal, phone, etc, charges, but most of the time you just assign a category to the charge, click to submit, and you're done. Fewer receipts required, too- I've never had to submit one for airfare. Makes life a lot easier.

I don't know if the majors would condone this, but back in 1996/1997 when I worked for Fortis Financial in Woodbury, MN they had a volunteer program for miles. You could get on a list that the travel coordinator kept, and when she had to book another employee on business travel on a pricey ticket (which happened when employees flew on short term notice or on some of the NE routes), she would attempt to use your miles to purchase a free ticket for the other employee. If she did, the company gave you an expense reimbursment of like $200 or $250 in your next check (I can't remember the exact amount, but it was something like that).

Based on my discussions with the travel coordinator at that time, my guess would be that Fortis eventually phased this practice out, in light of FF miles vs. the Fly-Right vouchers that Northwest Airlines used to send out -- once upon a time. My old boss is still there as an Officer of the company (now know as Assurant). I'll ping him and find out if they still do this and report back here.

-A

Here's a pip for you: AMEX themselves as a company does the same thing! An aquaintenace of mine applied for an IT job with AMEX in Minneapolis. After the interviews and a background check, he was offered the position and started in his job; I am not sure if any other contingencies existed, but they must have based on what happened next.

About two weeks into his new IT job at AMEX, he was called in and informed that he was being let go because he did not pass the credit check.

Hmm... I guess if you are going to work for a Financial Services company you better have your own house in order in that regard, but I think that AMEX should have done all of their checking up front before extending a job offer and having him start -- don't you?

-A

Lost of Fin Institutions do this. I work for one, every new employee can start, and they must be bonded within 2 weeks or they are back out the door, we do credit/FBI backround checks. Most of the time everything is clear by the start date, but not always.

It is pretty obvious why financial companies such as AMEX, etc. have a liability with having employees with "poor credit" as they would be in positions of temptation....however I have been with two other companies as a sales manager that have included in my employment paperwork that they can do a background check including criminal and financial records. The philosophy behind this as I understand it from a friend in an HR position with another company is to gauge the integrity and responsibility of potential employees.

I do agree with the thought that these "checks" should be completed before commencing employment, but I know I have been in situations where I was under pressure to fill a position and have tried to pressure HR to send an offer out before the background check came in...

p.s. Fortunately HR has never caved in, and last time I was filling a position in the north west had 2 candidates that i had told to expect an offer in the mail...unfortunately I had to call them both back to let them know the offer wouldn't be coming...had to start interviewing all over...oh well, more miles.

If I had that luxury, I'd probably use the corp card just to escape the hassle of expense reporting. All the employers that wanted me to use one in the past however still forced me to key in all the expenses manually, staple receipts, and turn everything in... the only "benefit" to the corporate card went to the CEO or someone else equally lofty.