Yes, I get tips reimbursed. I just put them on the Misc. line and add explanation that says Misc: Tips (housekeeping, bellman, etc.). No receipt needed since less than $25.

My old company had a fairly stringent policy with respect to per diems, travel, mobile communications, etc.

1) Per diems - $40 per day allowed. However, $8 was designated as breakfast, $12 for lunch, and $20 for dinner. You must show the itemized receipts for each meal. If you elected to not eat breakfast, then you simply lost that $8 out of your per diem. If you exceed the per diem on any meal, you pay out of your own pocket the difference. No alcohol allowed at any time!!! No hotel that I have ever stayed at has offered breakfast for under $12. Not all *wood properties offer a free continental. Client lunches/dinners were OK but an itemized receipt must accompany (and expect it to be scrutinized - as in, "Did you really need to order a $75 bottle of wine? Didn't they have any $50 bottles?)

2) Airfare - lowest fare should be accepted however, if there was a business reason to choose another airline and/or itinerary (ie due to flight flexibility, stopovers, etc.) then we could choose it. However we needed to provide written justification and submit that with our expense claim.

3) Hotel - list of preferred hotels in each major city. Not really a big deal because they covered all of the major chains. No in-room movies allowed and absolutely no mini-bar.

4) Mobile Communications- each year you needed to justify why you needed a cell phone. You were only allowed one communication device (ie. if you had a cell phone, no blackberry and vice versa). No broadband hookup allowed in hotel rooms, dial up only (and you needed to use a calling card at that).

I averaged 110-120 travel days a year for the last 3 years and had to put up with this **it. I no longer work for this organization. I understand the need to control expenses, but this place got ridiculous.

The organisation I am currently employed with has the following 'rules and polices' when referring to travel:

Airfare: Domestic - Economy (fully flexible), Asia, Transatlantic and Transpacific sectors - Business Class.

Transport at destination: All car hire and transportation arranged by the organisation.

Hotel: Organised via corporate deals with international hotel chains.

Per diem: $100 - $150 p/day, consolidated total credited to my account before commencement of travel.

Telecommunication: I utilise a corporate mobile, hence all expenses (global roamin) automatically get fed back to the organisation.

Travel Insurance: Organised and subsidised by the organisation.

After reading some of the more stringent corporate policies, I am relieved that I am looked after relatively well.

Regards
tiernan1338
Vic, Australia

As I am not employed, everything comes out of my own pocket. I haven't got a problem with that as I can choose whatever I want
But it seems there are some way too restrictive policies out there, along with some that go a bit over the top.
As an aside and without wanting to provoke confrontation with the person that wrote this, I really cannot see why you would want your employer to re-imburse you for a tip. IMHO tipping as a gesture doesn't make a lot of sense when it is paid for by somebody else ("you did a great job for me, so here's the reward from somebody you've never seen/served").

Here is a different prospective. Why should someone who is away doing the business's work and is forced in a situation that requires tipping have to pay. I personally do not tip more or less than when I am using my own money. As someone who also spends 120+ nights a year on the road can you even imagine what I would be paying in tips? This is a cost for my company to pay as I am on the road for them, not my benefit

At my former employer, meals were not reimbursed if the restaurant was 75 miles or less from the home office. Standard per-diems kicked in if farther afield (for example, lunch during a same-day return MIA-MCO business trip was covered).

Cattle, the point I was (unsuccessfully by the looks of things) trying to make is that tipping is discretionary. I only tip when I feel the person has gone the extra mile for me, I can't imagine myself giving a tip to the taxi driver for driving me to the airport or to the hotel maid for changing the towels in my room. On the other hand, I will gladly reward extraordinary performance (like braking speed limits to get me to the airport on time for my flight ).
So the way I think of it is : you have to be there because of your employer, therefore you have to stay in a hotel. But you don't have to tip, do you?

I use an online corporate booking engine so if I go outside the preferred airline or hotel I have to give a reason. For hotels the standard answer is event at the hotel.

The interesting thing is you can pay more on the preferred airline carrier and it doesn't flag you. I do this many times to take the connection with jets instead of the commuter.

We also have the policy of no lunch if you are at company facility that has a cafeteria. I think this is because many cafeterias were subsidized (cut backs have eliminated that but I think the rule is still there). Otherwise lunch is OK, if within the per diem for that city.

In the end, if the manager signs it, there rarely is a question.

Sounds like the OP works for a Texan company at the end of a Dallas tollway Just recently left that company myself.. but here's some background on many of the silly rules..

Lunch is not a tax deductable expense, therefore employers are happy to give you a $50 deductable dinner but will refuse the $10 non-deductable lunch.. do the sendsible thing and roll them together like the rest of the world does to please the IRS

Basically if its not deductable a company will go to great lengths to avoid paying for it.. Entertainment expenses are another one that can be a little sticky.. only 50% are deductable..

Blame the government.. A flat tax would of course eliminate the whole issue.

I feel pretty lucky. I work for a sub of a Fortune 500 conglomerate. We have to book our travel through the corporate Web site and use the company MasterCard for all expenses. The Web site does stupid things like suggest a Hampton Inn in a suburb when you have meetings in downtown Chicago but it's OK to pick a more expensive place downtown. If you pick a higher airfare than the cheapest available you just say it was for "business reasons". (Usually the bargains involve long layovers somewhere.) Occasionally I find cheaper rates outside the corporate Web and my boss encourages me to take them.

No per diem limits. Receipts only for items over $50 charged on the company card and for items over $25 paid for by cash.

In general, I use the "would I spend my own money on this" test when spending my company's money. I'm pretty frugal but will spend extra to save my time or sanity. I've never had an expense account questioned.

My last job had a "no-receipt, no-reimbursement" policy- even for Garden State Parkway tolls. Very annoying. On week-long trips to HQ when I was staying at the Hampton Inn and buying stuff for dinner at the grocery store I had to attach all my grocery store receipts.

Wow, did not think I would get many responses when I posted this topic. I am suprised at how much guidelines vary. And I think my company takes the cake for being the stingy-est. Not suprised though.

Here is why I fly in premium cabins though and have small per diems. Well, for as much as I can say, my company is "directly" related to the travel industry. So there is little to no cost to put me on a plane. I will never complain about riding in first class over the ponds of the world!

However, I am upset that I have to put everything on my own credit card. The reimbursement process takes more than a billing cycle so I end up paying the interest. I am on the road about 120+ nights a year and about at the end of putting up with it. But then, the next day, I am on a plane to a beautiful country/location that has me thinking I have the best job in the company!

Arrggghhhh!!!!

Tipping conventions vary so much from country to country that this might be a reason for the differences here.

In the US, it's customary to tip the taxi drivers 10-15%, all waiters 15-20%, etc. In fact, waiters and even taxi drivers actually depend on tips for their wages. Waiters usually make below minimum wage ($3 per hour perhaps), with the expectation that tips will cover the rest. If they don't get tipped, they essentially don't get paid.

My boyfriend is an independent consultant, so he pretty much sets his own policy. For per diems he uses the IRS guidelines. For hotels, the client usually has preferred hotels. If not, we use Quikbook or another similar site to find good deals. In general, he usually picks something around $100 in smaller cities and something under $200 in NYC. Location is a big consideration that comes into play.

Often, he selects a hotel that has a kitchen and serves complimentary continental breakfast (Flathotel in NYC, for example). Most travel expenses, including a set per diem, are usually negotiated into the contract with the client upfront. So he draws out the per diem for the week on Sunday, eats lunch somewhere reasonable, then prepares dinner in the kitchen at the hotel. Whatever is left at the end of the week goes into savings. This works out very well.

If I come up to visit for a weekend, I fly up on points, and the client is usually amenable to covering the weekend hotel stay instead of flying him home. This also allows for a saturday night stay which may help reduce the airfare.

For keeping up with receipts, he brings along a roll of scotch tape and several sheets of blank paper. He takes each day's receipts and tapes them to the paper, then labels and dates each sheet. If needed by the client, he photocopies each sheet to send to them. All sheets with receipts go into client files when he gets back home.

He's been traveling each week for 6.5 years, so he has his systems and routines locked in now.

Tipping protocols are often debated on this board. It also highly varies from country to country, as mentioned by swise.. In some countries people are insulted if you leave a tip (which I'll never understand) and in some places (like the US) people live off of the tips they earn.

Last year I was on the road almost 250 nights. Lets assume, on the average, I give out $5 in tips per day of travel. This does not include tips added to meals, but does include taxis, shuttle drivers, valet, housekeeping, bellmen and the occasional hostess at a restaurant. That adds up to $1250. That is an incredible expense out of my own pocket for travel my company is requiring me to do. My fellow employee who sits at his desk all year in his home office isn't incurring this expense. I don't think it is unreasonable to expect an employer to reimburse a reasonable amount of tips.

Maybe the point being made was for tips for which you cannot get a receipt for i.e. cash tips?