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.

How much is the difference in cost between the cheapest economy and the upgradeable fare, typically?

So this has nothing to do with the TSP, but whether it's ethical to buy a more expensive, upgradeable ticket.

I'm sure no one's done that before, right? :)

This is slightly worse than usual, because there is a specific financial incentive to take the bucketshop fare, which he is undermining by booking a (semi-)flexible ticket.

Assuming that he is authorized to travel on paid J, anything that doesn't cost the company more than that should be fine.

An example: J ticket is $6000, the cheapest Y is $1500, and upgradable Y is $3000. Options include:
1) Buy J at $6000 - allowed by company policy, director arrives at destination more rested and ready to be productive than he would in Y. No ethical question.
2) Buy $3000 ticket, upgrade with SWU, take $1500 TSP payment = $4500, company saves $1500, director arrives at destination more rested and ready to be productive than he would in Y. I see no problem with this, but this seems to be where the difference of opinion here lies.
3) Buy $1500 ticket, sit in the back, take $1500 TSP payment = $3000, company saves $3000, director arrives at destination more travel weary than he would have in J. No ethical question.

I guess you could argue that, but I'd say it's a moot distinction because both have a financial incentive to book the economy fare. That's why the program exists.

I so no ethical shaky ground. I am assuming the OP has a travel policy that entitles him to fly first/bus on flights over a certain distance, but if he is willing to forgo that entitled seat for one in coach, he gets a bonus. If he books a coach ticket and upgrades with his own points, I think it is fine.
He is on the same moral ground as I am.

I fly only domestically, and am never allowed to book anything other than coach, if I book a higher fare to get myself on the upgrade list, then we have an ethical breach.

There is no issue with me using miles or being automatically upgraded (depending on if I am flying AA or CO).

I think the OP is ethically correct as long as he buys the cheapest applicable coach seat.

Typically, unrestricted Y is much more expensive than the cheapest biz class fare. Depending on the route, there can be a several hundred dollar difference between the cheapest coach fare and an upgradeable coach fare. If the OP books an upgradeable fare but only seeks reimbursement for the lowest available fare at the time he/she booked, then there is no ethical issue (in my view). However, if he/she seeks reimbursement for the more expensive coach fare simply to get the chance to upgrade, that would be an ethical violation and likely would violate the company's travel and/or business conduct policy.

Here's another wrinkle: the flier takes the $1500 payment, and is prepared to fly economy. On the day of departure, upon checking in at the airport, a sign at the counter is offering one-way cash upgrades for $500.

If he/she purchases the upgrade (ostensibly using the funds from the payment), is any "violation of ethics" mitigated?

I think it is okay as one is paying the upgrade with personal funds. The total cost to the company is only for Y class.

I used to work for a company that gave you back a portion of the savings if you stayed with friends instead of in a hotel, etc. I always thought that was a good idea.

Mike

It seems to me that as long as the Y ticket plus $1500 is still less than the business class ticket you are entitled to, there is no harm no foul regardless of if you then use any instrument to upgrade. The company is still paying less than they would if you simply booked in business.

That's a different situation and most companies (that I know of, anyways) do this.

Mine does as well, but it is only $100 per occassion. I have a month long assignment and I can stay with relatives, however considering how little this I am not. I even tried to get the amount negotiated, but to no avail.

My company has well-defined rules on what booking classes we can use for travel, so there's no wiggle room. However, they do make allowances for employees who have to book refundable tickets because of the need for flexibility (and it's simply cheaper to have a refundable ticket than to deal with the change fees). I've also gotten upfront approval to purchase a higher fare class for the purposes of upgrading from my manager (and, his manager) when budgets were cut and we couldn't book business class any more.

Booking a more expensive ticket than necessary for personal reasons does seem to be shaky ground. I would err on the side of avoiding any appearance of impropriety and ask Finance to clarify the rules.

The payout stipend waives the employee's right to require the company pay for the C-class seat he is eligible for. The payout stipend is not for the employee's promise to sit in a big seat in front.

Therefore, no ethics problem.

Similarly, my company pays $40 per diem. Whether I actually spend $40
to eat, or pocket the $40 and eat TV dinners using my hotel room microwave, is irrelevant to the company. They know that each day I am travelling for them is $40 out of the company's funds. It's not important whose pocket that $40 ends up in....mine or some restaurant's.

I used to work for a company in Southern California. One Friday, they told me I had to be in Las Vegas on Monday for a huge week-long convention. All flights were sold out; they finally found a Y-class ticket for $677 round trip. The usual fare is $78.

I kept the Y-ticket and drove there myself (300 miles one way). The Saturday following the convention, I drove myself back.

Later I applied the full-fare ticket (as good as cash) to several personal trips.

==============
On another occasion, I needed to report to OKC on Monday for a job interview. A Y-ticket was sent to me. Again, I kept the Y-ticket, found a M-class ticket (requiring Sat overnight) to DFW. On Sat, I flew to DFW, hung around DFW eating delicious BBQ, and got in my self-paid rental car and drove to OKC Sunday night. I turned in my bargain National car, and picked up the Hertz car that was already waiting for me. Monday night, I turned in the Hertz car, got into another rental car and drove to DFW for my flight home. Even after the additional hotel, car rent, and BBQ charges, I came out ahead.

$100 per stay or per day?

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

Welcome to Flyertalk

I wonder if you'd have been happy to recount this story to your bosses at the time.

This sounds like an example of being within the rules but not within the spirit of them. Lots of trouble with this in the UK at the moment with our politicians.

Well I know my company isn't every company, but there is no ethical question on this one at mine. In fact we have a department-wide ethics refresher after Thanksgiving because a coworker was just let go for the situation described in 2). It's a little bit murkier in your situation, but you also picked numbers that work pretty well. So here's what happened here:

*Coworker A buys a $4000 J ticket as he is allowed to.
*Coworker B takes the $1000 (our company's amount) to buy a Y ticket (to save the company money). The lowest available Y ticket is $1000. So, the company should save $2000. She, however, bought the lowest upgradeable fare and upgraded with miles. That ticket was $2400. The company only saves $600 (and spent $1000 to save that $600).

The introduction to the company policy on the $1000 payment actually reads: "This policy was created to give the employee an incentive to forgo premium class travel to save the company the maximum amount possible."

The maximum in this case was $2000, but the company only saved $600

This is a clear ethical violation. You should have returned the plane ticket and expensed your mileage at the going rate.

What if the only ticket your company could find had been a $5000 first class ticket - would you still have been comfortable doing what you did?

A quick ethics test - Did you tell your manager what you did?

I agree unless the company policy specifically forbids it (a big part of my job is interpreting ethics issues).

My attitude on this (and I book my own travel with nobody over my shoulder) is that I don't get to play situational ethics in this case. Either:

(1) I pocket the $1500 and I book the cheapest fare class available and fly however I can fly -- if the cheapest allows a personal upgrade fine, but I won't spend a penny more than I have to.

(2) Buy the J ticket.

I'm not taking the $1500 to fly Y. I'm taking it to save the company the most money possible.

The only variation I'd take is that I'd fly *my* airline. It's my policy without an incentive and this shouldn't change with an incentive.

Of course, I have no such incentive (and of course such an incentive is taxable income) and I always fly Y, so I may not be the best to ask.

Driving 600 miles at 50¢ a mile would return about $300 anyway, though, so the poster who drove could've easily gotten much of his Y ticket money anyway and it probably would be completely above board for any company's expense policy.

As a business owner and frequent flyer I see both sides of this case. Sometimes the cheapest fare to a faraway place involves two plane changes, multiple airlines and a ten-hour layover; I wouldn't make people take that deal, nor would I take it myself. And I'm sympathetic to people wanting to boo a particular airline or alliance (I do too) as long as the price differential isn't too glaring... say, 10% to 15%. And if someone is flying discount economy but upgrades using miles or status, more power to them; it costs me and our client nothing.

But it is definitely over the line to book an upgradeable fare that is 2X or 3X the lowest discount fare and stick the company / client with the bill. It is meet and right that this person was apparently fired for this shenanigan:

What would work for me is this:

1. Worker has to go somewhere. Discount economy is $1,000, lowest upgradeable economy fare is $2,000, Business is $5,000.
2. Worker opts to fly economy and take the $1,500 credit. We buy worker the $1,000 ticket.
3. Worker calls airline and refares the ticket to lowest upgradeable class, spending $1,000 of his own money.
4. Worker then upgrades to business using miles.

To me, that's totally clean. The company / client paid the lowest economy fare, the worker sits up front and comes out $500 ahead, and everything is above board.

If you worked for me and did that, you wouldn't be working for me any more. That's straight-up theft.

I agree, but I bet there are a lot of companies out there that would consider this completely wrong. Those are companies where other people book travel and would send you through Zimbabwe if it save $12 and would keep your miles if there was a clean and legal way to do so.

Be very careful on that one, that is not an ethical grey area, that is outright fraud/theft. Even if your boss is aware, you could get in real trouble over something like that. One of the companies that I worked for had an executive that was doing something similar, albeit much more often, and on a much larger scale. He was actually prosecuted for that one.
His went on over a LONG time period though. He was also charged with tax evasion over it.

Not saying that would happen to you on a one off time, but be careful if you decide to do that again.

Since we are talking ethics, does anyone hear hesistate to trade on CC? If the airline catches you and puts you on their no-fly list or if they catch you at checkin in front of your boss, what would happen in your company?

Does any company ban flyertalk in their code of ethics?