How does it work at your school? Is there some way the school measures/proves what was the cheapest flight at the time? Do you have to run your flight by them first? Do they take into account discount sites or just the airlines themselves?
TIA
reimbursed for flights
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chiliverde
- Posts: 101
- Joined: Tue Jan 02, 2018 8:45 am
- Location: Europe
Re: reimbursed for flights
Also, we will be traveling with our 18 month old at the time. Our contract says travel for myself and two dependents (husband too), is it crazy to think they might pay for a seat for my baby even though he is technically still young enough to be a lap infant? Thanks.
Re: reimbursed for flights
If your contract says 2 dependent, then they'll pay for a seat.
Schools generally pick a time frame and then bid out the flights to your home of record to establish the cost. In 2 schools I worked at, the school just deposited the money based on their bids into our accounts and we bought the tickets for whatever we wanted. At my current school, there are tax rules that mean the school actually has to purchase the tickets. They do the bidding process and then give you a couple of choices in the price range they've set. Unfortunately, they don't often pay attention to the logistics so we've been offered flights with a 45-minute layover in New York where we would have to clear customs. If we don't like the flights we are offered, we can find our own, but the school has to do the purchasing. We can fly anywhere we want, but the school pays the value of the fare they've bid out.
Schools generally pick a time frame and then bid out the flights to your home of record to establish the cost. In 2 schools I worked at, the school just deposited the money based on their bids into our accounts and we bought the tickets for whatever we wanted. At my current school, there are tax rules that mean the school actually has to purchase the tickets. They do the bidding process and then give you a couple of choices in the price range they've set. Unfortunately, they don't often pay attention to the logistics so we've been offered flights with a 45-minute layover in New York where we would have to clear customs. If we don't like the flights we are offered, we can find our own, but the school has to do the purchasing. We can fly anywhere we want, but the school pays the value of the fare they've bid out.
Response
It depends on the IS, and more specifically the amount of flexibility the business office has with leadership. There are ISs with what look like complex policies but as long as the amount is in the right range in leaderships head than it gets approved, and then there are ISs that have policy rules that are extremely difficult to comply with and ITs end up paying some or a major portion of their flights. Then there are ISs that book the flights themselves and they dont always pick the most convenient flights. There is a lot of differentiation in how this happens. The best advice is to contact the IS and ask them if you can do what it is you want to do and how much it costs. There have been ISs that reimburse only that buy tickets and there have been ISs that buy tickets that say go ahead and book your own within certain criteria.
Most ISs have someone in the business office do a web search for the flight itinerary and then take some average of the lowest cost flights for that day, or they do that and add some fixed amount to it.
Thats perfectly reasonable, but just because the contract says that doesnt mean thats how its interpreted. They might interpret two dependent tickets as those that would require tickets and may well exclude a lap infant, or it might be completely fine. You need to ask, preferably over email so if there is some type of "miscommunication" you can go back to the emails.
Most ISs have someone in the business office do a web search for the flight itinerary and then take some average of the lowest cost flights for that day, or they do that and add some fixed amount to it.
Thats perfectly reasonable, but just because the contract says that doesnt mean thats how its interpreted. They might interpret two dependent tickets as those that would require tickets and may well exclude a lap infant, or it might be completely fine. You need to ask, preferably over email so if there is some type of "miscommunication" you can go back to the emails.