Detroiter

Back in my working days at Ford, all intercontinental travel was authorized for J/C. Meaning US-Europe/Asia/South America. Mexico/Canada were under domestic rules (least expensive Y with a $50 allowance to fly a preferred airline). Compliance was enforced by an Amex booking engine. Intra-regional travel was supposed to be Y, but I always flew J to SEL, CGK, and BKK. I always found it weird that a two-hour flight NRT-SEL was authorized for J travel.

I have no idea what the rules are now.

Canarsie

As this topic has nothing to do with Delta Air Lines or the SkyMiles frequent flier loyalty program, the new home for this discussion is now the TravelBuzz forum.

Regards,

Canarsie
Co-Moderator, Delta Air Lines | SkyMiles forum

fassy

I know a couple of people who insisted of keeping flying J due to medical reasons after the company switched to All-Y. To be honest most of those reasons were quite weird and sounded made up but some nice doc put down the notice.

Of course all of the colleagues were real pissed and after a year those guys were grounded and eventually lost their job. One guy actually tried to safe his job by suddenly accepting Y which allowed the HR department and his managers to get rid of him even more easy as his medical reason clearly was made up...

lhrsfo

For everyone under board level, 5+ hours gets Premium Economy, with no requirement to work the day after an overnight flight. At board level, it's business class, but they do work after an overnight flight.

gfunkdave

A guy I sort of know who is a VP at UA gets a corporate credit card he can use to buy F for life on UA, whether or not he still works there. It might also get him F on any airline, but I think it's UA only.

kmersh

Admittedly a small medical practice is not the same as say a major corporation or even a small business, but our policy is basically whatever makes sense.

My last trip was to a CME and I flew in F on DELTA connecting in ATL which was cheaper than flying nonstop on AA in economy.

One of the founding partners of the practice flew AA nonstop and another member of the practice flew Southwest not sure if he connected or not.

As we do not travel internationally for work we have no agreed upon rules.

Personally, I visit my in-laws in Germany about 3-4x a year and my Wife and I generally fly paid J, discounted if possible.

We just prefer the experience and save money in other ways to offset the higher costs.

A close friend works for a Fortune 100 and they have a economy class policy domestically and a business class policy internationally all on DELTA where they do receive some sort of bulk discount.

DesertNomad

I own a software business and we always purchase the cheapest economy ticket regardless of the duration or destination. We fly internationally 3 or 4 times a year.

Artpen100

I could easily imagine such a suit, particularly if the employee was directed to travel in that manner (e.g., it was the employer's travel policy that required they be in the office the next day and would not pay for a hotel when arriving.) Not that the employee would necessarily win, but lawsuits are unpredictable, and it would only take one well-publicized one to make the risk mitigators rethink their policy.

That said, my company pays only economy, domestic or global. Anyone flying international will normally be a relatively senior consultant for whom the view is that they can well afford to upgrade themselves - and we do. But they also let us book our own flights, so it is more within our control to find reasonable upgrades for miles or cash. I have even been known to get a saver award with my own miles when I could not upgrade easily (though I can charge any cash fee for the award redemption as long as it is less than the economy price).

Segments

You'd have to know more about the specific trip authorization, and company policy. Did the employee request and be denied a hotel room upon arrival? Did the policy allow a car service to avoid need to drive upon landing? Where was the employee's judgement about their safety getting behind the wheel (assuming perhaps IRROPS that may have added to sleepiness that was not anticipated)?

A former employer promoted use of car service to justify "reasonableness" of domestic red eye flights.

gobluetwo

North America travel policy: With approval, international flights 6+ hours can be booked in business class for internal travel. For client travel (I work at a large consultancy), the default policy is 6+ hour international travel in business class.

No idea what the policy is for those based in other regions, but I assume it would probably be based on flight duration rather than whether borders are crossed.

JY1024

And now merged. Thanks to all who sent in an "alert a moderator" post. /JY1024, TravelBuzz co-moderator

timfountain

But we weren't talking about QOL but flight policies....

Jesperss

Amazon has an all economy rule no matter where you're flying in the word - for even VPs

invisible

According to my info (which might be incorrect), the tech company in Bay Area, nearby Shoreline rd has the policy to allocate flexible/dynamic amount for the travel based on the destination. So there is a flight from US to China, the allocated amount is something in between the Y and C for the particular flight. An employee the can have an option to travel in Y and use saved amount for higher class hotel at the destination, or use these saved portions to book Business in other of upcoming flights.

gooselee

One of my friends has a job where she works solo on many small, short projects (like a day or two each). Her compensation is essentially a commission off the margin of each project.

So, she can spend more on flights/hotels to get to a project site, but she's essentially paying for part of that herself as it reduces her margin. By the same token, if she messes something up or takes longer to do it and has to spend more time/resources to get the job done, that reduces her pay.

I'm sure I'm oversimplifying it, but the basic idea is she can spend what she wants/needs to, but she is incentivized to be as frugal and efficient as reasonably possible.