warthog1984

What are the funniest/weirdest travel memos/policies you've come across? Not necessarily the most restrictive, just those that make you wonder what somebody was thinking.

For example, at my company, one of the CPAs (not the boss or travel desk, but the bean counter) recently tried to issue *her* interpretation of our straight-forward travel policy.

To wit:
*Any time spent working during off-hours travel is overtime, any time-in-transit during off hours is Compensatory Time
*Any time spent at the airport newsstand cannot be counted as Compensatory Time, even if after normal working hours.
*Eating the airline food during TCONs/TPACs is a personal lunch period.
*Using the IFE or sleeping (whether daytime flights or redeyes, both in coach) shall be construed as personal time off.

Umm...

I am NOT making this up.

MSPeconomist

We reimburse breakfast with a dollar limit and lunch with a dollar limit, but not brunch under any circumstances. Receipts are required for meal reimbursement up to per diem amounts which restrict the amount to be spent on each meal.

Also, flights with meals or lodging that has bed and breakfast in the name will result in no reimbursement for that meal, regardless of circumstances. This includes staying in a bed and breakfast establishment and taking lunch in a place that is assumed by the name to specialize in breakfast.

warthog1984

At least I'm not the only one with wacked-out travel issues. Anybody else? The thread's had 95 views, so I know people are watching.

QueenOfCoach

I'm just reading the thread to remind myself of how much I like working for myself. I don't have to worry about any of this stuff.

CMK10

I used to work for a company where they would not reimburse standby fees. However, you were paid from the entire travel period until you arrived back at your house including overtime. If you had to wait more than 2-3 extra hours for your originally scheduled flight, it usually meant more in salary than the standby fee they wouldn't cover. I never understood that one.

FrogProf

Up to my per diem, I am reimbursed for all the bottled water I want at a restaurant. However, a bottle of water from the corner bodega is considered a non-reimbursable personal expense. This rule applies regardless of the potability of the local water.

FrogProf

I thought of another one.

Foreign country entry/visa fees are considered a non-reimbursable personal expense. The logic is that the entry/visa fee covers a period longer than that required for the official business and could therefore be used for personal time. Seriously.

gfunkdave

"Oh, wow. This country wants me to pay $200 for a visa. That's too expensive and not in my personal budget. I guess I can't go to that important meeting after all."

WildPlumYonder

I didn't hire on at my Fortune 50 company in a job that required travel (on purpose, as I had teenagers at home) but of course it worked out that way. The single biggest argument we continually had is that I had to travel "on my own time."

No - you are requiring me to go to Texas or NY or San Francisco or Singapore for a meeting, so you can damn well pay me to do it. I'll leave Monday morning at 7 am, not Sunday at 7am.

Although we had a corporate travel site, airfare and hotel and car rental/taxi whatever had to be paid using the corporate-sponsored private AMEX card and then reimbursed, and of course the trip report never managed to get reimbursed before the payment was due, so frequently I was floating the company a $5K "loan". Helluva racket, that. I started flat-out refusing to go to Singapore when they started requiring that you make 3 international trips a year in coach before they'd upgrade to business (and FF miles belonged to them).

deniah

wow, i cant believe what the general work environment must be like, if the company puts effort into micro-management and policing such minutae....

the only travel policy we have is a ban on travel during xx-xx hours, due to commute safety - no driving, no being driven (e.g. taxis, car service)... so flights must be scheduled so that they depart/land at allowable hours local time

dartagnan

Our policy is pretty wide open, as a Fortune 500 company. Reasonable expenses, reasonable travel times, etc. - all at the travelers discretion. No business class, period, unless you are a company officer. Alcohol, sodas, bottled water from the corner store, visas, etc., are all reimbursable.

The only weird one we have is no renting a car or driving allowed after a transatlantic or transpacific flight. We're required to use a car service, taxis, or mass transit. I'm fine with that, since I don't want to make the ~100 mile drive to our office in England after arriving at LHR.

pinworm

I once got scolded for my monthly budget. NOT for going over it..but for coming CLOSE to going over it.

They gave me X per month. They were not supposed to care what I spent it on provided I stayed under X and the work got done.

That month I was 25 dollars UNDER x. His issue was that I had a 20 dollar dinner. My food per diem was 50 per day, I did not even eat breakfast, had a 5 dollar lunch, and had a 20 dollar dinner leaving me 25 dollars LEFT OVER. In his words "You have to think about how your spending impacts the company". When I replied that he should wait until I actually break the rules or get over-budget before to deciding to scold me, he got even more upset.

Long story short, he was fired a mere 8 weeks later. For using his corp card to buy porn in his hotel room and trying to alter the receipt. I heard the incident took place around time time he was yelling at me for being under-budget- by- not-enough

flying bookman

I was told that some of my lunches and dinners for a particularly long-houred work week would not be reimbursed because they did not fall within "acceptable meal hours." I got that one taken care of pretty quickly with a conference call to the CFO.

Steve M

Where I used to work, we had very generous and generally non-picky travel rules, except for the "no in-room movies" rule. I suppose it was to prevent the company paying for porn, but this was never directly stated. Many of the regular travelers were upset by this, as after a day of work and being in a city by yourself, sometimes that's the best option. But the company would fully reimburse you if you went down to the lobby bar and ran a tab for a few hours, which many of them did. The "no in-room movies" rule eventually got removed.

WChou

Worked for a company that had a 3rd party manage all travel which included air and ground. We were told they were able to save the company money due to their purchasing power and tap into more "knowledgeable" professionals. I suspect they were paid based on the most ingenious torture method used. Some of the greatest hits include:
- No individual trips to the airport. All employees meet at the office and then bused to the airport. The promise was no more costs associated with reimbursements for parking, mileage, tolls, taxis, or shuttles. The reality was riding to the airport in vans of questionable reliability driven by someone with less wheel time than a typical teenager. Because the shuttle only left a few times per day. It usually meant showing up at the office Sunday at noon for a 4PM flight then driven an hour to BOS. Since I lived an hour from the office but a 5 - 10 minute cab ride from BOS, I simply ate the cab fare.

- No rental cars at cities with major corporate sites. Instead, the company was leased a certain number of cars and those in town on business was assigned one from the pool. The promise was no more costs associated with rentals, gas, insurance, etc. The reality, the company paid alot for crapboxes. Once in town, you met at with another questionable company shuttle. Again, they ran at fixed times. Arrive at 2PM? Hang around for the 4PM shuttle. Then driven to the parking lot of a corporate office, goto your assigned space, open up a lockbox, take the keys and drive off. As expected thing did not always go right. Cars were not always gassed up, some would not start, etc. Not so bad during business hours but being ditched at 8PM mid-December on a Sunday night in a desolate office park sucked. Not wanting to strand a colleague, the group often waited together for road service to show. Oh, the vehicles, bare bones Ford Tauruses (Taurii). No ABS, nothing power accessories, AM/FM cassette radio.....

- Cheapest possible flights on US Airways. Nothing against US but this company put me off on them forever. The promise was cost savings and preferred fares. The reality was crazy routings to presumably save a few bucks. On one trip I flew BOS-RIC non-stop outbound but on the return fly RIC-CLT-LGA-BOS inbound. Nothing more depressing than flying CLT-LGA only to look out the window and see the airport I left 90 minutes ago. That itinerary ended adding 6 hours to the trip.

I left the job 4 months later as did many other people. Found out later that the company was very quickly dumped as soon as the contract expired. Not sure what happened to the moron that signed off on the original agreement but I suspect he was probably promoted.