BA, have you had this conversation with your boss? As i said before, he might have his hands tied by agency rules. Nothing we say here is going to change anything he decides, so at this point, you need to determine whether you are going to have that conversation or not to see what he says.

I have had the conversation with my boss. She indicated that they are not going to pay, because she is concerned that the administrators wouldn't approve it. I posted this thread, in part, to see if I was viewing things inaccurately through my lens of cataclysmic depression or if I had a valid point, to try to decide if I wanted to escalate the issue or not.

That's pretty douchey of her to make the thumbs down call without asking her boss. Sounds like a pretty sucky work environment there.

She's the director, so it was reasonable for her to make a call and I wouldn't expect her to go up the chain as a matter of course. We have two entities that govern how we administer the grant, so that's where I would be going.

BA,

Your co-workers didn't get flight credit? I thought if you cancelled a non-refundable flight, the standard was to get flight credit (perhaps minus a fee)?

They didn't cancel their flight. They just didn't go on the flight. They turned in their purchase receipt and were reimbursed by work.

That's airline dependant. The few occasions I had to cancel a flight, I was refunded part of the taxes & fees, but didn't get any kind of airline credit.

Black,

FWIW, they certainly could have gotten flight credit if on Southwest. And I believe there's still a decent chance they could get flight credit if they write in to customer service.

I'm pretty sure they were on AA, but not positive. And hey, why bother canceling when the grant will just reimburse you with the savings they make from not paying $200 to the one person who actually bothered cancelling his flights?

Just to be clear.

You live in A
Company asked you to go A->B->A, at their expense.
You chose to go A->C->B->A, where you paid A->C, and they would pay C->B->A.
You went to C, then the rest was cancelled, so you had to do C->A at your own expense.

In an ideal world, I think yes, they should reimburse you. But I don't think they're required to - you are the one who asked for a special arrangement.

Try this analogy: let's say your coworkers had booked to go out three days early as they did, but Irma had hit those days instead, making them pay a fee to rebook their flights for a few days later and leaving them stuck at the airport for a couple of days missing work. I think it would be fair to expect those employees to pay the fee and eat those vacation days.

Sorry, but I voted option 4.

Company line seems standard. In their eyes, the conference was cancelled and they got whatever benefits they could for the airline tickets they purchased (refunds/vouchers). You missed work because of travel issues with a vacation, why is that their responsibility? You miss work for personal reasons, it is a personal day.

Your side trip and expectations not working out has nothing to do with them. It is not their responsibility that you only decided on the side trip, because it allowed you to take advantage of the conference travel to get home.

That being said, I think many employers would be sympathetic to what happened and not dock the personal day. My reaction to this would also vary depending on how I felt about the job. If I had any mild dissatisfaction, I would probably start looking around. I think very few companies would in any way reimburse for the return travel from Columbus.

Black,

After reading all the posts with a lot of good points on each side, I think you should be compensated.

I think you should be compensated for the following:

1) How much was the value of FF points needed to get from Columbus->home? Instead of being out that, you were out $200. You should be compensated $200-points value.

2) I think you should not be docked for the PTO.

Here's my case to the boss:

Boss, my original plans were to fly back on Sunday from the game that would have cost me x SW pts and no PTO. Because you wanted me to go to this conference, I accepted and changed my plans to go to Charleston instead of coming back home.

Because I made the change to accommodate going to the work conference, when it was cancelled, it ended up costing me $200 and two days of driving.

It's not fair for me to have to eat that cost and PTO when it only happened because I changed my plans to accommodate going to the conference.

El D,

That's basically exactly what I said to her! And got:

in response.

I think the cash value of the SWA points is a fair point, but I don't know the answer because I didn't shop for flights from Columbus home because I already knew that I was going to Charleston from Columbus.

Black,

Just assume it's the same as what you paid for the leg you did book with points, but probably doesn't matter anyway. At this point, it sounds like the $200 is a lost cause and I probably wouldn't burn more energy on trying to change her mind on that. Most people here are probably from corporate jobs where there's much more discretion on $ related things like this.

However, I'd probably make another plea for the PTO.

Would escalation bring something? How high is the probability that you can get what you think is right?

I mean......

Just a feeling from what I read here and there: You aren't really happy in this job. This one is only a drop in a bucket. I would say you have either to think of the ways to change the job or, in your situation, I would try to see good stuff in your job. I would try not to focus on this incident, but to focus for example on that you have personal time at all. You have time where you aren't achievable for any problems from your job. Not everyone can say that. You probably have health insurance and few benefits that are pretty important for your life situation. You have some job security. You can go to conferences..........Please continue the list.

If I read it right, the company did not purchase the tickets, Black did.

I dunno. That's kind of why I posted the thread to see how someone else may see it. Seems about 50/50.

As to the rest, I appreciate the comments. I'm definitely not mentally happy with work or life which impacts how things like this affect me.

Correct.

So wait, the conference was already cancelled and then you decided to travel from home to Columbus for a football game and you expect them to pay to get you back home?

Also, reading the entire huge OP this part wasn't clear.

Well, no.

In July, I was asked to attend a conference in Charleston, SC from Sept. 10-13. I had been debating attending a football game in Columbus, OH on Sept. 9. Discussing with work, the policy would have them cover my travel to and from Charleston, regardless of origin, as long as the cost didn't exceed the cost of travel from my home area.

They asked that I purchase nonrefundable airfare to minimize expense. On July 8, I booked flights to Columbus on Sept. 7, from Columbus to Charleston on Sept. 10, and back home from Charleston on Sept. 13. I paid for all of those, using SWA points for the first, with the express agreement that work would reimburse me for the latter two after I submitted my expense report.

So, no, I decided in July to attend a football game. On Sept 9, the conference was cancelled. The email arrived 60 minutes before I left for the airport. I was in a significant bind on return travel, due in huge part to work's request to purchase nonrefundable airfare.

No person on earth is going to bail on the Columbus trip 60 minutes from takeoff on the chance that they won't get reimbursed, and eat the tickets and hotel, and leave their brother and best friend hanging after planning the trip for two months. The problem is that if the conference didn't exist, or if I declined my option to go, I would have used $0 and 0 personal time for the trip.

Additionally, work paid for two other employees' unused flights to Charleston and back, despite the fact that they were booked on the same day I left for Columbus so that they could have personal vacation time there, and if they had not done so, very well may have gotten fully refunded from the airline instead of costing our office 350% of what my reimbursement would be.

Yeah, but the conference was cancelled before you got on the plane to Columbus and you knew this.

What if the conference had been cancelled a week ahead of time? That's the same scenario.

I've got no problem with requiring an employee to take time off where the conference was cancelled even before the flight left the ground. That puts the travel squarely on the back of the employee, to include the obligation to be back in the office on the next work day.

And, since there was intent to go to the game with or without the conference, I don't see the employer having an obligation to cover the expense of travel for what had, at that juncture, become vacation. Situation changes somewhat had the cancellation occurred after departing the origin airport...

While it would have been a crappy thing to bail on the other person that close to game time, I am guessing resale of the seat would NOT have been an issue...they always make it sound like tix for the 'shoe are sometimes difficult to come by, even for a game against the Land Thieves.

Agree on the $200-$points. That seems particularly nitty of your company.

Disagree on the PTO. BA could have been back home easily before Monday. I would be surprised if there wasn't a flight he could have taken Friday. Even if there wasn't, he could have still rented a car and been back home by Saturday. It isn't works problem that he wanted to hang out with his brother and watch the football game.

There wasn't intent to go to the game with or without the conference. I was heavily on the fence, leaning not going.

And how am I gonna sell tickets to a football game that is 1700 miles away and 72 hours out, 6 hours from an area having any concentration of either teams' fans? Not to mention my hotel in Columbus was only refundable 48 hours or more out.

Then I would have been able to discuss with my employer what to do about my now useless flights, nonrefundable at their request, and arrange travel back from Columbus using my SWA points.

Why didn't you do this? Why don't you do this now? Seems like you still could do so.

Because he doesn't want to be reimbursed for travel expenses related to going to a conference. He wants to be reimbursed for travel expenses related to coming home from a personal vacation that he totally wouldn't have gone on if there had never been a conference.