Ethical question from a topic that came up on another forum.

Let's say you work for a company and it pays your travel expenses. You buy the ticket and they reimburse you. Most companies will not allow you to "profit" from that. So, for instance, if they allow you to fly business class you can't buy a coach ticket, expense a business class ticket, then pocket the difference. Most companies would fire you for that.

But let's say you bought a business class ticket, expensed said business class ticket, then (due to IRROPS or something) you got down graded to coach. The airline then reimbursed you something for your down grade.

Do you give that money back to your boss or keep it for yourself?

My answer is that I give it to my boss (I've done it before) but I'm not sure myself whether I do it because it's the ethical thing to do or because it's not enough money to risk losing my job over.

Curious what others think.

I agree with you. It's the company's money.

The company I doubt "allows" you to buy business class. It wants you to fly business class so that you're in a better shape to work after the flight. Flying in coach will leave you in a reduced capacity to work at your destination. In case of IRROPS moving your to coach, your capacity to work is reduced (in the company's mind) although they likely aren't going to shortchange your pay for something out of your control that they wanted you to do. The flight is not part of your compensation, it is part of your company's providing for your dispensation of your job duties. The impetus for the flight is the company, not you. And of course, they are paying. So, ethically, they deserve the money back.

First of all, you don't volunteer for a downgrade. If it happens and you cannot avoid it, you offer the refund to your employer or whomever is reimbursing your travel expenses. However, if there aren't legal or tax implications, I'd like to think that a good employer would give the refund to the employee, who after all did suffer on the flight and hopefully was nevertheless sufficiently professional to perform well regardless of being tired from the flight.

Avoiding such situations (as well as IDBs when the employee is needed at the destination) is one reason employers should encourage traveling employees to participate in FF programs and, where realistic, attain elite status on one or more of the airlines that are being used for the business travel.

Of course it goes back.

This has nothing to do with ethics. The funds belong to the employer and it is embezzlement (or whatever the crime is called in your state) not to turn the funds back in.

The fare difference, if you pocket it, is also income and reportable to the IRS.

Not exactly the same facts, but a couple of NBA referees who flew in paid F by contract, would cash those F tickets in and then purchase the cheapest Y seat they could find. The refs were convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to prison.

I received a $200 voucher for a missed connection on a $5,000 TPAC flight. Flight was paid for by my company. Should I have used the voucher for an upcoming business trip or should I feel guilty that I used it for a personal trip?

I would say it depends who lost the time as a result of the missed connection. If it was on the way home and you lost personal time because of it (or it was on the outbound and you lost sleep or time to yourself at your destination and didn't miss any work), I think you should have gotten to use it how you wanted to. But if you were on your way to work, and you worked a few hours less than expected because of the missed connection and still went home when you were supposed to and got paid for the full time, then I'd say your company should have used it.

Seth

Here's another way to frame essentially the same question: if you earn frequent flyer points on travel paid for by an employer, is it acceptable to use them for personal travel?

I think in the large majority of cases the employers are okay with this, tacitly or otherwise. It boils down to optics and what the employer finds acceptable. If you keep the refund that's one thing. If you keep it and don't tell anyone about the downgrade and someone finds out later, that smells like trouble.

This. Never hurts to just be transparent and ask your employer what you should do. I'm lucky that my company has specific written policies about who retains FFP benefits earned from work travel and when it is or is not appropriate to accept downgrades, VDB, etc., and what should happen with the resulting credits.

I think the proper thing to do is ask your boss or the accounting department. Depending on the size of the company, the answer may actually be "we don't have any process for taking credits within our broken expense reporting system...so keep it."

And ethics works both ways: How many companies out there (including ones I've worked at) will ask you to expense using a personal credit card...and then reimburse so slowly that you have to pay the credit card back before getting the reimbursement? Not so ethical there either.

Many years ago I worked for a (US) company with a business class policy for long haul travel. An 'incentive' they used to keep costs down was to add 35% of the difference between premium economy and business to your bonus if you chose to fly the former. I think there was a cap of $25,000 annually for this.

I worked in Paris many years ago and had a number of clients in Northern France and Belgium. We used to travel on the Thalys train. If it was more than, I think, 30 minutes late you got a refund of about 100 Euro back to the card that bought the ticket. I was never aware of anyone trying to declare it back to the employer.

Hell yes you give it back. For one it is dishonest and secondly they can easily check on things like that I am sure.

It would be difficult to check that a payment was made or a voucher given, unless it was to the purchasing (company) credit card, as this would contravene most data protection and privacy policies.