A question on ethics
 

I recently told my Director that as a GS in UA he had SWU's. I think he lost all of them last year because he didn't know they existed.

I told him he could buy an economy fare, use the travel savings plan to make a $1000 extra and upgrade to business.

He had a strange remark that such an act is against the spirit of the travel savings policy. The general travel policy specifically states that one can use their frequent flyer benefits as they please, so I am baffled as to what exactly is wrong with my idea? Anyone?

I'm not familiar with a "travel savings plan". Can you explain that?:confused:

The TSP pays an employee who is eligible to fly business class $1500 if they opt for economy.

That's an interesting grey area. I guess your Director figures the additional cash outlay to get into the front of the plane was zero, so why should you get a refund of a cost savings that doesn't exist? Your side, of course, is that you gave up some SWUs (which you could conceivably have used for personal travel) and thus saved the company money because they didn't have to pay the additional Business Class fare.

In the end, you have to live with your manager's interpretation of the rules. Any idea how other departments are handling it? It may give you some ammunition.

That's too bad, we do the same thing except we save the company money even with them giving us our coach bonus.

Personally I have never done it, but the whole point from a business perspective is to save ca$h, not to keep you from flying in style. What would be the point of that?!

Is the employer paying for a more expensive Y ticket in order to facilitate your upgrade? If so, then it's unethical.

If it's the same cheap fare they would book otherwise, it's fine.

Yes but it is still saving the company money.

Yeah but it is not the company's concern as to which class the person travels in. The TSP was created to save the company money. In the end you are spending only for the Y tix and the TSP.

I'm not quite clear what ticket you are buying and what your incentive is.

If the incentive is a flat amount, say $1000 to fly economy instead of business, you should buy the cheapest economy ticket if you want the $1000, if the cheapest economy ticket is not upgradeable, you should deduct the difference between the cheap fare and the fare you end up buying from your incentive $$$.

I don't buy the argument that you are still saving the company money, if the company orders a $2,000 laptop and you buy a $1,000 laptop and keep $500 of the change, you'd be saving the company money but it would still be theft. Of course booking into a more expensive fare class is not theft, but it is unethical.

Yup, I'd also agree you're on shaky ground ethics-wise. Or, you could run your "plan" through Finance and, as long as they were ok with it, you'd be in the clear.

My guess is that when the plan was drawn up, the idea that travelers would use their own upgrade instruments/methods occurred to the planners.

Having said that, I think that the it would be important to adhere to the plan's mandate on which coach fare is to be booked. If that basic principle is honored, I think that any subsequent self-upgrading is the employee's personal business.

This is not at all a gray area, or a matter of questionable ethics.

You save the company money on a plane ticket, you get reimbursed, per the guidelines they set out.

If you later want to upgrade yourself, that's your business, not theirs.

I think the director must have misunderstood somehow. Either that or he would rather just have the company pay for biz rather than bother with upgrades clearing, and the chance that it wouldn't. Another possibility is that he fears losing GS if he upgrades tix with SWUs instead of buying full C.

I don't see any ethics problem at all, unless he had to buy a Y ticket that was considerably more than the cheapest available to be able to use the SWU. In that case *ethically* he should do that, upgrade with the SWU, and not claim the TSP $$.

He is profiting (in the form of an upgrade) by buying a ticket that costs more than the minimum (so that it is upgradeable). He shouldn't do that. The company is not benefiting from that extra spending - he is. He is effectively finding a more expensive supplier for no other reason than self-enrichment. That's definitely unethical - if you switch stationery suppliers to a more expensive supplier because the more expensive supplier buys you lavish gifts, that would be corrupt, this situation is little different, the lavish gift in this case being the ability to upgrade to J.

That is what I think too, however meerster 69brings up a good point.