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Small White Dragon posted:FWIW, the DoJ filing has some interesting emails from US leadership. This should not surprise anybody, but they are planning to reduce service (quality AND quantity), and raise both prices and fees. IMAGINE MY SURPRISE
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Aug 16, 2013 03:46
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Fryhtaning posted:In other words, does the fact that a job was advertised at 35% travel carry any weight at all once you're hired? You're an employee. Not a friend. They can do whatever they want. It's not in their financial interests to run you off as soon as you're hired (which is why you can trust thats a pretty safe estimate) but they can pretty much do whatever unless you sign an employee contract. But even them that's hard to make them enforce and I seriously doubt you're in an industry or position / skill level where they would do this.
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Aug 16, 2013 04:55
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How do you guys generally pay for business travel? At my company, we use our own credit card and then file an expense report to get reimbursed for it later. This would be fine (especially since I get points back), but I'm about to book my first trip, and as an entry-level associate, the flights alone nearly max out my credit cards.
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Aug 16, 2013 23:08
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Have you tried having your limit increased? We have corporate credit cards that we have to put everything on. My precious points!  Haven't travelled since the last week of June. Almost had a trip to the states next week, but it was deemed unnecessary after some last minute back and forth. I think the budget is becoming stretched.
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Aug 17, 2013 00:22
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The cheapest flights I could find (we have to use the company's travel service) is like 6000, plus 10 days or so of hotels, so it'd be a fairly large limit increase. I can deal with it, I'm just curious if most people are expected to float that much money regularly when traveling.
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Aug 17, 2013 00:37
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Xandu posted:The cheapest flights I could find (we have to use the company's travel service) is like 6000, plus 10 days or so of hotels, so it'd be a fairly large limit increase. gently caress that noise. Any way the travel service can charge some of it to the company's account? My last employer would do that with flights; I never even knew how much they cost... And sometimes with hotel if you were in a bind (We rarely stayed in hotels at all, and it was a night at the most if then). The most I've had to float was about a grand I guess.
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Aug 17, 2013 00:41
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Xandu posted:The cheapest flights I could find (we have to use the company's travel service) is like 6000, plus 10 days or so of hotels, so it'd be a fairly large limit increase. Your employer will take as much of an interest free loan as you are willing to give them. Ask for them to charge the transport to their account or give you an advance for the transport and hotel (if they do that anymore).
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Aug 17, 2013 00:43
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We're supposed to charge everything to the corporate Amex. What sucks though is we still get the bill and have to pay it after the expense report is processed. It would be much nicer if we didn't have to do that and corp just paid the bill. Some folks still use their personal cards though. The heavier travelers can ring up 20K a month on expenses though and that's a lot for anyone to float on a personal card.
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Aug 17, 2013 00:59
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Xandu posted:How do you guys generally pay for business travel? Through corporate AMEX, then we get to import those charges into our expense report, and they pay it directly.
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Aug 17, 2013 03:07
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Xandu posted:The cheapest flights I could find (we have to use the company's travel service) is like 6000, plus 10 days or so of hotels, so it'd be a fairly large limit increase. As a side note, we "have to" book everything through Concur, but nobody I've talked to actually does that. When you try to book through it, it has weird limitations and prices, but we all just book outside of it and then add it as an expense item. This doesn't answer your original question, but it may be an option for you. To directly answer your question, it is possible that we need to float that much, but if it's an issue you can say something and they'll front you the money or put it on a corporate card.
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Aug 17, 2013 03:19
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Xandu posted:How do you guys generally pay for business travel? At my company everything is supposed to be done through the corporate card, though nobody really cares if you use your own card for small stuff like meals (just claiming you paid cash) or in situations where you actually have to pay cash. But if you started trying to put stuff like your hotel on your own card you'd get in trouble pretty quick. Most of our stuff is billed to the government though, so having everything on the card makes it easier to get through audits. Agreeing with "gently caress that noise" if they expect you to be floating them an interest free loan for thousands of dollars. At the very least if they are requiring you to use the corporate travel agent they should be able to bill the flight and hotel directly to your company. Honestly I'd ask your boss about it. You can't be the only person to be in that situation. Thoguh fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Aug 17, 2013 |
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Aug 17, 2013 03:21
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At my small company I use my card and don't really care about the time to reimburse less than 2k. More than that though and I would have a check cut to me within 7 days or so. 6k worth of flights is no joke. What kind of multi city itinerary is this?
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Aug 17, 2013 04:12
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Most small companies or startups have people using their own cards, it is not super uncommon but can be a pain in the rear end.
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Aug 17, 2013 23:26
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sellouts posted:At my small company I use my card and don't really care about the time to reimburse less than 2k. More than that though and I would have a check cut to me within 7 days or so. It involves four countries, only two of which are close to each other. I'll talk to my boss about it on Monday, my company isn't that small so they'll probably be able to arrange something. I suspect part of the problem is that 95% of people within the company only travel domestically, so it's rarely an issue.
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Aug 17, 2013 23:34
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Belldandy posted:Most small companies or startups have people using their own cards, it is not super uncommon but can be a pain in the rear end. I use my own card to book my hotels and for miscellaneous expenses during my trips. Airplane fees are paid for by the company. I only travel once every 2 months so its not a bad thing since I get a bunch of points from Starwood. The annoying part is that any Concur-related fees ($35 for calling, $7 for even using the service) I believe is charged to your personal card if you're not careful. You have to pick these out and expense these if that happens, which is pretty drat annoying
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Aug 18, 2013 07:14
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This might be a bit off topic for this thread, but is anyone here on an ex-pat package? If so, what does your package look like? I'm asking because I may be getting an ex-pat offer soon, and I just wanted to know what I should expect these days.
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Aug 18, 2013 08:54
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We were providing onsite support for a client when they switched from their old system to ours a few years ago, and there were several consultants milling about. We got to talking, and it turned out that they had been paying their own expenses for the bulk of the conversion process (this had been going on for nearly 24 months at this time). Basically the firm that they were with wanted them to front the costs and they would be reimbursed. It turned out that some of these guys hadn't been paid in 4 months. One guy was in the hole $8k! Never before was I so glad to have a corporate card.
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Aug 18, 2013 16:47
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Pissingintowind posted:This might be a bit off topic for this thread, but is anyone here on an ex-pat package? I haven't done ex pat but I did do a domestic assignment not to long ago. I got a paid for furnished apartment, a rental car, and a tax free per diem of $71 above my normal salary with a plane ticket home once a month. I also got a $1,350 a month bonus but they have since gotten rid of that. It owned. Coming home sucked .
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Aug 18, 2013 16:52
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The best thing for expat contracts would be to check in the thread(s) for the place you're looking at; I imagine contracts in Dubai or Indonesia or the UK would be wildly different.
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Aug 18, 2013 18:03
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Woohoo, Delta's IT system screwed up and allowed me to give myself an upgrade into Business Elite on my return flight from Oktoberfest next month. All my international travel is on my own dime/miles so I've never flown international BE before. Pretty stoked.
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Aug 18, 2013 19:50
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I'm applying for a TWIC card next week as my company does dock/shipping business. Are there any travel related perks to having a TWIC? Does anybody know if I can use it in a priority line at the airport?
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Aug 19, 2013 17:07
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oxsnard posted:I'm applying for a TWIC card next week as my company does dock/shipping business. Are there any travel related perks to having a TWIC? Does anybody know if I can use it in a priority line at the airport? I doubt it. CAC cards don't unless you are uniformed military and from a quick google of TWIC it seems like to be pretty similar to a CAC.
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Aug 19, 2013 19:20
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Thoguh posted:I doubt it. CAC cards don't unless you are uniformed military and from a quick google of TWIC it seems like to be pretty similar to a CAC. Depends on who you know. I've seen it get holders nothing. I've also seen TSA clowns let TWIC holders take the magnetometer instead of the milliwave. Once I saw the airport oinkers let a TWIC and his family through with no screening since they were all airport bros.
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Aug 20, 2013 00:11
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oxsnard posted:I'm applying for a TWIC card next week as my company does dock/shipping business. Are there any travel related perks to having a TWIC? Does anybody know if I can use it in a priority line at the airport? In my experience, it's useful to confuse the hell out of the TSA ID checkers, but nothing else.
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Aug 20, 2013 14:00
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Thanks guys. I figured as much but it's good to know anyways
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Aug 21, 2013 01:40
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Has anyone gotten crazy charges before on their hotel bills? I stayed at an airport hotel for a night, checked out no problem, got the email receipt no problem, then a few days later I get a folio in my email for renting some of their banquet rooms. On the day I got to their hotel at 11:30pm. And they saw fit to go ahead and charge that to my card on file. I'm already like 4 people deep in the call chain and they still don't know how their poo poo operates.
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Aug 22, 2013 23:15
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I'd just dispute the charges at that point. If they can't figure out how to issue a refund after talking to either the front desk or the manager on duty I wouldn't waste anymore time waiting for them to figure it out. I ran into a similar issue where the offsite airport parking lot charged me my ticket number (in excess of $5,000) instead of the $26.00 they should have. I spoke with them on the phone once before calling up Visa. Had to fill out a form and it took a week or two to get it removed but it was a pretty painless process.
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Aug 23, 2013 01:42
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TouchyMcFeely posted:I'd just dispute the charges at that point. Yeah, I already called the Visa person at my bank and started the process but they want to wait one to two weeks to allow them to respond to my emails and calls properly before sending in the form. The front desk person went to the manager on duty, who said all billing issues were handled in accounting, and now I'm on my 2nd person in accounting. The biggest pain in the rear end is that its 4 time zones away.
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Aug 23, 2013 05:03
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Uncle Jam posted:Has anyone gotten crazy charges before on their hotel bills? Nothing that bad but I do get bogus charges for bottles of wine and booze from the minibar from time to time
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Aug 23, 2013 13:43
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How's everyone doing with the points and miles? My update: - SPG: 100 nights (Ambassador!) - Marriott: 78 nights - Hilton: 4 nights - Delta: 76,040 MQMs Hit all of my goals for this year (Re-make Platinum on Delta and get 100 SPG nights) 
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Sep 6, 2013 22:41
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I requalified for UA Silver 
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Sep 6, 2013 22:52
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At the beginning of May I had 14 UA flights - today is number 60. Star Gold 
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Sep 6, 2013 23:12
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I'm United plat and on course to get 1K this year. Hotel stays are hopelessly fragmented, unfortunately.
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Sep 7, 2013 01:07
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sink the biz posted:How's everyone doing with the points and miles? My update: Got a promotion plus had a few extended stays at places that don't give loyalty points so I'm stuck at -Hilton: 13 stays, 16 nights -Marriott: 2 stays, 11 nights (had to travel with my boss so had to split out my Hilton stuff, boo on that) -Delta: 41,089 MQM with no current work travel planned before the end of the year. I'm giving serious consideration to a mileage run on Delta to get myself at least up to Gold for next year. Sucks that I'll be losing high tier status on everything but I'm taking advantage of it hardcore while I still have it. I've taken two trips to Europe this year on miles already with a third coming up, plus a trip for my first time in NYC as well as just using up my points and getting nice upgrades whenever I have to go somewhere for a wedding or something. Doing my best to go out with a bang and zero Skymiles/HHonors Points left.
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Sep 7, 2013 02:25
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How common is this lifestyle for engineers? Say, someone who is asked to go from headquarters to a site out in the field?
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Sep 7, 2013 03:11
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I might actually hit Hilton and Delta Gold this year. I have 87K Sky Miles and 60K Hilton Honors points. Headed to LA this week and then to Puerto Rico next week. I didn't go anywhere in July, and they're making up for it this month. It just sucks that it happens to coincide with football season and a bunch of game releases I'd been anticipating for a while. So, in light of that, what do you guys do for gaming on the road? 3DS/Vita? Gaming laptop? Bring the console with you?
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Sep 7, 2013 03:42
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Morby posted:So, in light of that, what do you guys do for gaming on the road? 3DS/Vita? Gaming laptop? Bring the console with you? I'd been using a PSP with custom firmware that I ripped my UMDs onto and had some emulators and movies too. I recently switched to a Vita; no emulators but games are available as downloads and movies look great on the screen. I wouldn't take a console because it's big and I don't want to risk damage plus you can't play it on the airplane. Gaming laptop is another computer I'm dragging around in addition to the work computer.
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Sep 7, 2013 03:57
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Midjack posted:I'd been using a PSP with custom firmware that I ripped my UMDs onto and had some emulators and movies too. I recently switched to a Vita; no emulators but games are available as downloads and movies look great on the screen. I wouldn't take a console because it's big and I don't want to risk damage plus you can't play it on the airplane. Gaming laptop is another computer I'm dragging around in addition to the work computer. Agreed on the laptop. I have a personal laptop and a work laptop, too. Carrying both of them for 3 weeks through different airports made me finally bite the bullet and get a tablet. Much better overall, minus the lack of deeper games. I think I will explore the 3DS or Vita route. Thanks!
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Sep 7, 2013 04:05
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I carry a second laptop around for gaming. I also carry around a 10 ft HDMI cable for the laptop and have an XBox 360 controller with a 12 foot cord, which means I can play games 'console style' from my bed, no matter how asinine the furniture is.
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Sep 7, 2013 04:11
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Shipon posted:How common is this lifestyle for engineers? Say, someone who is asked to go from headquarters to a site out in the field? I was doing that as an engineer working integration for DoD projects for for three years or so. This year I have moved more into a project engineer role which is why I haven't traveled as much lately. In my experience every big project has 1-2 engineers who seem to be always out at a customer site trying to make things work.
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Sep 7, 2013 04:38
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