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Travel perks by government employees.?
This question is geared to those people who have to pay out of pocket (if they can) for their vacations. Government employees are allowed to keep their frequent flyer miles, rental car and hotel points, then use them for personal travel such as honeymoons and trips to the Caribbean with their families or sweeties. A government employee will tell you they deserve it because of the hardship of travel. These people are told before they take the job that they face frequent travel. They don’t have to take the job. If these "points" were given back to the government (taxpayer money) to create new tickets instead, it would save several billion dollars a year. How do you feel about paying for thousands of government employees and their families elaborate vacations (often first class)? Don’t you think that the government should demand the traveller return their points to the government/taxpayer fund to create new tickets with them for government travel instead of allowing the employee to use your tax dollars to vacation? Trouble is, the ones that can do anything about it (lawmakers), enjoy this benefit, so why would they vote something out that is so beneficial to them.
The federal government used to keep all the frequent flier miles and points.
If you’ve ever tried to use frequent flier miles or points, you know the problem is all the restrictions. Very tough to get a flight, gotta book it way in advance, can’t change it once you do, can’t travel in peak periods, etc.
Business travel just doesn’t work like that, government or otherwise.
The government had all these miles/points, but couldn’t ever use them. You then have to create an infrastructure to try to use and manage them, which is costly and of dubious value anyway. They finally gave up and just said "keep ‘em, it’s not costing us anything extra anyway".
In the grand scope of gov’t spending, I think they got this one right.
3 Responses to “Travel perks by government employees.?”
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January 16th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
At one time the points used to be turned over to Govt travel offices but that didn’t work out at all. It may sound good in principle but it just doesn’t work. At the time mind you, travel without points used to be cheaper then travel with points so when travel was booked it was often booked without the points option and the savings were already realized. When points where involved however it quickly became apparent, even when using govt contracted travel service providers that it cost far far too much to administer and manage all of the points systems. It cost them tens of millions of dollars to save a fraction of that.
Being someone that travels frequently for government work I can tell you that I certainly don’t get enough points to be able to take elaborate vacations…and certainly NOT elaborate vacations that are first class. I’m gone, most weeks, 3-5 days and after doing that for a year I usually have enough points to fly my family home to see the grandparents once a year and even then I still have to pay the taxes and airport fees myself. Is all my travel worth it to get maybe $2000 worth of airfare once a year? Certainly not. I do my job for many other reasons and yes, I would miss the points if they were not there but its not the reason for the job.
I would suggest you take a look at most of the card holder agreements for travel and hotel points. Most of them actually prohibit the transfer of points to other persons or agencies. You may not like it but the points DO NOT cost the government anything and in many cases it’s factored in as part of an employees wage package. They either get collected or wasted. It wouldn’t change the bottom line any. If you are that jealous, get a government job and start collecting. You’ll see it’s not that big a deal.
References :
January 16th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
I don’t mind that they keep the points. All of the private companies I’ve worked for have had the same policy. When frequent flier points first came out, many companies attempted to keep them. It simply didn’t work and they finally gave up trying.
References :
kept my points
January 16th, 2010 at 4:27 pm
The federal government used to keep all the frequent flier miles and points.
If you’ve ever tried to use frequent flier miles or points, you know the problem is all the restrictions. Very tough to get a flight, gotta book it way in advance, can’t change it once you do, can’t travel in peak periods, etc.
Business travel just doesn’t work like that, government or otherwise.
The government had all these miles/points, but couldn’t ever use them. You then have to create an infrastructure to try to use and manage them, which is costly and of dubious value anyway. They finally gave up and just said "keep ‘em, it’s not costing us anything extra anyway".
In the grand scope of gov’t spending, I think they got this one right.
References :