Business Travel

I was wondering of those that fly for business reasons, do you get to choose who you fly with? Do you have an input at all, or is it booked for you, is the class of seat something you have an input in as well?
For me I have no input into the airline, it's always economy even for long haul and always whoever is cheapest. B)

Thanks.

It all depends on who you work for, your place in the organisation (the higher up the more chance you will be in Business), the length of the journey, what you have to do when you get there and the deal the organisation can get with the airline.

Where I work it depends on our grade (level of seniority) as to the class and choice of carrier. Engineers are allocated via contract, for instance if they are doing one for EK then it will be EK travel, and then bulk supplier mainly EK again because of route network and discounting. Senior Engineers and managers get the same but business class travel. On my level we get the choice of allocated F (where available) travel or the choice to claim back travel via expenses. I do the latter as I collect points on the credit card spend, miles in the air and distribute between programs. I currently hold top level EK, QR and VS. Doing it this way means I normally come under projected travel budget, as I rarely travel F and always book discounted rates, which means I receive the difference between budget and actual spend as a bonus.

We are only a small enterprise so can afford to be flexible with our travel. I meet many fliers who are extremely restricted.

[buns]

Business Travel is a very competitve market and many airlines do as much as possible to encourage who really decides ): ):

buns

My company has a blanket economy everywhere policy. I'm not convinced those higher up follow that though.

A few years ago, before this policy, it was business class on long haul flights. I insisted on BA to go to Sao Paulo over TAM, and had it signed off. Still had a call from the expense police to question it. Nowadays we tend to refuse to travel longer distances because of the policy and the questioning of any expenses.

We are meant to use our company credit card for all spend, but if we get a card and don't use it in a year we get charged £75 which we can't expense back. They also set a really low credit limit, which is too low if you need to book anywhere long-haul. It's just too much hassle to go anywhere.

It all depends on who you work for, your place in the organisation (the higher up the more chance you will be in Business), the length of the journey, what you have to do when you get there and the deal the organisation can get with the airline.

I meant in a personal sense with the company/organisation you are with.

It all depends on who you work for, your place in the organisation (the higher up the more chance you will be in Business), the length of the journey, what you have to do when you get there and the deal the organisation can get with the airline.

I meant in a personally sense with the comapany/organisation you are with.

I work in the public sector where the above pretty much applies to us workers (different rules for our 'all in this together' political masters of course !)

For us it depends what job grade you are within the business i.e. how senior you are.

Standard for most is Economy but it depends what the trip is for and for how long.

[mitchja]

As I work for an American company, all our overseas travel is on American carries (not that I get to travel overseas with work)

I believe if the flight is over 7 or 8 hours you can fly business class. We also used to have a corporate jet a few years ago but think that's gone now.

I work for a major US software company and it's non-flexible economy regardless of flight length, unless (a) you're of a grade that very few mortals achieve or (b) it's an essential trip and there are no non flexible economy tickets available.

We book trips ourselves using a portal provided by a corporate travel provider. A range of carriers is available, though the preferred airlines are US based. On booking an email is sent to your manager, and if you have not selected the cheapest option they are notified and told what that option would have been. Usually the cheapest option usually involves flying via a third airport and taking 24 hrs longer than a direct flight. :w

I'm a freelancer so I had to negotiate it into my contract with the company I'm currently working for. So I got any long haul (over five hours) then it's business. Anything less then Economy.

[Scrooge]

With previous companies it was pretty much here is your ticket, hit the road, but with them I was only traveling once, maybe twice a year.

With my current company anything under 500 miles we use our corporate plane, over 500 it depends on where we are going, for a while now we have been using Southwest, they offer so much more flexibility they really work well for us.

However, as it looks like I will be flying to two places a lot in the coming year I will look at the legacy carriers, if only to gain status and miles as long as the prices are close my boss has no issue with this.

Long haul we get business class no matter what.