General Chat

[Davkaus]

9 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

 

On a much reduced scale, I spend a fair bit of time away from home so I’ve got an exemption that I book my own hotels rather than have the office book them.

It means that if there is an obviously better or more interesting hotel for a little more money, then I can book that, rather than it always being ‘Travelodge’.

 

A very sensible concession to keep someone happy when they're on the road so much.

One of my old employers had an absolutely rigid policy on things like hotels and travel being booked by the expenses team, and ensuring people didn't book anything considered luxurious. The thing that made me start looking to leave that place was having to travel to London for 8:30 on a Monday morning, and them rejecting letting me have a first class train ticket, even though it was less than a fiver more expensive, would have allowed me to not only arrive more rested and prepared, but also to actually work on the journey down. I even offered to just send them the fiver to make up the difference.

Computer says no, it's against the policy. clearings in the woods.

[Tegis]

Those perks doesn't bother me too much as I would not know where to draw the line. The company sets a budget (here is where the grumble should be if it's extravagant), you navigate the rest in your own time and expense and then get the rewards a CreditCard company chose to give you.

[Genie]

This reminded me of a story of an old colleague.

He went to the US on business and the policy was business or first class travel for such a distance.

You’d pay for it yourself and then claim it back from work in your return.

On the return flight he goes to check in and they apologise that they’ve over booked business class and he’ll have to sit in economy. He’ll still get all the service but he’ll be just outside of the fancy section, smaller seat etc.

He get backs, does his expenses. In parallel he writes a letter of complaint to the airline for messing up his booking. They apologise and immediately refund the return ticket in full.

So he gets the reimbursement from work, and a refund from the airline. He came out of it about £2k up.  

[Xela]

7 hours ago, Davkaus said:

A very sensible concession to keep someone happy when they're on the road so much.

One of my old employers had an absolutely rigid policy on things like hotels and travel being booked by the expenses team, and ensuring people didn't book anything considered luxurious. The thing that made me start looking to leave that place was having to travel to London for 8:30 on a Monday morning, and them rejecting letting me have a first class train ticket, even though it was less than a fiver more expensive, would have allowed me to not only arrive more rested and prepared, but also to actually work on the journey down. I even offered to just send them the fiver to make up the difference.

Computer says no, it's against the policy. clearings in the woods.

We have to book our flights via the approved travel agent. I remember a colleague going to Belfast for a work appointment - flight through the agent was not far off £300.

A mate in the office was going to Belfast the same week, on a golfing break, ticket cost about £80 from Flybe direct. 

Both flying from Brum. 

Someone is coining it in. 

[Xela]

8 hours ago, Genie said:

There was always tension at a place I used to work. The sales guys would be flying all over the place for meetings, USA, Japan, China every week (usually first or business class). Hence they’d rack up shit loads of air miles which they’d cash in for very lavish holidays.

A lot of people didn’t think that was fair that they could do that.

I can see both sides tbh because they are away from home for long periods, but then booking 10 grand holidays for free is a hell of a perk, especially when they are living their lives on expenses.

I can see the tension - its like a extra bonus. 

In our business, regular expense users must have a corporate card. If you only claim expenses once or twice a year, then you can use your own card. 

[Xela]

On the credit card subject, i've used one for daily expenses for about 15 years now. Everything goes on it - food shops, petrol, lunch, etc. Your normal daily spend. Reasons why:

- Keeps my current account uncluttered so I can see the big bills when they go out

- I can crudely monitor my spend, by comparing CC statements month on month 

- I can get 'rewards'. Not huge amounts - £18k of spend on there at the moment since I last redeemed my points and that will get me about £60 worth of Amazon vouchers! 

[villa4europe]

59 minutes ago, Xela said:

We have to book our flights via the approved travel agent. I remember a colleague going to Belfast for a work appointment - flight through the agent was not far off £300.

A mate in the office was going to Belfast the same week, on a golfing break, ticket cost about £80 from Flybe direct. 

Both flying from Brum. 

Someone is coining it in. 

Mine do the same, called egencia or something like that I think 

I've taken an €800 return flight from frankfurt to Edinburgh because one of our team needed to be back for another meeting 

I don't really get anything out of it that's beneficial, get about €20 for food and drink for the day, so I abuse the time account and manipulate it to get a day or 2 in lieu from me travelling 

[Sid4ever]

11 hours ago, Rds1983 said:

 I'm now an enthusiast... How exciting. 

Just remember to pay it off in full every month.

[Genie]

Adidas marketing department really need to have a good look at themselves in the mirror for not getting behind the “three lines on a shirt” meme.

[Genie]

After all this talk of credit cards and me having one I barely use I’m now using it multiple times a day.

The bank cancelled my debit card on Friday due to some suspicious fraudulent activity they managed to block.

Waiting for replacement to arrive….

[bickster]

On 02/07/2021 at 19:10, Xela said:

We have to book our flights via the approved travel agent. I remember a colleague going to Belfast for a work appointment - flight through the agent was not far off £300.

A mate in the office was going to Belfast the same week, on a golfing break, ticket cost about £80 from Flybe direct. 

Both flying from Brum. 

Someone is coining it in. 

Yeah but there was a 50/50 chance Flybe would cancell the flight or alternatively they would massively overbook then give you an apology

[Xela]

9 minutes ago, bickster said:

Yeah but there was a 50/50 chance Flybe would cancell the flight or alternatively they would massively overbook then give you an apology

I'm still amazed that airlines sell more tickets than seats. Happened to me once (German Wings I think)

I got on the flight in the end but I was astonished. 

[villa4europe]

I was the opposite when I was flying backwards and forwards to Germany, on flybe planes with around 11 people on it, not a clue how flybe and euro wings did 4/5 brum to dusseldorf flights a day

I'm not surprised flybe went out of business 

[bickster]

4 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

I was the opposite when I was flying backwards and forwards to Germany, on flybe planes with around 11 people on it, not a clue how flybe and euro wings did 4/5 brum to dusseldorf flights a day

I'm not surprised flybe went out of business 

They cancalled on me and Blandy "because of an onboard computer problem" - the onboard problem was that there were 4 of us and 3 others at the boarding gate bumped us from the first flight of the day to the last. There is only so much of Manchester T3 one can endure. It's that way for a reason, its a short haul terminal

I seem to remember someone who just happens to work with computers on aircraft offered to fix it

Never flew with them again, this was after a number of disasterous bookings when they did a Liverpool to Southampton flight. They mainly overbooked that one and twice used the excuse "They sent the wrong size aircraft". It was again pointed out to them that the aircraft was on it's first flight of the day and had been there since the last flight last night. Their offer in these times was to say we can get you on a flight from Manchester that leaves in 4 hours if you can get to Manchester. We got there quicker by train

Absolute shitehawk of a company they were

[villa4europe]

I never had any trouble with them 

Did the EU compensation scheme thing on Ryanair once and eurowings twice 

Eurowings were surprisingly easy to get the money out of 

[limpid]

37 minutes ago, Xela said:

I'm still amazed that airlines sell more tickets than seats. Happened to me once (German Wings I think)

I got on the flight in the end but I was astonished. 

Travelodge used to overbook. I don't know if they still do.

[fruitvilla]

Almost happened to me once on Transat. Gatwick to Vancouver

The wife and I get up to flight desk, and the attendant tells me I have been bumped. But we're travelling together, I says. She says but you were not booked together. So? Anyway the attendant hustles off and comes back ten minutes later and tells me I have a seat, but not together. No problem. Some other poor sod got bumped, I suppose.

On the plane I am right at the back, in the middle row, in the middle. Anyway a few minutes before take off, a flight attendant, he asks, would I like a seat nearer my wife? Sure. It turns out it was business class. Much to my wife's chagrin. Anyway I let her use the upgraded seat into the flight.

So overall no complaints

[lapal_fan]

I got my money back on a return flight to Vegas because it was delayed 4 hours.

I quite enjoyed that £1100 back.

Think it meant the whole trip cost about £600

[Genie]

10 hours ago, lapal_fan said:

I got my money back on a return flight to Vegas because it was delayed 4 hours.

I quite enjoyed that £1100 back.

Think it meant the whole trip cost about £600

I was about 30 minutes short of a huge compensation claim when we went to the states. I think it would be something like £500 each.

We did. get out monies worth out of the airport lounge we were in for the extra hours so it wasn’t too bad.

[lapal_fan]

1 minute ago, Genie said:

I was about 30 minutes short of a huge compensation claim when we went to the states. I think it would be something like £500 each.

We did. get out monies worth out of the airport lounge we were in for the extra hours so it wasn’t too bad.

Yea ours was for 2 flights, they gave us more than what the flights were worth.  It was through some airline agency, not BA who we were flying with.

The issue was that flight plans couldn't be sent to the pilots PDAs, so any BA flight in America was grounded until the issue was resolved, must have cost them quite a bit that day!