Because I did the responsible thing and went through the airline and worked on them refunding the flight. They wouldn't change it to a different flight for free because my flight wasn't cancelled, and my new destination wasn't within 600 miles of my original, but AA refunded the Columbus to Charleston leg. SWA gave me a voucher for the Charleston to home leg.

So the airlines (mostly) refunded my flight costs, as opposed to work refunding my co-workers' flight costs. Of course, my co-workers probably wouldn't have gotten refunded by the airlines because their flights were 3 days before the hurricane, but despite the costs being borne due to their personal plans, the grant is covering it anyway.

I understand what you did and why. But couldn't you still now ask for reimbursement of your flight costs, like your coworkers did, now that you know that is the expected procedure?

Then you could keep the reimbusement / airline credit, making your roughly even as far as direct costs go. Just like others said people often got to keep credit for cancelled flights.

chill,

Asking for a refund on the one he got a refund for is fraud, as well as just being very unethical.

Yeah, even as I sit here bitterly stewing and hating life, I just wouldn't be able to do that.

I don't see why it would be wrong. How do you know the coworkers didn't get refunds or credits for their flights as well?

Again, just seems like the expected procedure here. You bought tickets for work, you get reimbursed for them. Seems like work doesn't care whether you used them or not, or what you did with them.

If I worked for this place and they didn't reimburse for the original flights, I would tell them that in the future they would have to pay for everything related to travel in advance; I would not pay for anything myself as I couldn't expect to get reimbursed if everything didn't go according to plan.

Seems like that paper trail is easier to explain and they don't care much beyond that.

That doesn't make it the right thing to do though.

That would eventually result in termination, as travel is a large part of my job, and there are protocols in place, one of which is we submit travel requests, pay for all travel as it occurs (generally excluding lodging which the grant pays at the time via master account at conference), and submit reimbursement requests. It is non-negotiable.

If they refunded him the $ he paid for the flight, but that did not happen. He received airline credit that expires, which is a different thing.

Just like airline points or poker room comps that nobody pays taxes on.

I got an actual refund for Columbus to Charleston from AA. SWA gave me expiring credits for Charleston to home. I would feel ok getting reimbursed for the SWA part.

I totally understand that most people would have gone to the football game exactly as you did. The problem is, the conference was cancelled before you left. As someone else asked - what would have happened if the conference was cancelled a week earlier? A month earlier?

You would have still gone to the game, using the flight you purchased. You would have still incurred expense to travel back from Columbus afterwards. You would still have been obligated to either get back before Monday, or take PTO.

The point on making you whole for the cancelled travel is fair - you shouldn't eat a difference in value between the points and the voucher, and the added condition on the voucher (travel in x months) is valid.

Once that conference gets cancelled though, I don't see any viable reason for them to pay for your return transportation from your long weekend vacation, nor do I see any validity to not using a day of PTO for the time you were off work on Monday.

Had this been a personal trip and your Sunday flight got cancelled due to weather and you just couldn't get back, would you expect them to eat the day of PTO? Doubtful.

Granted, were this a reasonable employer and you were a deeply valued employee, I'd expect your supervisor would say, "Oh man, that definitely sucked, don't worry about Monday."

Feel free to adjust your understanding of how much they value your professional worth and act accordingly.

It also wouldn't have shocked me if they ate the expenses depending on the size of the company, as this is admittedly a fairly murky scenario.

I wouldn't trust their protocols. How do you know they would have reimbursed you if no personal travel was involved but the conference was cancelled? I guess try to find a job working for people you can trust.

Amead, all fair. But if the conference is cancelled a month or even a week out, I can talk with my director about my travel. I can also decide to not go to Columbus as my hotel was still refundable until Tuesday and it would have been early enough to sell and ship the tickets. Or I could elect to still go, and use SWA points to fly back being out no money and no PTO.

Chillrob, ehhh I have worked here 13 years and had very few travel reimbursement issues. I hardly ever fly as all our conferences are in Texas and I prefer driving to flying (in b4 then hey you should be happy about what happened).

Mad,

OK... As I wrote earlier:

I don't think that flies, because no one will believe that he didn't make the side trip plans AFTER he learned that much of the trip would be paid for by the conference.

He might have, but they won't believe it.

Black,

That much? Come on. His trip would have been:

Outbound flight to Columbus (miles) [he pays]
Lodging in Columbus [he pays]
Food/expenses in Columbus [he pays]
Game tickets in Columbus [he pays]
Return flight back from Columbus (miles)

The only part of that he'd be saving by combining this with the conference trip is the miles he was planning on using for the return flight.

I think you should just eat the $200. You asked for it, they said no due to a difference of opinion (maybe they were right, and maybe you were right), so I think you should just let it go. After all, the gig was canceled, but you still traveled anyway for the game.

The last thing you wanna do is get on the bad side of your employer. The money is too little to make a big deal over.

Yeah don't refuse stuff that's part of your job. Just refuse the voluntary stuff going forward.

Normally employer is responsible for covering the expense of getting Black from home (A) to the conference (B) and then back home. This is A->B, then B->A. The conference is on Sunday.

Black wanted to go to a football game (C) during the weekend of the conference. The game is on Saturday.

Black & employer came to an alternate arrangement of Black being compensated for C->B, B->A. Black was on his own for the A->C travel. Black was directed to purchase non-refundable tickets for the employer-covered portion of his travel.

Both of these are effectively to/from the conference.

The Sunday conference was canceled 90 minutes before Black's A->C flight departed on Thursday.

Black decided to go to the football game, assuming his return expenses would be covered by employer. The Sunday flights from C->A were either non-existent or cost prohibitive at that point, so Black decided to drive home, incurring $200 in expenses and being charged one day of PTO. He canceled his C->B & B->A flights, receiving a refund for one, and a voucher for the other.

Black's co-workers never canceled their flights, but did not use them and were reimbursed in full by the employer for their flight expenses.

Black argues that his co-workers being reimbursed in full and him not is unfair and arbitrary, citing that the co-workers' A->B->A flights were scheduled to depart days before the conference and would have been refunded by the airline if scheduled on the same days as Black's.

Black further argues that canceling the football game trip was not feasible due to resultant categorization as "a ****ty brother" and impact of "leaving his brother hanging".


CLAIMS:

Black would like to be compensated for his $200 in expenses and re-credited the PTO day.


DISCUSSION:

Black's argument that employer agreed to "pay for me to get home" is without merit, as what employer agreed to was to pay to get Black from football game to conference, then from conference to home. Black has effectively been made whole for these expenses from the airlines.

Black's choice to engage in vacation travel is not relevant to employer's obligation to cover expenses to/from the conference.

Black's expenses to/from the conference were effectively covered as a result of the airline refund & credit.

Black did not list compensation for the difference between the value of the SWA credit and the actual cost of the flight as a CLAIM. This is the only reasonable duty to make whole that exists for employer, but cannot be considered in this ruling as Black did not address it as a CLAIM.


RULING:

We find Black's claims to be without merit.

Accordingly, judgment is entered in favor of employer.

If I'm your boss and I have discretion to allow an exception to the travel policy, I would probably grant it. It's possible in your case that your boss just doesn't have this discretion. It sounds like you work for a place with pretty strict protocols and they do things by the book.

Or maybe he's just being a stickler.

In either case, it sucks, but there's not much you can do.

This is a childish, petulant, and unproductive response. It has the potential to turn what is now a one-time dispute into a longer-term, low-level fight. That is a poor way to manage a career. It is perfectly reasonable to decide to eat the 200 in this situation, but if you do, the best path is to forget about it. Decisions about future conferences and the like should then be made on their own merits, with an eye to protecting yourself from administrative/bureaucratic issues like this.

Picking a fight with corporate or administrative bureaucracy is almost never productive.

If I were your boss, Black, I'd get you PTO time but not the money. the fundamental trouble, Black, is that you got on the plane after you knew the conference had been canceled. Presumably you also knew there was a hurricane, with its attendant risk of ruining airplane schedules. I'm somewhat sympathetic to your position but I think I'm generally with the employer on this one.

I agree with you insofar as each future decision should be made case-by-case. I phrased my post more extremely than I'd actually handle it because I was putting myself emotionally into BA's shoes and he seems very pissed off.

My mindset in the future would be defaulting to refusing anything that's voluntary unless I have a really good reason to participate. I think that's the way to go because it's obvious that BA's agency doesn't value him and they're not willing to treat him fairly even in reference to his colleagues who were going to vacation in Charleston. Given those facts, it's not worth it for him to go the extra mile for the agency unless there's a clear benefit to him and they can guarantee him that they won't screw him over like they did in the Columbus situation.

EDIT to add: I'm in no way advocating "picking a fight." The conversation would be, "Can you go to this conference? It's not mandatory." "Sorry, but given what happened last time I have to decline." Just a polite decline, not a fight at all.

I also agree with you that the agency shouldn't be docking him PTO and that it's fine that it's not refunding the $200. (Furthermore, in general, I agree wholeheartedly with the person who said he gambled and lost when it came to mixing business with pleasure and for that reason it's pretty much entirely on him if something goes wrong.) But if the agency truly valued BA and wanted to cultivate goodwill with him, it'd be refunding both the PTO and the $200.

If they want him to go, they just make the trip mandatory.

Not sure about the policy at his agency. But if the process is comparable to the one at a research institution, there are conferences where the institute is invited and mandates a couple people to go and others where the researcher gets an invitation and basically asks if he can go. Nobody has a set number of conference participations in their contract. If anything there's a provision for a minimum number of speaking appearances in a year, but certainly not a maximum.

How on earth are you figuring that he's not on the hook for PTO for missing Monday? He wasn't there because he chose to go to a football game in a different state on Saturday. It wasn't work related in the slightest.

Heh, nice post, especially given the context of my work.

This is even-handed and fair as well.

They wouldn't be able to make those conferences mandatory because they aren't deliverables under our grant. I certainly will evaluate my participation going forward (this would have been the 3rd time I attended this conference). I would definitely not say that I was declining based on this situation, though. I think that will come off as petulant. My personal failings might make me internally hold a grudge for a long time, but verbalizing that would be bad. The only way it would possibly come up would be if I did have the same type of situation where I had a personal conflict and they mentioned that I could just travel there from my personal plan location.