So, Wall Mart last week announced that its employees will be able to retain the frequent flier miles they earn while on business trips. Are there any other companies out there that don't allow their employees to keep their miles?

Chrysler, Caterpillar, Anheuser-Busch, Swann's have all owned the business miles of their employees in the past.

How does this work? Do these companies have special deals worked out with the airlines that go against the usual "only the flier can get miles" requirements? Or maybe a company FF# that is put on all the tickets?

I thought the airlines actually "owned" the miles...

'But a select few companies, including Wal-Mart, Chrysler and Anheuser-Bush, were able to negotiate deals that allowed them to pool employee miles and use them for business travel, said Randy Petersen, who publishes a newsletter, Inside Flyer, that caters to corporate travelers. Those deals, although rarely publicized, were allowed because of the immense volume of travel those companies booked.

"Wal-Mart has been doing it this way for a long, long time," said Petersen, who managed Wal-Mart's frequent-flier program as an independent consultant in the late 1980s and early '90s. He estimates that at the time, the company was saving close to $1 million annually by using the miles for business travel'

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=520711

how it works with target (who's corporate travel dept. aren't the brightest of lightbulbs), is all flights booked via them will earn miles into the flyers "professional" ff account. miles are redeemed by the travel dept. for any company traveler (not just the person with the name on the account). i know of 800k miles tapped from one employees ff account alone.

personal use of the miles is cause for termination, however the free elite perks (upgrades, lounge, etc) can be used by the account holder.

consider: vacationing overseas, if the tgt employee wants to earn miles, they can uses their own "personal" account. but if they want to use the status that they earned from their "professional" account, they can. the employee gets a sleeper seat upgrade, the company gets the miles.

thats harsh

Add the US Government to the list, sort of. Government employees can put all their miles in one FF account, but are responsible for keeping separate track of what miles are personal and which are on the government's dime. If they can't show good records, then all miles are assumed to be accumulated on government travel. "Government" miles may only be used for the benefit of the government and not for the individual.

They really know how to take the fun out of business travel. Probably require employee to travel on their own time and share a hotel room with co-workers.

At one time this was true, but it is no longer the case. Now as a government employee you can keep any miles you earn for personal use.

GM tried this around '86-'87. Failed miserably and they backed off.

How is this any different than my boss now coming to me and saying 'we (company) need to save, book econo class and use your own pts to upgrade' (on what was previously a company purchased Biz ticket)??

Am I of the wrong attitude when I consider the pts, status, etc, that come from all the biz travel to be 'mine' (perhaps justified to myself as a 'reward', or 'perk', or just 'payback for having to sit in airports on my own weekends,etc.'...???

My friend works for a small-ish retail chain based on the East Coast. Until he found out this was going on and put a stop to it, his boss's assistant was using my friend's FF account to upgrade the boss -- even though many of the miles in his account were earned before he started working and flying for this company. Boss repaid the miles in the end, and my friend cut a deal where he's the only person in the firm who gets to keep his own mileage from biz travel.

I used to work for a Fortune 150 company a few years back, and I traveled 70% or so. The company had about 250 sales reps that travel by plane frequently. One day, we received a memo that we were not allowed to keep our miles any longer. So many of the reps threatened to quit, that the policy only lasted 3 days and it went back the old way with everyone keeping their miles.
Personally, a big part of business travel for me is to be able to keep my miles for personal use. I am getting married in May in Hawaii and I was able to get 10 tickets with my miles to fly my family and friends there.