Often1

Not sure why a new thread was needed to continue an ongoing discussion in other threads.

If you flip through the hundreds and hundreds of posts on this topic, all available with a simple search, you find that the missing information is the location, competition for employees, salary ranges, and other external factors which have nothing to do with what is being posted.

If you are a regular traveler for an employer which really needs you and where its competitors for your talent will fly you in F/J, either your company does something or it loses people. Now, the "something" might not well be the travel policy, but could range from salary to vacation and other attributes of employment. What if you made $150K with F/J travel at 2 hours and another employer offered you $200K for exactly the same work under the exact same conditions except that the travel is all-Y and involves routine TATL/TPAC? Would you jump ship and lump it for $50K? What if it's only $5K?

What if umemployment in your profession is 15% and your employer is tetering on insolvency? What market power do you have to force a change?

FlyingHighlander

in my company (which allows J at >6hr) that's the unwritten rule. Take Y, and nobody will question a rest day on arrival, and possibly the same on return

salisboss

I work for the USG where you are in economy for flights up to 14 hours. However my office has an internal policy that we never pay for business class to be good stewards of taxpayer money. I routinely do a TATL flight and immediately go into the office and work a full day. It stinks but it is the way it is. I used to work on a large program and when we had off-site meetings with our contractors, they could fly biz if it was over 4 hours (on USG money) whereas we sat in the back.

ajeleonard

Business over 5 hours or any redeye under 5 hours

NeedstoFly

My former employer instituted coach only for a while. Our senior execs duly flew routes like New York - Shanghai in coach.

txflyer77

We *finally* got the privilege of booking PE on long-hauls. Before that it was Y-only.

(And just in time for me to fly to London in two weeks)

I certainly wish we had a more generous policy, though in three years I've only gone overseas once for the company so it's not a dealbreaker to me. My work travel is all DEN-SFO.

I'll admit to being confused though: I work for a very high profile Silicon Valley company, so the people being send on overseas travel are routinely pulling down >$250k/year. It's not like the company cheaps out on anything else (sky-high hotel expense limit, generous per diem), and yet we have an abysmal flight policy.

FlyingHighlander

I often point out that we focus heavily on flight costs, yet our booking system puts $400-500 a might hotels in policy. Meanwhile I can't book any flight that is more than about 20% more expensive than the cheapest.

Proudelitist

We get Y for flights under 10 hours, J for flights above 10 hours. We do a lot of travel to Asia, so we do get paid J quiet often. And I live in Southern California, so Europe gets us in Paid J as well. The problem is US domestic flying.

However, we can link our personal FF account numbers to our travel, so we tend to get status pretty quickly, meaning most of the time we get upgrades. And even if we don't, there is no policy that says we cannot upgrade out of pocket. I have no problem buying up to at least premium or in some cases F or J if the price is reasonable, either with miles or dollars.

Despite the policy, I have not flown Y in 3 years as a result.

onetess

I think that it is pointless to bring a five-year-old thread to the top of this forum when clearly travel policies are changing, and I wanted to know what recent travel policies looked like for others. Of course every company has other external factors that may influence what their policies may or may not be with regard to travel, but as this is a *travel* board, I'm asking about *travel* specifically - nothing more, nothing less.

Appreciate the input I've received so far - thanks!

onetess

There is nothing in the policy about rest days, but I think it could be reasonably expected to have one, provided the time is there to do so. And, a rest day is likely to cost the company a great deal less than the difference between Y and J, I would think!

FlyingHighlander

Several people have mentioned their employer has nothing in the policy prohibiting out of pocket paid upgrades. It makes me wonder - is there any reason an employer WOULD prohibit an employee upgrading with their own money?

I frequently upgrade with my own money. My employer doesn't prohibit it. I'm not sure if they would even known I'd done it.

Leaping_Deere

Our company works on anything over 8 hours and we can fly J, this was I think to avoid J flying to the east coast of USA and to the middle east but we had to use the appointed CTA, however some people started abusing the system by flying from LHR-JFK via MSP for example and then getting a flight back to JFK. they would put up with extra flight and transfer time to get to turn left.

However policy has changed, they got rid of the CTA who wasn't checking and just making the booking, seeing the $$$, appointing another one on a more 'loose basis' (i.e we have to use them for hotel only and other parts for comparison only) and (I recall google and some other hip companies running something similar) you get incentivised to prove you saved money. It's bit of a convoluted system but long story short you can book your own flights, take advantage of EX EU deals, fly in J and travel to the east coast of the USA and get gift vouchers at the end of the year if the you are under the travel budget.

Fortunately I have negotiated myself a different travel package to the other sales team and most of my travel is further afield so I don't need to play around as much.

Proudelitist

Apparently there are. I have seen people here on FT saying their employers had a "strict" no F policy, including airline initiated upgrades and out of pocket upgrades. Something to do with egalitarian optics. They are in the minority however.

FlyingHighlander

Wow. Ok...well I learned something new!

UGATraveler

My Company bases their Business Class Ticket policy based on destination, not distance, which does not make much sense. When flying to and from Africa, Middle East and Asia we are allowed took book Business Class, but anywhere else must be economy unless you are VP level and above. So for example, I could fly from Gibraltar to Tangiers in Business Class because it is Africa, but from Europe to California would have to be Economy