I say let it drop unless you really think the company brass would rather you have the points than her. It is a standard of the business unfortunately. The max for Marriott meetings was 100k I thought...I could be wrong but that's what I was recently told when planning one of our meetings.

Back in my United-flying days (gee, I miss those a lot :rolleyes http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif, I remember musing with my fellow travelers about why PremEx was known as '1P' whereas Premier was known as '2P' (instead of the other way around, which seems more logical).

The best thing we could come up with was that the COBOL programmers made it that way. 1K was probably already assigned - maybe it meant Top 1000 back in day, but now it means the 100K mileage level. They needed two more two-character codes for status levels, and they needed them to be close to 1K in value in order to facilitate sorting algorithms. Since PremEx is closer to 1K in terms of level, and since they chose 1P and 2P as the values to use for the levels, 1P needed to represent PremEx, else the sorting would not work right.

Every now and then, I'd catch a glimpse of a really long standby list (after MY flight was canceled) and I'd see the little codes next to pax names - sorted properly of course. (There are many other 2-character codes, pertaining to things other than FF status.)

And for my contribution to thread drift in general and the k/m controversy in particular, please note that in the wonderful world of computers, k often designates 1024 and not 1000. When evaluated from a base 2 perspective, 2^10 = 1024. So 1K of space on your hard drive is actually 1024 bytes.

http://www.unh.edu/NIS/Courses/Jargon/number-bases.html

<edited because my first attempt to express exponentiation by selecting the "^" symbol was transformed into a "thumbs up" by UBB.>

[This message has been edited by LarryU (edited 03-12-2002).]

And for my contribution to this thread, I'd say AS Flyer has already made it for me.

It must be so much fun to work for a BIG company.

As mentioned by so many others, the incentives offered to meeting planners are in pretty bold print. Small minds......

Plato90s, I also don't see where you're reading that Mikey tried to get all the miles for himself. He never said that anywhere above.

My take on the situation: If all the FF miles acrued by your company's employees went, not to the actual flyer OR the company for some joint 'pooled' use, but to a company employee in the corporate traval office, in addition to his/her other salary/compensation.

How does it sound now?

but it's NOT all the miles acrued by all the employees - its the hotel points that are commonly given to meeting planners BY THE HOTEL as a reward for booking the rooms there...

I have to give Mikey credit for not altering his original post. The guy does not have a clue about the job function of the person planning a meeting of this size.

The thread title is the first clue and it just goes more overboard from there. A little bit of knowledge can be dangerous.

When a big event is booked at a Marriott, Starwood, etc. the planner is covering their rear end that things will go right. Mikey believes the whole booking process was underhanded and I'll bet the top guy knows better than that.

Hedoman,

I guess the question is: If you have a meeting planner on staff (getting a salary) are the points factored into the overall comp package.

If nobody is aware of this up front then management, rightfully so, could consider the points (or a camera) as payola.

Many companies prohibit employees from accepting gifts over $50 - this could be a gift over $50.

If however it's all part of the employment deal then it is certainly above board.

If it's a contractor then it's all fair game.

If Marriott publishes a 50,000 point bonus to be awarded to a meeting planner for an event of this size, it is no more payola than the poor slob traveling on expense account collecting his 1,000 points each night. If you suspect something other than what is published has been given, it would be best to have the facts at hand before trying to bring down a fellow employee.

sdix, I understand that one 50,000 point payoff could be considered over the gift limit at a company. My claim is that the travel planner, based on what has been reported, did nothing wrong.

[This message has been edited by hedoman (edited 03-13-2002).]

How many of you/us choose an airline based on where you get your miles? How many of you/us have chosen an airline that is somewhat more expensive because you will get miles on them? You miles could be valued at over $50, depending on how you redeem them. Those that live in glass houses should not throw stones.....

So now you bring up another topic but pertinant.

How many Flyertalkers bypass corporate policy or do not take the cheapest flight or stay in the cheapest hotel just to get miles or points in the plan of his or her choice?

Previous threads here show that the answer is quite a few and quite often.

My take is if you do, that's dishonest

(BTW I do plan meetings)

We have a "leeway" plan at work the maximum price we can hit with airfare is the cheapest "reasonably routed" flight or one within $100 of that.

Fortunately, my EVP has a more stringent definition of "reasonably routed" than I do... thus I always end up actually booking myself on one or two stop flights and saving sometimes several hundred BELOW the reasonably routed flight. (His definition of reasonably routed is a non-stop or one-stop flight that occurs primarily within business hours on a major carrier with a minimal layover.)

Heck, I got the company to pay for a trip to TPE last year because of the "reasonably routed" rule. I've also gotten weekend hotel rooms and circle trips to LAS from the east coast covered.

If you are truly creative, you can fly the airline(s) of your choice AND save the company lots of money.

However some companies do not allow you to book your flights yourself (on web)--instead they require you use the corporate travel agency (or contracted travel agency). Some folks at my company got in a bit of trouble for booking their trip on their own because in not using the travel agency, the company lost a lot more money in lost rebates from the travel agency. Apparently even through web fare may seem cheaper than what the corporate agency can get, but over the long run, with rebates, it is actually cheaper to book through the travel agency.

Or so they claim....

The answer is -- sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. I do have to manage my travel budget, and $25 or $30 isn't really a big factor for me.

Now, however, if my prefered airline is charging double the price of another airline, then I'm not going to do it.

Very interesting discussion. I actually teach a miles/points course to a group that includes meeting planners and varioius convention and trade show types. Every company has different rules and regulations as to who gets what, but it is clear that many meeting planners, convention and trade show folks do consideration their miles and points as part of their compensation. This can be a very substantial amount of miles/points when you consider the staggering annual costs of shipping, drayage and labor for a large trade show booth.

It was very interesting to note the last couple of times I taught this class that approximately 60% of the attendees had had their personal AMEX cards pulled in the last year in favor of cards that allowed all miles and points to go directly to the company. I have also discussed this issue with several company executive types who have indicated that these tough economic times have made it necessary for the company to use these miles and points to defray company travel expenses.