coloneltigh

Tech company here. All Y no exceptions. You're free to upgrade at your cost. That said, the company routinely grants exceptions in Concur for more favorable routings. Also the company spends money on benefits and other perks that all employees participate it not just those who travel.

invisible

Does not matter if it is client billed travel?

coloneltigh

The company doesn't have clients in that way. Our customers are consumers, small businesses and advertisers. As such, we don't have billable client work that pays travel expenses.

As a reference, I used to work at a tech consultancy (one of the three largest) and the policy was over 6 hours business but clients can chose to override it. From speaking to people still there, most every client override it now.

invisible

Clear, it is only copr travel than. In the case - no surprise/difference than other policies.

I still want to see a case of a company/policy which generally allows non-C/executive/board members to travel in Business when this travel IS NOT client billed.

deniah

oil. most companies policy is for J on long-haul, defined by 5+ hour segment or tpac/tatl. others have a cutoff for rank/grade that is roughly equivalent to 15 years of seniority.

in light of recent years' pricing climate, our travel policy is temporary suspended, and its Y for everybody.

Bearface

Banking - all travel within Europe is Y.

Flights over 5 hours - can book C.

rowenb

I work for a large global consulting firm. Different rules apply depending on whether or not you are designated as a "frequent traveler", which depends solely on the volume of travel you've done in a 12-month period, rather than your rank. If you are a designated frequent traveler, then you are allowed to book business class on any segment (including domestic) in excess of 3 hours, and AFAIK that doesn't depend on whether or not the trip is client-billable. Can't say I've yet had an opportunity to test that, but it's my understanding of the policy.

krazykanuck

My old company did, but the way they wrote the policy, the longest flight had to be I think 7-8 hours minimum and specifically excluded North America - Europe flights since it was the most common route. TATL flights could be booked in premium economy, so realistically TPAC flights were the only ones where biz was allowed, but they cut so many corners when they could. One of my collleagues, in order to save money, instead of booking him a direct IAH-NRT flight in J on UA/NH, sent him via YYC since after oil prices crashed, many J fares ex-Canada/Alberta became way cheaper than ex-USA.

My current company, the travel policy says Y only, but I've seen exceptions been granted for TATL fares when J is on sale, or a reasonable amount more than Y.

gooselee

If you read my earlier post, that's what I was indicating. What's interesting is that your experience has led you to ask about companies where client-billed travel has more friendly/generous policies than internal.

IME, I've actually seen the opposite. My company's internal/default policy is quite often more generous than our clients' policies, but when we bill to clients, we must abide by their rules. For some discrepancies (as a more everyday example, this often happens when a client bans alcohol from meal expenses) my company will make up the difference by allowing spend according to our internal rules but only charging to the client those expenses which align with the client policy - my company simply makes up the difference when reimbursing the employee.

Often1

This. A lot of companies do not differentiate in their travel policies between client / internal travel. That is a billing issue. Thus, if the employee is permitted the first premium cabin at 5 hours and the client won't pay, the company eats the difference.

Same thing with other expense limits for liquor, car service and the like.

invisible

Clear. But I would assume that there is some limitation on 'eating the difference'. In our TE policy is clearly written that employee is financially responsible for excess charges not covered by the client. In other words, if you being told that client covers only flight in Y up to $2000 and you went and booked flight in C for $6000 - $4000 will come from your pocket - all employees are responsible first to cover all travel charges and then submit them for reimbursement.

gooselee

Again, speaking only from my own experience...but this is generally just clarified ahead of time so there isn't any question. And if an employee thinks an exception is justified, we have a culture where they aren't afraid to just ask.

Instances where our company covers costs in excess of client allowances are made exceedingly clear on a project-by-project basis, with a clear expectation that the employee simply asks if they think they have a good reason to go beyond even that.

FatnLoud

As noted above, I follow the travel policy of my clients. My current client allows C over 5 hours but requires that all tickets are fully flexible. As my work has very clear time limitations I tend to book less flexible fares, which means my travel costs are around 40% lower than the client's employees. They've even mentioned it when I've submitted the fee note, but I just brush ot off as having spotted a bargain fare!

Now I'm not that naive that I don't understand about airlines' retrospective discounts.....

chleonard

Fellow public-sector employee here (engineer/project manager), travel policy is Y for all flights no matter the length. Business is allowed with a waiver but it requires specific criteria (extremely urgent travel, medical need, etc) and is almost impossible to get for most people. Old travel policy (up till a few years ago) allowed business if cumulative travel time was 14+ hours.

That being said, I like my job and our travel policy is otherwise not that bad so I don't complain and buy upgrades when I can. I do find it interesting that so many folks in IT/big tech seem to have Y-only travel policies (although as someone who used to work in tech, this does not surprise me).

coloneltigh

It shouldn't be surprising but then I think that most people outside the consulting industry don't realize that depending on the route, a premium class ticket could easily be close to or more than a team member's billing rate for the week. So not really possible from a project economics standpoint to "eat the difference" in most cases.

At my current company, most of our travel is TPAC so the difference between Y only and allowing premium classes is anywhere from 2-6 more people could go for the one ticket. That said, they do other things besides J to make things comfortable for us which cost more but not the order of magnitude that a J ticket entails (e.g. extra days on each end).