Comparing a day lost to equivalent salary doesn't make sense. If you're taking the flight to close an important negotiation, you could very well be bringing in more than $1 million to the company with that trip.

Further consider that companies like Apple and Google actually do make more than $1 million per year per employee in revenue. Given that the people they're sending on long-haul flights are likely disproportionately responsible for more of that revenue than other employees that number only goes up even more.

Emirates? Yeah, they are expensive. Plus a short trip weekend flight.

Here's the type of comparison I use. BKK/SFO/BKK 1/26 return 2/2

Coach = 1,330
Business = 3,580
First = 7,706

Cheapest fares, none actually on UA iron.

So while the coach price is similar they are getting way out of line with business and first.

Sigh. I never see fares like this on flights I price but facts are facts.

I agree that some workers (not meant in a pejorative way...to encompass people from owners of small and large companies, executives, blue-collar workers, "individual contributors," etc) are worth J/F/private jet from any accounting/entitlement/etc perspective.

I resist FTers trying to make the argument that they are so valuable that they MUST fly F/J because I think that very few (probably zero) FTers meet that high threshold (myself included). IMO, people who have time to read and post as much as the vociferous FTers do not reach that level of value to their employers. Many workers may routinely travel J but that is due to the industry standard, not because of their intrinsic value. The industry standard may have been established by whiining and non-data-driven argument during fat times. Sorry if this hurts anyone's feelings but it is true. If you have time to engage in FT in a real way, you are unlikely to be that valuable from a business perspective.

Regarding any one flight could be worth much >$1M to the company...obviously. However, a lot of business travel is underlings also traveling and (in my line of work) going to scientific meetings where sometimes it matters when you arrive and leave and sometimes it does not matter. Usually, the company is sufficiently flush to put padding on either side. So, for every one of your [this person/flight is worth >>>>$1M], I can probably come up with 100 examples of J travel where it would not matter if that person were there or not.

I think we can agree on this: there are tons of routes out there that regularly fetch $1,000+ R/T in Y. That could be any one of 100 TATL routes. And that's discounted-Y, where corporate discounts are usually minimal.

The variable is J, since that's dependent on the market for corporations willing to buy it. Some routes are $6,000 R/T (pre-discounted) and others are $3,000, same equipment type and length of flight.

I've personally seen my share in the $1k Y vs. $6k J range, since most of my international business travel has been Europe where those J seats yield lot than they do in some other parts of the world.

The "couldn't get home" part was ridiculous, as if it was impossible for his rear end to sit in anything other than a first-class seat.

You're right, but for the wrong reason. You don't have to report it to you boss because no money changed hands. If, on the other hand, you had taken the downgrade and got a partial refund, absolutely you have to report that to the boss.

All of these hypotheticals are meaningless unless one knows both the employer's policy if there is one and local income tax law.

Whether your employer requires you to report the "it" is up to your employer. Some have common sense requirements, others do not. That is between employer & employee.

Whether "compensation" or a customer service gesture for downgrades, delays, or whatever, is taxable income is likewise a matter of local law and will differ depending on where the income is earned and how you are taxed. There is no general rule of thumb.

Another issue is that employers can be liable for an employee the whole time the employee is away on a business trip. If I was such an employer, I'd be miffed if an employee voluntarily stayed out on the road for another 24 hours — hence extending my liability — just so he could sit in his preferred airline seat on his way home.

Reading some of the "if I were an employer..." hypotheticals, it becomes clear that if these petty judgemental persons WERE employers, no employee would want to work for them

Yup. I've left employers for looking at me the wrong way, much less for what is being discussed here.

They call it "business class" for a reason.

Coach fares are far lower today than they've been in the past, inflation-adjusted. And coach travel has consequently evolved into cattle car conditions. It's unreasonable IMO to expect business travelers to suffer with those conditions on long-haul routes. If you choose to refer to this as "entitlement," so be it, but I continue to regard it as a reasonable expectation.

Though I'm self-employed, I will insist upon J class reimbursement for any international travel my clients require of me. And I see nothing unethical or unreasonable about that.

Are you familiar with the saying "No good deed goes unpunished."

In the no good deed unpunished category, I was once criticized by a colleague for being too efficient at business travel. He was worried that my lower expenses per trip would set expectations for others or lower budgets per trip in the future.

I wasn't *cheap*...I flew my choice of airline and stayed in the same Marriotts and Starwoods that everyone else did. I was just semi-thoughtful about how we were spending our clients' money. There was some self-interest too: I'd often have a fixed travel budget for a given client, and I knew I'd have a stronger relationship with that client if I could make 6 visits in the budget when others could only make 4.

My employer has told me to keep the $. So I keep it. Ethical issues solved.

(I just caught up reading this thread)