JetBunny

Seems like an inefficient use of an exec's time and brainpower when there are most likely more important issues facing the company... Perhaps pinching the pennies and missing the dollars? Dang, I can hardly keep track of my OWN miles, much less miles of a whole herd of people!

tom911

How do you track this? Do you require employees to give you a copy of their statement each month, or share their password for their account? How do you differentiate their personal lesiure miles from business-earned miles? How about credit card miles? Seems like any of this would be a challenge when there is a mix of business and personal miles, as to "where" the miles came from and what the business is entitled to you, let alone the balances that go towards each.

Needless to say, finding this quite an interesting topic (and my travel is 100% leisure).

SS255

And what about class-of-service, elite, and on-line booking (assuming the company allows this) bonus miles accrued while traveling on business? Many business travelers earn elite status due to a combination of personal travel and business travel. Does that give a company the right to tap into miles that were partially earned due to personal travel? What if the actual miles accrued by business flying on that particular airline do not add up to the number of miles needed for a free ticket? Where does one draw the line?

B747-437B

We have only 4 people who travel in our company (including myself), so its not particularly hard. I know that one BOM-SIN trip yields 2435 miles, etc... so I just plug it into a spreadsheet and update it as needed.

Again, my folks are happy enough to do this to a) get their FF benefits on our preferred alliance and b) free up more cash for the company (translating to a higher bonus for them if all goes well). Its a mutual respect scenario that works fine for us, but may not work for a larger organization.

Pickles

Completely OT, but I am glad to work where I do. Just a few days ago, I flew an intra-Asia segment with my immediate superior (not really my "boss", but for all intents and purposes that is the relationship). As we were boarding the plane for a 2 hour flight, he was rather surprised to see me head towards the economy section of the plane, instead of the biz class where he sat. And it wasn't even billable to the client...

Mikey likes it

Here's a thought for you:

Your boss neither likes nor respects you, and is trying to push you out by making an unreasonable, discriminatory request for you to use your own asset to benefit the company.

If the situation you describe in your original post is not the first time your boss has asked you to do something extraordinary and unreasonable, run far, far away as quickly as you can.

bmr12

I'll pitch another policy from a former employer that I really thought was reasonable.

If you used your miles in lieu of the company purchasing a ticket, the company reimbursed you for 60% of what the fare would have been. The net result was that the company saved money (40%), and the employee gained money (60% of the airfare, which was taxable income in the US, but better than zero).

A compromise where everyone gained a little and was completely open to the employee choosing miles or dollars.

BigLar

I recall a conversation I had with a colleague who was a government employee. They were not allowed to keep any ff miles earned; they were to turn them over to the government.

The employees just declined from joining any ff programs, and they could not be forced to do so.

The government found it could not act sufficiently quickly, nor keep track of the miles properly, so it eventually just abandoned the effort.

I understand then recently, givt workers have been allowed to keep their ff miles.

Punki

There was a time, not so very long ago, when I know for a fact that both Boeing and Nordstrom kept all the miles resulting from their employees travel. I have a designer on my staff who previously worked for Nordstrom who, only today, mentioned to me that he was surprised that he now gets to keep his miles for company travel.

As a business owner, I earn a lot of miles putting coporate expenses on my credit cards and, while the miles technically belong to me personally (the basis for my FL-IRA), I do use them from time to time when we have to get an employee to a show or meeting at the last minute, when the only available air fares are outrageous, especially in this very tight economy.

Jon, haven't you been at this job for quite some time? Is this the first time your boss has asked you to use miles for a business trip? Is cash flow really tight right now? Does it sound to you like a one time deal, or do you think he is trying to establish a new policy?

Those are two very different scenarios. If this is a new policy, then it should apply to everyone, across the board. If the company is struggling right now, the conference is a painful but necessary sales expense, and he knows that you are a mileage freak, and perceives that you have miles to burn, it is a different story. In the latter case, he may feel he is just asking you to pitch in to get through a rough time. While that may be hard for you to swallow personally, it may seem to your boss like a lot better choice than putting another employee on short hours for a week, or laying somebody off entirely.

I think you really need to have a serious heart-to-heart with your boss to determine his goals in the instant case and his long-range intentions.

Internaut

Cool thread.

When I started with my current employer, I filled in a Travel Profile form which included things like name, address and passport details. It also included information about hotel and airline loyalty programmes. Not being sure of the implications (espeically as I work for a US employer, albeit in the UK and under UK law) of this, I left this section blank...

Since then, I've joined several airline and hotel loyalty programmes.

To the best of my knowledge, my relationship between the airline and hotel groups is a matter for me and them. This has nothing whatsoever to do with my employer.

If I choose (or not) to hand over my BAEC, Swiss or SCC (which I payed for) card at the hotel or airport then this is a confidential matter between me and the hotel or airline in question.

BA, Swiss, Delta and SCC all agree to keep my information confidential.

Should my employer find a way to get big discounts at the cost of me being able to claim miles, or even earn miles in their own right then that is a matter for my employer. The consequences of any such action are also a matter for my employer.

Of course, an employer could explicitly state in the contract of employment that an employee must join all loyalty programmes of the airlines and hotels used and provide full details of membership information. As such, it may be deemed an disciplinary offence should an employee fail to do this and get caught in the act of failing to do so.

How we would stand legally on this I do not know. Does an employer have a right to see your bank or credit card statement, bearing in mind that you may processs business expenses through your credit card? If not, then does your employer have the right to see your FF or hotel statement.

IMO, US employers are worse off here but should still be protected with respect to matters that have little to do with their employment.


[This message has been edited by Internaut (edited 10-04-2003).]

CrazyOne

This doesn't sound quite right to me. You have to dance around it a bit. If this is a policy or benefit item, I don't think you can discriminate. If it's considered part of compensation or job description, then these for the most part can be individually negotiated with the employee.

For some items, certain *classes* of employees can be treated differently than others, but we can't be selective on an individual basis. All employees named Jon would not be a valid class of employees for such policies. This example is much more regulated than FF miles, but health insurance comes to mind. We are not able to arbitrarily pay for someone's family coverage and not pay for someone else's, but we have a class of employees for whom we pay it and a class for whom we don't. We also can't arbitrarily cover one person's health insurance right away on hire date while requiring everyone else to wait 90 days. While this is a problem sometimes in hiring certain positions, it's not something that's flexible unless we want to get in trouble.

I don't know where FF miles falls in this sort of thing, but I just wanted to suggest that it's not as cut and dried as being legal to discriminate except for race, religion, etc.

(I am not an HR or benefits admin, but I work closely with the person who performs those functions in our company and keeps us in compliance with such regulations.)

JayBrian

Yes, as of about two years ago Federal Government employee travelers are allowed to keep the miles earned on official travel.

Jay

nsx

Look for a win-win. Usually there is one. You get a bonus or a bigger raise, you get partial reimbursement as others have mentioned, or some other perk. Something that would induce YOU to volunteer to use miles next time, saving the company money and making you happy too. How about this: you switch to WN and let the company use your Companion Pass while you keep the free tickets!

nsx

(duplicate)

[This message has been edited by nsx (edited 10-04-2003).]

UALOneKPlus

the win-win for me would be: I get to stay home, while the company saves lots of $$$. The family is happy, the boss is happy, I'm happy.