my bachelor's was in hospitality and in my revenue management class; i distinctly remember our professor warning us of giving frequent business travellers a lower rate without them asking for it...

"if you have a guest that stays with you quite frequently for business, and you have a special rate for frequent visitors; do not give him this rate until he/she asks for it, as they will be upset that they will lose their airline miles"

he was very absolute about this i remember

I thought that you would only have to pay the higher tax rate on the portion of income that went into the next bracket- not on your entire income.

You'd forego miles to save $5? Really?

What's to justify to taking the points than the savings?

The economics of it is really, you're paying $5 for the points.. so unless you get more than 500 points, I don't see how its ethical to incur additional company expenses, unless you're donating the points back into the company.

I guess I see ethics differently from you. It's not always the most ethical scenario to take the cheapest option, IMO. The company is asking me to leave my family and home for a few days, I see nothing wrong with getting some benefit from it.

All airline and hotel points? I *always* get more than 500 points.

Here's a scenario. Let's say I'm flying MSN-MSP-LAX-SYD and back for my company. I'm offered a ticket for $1700 or a ticket for $1695 that earns no points or miles. Are there people here that would actually buy the $1695 ticket? Are there managers here that would expect their employees to forego the miles to save the company $5? How about $100 on such an itinerary?

I *always*, *always* fly my preferred airline. I don't even shop around unless the price seems over the top. MY boss has frequently said, "Fly your airline -- I don't care if it costs a little more." Same with hotels.

$5? No. $100? Yes. It's 6% the cost of the ticket. It's the same reason I ask my staff to fly out of IAD instead of BWI when the cost of the flight is less than a round trip cab fare (~$200). Sticking to one airline can be much more expensive when you have a dept of full-time travelers. Of course, it's also the reason I'm second tier in every major US airline FF program and top tier in none.

With the change in scenario.. $5 for $1,700 ticket, vs $5 for hotel room.. the way I see it should be a cost benefit analysis to whether it may be worth it or not. If your corporate policy, your company is ok with you paying more for some points, then you'll need to get parameters to how far you should go with it.

On a personal basis, and within my own company, I always get the discount ahead of the miles.. unless the economics show that its worth getting the miles ahead of the discount. However, if you company's policy is to get the best price regardless, then you should ethically follow company policy.

I'm going through the decision whether to keep an AMEX gold card, as well as a Platinum AMEX card within the family. Fees paid for has benefits, but the gold AMEX has same benefits pretty much as my Visa Infinite Gold. I will have to tally the bonus points extra earned on the AMEX gold card if I'm going to keep it past the 1 year trial period, because the first year is free and of course that's a no brainer.

The point is, doesn't make sense to go for the points at all cost.. Its' got to make sense. I'm sure if you save your company money, your cost savings habits will reward you in your personal life, or through your company down the line.

My company gives me a budget of X.

Therefore, so long as I stay under or at X, it should be no concern of their if I got a discount or not. They were prepared to give me X and I am within budget if I do not exceed it. So the $200 dollar flight vs the $230 should not matter.

However, I used to get funny looks when they found I was in F much of the time. They did not understand how airmiles worked. They simply thought I was being haughty. I could point out that I paid coach price for each F ticket, but it didn't matter.

However, I still come in below budget compared to my colleagues who insist that WN saves them money and fly coach all the time.

So long as the parameters in latitude is abided by, there shouldn't be an issue with the expenditures. Its value for the money, can be justified with the superiors, and its been approved, I don't see it to be a problem.

i'd much rather save the cash and keep my personal business expenses lower then get points, this way i don't have to raise my prices and compensate for a higher overhead in turn generating more customers and using those profits to pay for the ticket/hotel/meal whatever it may be.

vicious cycle but not quite as vicious as this mile chasing game...

My company has the option of using travel expenses for alternative travel (i.e. flying to X for the weekend instead of home as long as the cost is less than the flight home). I'm continually amazed at how my staff are able to find flights, hotels, transportation, and food that always come in almost exactly $1-2 less than the cost of going home...

I agree that the mile chasing game can become addictive.. I choose to have miles follow my best deal purchases, rather than seek it out.

AccountingGal.. Funny how we all come within budget when authorized.. especially within a few dollars.

Good for them. Traveling for work is an imposition on a lot of people and it's great they can get some perks out of it.

To some extent, I agree. It's great to have those perks and I've taken advantage of them myself over the last few years. I don't think as employees we have a right to live in a lap of luxury, however, simply because we have the budget to do so. Being good stewards of company money is important as well, otherwise those rights may be taken away, IMO.

As had been mentioned in similar discussions, there is a fundamental conflict. The employer wants cost effectiveness. The employee wants good service.

The employer doesn't benefit from the employee receiving good service. The employee doesn't benefit from jumping through hoops in the name of cost effectiveness, since they're not paying for it. If it were a leisure trip, the employee might be willing to do some of those things.

Worse, some agencies (ex Hertz, Marriott, JetBlue) reward revenue. So if your company has a "good" rate, you the traveler get penalized for it.

On the other hand, some companies (ex American, National, Best Western bonus miles for 2nd and 3rd stays) reward number of transactions, no matter how low the price. So if the company has a low rate, there is no difference to the traveler. In this case, the interests of both employer and employee align- getting a low price.