[Henryp1]

I would like to se the FFPs based on spend at all times, I believe that this would protect the integrity of the club and reduce the number of members in the upper tiers of membership. At times it feels a little more like a supermarket loyalty system than anything with more prestige. Going to a lounge being overrun by passengers who fly economy is not pleasant and does not fit with the image of the FFP.

Who gets the points/miles I haven’t considered and I doubt if it matters that much. Is it a bonus for an employee, would the company be petty saying it’s not fair the company wants the miles.

For me the airline FFPs are now very weak and generally possible for many travellers to gain upper tier access without spending a great deal of money.

As mentioned earlier In this thread, Singapore airways had a spend based programme and still does. I think this is a great idea and in the long run better for members who spend significant with the airline.

[SimonS1]

Indeed Bath_VIP, it’s an interesting debate.

I recall a similar discussion with my employer a few years ago where it was suggested by the company that miles earned were pooled and available to all staff at the company’s discretion, not just the individual who had accrued the miles.

I of course acknowledged the employer’s right to instigate the debate, but also took the opportunity to indicate that in such circumstances I would be pleased to re-confirm my availability for business travel provided it was undertaken in contractual working hours ie between the hours of 9 and 5 Monday to Friday.

A couple of colleagues took the same stance and the whole debate reached it’s natural conclusion about 30 seconds later.

Moral of the story: business travel involves give and take on both sides and the accrual of miles which may be used for my personal benefit are a trade off for the hundreds of hours of my personal time each year that get used to benefit my employer’s business, frequently travelling at unsociable hours and in economy cabins.

[MrMichael]

I agree with those that support reward being based purely on spend. I certainly agree with Ian that his getting 25% more reward than an economy when probably paying 3 – 5 times more for his business tickets seems fundamentally unfair.

2. For the past eight years I have worked in the public sector, have to fly regularly (London-Madrid). I am obliged to seek the most cost effective travel method that meets the needs of the work I do. Cost effective takes in to account price/flexibility/travel to from airport/time. Subsequently if I were to collect any type of loyalty reward it would be deemed as corrupt and I not only would be liable to dismissal but possibly prosecution. On occasions I have been offered upgrades at the airport and or the hotel, I have declined them and ensure I enter it in to the hospitality register as an offer. Oh the joys of working for HM.

Loyalty by its very nature is about sticking with one product irrelvant (perhaps not entirely irrelevant) if it offers the best value for money at that time or not. Usually I fly BA/Iberia as it offers best value, and it is best value I must seek out…..not the cheapest. As I get no personal reward for being “loyal” to any one particular airline or service the public purse need not (in theory) worry that I am avoiding best value for personal gain at a later date.

[Bath_VIP]

I agree with many of the comments that travel can be arduous at times and therefore employers need to bear that in mind. Whilst I don’t have any employees at the moment, I used to and may have again in the future so I do have a travel policy. There are 3 elements to my policy.

1. It is the same for everyone including me.
2. Buy everyone a Priority Pass as this is a fixed cost and allows employees to use this at anytime.
3. Set a budget for each trip based around the fully flexible economy fare and appropriate per diem and allow the employee to book whatever option suits them within that budget.

My thinking behind this approach to get people away from the whole loyalty mindset and inside choose the best solution to their trip. The Priority Pass solves the lounge problem for the most part and the trip budget allows people to book cheap business/first class tickets if they can get these. I would even be open to some for a bonus scheme whereby unused budget is shared between employee & company.

If employees are able to make use of miles earnt on business then it runs the risk of skewing their travel planning on business in order to retain status and gain rewards. I myself have been guilty of this when working for another company and I don’t think it is healthy. The employer should get the loyalty miles and decide how they should be spent but in return they need to compensate the employee for the time spent travelling.

[PerthWA]

Oddly enough being tax time in Australia, I’ve just added up all my (personally) paid airfares on one world carriers vs “status” credits accrued… Seems I could have saved myself a few thousand uncomfortable economy miles and significant $$ by limiting my travel to just 4 return flights a year in business … Not sure who is the winner here, but I think its me because I’ll just fly comfortably 4/5 times a year instead of the continuous rat runs! I know this isn’t the same for Europe with shorter distances but seriously, I think I’m about to win for a change!

[TiredOldHack]

Bath_VIP: I work to a company budget, and a while back pointed out to the company that I was simply too old, too stout and too crotchetty to fly long-haul (ie: over eight hours) in an economy seat.

Accordingly, if they were OK with it, I’d cough the extra for business class travel myself, book it myself well in advance (knowing the dates I’ll be away is a great help here), and then reclaim the economy fare nearer the date.

Unsurprisingly, they couldn’t see anything wrong with this, and if you book a long time in advance, as we all know, you can score some remarkable bargains. I get the cards, the Avios and the TPs, which are very handy for my own travel, and everyone’s happy.

[SimonS1]

Bath_VIP: I think the question of travel policy and who gets the miles are two separate things.

We have a travel policy and decided some time ago that our travel would be decided by what was most cost effective bearing in mind the air fare and the time taken to get from office to office. As a result we use a selection of airlines and are not driven by alliances, loyalty schemes etc.

As far as the miles are concerned (and I have mileage accrued with Emirates, BA and a couple of others) I stand by what I said above ie these are compensation for the many hours of personal time I spend travelling for work. Your comment about “in return they need to compensate the employee for the time spent travelling” is somewhat vague – what did you have in mind, higher salary, allowances etc? A Priority Pass card wouldn’t exactly be what I had in mind – Heathrow T5 is an issue for a starter.

[Edski777]

Following the discussion on this thread I felt the urge to react.

I have done my bit of international travel on business over the last 30+ years. With the companies I have worked for every company had a travel policy. Most of them had clear rules about which airlines to fly, extra time to fight off jetlag, the class flown, type and class of hotels which you would stay and local transport.

The travel policy was also communicated to the client and a budget would be appointed to each project.

Nothing new here, I guess.

Being involved in international projects or do some extensive travel is a choice. Normally rewarded with a higher salary and, in my case, bonuses. Also an extended stay involved a per diem, based on the country you were in. Part of the per diem was a “hardship allowance” for being away from home for some time.
I think this will sound pretty familiar to a lot of people on this forum.

In the late 80’s and early 90’s many airlines and hotel chains started their loyalty programs and this was the beginning of a debate about the “perks” within many companies. I took part of many of these discussions. The loyalty programs were seen as an extra reward on top of all the rewards already extended to those travelling. On top of that clients became much stricter on travel budgets, cutting it whenever possible.
Many things have changed since: no more extra (jetlag) days while travelling. Even flying low cost airlines like Easyjet, Southwest and AirAsia on the shorter routes. More often flying economy on long haul nowadays as part of the competitive strain the company is under.

The days of travelling in relative luxury have changed into “taking the bus” to your next destination. That the company I work for now has a policy that we can’t enroll in loyalty schemes is fine with me. I don’t feel the need to fly even more than I do already.
The company, and everybody working there, makes it possible for me to do my job as efficiently and in relative comfort.

I feel I don’t have an extra right to the discount an airline or hotel chain offers with their loyalty programs so I can have cheap vacations or even more luxury while on the road as well. After all, I am well rewarded.
I lead a great life. I see the world, have visited magnificent countries, experienced great cultures, met interesting people and got paid for it.

I am sure a lot of the people feel different about it, but my humble advice is that if you are in an international line of business only for the financial gain: find another job and make sure you are home every evening.
But I don’t believe most on this forum would take that path, even if they take away your memberships to loyalty schemes.

[HappytobeSilver]

I’m like TiredOldHack, when travelling with work I will often book business but reclaim the cost of an economy ticket as was at the time of my booking (prefer to be comfortable).

[LuganoPirate]

I can understand why companies forbid employees being members of a FF scheme, as employees will likely go for the airline where they get the most benefits rather than the most cost efficient one. On the other hand I cannot help but think as long as you’re being cost conscious why not collect the miles and use them for an upgrade or free ticket?

[Bath_VIP]

Responding to Simon’s point, if the business can be assured that all bookings are the most cost effective rather than for mile & status runs then I don’t have an issue. But the only way I can see that being implemented is take the responsibility for booking away from the employee and give it to someone else. Personally I’d rather let the employee have the freedom to book what they feel is the most appropriate within the specified budget. Perhaps my idea of allowing the employee retain a portion of the savings made vs the trip budget is the best way forward as that way both employer & employee share the benefits.

[Bath_VIP]

Simon,

Forgot to mention that not all businesses are based in London so the lack of lounge in Heathrow T5 under Priority Pass is not an issue for many of us.

[IanFromHKG]

My business also has travel policies, including one that forbids employees from choosing flights or hotels on the basis of loyalty programmes (hollow laugh). We are also required to book solely through the corporate travel agent, which is (a) utterly useless at almost everything except (b) enforcing the more asinine parts of the travel policy, and (c) charges us a fortune for doing anything. Time and again I have been able to find better fares / routes / timings than those suggested by the travel agent. The usual reply is “but the policy requires….”. One of their favourites is that the fare I am choosing doesn’t permit changes required by policy. When I point out that as a CX Diamond I can bulldoze my way onto CX flights with 24 hours’ notice so in fact the proposal I am making does meet the company’s requirements for flexibility, this causes consternation but a depressing lack of action. Our travel policies are probably more stupid than most (I hope they are, I would hate to think that the majority of other companies’ policies are dumber than ours) but, sadly, still more or less par for the course. And it’s stupid.

We have saying in the company – “Run it like you own it”. Well if I owned it, the first thing I would do is to bring an a single overriding corporate policy, which is that every person in the company who has power to impose a policy is required to live it, full-time, for a week while still doing their day job. For the moron(s) who came up with our travel policy, that would require taking daily flights of 4.9 hours (just under the trigger for business class flights); carrying their ridiculously heavy laptop with them at all times (mustn’t check it in, you know); getting permission before each and every trip to take their blackberry and laptop with them, with full written justification and sign-off from their manager and line-of-business operational risk manager; separately getting approval for international tariffs and roaming on the blackberry; not purchasing lounge access or membership; accepting whatever godforsaken routing and airline the corporate travel agent suggests first time around without any possibility of suggesting something more sensible; paying only with the corporate credit card even if the country or merchant in question doesn’t accept it; using your own cash to get foreign currency in advance, changing the surplus back afterwards, and then – separately from all the other expenses – claiming back the foreign exchange loss involved; only using the corporate blackberry for international phone calls even if your blackberry won’t work wherever you are or suffering the risk that the calls you make on your own phone won’t get reimbursed; being subjected to daily limits (not a per diem, I hasten to add, merely a cap) for all daily expenses which will be calculated according to the day that they are posted to your corporate credit card account, not the day on which you actually made the purchase, just to add that extra little level of uncertainty about whether you should buy yourself that much-needed Coke for a jolt of sugar and caffeine; ….. I could go on and on and on.

No doubt all these individual things seemed like a good idea at the time – to the numbskull who is only looking at ultra-short-term measures to save money and failing to think about what it means for the traveller trying to juggle business travel with their day job and generate more cash for the company. I am sure most of these fools don’t even have passports…

[SimonS1]

Bath_VIP: If you allow employees to retain a share of any savings on the travel budget then you almost certainly get into a taxable benefit situation which you don’t with any FF miles. All hassle that many employers (and employees) prefer to do without.

The other risk of giving employees discretion is (as we found) your employees then start spending significant amounts of work time on the web looking at different airlines, different routings, ex-Europe travel. For that reason my current employer has outsourced all but the simplest day trips to a couple of agents who have a clear brief.

I take your point about LHR, however the reality is that for long haul travel many people from across the UK will either travel from LHR or through it, many through T5 because of BA’s route network. Even if like me you avoid BA wherever possible it is sometimes unavoidable. So having no Priority Pass access in T5 is a bit of a limiting factor. If we were talking about say Newcastle it wouldn’t be such a big deal.

[IanFromHKG]

I’m astounded BA haven’t started selling lounge access to economy and premium economy passengers…

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