It seems to me that the perfect rational market value of the TSP payment
would be the cost to upgrade from the level of ticket bought by the
company. Then the person can either use the TSP to upgrade, or replace
it with the [obviously same market value] miles/status that is rightfully
their own to spend.

Obviously, this is not feasible, since that market value changes with
every trip!

--LG

Actually, the company saved $1,600 on the airfare and spent $1,000 of that per the policy. Like it does whenever someone authorized to fly business instead flies coach. Both the company and the employee are better off, but the employee B violated the policy by not booking the cheapest fare.

Although the company's total savings were only $600, co-worker B's travel still cost the company less $$$ than co-worker A.

A better policy (in my view) would be one that splits the savings evenly between the employer and the employee. If I wrote the policy, co-worker B would have been given $800, not $1,000. Co-worker C, who bought the non-upgradable ticket, would have received $1,500. That way, the employee and the employer would evenly share the savings.

If it were my company, I'd fix the policy. Why? Because it's capable of producing absurd results. What if the absolute cheapest available coach fare is $3,200? Employee opts to take $1,000 (your company's flat payment for opting to fly coach) and buys that $3,200 ticket and upgrades. Looks to me like the employee is better off by $1,000 but the company is worse off by $200. Unless your company policy prohibits buying coach when the price difference is less than $1,000, one could comply with the policy yet end up costing the company more $$$ than did the recently fired employee.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kettering Northants QC
$100 per stay or per day?

I'd have thought most relatives would be happy to have you for $3000 for a month.



that's awful!

Where did my post go that I put here earlier ???

I seem to have lost a post on this thread too - not that it said anything that violated the TOS. I just said that I thought the OP's Director was right that there was an ethical issue: the compensation is for forgoing the privilege of travelling in business and suffering in Y. If you don't travel in Y, then you don't earn the compo. This is the way you initiate a general change of policy to fly everyone in Y - by demonstrating that people will trade down for far less than they expect the company to trade up.

But it's not; the compensation is for foregoing having someone else pay a large cost for you to be guaranteed travel in business class, and thus to save the company as much money as possible by buying the cheapest possible Y ticket. If the cheapest possible Y ticket is upgradeable and if the traveler chooses to spend his/her own miles/certificates/money to upgrade, then the company's policy has been followed and there is no ethical issue.

The compensation isn't there as a reward for some sort of self-flagellating masochistic mentality, it is there to encourage employees to act in a way that saves the company as much money as possible. If employees can preserve the maximum savings possible in a given situation, then there is no ethical violation if they choose to use their own resources to upgrade.

To me that leaves a lot open/difficult to audit. How does one have proof that C was $X and Y was $x-1

===========
In my own defense, the 2 x 300-miles of driving was on my own time at my
own expense.

I did not order up the Y-ticket. I walked into the office, it was handed
to me, with the words "be there Monday".

If the company did not think the value of my presence at the convention
was worth the full fare Y ticket, they wouldn't have sent me.

Having decided they needed me there, THEY ordered up the ticket through
our contracted travel agent. I didn't even know I was going until I
walked in Monday (no opportunity to whisper to the tvl agent to get the
full fare ticket).....indeed on countless other times, I sent back a
fullfare or nearly fullfare ticket and instead volunteered to come back
Sunday so that the company can spend $298 instead of $750+ for
a non-stayover ticket.

While the ethics might be gray (the company didn't ask me or require
me to drive and expense the mileage), without any influence on my
part in the issuance of the ticket, I certainly do not see the
illegality of it.

If the company had asked me to drive, the driving time would be
considered a work day and I'm not sure my salary for the time plus
the mileage expense would not come out worse for the company.

The company saved my airport parking expense for a week; 2 extra
days per diem, 600 miles reimbursement.

I didn't do the math (maybe I should have before posting this), but
it's possible that it would have cost the company more if they asked
me to drive.

Our state labor laws make a distinction between someone voluntarily
doing something and someone being required to do something, even
if the something is the same thing. (in this case driving instead of
flying).

Ok one of my posts also disappeared. What I said is my colleague brought an interesting point in that doing this would be like selling your upgrade/miles.

Double dipping is clearly illegal and unethical. We call it unjust enrichment,
and it is fraud.

But the moment we take a personal phone call on a company phone, use
a company pencil to write a note to ourself on a company Post-It Note,
use company lighting to read a personal magazine, haven't we stolen from the company?

Just a note from a Moderator that no posts have been deleted from this Thread.
Please post your concerns about missing posts to the Technical Issues Forum. As well, I'll report the missing posts to the IB Tech team.
As you are aware, there have been a lot of technical issues the past week.
Obscure2k
TravelBuzz Moderator

Yeah but your examples are minor/difficult to avoid. Your main example wasn't.

This sounds just like what several NBA referees were doing back in the 1990's. They were supplied first class tickets by the NBA to travel to games. They would cash in the first class ticket, purchase a coach ticket, and pocket the difference. The IRS went after them for tax fraud as that was considered unreported income. Prison sentences and hefty fines ended up being doled out to the guilty parties.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.2; U; Series60/3.1 NokiaE71-2/100.07.76; Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 ) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413)

Are payments under a TSP taxable? (reported to the government as imputed income)?

I suspect there's something more strategic going on. It's not just about saving money on a one off occasion, it's about leading by example and showing the way for other staff. If take-up is high enough, then as night follows day, the company travel policy will change and the payment will either be cut or just frozen and eroded by inflation.

Pretty sure they would be in the UK. I believe FF points are also a taxable benefit when they are accrued through work.