Your assumption was a little off. Almost all of my clients are million milers or people like yourself, UA 1K/NW Plat/AA EXP, and they are either consultants or work in a small business. Most everything they do is billable to a client. If that client has stipulated there is no F class travel allowed, then I will gladly book them on the YUP/QUA/A class or whatever, then print them a separate invoice showing coach travel but the same or similar (within $50 or so) price on it. I'm not sure how that is contradictory to anything.
As for the comment about policy, almost every policy I have ever seen was written by some HR numbnut or a beancounter who travels 1x a year on holiday. I have little regard for a policy that does not consult the actual traveller and/or the travel arranger. While I have not, nor would ever flaunt my disregard for these policies by doing something stupid like booking the Ritz Carlton suite instead of the Marriott standard room, I certainly don't think that using my resources to get someone an upgrade is a bad thing.

In my company (greater than 10000 employees) the travel team works for procurement.

Some of the gems that they have come up with.

Frontier is a acceptable airline if the fare is less (to be fair, after much complaining this was changed)

Avis is the only way to rent a car.

You must turn in your entire meal receipt including what was ordered. They actually have a written policy somewhere that says alcohol cannot be more than X% of the meal when with customers.

They also have the you must use the corporate credit card policy for all purchases (since they get a kickback). Which got me to wondering, since I have to get the credit card, the bill comes to my house, how is this a benefit?

Also forgot my all time favorite,

Because of our world class expense reporting system, any international trip can only have one exchange rate per currency. So if you travel all over the place and have to change currencies, that can really hurt.

So they came up with a workaround. (the procurement people did).

to balance currecncy flucuations just add a cab ride or two to your expense report to ensure that you are getting a full re-imbursment.

Sorry, I don't understand what is so strange about this; would you even want to type in a separate exchange rate for every single item in your expense report? Unless your trips last years or involved visits to Serbia during that one month when they had 14 quadrillion percent inflation, the exchange rate fluctuations are usually rather small. For example, if you go on a month-long trip to Europe and the euro strengthens from 0.855 to the dollar to 0.835 during that time, you would be looking at a hit (or gain!) of $20 for every $1000 you spend. But if you pick a median 'one rate' at 0.845, you'll come off at plus-minus zero.

Not a different rate for every single item, but different rates by groups.

If I get local currency more than once during a visit, I average the exchange rate (total USD spent for local currency divided by total local currency bought = average USD per local currency unit). But I have to break out the line items on my hotel bill into line items on the expense report (room + tax, breakfast, dinner, telephone calls, laundry). I compute the exchange rate for my hotel bill from what shows up on the credit card, separately from the exchange rate for cash. It's both easier and more accurate than combining the exchange rates from all sources.

keep them coming
 

As a member of audit profession, I very much enjoy this discussion... some of examples provided are very interesting from professional point of view :p

can give only one advice - be honest in your expense reporting.
AX

Hopefully you can appreciate from this thread how silly and arbitrary some of the things we're required to comply with can be.

If there's a rule...there's a way around the rule. (Especially if it's a dumb rule) :p

My company publishes a list of per diems by country. The most common is $45, although they changed that to 45 euros for the EU after the dollar tanked. One notable exception was in Russia, where the rate was $100 for a long period of time. This was reduced to $50 after it was noticed how many people insisted how important it was for them to be in-country. Lots of profit for some people.

We also have the benefit of a sedan service to take us to the airports. The fee paid by the company to the limo company is pre-defined per route and includes a fair gratuity for the driver. The trouble is, I always feel obligated to tip $10 or so upon arrival, since I'm not sure how long their owner takes to pass on the previous payment. I cannot get reimbursed for this so I generally eat it.

You bet, I can :)
Usually I have a position that if rule can not be effectively enforced, or it will cost more to enforce it compared to all possible benefits, then this rule should not be implemented (One exception being ethics where there shall be zero tolerance).
Any business in its fair mind shall provide a way for employees to comment on policies, and if comments make sense, change these policies. Shall this not be provided, employees will usually find their creative ways.

Lastly, in every country people live there is an abundance of stupid laws, which people usually obey - but why people think that they can ignore polcies which are explicit parts of their employment contracts... I dont know.

This is business ethics... if you can not (don't want) to comply to the policy, speak to your supervisor (or whoever approves report) in advance. if they approve, go ahead. If they don't, you have to comply or find another employer, there is no 3rd way.

AX

Yes!

I'm a VP of my company. I have no qualms about asking for or approving a reasonable exception. It's so well established at my company that you can break any spending rule if it doesn't cost any working time and you document and pay any extra cost yourself that I neither approve those cases in advance nor get them approved in advance. If you think a rule is stupid, talk to me. If you get caught falsifying documentation, it doesn't matter whether the rule was stupid--go clean out your desk. Qui vole un oeuf, vole un boeuf. (Who will steal an egg, will steal an ox--though it sounds better in French.)

Per diem is the preferred method for employee company travel. Otherwise, you end up with some very interesting items being expensed. Check out the following top 5 list of expensed items:

http://expressexpense.com/blog/top-5...xpensed-items/

1. Clown Services – $250
2. $457 worth of Church’s Chicken
3. **Censored for forum**
4. **Censored for forum**
5. $13,000 Golf Membership

I'm going to guess all of these were about entertaining clients.

I'm glad I don't have to deal with this stuff since I own the company and have no employees. The type of places I eat do not issue receipts... when was the last time you got a receipt from a shawarma stand?

I thought this was SOP.

Seems legit.