When your employer forced you to stay he made a business decision that had a cost and a reward. He (at least should have) weighed the cost vs. reward and assuming he did, determined that it was more beneficial (either financially or otherwise) to have you remain on the ground two more days. At that point, your employer is on the hook for 100% of the cost of doing business to get the reward.

However, once you offered up your miles, you essentially stated that you had a way to reduce the cost of doing business. Your employer probably assessed your offer as a way to REMOVE the cost of doing business not reduce it. Regardless of which way he viewed your offer, you cannot assume you will get the full $1K because then there would have been no reason to accept your offer.

Now that the transaction has taken place, you are in a weakened negotiating position. You should request some form of compensation but, at this point, you should consider yourself lucky to get pennies on the dollar if cash at all. My guess is you will be offered extra time off, a shiny new stapler, and a lifetime supply of paper clips.

Sorry, chalk it up to lessons learned.

You should not be doing this. Using your personal miles and charging the company is not something that I see as professional and you can put yourself in an add position. Perhaps the company will now want you to always use your miles.

Ten years ago, I'd probably have said "there lies the voice of cynicism". However, what you say there rings pretty true - I guess it's just the voice of experience ;-)

-simon

thanks for the feedback, I might bring it up during a conversation with my boss but don't expect anything. with another long haul trip coming up next week, I just was not into a two stop-over flight and therefore went with the miles option.

a shiny new stapler however..

Why not just ask what they can do?

One example would be for the company to use its miles (many companies have these if they use miles earning corporate credit cards) for your benefit at the same rate (e.g. for a leisure trip/hotel stay).

Otherwise they could allow you to upgrade your hotel or flight choice on your next trip.

If nothing else - it may help when you aks for a raise.

A friend works for a very small company which allows travel on frequent flier miles on non direct contracts (essentially travel on overhead) to be reimbursed at a rate of $0.01 per mile plus taxes and he must pay the $15 flight insurance and the company reimburses him for that also.

With enough advance notice he can go coast to coast for under $300. It helps the company hold down travel costs and he can convert some points to cash.

It might help to talk this over with your employer. I fly every week to client sites. My employer has a policy of allowing me to keep the frequent flyer miles. They have a further policy that, if I use my miles to book a flight to a client, I am reimbursed the $ amount that I would have been charged had I purchased the ticket.

The $1000 option was the cheaper option for the company. They saved money by deciding on that option over the more expensive option that you preferred. Since you were able to get the tickets yourself, I don't think that it's unreasonable for the company to give you the $1000 that they were prepared to spend on your ticket. That way you both come out ahead. They get the cheaper fare and you get the better schedule.

The problem is that we're doing this after the fact. Would have been better to make the offer ahead of time but now you can always ask and see what they have to say. I wouldn't think much of a boss who thought that he should save the whole $1000. He should at least offer you a good percentage of it.

That's all true in principle, and in principle every good company would agree. In practice, there are accounting audits, income taxes, benefit in kind and all kind of reasons which make this kind of payment much more difficult. Unless I was self-employed, I would never ever think of using miles for a flight I need to take for work.

SmilingBoy.

I think the answer is highly variable depending on the company, the legal infrastructure, that there is no single answer.

My strong suggestion to anyone in this situation is ASK BEFORE YOU DO IT! Your company may or may not have an existing policy. And if there is no policy, make the business case to them. And abide by the decision. A number of employers would be more than happy to save money, especially in smaller companies. However, they have to abide by legal, accounting and financial guidelines ... and more importantly, control policies. What might make sense to an employer on a one-off case might create an adverse incentive for employees to abuse and "game" the system.

If your company has the money to get you there, they have the money to get you home. I don't subscribe to the "Quit for anything more than one connection" notion. If one change is $5000, and two changes is $1000, I would personally take the two change.

I consider myself a steward of my company's funds, not a contributor to them.

This does not relate exactly to the OP's situation, but is relevant to the broader discussion:

My employer's policy is business class for flights over 4 hours. It does not always work out as a viable option (especially with discount business fares available), but occasionally I have been able to bargain with my employer (in advance, of course) that I can save the company money by buying an upgradeable Y fare and upgrading to business with miles. The agreement includes the stipulation that the company will reimburse me for the miles at the same rate I'd have to spend to buy the miles back from the airline.

It's a win-win situation when the economics work out, because my employer gets a $6-8,000 expense reduced to $4-5,000, I still get business class tickets, and I get to convert some miles to cash at 2.5+ cents each. Plus, there's an objective standard for the value of the miles, to please the accountants.

that is the best option from all suggestions. Pity you havent do it in advance. Or read your travel policy - my employer's travel policy explicitly prohibit using personal miles for business travel. if policy is silent, then it will really be up to yoyur manager whether to compensate you or not - it is your fault you havent asked for approval in advance, therefore a manager's right not to compensate you after the fact.
AX