DavidVIE

actually, my company is about too generous on travel expenses: we HAVE TO fly business! While that is nice on long flights, it really does not make much of a difference on short intercontinental ones. So the staff collectively asked to fly economy, as those high business costs directly reduce profit and therefore our bonus...
but no giving here, we still have to fly business all the time, its just "company policy"

on the other hand this is still better than at my previous company where we would ALWAYS have to fly economy.

*A Flyer

The rates seem a little low but you could get a liveable hotel in BKK for $40 and meals for well under $20. Just don't expect to get a 4* hotel and eat in restaurants.

SomeGuy

My company has a rule that airline tickets can only cost $100 over the cheapest fare. This rule, of course, doesn't take in to consideration things like time of day for a departure or layover length. If someone booking wants to break that rule, they have to fill out a form, which months later might or might not get approved.

It took some time, but I managed to get the rule changed to $120. My reasoning was that if I'm put on United and I have two bags, I'm paying $120 round trip in baggage fees, but if I'm on Delta I get two bags free, saving $120.

Baby steps, sure, but at least it's a start.

*A Flyer

It is still ridiculous. Hard caps rarely help anyone except the beancounters who find it easier. Simple exception reporting built into approval systems deals with the issues and gets you cheaper and more efficient travel.

pragakhan

I can understand large companies, or maybe even small want to control costs and $100 over the cheapest fare seems reasonable. Except, what is the cheapest fare? Does the policy say no more than one connection or could the cheapest fare involve three or more connections? Travel during appropriate times, or does the cheapest fare mean you could depart at 5am and or return home at midnight?

The overall policy would matter most. If it is bottom 8 connections, leaving at 4am - cheapest, NO THANKS.

SceneStealer7

As someone reported earlier, my company won't pay for lunch while traveling - rationale being that "if you were local, you'd be buying lunch." (No, I would be bringing lunch from home - not for cost savings, but because I like what I cook and I can eat far healthier when I make it myself.)

HOWEVER, my company has no limit on what you can spend on breakfast/dinner - policy is just to spend a "reasonable" amount. Pisses me off to no end that I can't expense a salad for lunch, keeping my total meal expenses for the day to $40 or so, but my coworkers can go run up a dinner/drinks tab of $100 (or more), as long as they only submit two charges on their Amex that day.

Oh, and in response to the idea that you can save on expenses by buying things at grocery stores? My company has expressly forbidden any charges at grocery stores - I suppose fearing that people will do their own personal shopping there. Really frustrating when I'd be a lot happier with some healthy food from a grocery store rather than more expensive and bad-for-you restaurant food.

DFWsakp

To the poster above, companies can never make everyone happy and you just happen to be one of them. It does work well with other employees but if they keep running tabs of 100$ per meal then they will soon hear from the company too. Once in a while with customers and all it's ok.

capedreamer

For me, the most annoying aspect of our travel policy is the strict enforcement of our daily meal allowances. It varies by region, but generally it's based on our US rules: $25 for breakfast + lunch combined and $75 for dinner.

I'm a healthy eater and like to have a larger breakfast and smaller dinner (I also don't drink). As such I never spend even close to the $75 for dinner, but can usually not "afford" to eat breakfast at the hotels we tend to stay at (if I want to have any money left over for lunch). No one I've asked has been able to explain to me why we can't just have a total daily limit. It's not about client entertainment either because we have an entirely separate policy if clients are in attendance.

YuropFlyer

That indeed sounds weird. A really good dinner allowance, and a meagre breakfast/lunch allowance.. do they expect you to skip breakfast at all? Or do they think that breakfast is included in your room rate? Maybe you should ask them, if it's ok to book rooms with breakfast included - if you've a smart person in charge of your bills, he/she might agree, given you're spending little money on dinner in exchange.. sometimes, policies can be run around, if you just plan around them (and not abuse the system)

crabbing

one company i used to work for had no express limits on what we could expense. generally, if it was travel-related, it was expensable, so long as it was reasonable (i.e., marriott or hilton but no ritz, midsized rental but no luxury car, daily grill but no morton's, etc).

the big downside was that employees would not get their expenses reimbursed until the client paid, which could sometimes take six months or more. we were expected to float the company's debt. so there was a huge disincentive to travel, particularly for long distances or for long periods of time. and since we could bill for travel time, there was a huge incentive to walk or take public transit instead of using a taxi or a rental car, even if the trip took twice as long.

the company's CFO, who was married to the big boss, was a notorious penny-pincher. the funniest example was when i got yelled at for using up a lot of post-it notes, and was told that if i wanted more i'd have to buy them myself. it was a fun day when ALL of the employees quit, on the same day, en masse.

capedreamer

Our corporate rate includes breakfast at some hotels but not others. Since we have to go with the preferred options (which may very well be a Ritz with no breakfast in city A, even though there is an InterContinental with breakfast available at a lower rate), we can't always select the breakfast-included options. So this can't be the reason.

Not sure whether they expect us to eat no breakfast or stop by a coffee shop in the mornings. The issue is those who enforce the policy (our assistants) don't understand the rationale either.

Once I had to resort to buying some milk and cereal at a nearby convenience store. But because that hotel (Conrad) actually had a policy of charging guests for using the minifridge for personal storage, I had to throw out the leftover milk each night even though I was staying a week.

pinniped

Even the company's rationale is illogical. "If you were local"? The point is...you're traveling!! By definition, you are not local. Regardless of what you like to eat at home, you don't have access to it when you're traveling.

I would hate that policy...once I get to know a city a bit, I try to find a good deli, and they're frequently inside the local gourmet grocery store. Lots of neighborhoods have these places - a very blurred line between restaurant and grocery store, but the receipt tends to show up as groceries. Not sure what personal shopping I'd do there...not like I'm going to load up my carry-on bag with laundry detergent or something...

Often1

+1 - I come back to the use of simple software which requires a justification on a pop-up box when the fare / room rate, etc. exceeds the minimum by some given percentage. All management needs to do is scan through the exception items. Those who are "problem children" get a bit of counseling on expense management and those who keep it up either go away or not as the case may be.

This also allows flexibility to management to acommodate those they want to take care of. Who cares if somebody spends double the best fare if they're bringing $1 Mill. in business? Top performers get other perks, why not travel?

djk7

$100 over cheapest fare for what? Any flight the same day, or within some time frame? Our company policy is approval is needed for more than $200 over "lowest logical fare". By playing with flight times, you can somewhat manipulate what fares you are comparing against.

+1. I'll often get dinners at soup/salad/hot bars in upscale grocery stores when I'm travelling. Not so much to save $$, but to eat healthier. I don't even wait until getting to know an area. I'll often see if there are any Whole Foods or similar as part of my trip preparation.

crazyflier

Could you please elaborate on this - I find it weird. You have to pay to use the minifridge inside your room?