Business Travel

[controlnovice]

Not sure if this belongs here:

I'm curious to know what your company's travel policy is regarding flights in business class.

Ours is anything over 8 hours, except to Europe, is approved for business class. Company is located in the USA.

I've talked with others in the chemical industry who've said industry standard is 6 hours, and others who've said, "Travel Policy?..."

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This is normally the space where people post something insightful.

 

[ARenko]

My company is 10 hours only after approval by a VP and only for the leg that exceeds 10 hours. Of course our VP always turns down the request.

Previous companies was always overseas = business class.

 

[SomptingGuy]

UK to Asia = business class. UK to USA = premium economy. UK to EU = cattle class. I'm just glad I have short legs.

- Steve

 

[Nuked]

International air travel is via economy up to 4 hours flying time and business class for longer trips. Business class is also available for trips up to 4 hours but approval is required by senior management. The company I work for is in the UK by the way.

Ronnie

"Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired"
Jules Renard (1864 - 1910)

 

[sms]

Anything over 6 hours is business class, no questions asked.

"Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don't you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?" Oddball, "Kelly's Heros" 1970

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of the Eng-Tips Forums.

 

[vc66]

Travel policy?

V

 

[HgTX]

I work for the government. Coach all the way, though I refuse to get up at ridiculous hours or take more than two legs domestically or three internationally just to save a couple of bucks.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376

 

[ctopher]

I don't know about hours or over seas, but within the USA it is all cattle class for me.

Chris
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 08 2.0
AutoCAD 06/08
ctopher's home (updated 10-07-07)

 

[KENAT]

At my place in the UK it was mostly cattle.

If they could find a virgin flight they'd upgrade you to premium economy when flying across the pond.

Here in the US I've only taken a domestic flight, it was cattle but there wasn't 1st class on either plane so it doesn't make much difference.

I was fortunate enough to get upgraded to business once on BA from Gatwick to Atlanta, very nice.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[jmw]

My last company were ecstatic when they discovered the economic marvels of Easy Jet and Ryan air.
The management never ever travel by such airlines and it was only the extraordinary cost of renting cars and extra overnight stays that quickly cured them of this adventure.

I did the pioneering trip from London to Kiel. The usual route via normal airlines to get to Kiel is from London Heathrow or Gatwick to Hamburg, nice airport.

Ryan Air advertised Hamburg from London at silly prices but in fact London is actually Stansted and Hamburg appeared to be an old Luftwaffe airfield in farmland over the border into old East Germany reached from the autobahns by a farm track and several miles of country road little better.
The runway there was quite short so the pilot had to do VSTOL impersonations much to the alarm of the unwary passengers (it normally takes a quite a lot to excite British and German air travellers).

It was over 100 km from Hamburg and then we had to get to Kiel. The extra travel time each end meant additional overnight accommodation plus car hire (no one prepared to drive out a collect).

On this trip to Hamburg they confiscated my colleagues tools so that added to the bill quite significantly.

Technically, I guess there may be a way to travel in better accommodation but I think djv has the universal answer there.

The most vexing thing for management is the curiosity of airline fare structures; tickets are usually sufficiently less for a weekend stopover to more than cover the cost of extra hotel nights and entertainment. How they hate you having some fun and relaxation and how they hate not being able to stop you without it costing them money!



JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[Ussuri]

Cheapest.

 

[SomptingGuy]

I just did one of those Sleazy Jet cost-saving flights to get home from Italy. The fact that it landed at Gatwick far outweighed the lack of in-flight peanuts.

On the other hand, I flew back from Germany last week using BA (v. expensive) and spent more than 2 hours on the road.

- Steve

 

[plasgears]

I once went to Las Vegas to work a convention, and I had to return on a 1AM flight back to Chicago. The plane was filled with hispanics, but the announcements were all in English. This could be a safety issue unless they don't care.

Needless to say, the company at the time had a cheapest fare policy.

 

[GTstartup]

LOL, I always request an upgrade to a Non Hispanic Filled flight. Thanks for the laugh

 

[dvd]

vaya con gringos

 

[Unotec]

plasgears, why would this be a safety issue? I bet they speak better english than you do spanish.

 

[rmw]

My company is cattle all the way. Because of my frequent flier miles (I wrack up lots of miles each year) I get upgraded. Recently I was traveling with my manager and the Director of the division and of course all of us were in cattle. I got automatically upgraded by the computer. Did I pass it to the Director or the Manager, HECK NO. I sat up there in FC and had a whale of a time while they sat back with the cattle. My location manager was aghast that I didn't offer it to the director. Nice career move he said. I said what the heck.

But company policy is cattle all the way. They are suxh tight a$$holes that they don't even let the Service Technicians fly first class when it can be billed to the customer and they can make the 15% administrative mark-up on the difference in cattle fare and FC. Go figure. Some times the pointy part gets really tight.

rmw

 

[casseopeia]

When I co-owned a business that required a lot of travel, our policy was economy tickets for all flights, for all employees including owners, regardless of length of flight.

Most employees racked up 80,000 to 100,000 miles/years, so after a year or so in the chicken compartment, upgrades to business or first class were pretty easy. Everyone kept their frequent flyer miles for personal use. They could use it for free tickets for the family vacation, membership to the club room at the airport, or for upgrade coupons for business travel, your choice.

I had a couple of whiners who complained that they wanted the company to buy first class tickets for anything over 3 hours. They also reasoned that the cost could be billed to the Client. However our fees were bid against other competitors, so we did not estimate first class airfare in the fee. We would never get the job.

The employees who didn’t complain went on the out of town trips and the whiners got the local stuff (Chicago market). When the non-complainers got back from their trips to Maui, Sarasota, La Jolla, Seattle, New York, Boston, Cape Hatteras, etc, it straightened out those two Princesses who wanted company-sponsored first class travel.

I traveled several times where an employee decided to upgrade and I saved my miles and sat in coach. I would never expect an employee to pass me their free upgrade. I knew they put in a lot of time in the back of the bus to earn it.



"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

 

[HgTX]

I didn't even know you *could* pass your upgrade on to someone else.

Here they had trouble for a while with the concept of frequent flyer miles (god forbid a government employee inadvertently get some kind of benefit in the line of work) and tried to figure out a way for all the frequent flyer miles to belong to the employer, but they couldn't work it out, so they let us have the miles. I suppose they could have ordered us to take our FF number off any work-related reservation to avoid any unseemly "profit", but I guess they realized that there would probably be nasty PR fallout from as well, since it would be so blatantly mean-spirited.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376

 

[SomptingGuy]

There are rumblings here about FF benefits being shared around all employees rather than going to those who get the joys of taxis at 4am followed by hours standing in airports and on planes.

- Steve