Looking for an easy way to split flight costs
November 20, 2014 4:33 AM Subscribe
I travel a lot with different organizations paying for different trips. Is there a mechanism or policy I could put in place to equitably split the costs of a single multi-city trip among the different orgs? Sample trip inside.
For example, in January I need to be in Manila, Tokyo and New York. The easiest way to do this would be home>New York>Manila>Tokyo>home. To do it as separate trips would be awful and maybe even impossible from a timing perspective.
In the past I've priced out each trip separately and then used that dollar amount to persuade each individual org to pay its share of my final single ticket -- a third, or half, or whatever. That minimises my travel time and is always cheapest overall. But it is incredibly laborious and sometimes impossible because of internal orgs' bureaucracy/policies -- like, two orgs both insist they must buy the ticket, or have different policies about airfare classes, etc.
I'm working with multiple orgs, different each time, and often very different from each other in terms of what they consider to be "normal." That means each time it's a brand new odyssey of proposing/negotiating/compromising. It's not that they're not willing -- usually they're lovely. They just have difficulty figuring out how to do this inside their own internal travel policies. But surely I can't be the only person trying to do this kind of thing.
Any advice? I am very hopeful there's some obvious answer I'm missing :)
For example, in January I need to be in Manila, Tokyo and New York. The easiest way to do this would be home>New York>Manila>Tokyo>home. To do it as separate trips would be awful and maybe even impossible from a timing perspective.
In the past I've priced out each trip separately and then used that dollar amount to persuade each individual org to pay its share of my final single ticket -- a third, or half, or whatever. That minimises my travel time and is always cheapest overall. But it is incredibly laborious and sometimes impossible because of internal orgs' bureaucracy/policies -- like, two orgs both insist they must buy the ticket, or have different policies about airfare classes, etc.
I'm working with multiple orgs, different each time, and often very different from each other in terms of what they consider to be "normal." That means each time it's a brand new odyssey of proposing/negotiating/compromising. It's not that they're not willing -- usually they're lovely. They just have difficulty figuring out how to do this inside their own internal travel policies. But surely I can't be the only person trying to do this kind of thing.
Any advice? I am very hopeful there's some obvious answer I'm missing :)
How notmyself pus it together is what has worked for me. The good part is that tickets are always priced in legs so no need to do any math (unless its one flight two orgs as described...) Just expense to the orgs the trip into each city but for the one flying you home.
posted by chasles at 5:04 AM on November 20, 2014
posted by chasles at 5:04 AM on November 20, 2014
Yeah, agree with the above.
Say that OrgA wants you to be in City1. OrgB and Org C want you to be in City2, and OrgD in City 1 and City3.
home--(cost=x)--->City1---(cost=y)--->City2---(cost=z)--->City3---(cost=h)--->home
OrgA pays $x/2
OrgB pays $y/2
OrgC pays $y/2
OrgD pays $x/2 + $z + $h
Alternatively, if the issue is that actually trying to bill an org for half an airline ticket is the problem, then based on "two orgs both insist they must buy the ticket", can't you just charge the full ticket price to one org and nothing to the second? Like, does it really matter that the cost is fairly split if the orgs have annoying policies about buying the ticket at full price themselves? And you know, obviously you can choose which org you charge, maybe the one that pays for business class, for example...
So in the example above:
Either OrgA or OrgD would pay $x.
Either OrgB or OrgC would pay $y.
Org D would pay $z + $h.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 5:53 AM on November 20, 2014
Say that OrgA wants you to be in City1. OrgB and Org C want you to be in City2, and OrgD in City 1 and City3.
home--(cost=x)--->City1---(cost=y)--->City2---(cost=z)--->City3---(cost=h)--->home
OrgA pays $x/2
OrgB pays $y/2
OrgC pays $y/2
OrgD pays $x/2 + $z + $h
Alternatively, if the issue is that actually trying to bill an org for half an airline ticket is the problem, then based on "two orgs both insist they must buy the ticket", can't you just charge the full ticket price to one org and nothing to the second? Like, does it really matter that the cost is fairly split if the orgs have annoying policies about buying the ticket at full price themselves? And you know, obviously you can choose which org you charge, maybe the one that pays for business class, for example...
So in the example above:
Either OrgA or OrgD would pay $x.
Either OrgB or OrgC would pay $y.
Org D would pay $z + $h.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 5:53 AM on November 20, 2014
Yeah - i have always done
Home > Company A City (Company A pays full price)
Company A City to Company B city (i split the cost of the ticket between Company A and Company B)
Company B city to Company C city (i split the cost of the ticket between Company Band Company C)
Company C city to Home (Company C pays full price)
Since every company fully anticipates paying a full priced ticket there and back, it doesn't seem to be unfair to anyone, since everyone at least gets some discount advantage (Company B the biggest, as they are centrally located in your travels).
I also provide comparison prices of what the flight costs would be for a full price roundtrip ticket. that usually works just fine.
posted by Suffocating Kitty at 6:08 AM on November 20, 2014
Home > Company A City (Company A pays full price)
Company A City to Company B city (i split the cost of the ticket between Company A and Company B)
Company B city to Company C city (i split the cost of the ticket between Company Band Company C)
Company C city to Home (Company C pays full price)
Since every company fully anticipates paying a full priced ticket there and back, it doesn't seem to be unfair to anyone, since everyone at least gets some discount advantage (Company B the biggest, as they are centrally located in your travels).
I also provide comparison prices of what the flight costs would be for a full price roundtrip ticket. that usually works just fine.
posted by Suffocating Kitty at 6:08 AM on November 20, 2014
I do this a lot from the organisation's end.
In the country I work, travel reimbursement is seen as taxable income / salary. I have it from experts that travel reimbursement here is worse than anywhere save possibly North Korea.
Tedious for the guest to be reimbursed and for me to administrate in a way to keep the accountant happy.
Options I have seen speakers do is: if you are on an honorarium, negotiate an honorarium which includes travel expenses. Whilst the organisation may not be allowed to give you a flat fee for travel as such, it may be possible to simply raise your honorarium or speaker fee to include estimated travel expenses (without mentioning them explicitly in the contract).
Or consider charging a flat fee for travel, to negotiate into your contract/on top of the honrarium. This may not be posible for you tax wise, or possibly for the organisation - it will depend on tax laws there and where you live but is worth looking into with your accountant. So set X amount for Europe, X for Asia, etc - if you travel a lot, you may win some and lose some, but overall it works.
If these are not options you find useful, two things come to mind that I found useful when guests we reimburse are able to provide them.
1. When you book, use a travel agent if at all possible. The cost may be higher (but not always, I have done lots of comparispns on this) and a handling fee charged BUT the expense for handling fee is made up by the cost of the time you spend on doing this yourself, and generally handling fees are ok to incur.
You will have a"proper" invoice, not something shapeless from the internet which may not meet formal local requirements of accountancy. I spend a lot of time chasing what our accountant deems a "proper" invoice... and so am forced to pester our guests for that. I love those who have an invoice, electronic or otherwise from a travel agent or larger airline. Dumping price websites are ot worth it for the hassle to get an invoice out of them (for a fee usually).
Then ask the travel agent to provide you with dated quotes for the one way ticket price of the individual legs, eg. home to New York, New York to Manila, Manila to Tokyo, Tokyo-home. If their is also the issue f airfare class, get the quotes for economy and business.
Save those and include in your claim for reimbursement.
Reason is if I have those quotes, I can prove to the accountants satisfaction that the guest, by buying a mulit-destination trip, helped save money, and I can write a statement to that effect for the file and so meet our internal policy of most efficient use of funds.
If they offer to pay economy and not business you can use thoise quotes to set the amount in a documented way.
The point is to document the savings, as it is not sufficient if the guest and I both know. Bureaucrats need papers.
2. Instead of offering to split by half or third or whatever, propose to the reimbursing organisation that an exact amount per mile is calculated. I do this for our guests, because it is more exact and so meets our auditors requirements. Estimates and guess work are not what accountants and auditors like.
To calculate this, go to a website such as http://www.milecalc.com/ and get the mileage for each leg. and the total. Sometimes, depending on the airline, the miles flown are also given on the itinerary.
Then, using a simple excel sheet, divide the TOTAL of all miles flown by the TOTAL ticket price (incl handling fee etc) and hurrah you have a price per mile. Now multiply the price for one mile with the journey leg you claim reimbursement for. The actual difference in amounts paid may only be tiny, but this is about satisfying accountants not logic.
Provide this calculation for them or suggest it be done.
Other things that make it easier for the organisation to deal with your reimbursement:
Ask them before buying what their policies are. Sometimes guests just book complicated itineraries and tell me afterwards, and then we have the mess. For example, our organisation can only reimburse from previous to next destination, meaning if you spend an additional night in Paris on your way from New York to our city, we can legally only reimburse your flight from Paris.
Save all and any documentation on your expenses. Err on the side of providing too much, rather than chucking that confirmation email because you don't want it.
Check in online and print PDFs of the boarding passes. You can then provide boarding passes to as many places as need them. If you do paper boarding cards, save them religiously.
Same for invoices: get electronic versions, so every orgainsation has their own "original".
Where I work, we can only either accept hard copy originals OR the electronic equivalent, not scans of paper versions. I suspect this is the case in many places.
Hope it helps,
posted by 15L06 at 6:32 AM on November 20, 2014 [4 favorites]
In the country I work, travel reimbursement is seen as taxable income / salary. I have it from experts that travel reimbursement here is worse than anywhere save possibly North Korea.
Tedious for the guest to be reimbursed and for me to administrate in a way to keep the accountant happy.
Options I have seen speakers do is: if you are on an honorarium, negotiate an honorarium which includes travel expenses. Whilst the organisation may not be allowed to give you a flat fee for travel as such, it may be possible to simply raise your honorarium or speaker fee to include estimated travel expenses (without mentioning them explicitly in the contract).
Or consider charging a flat fee for travel, to negotiate into your contract/on top of the honrarium. This may not be posible for you tax wise, or possibly for the organisation - it will depend on tax laws there and where you live but is worth looking into with your accountant. So set X amount for Europe, X for Asia, etc - if you travel a lot, you may win some and lose some, but overall it works.
If these are not options you find useful, two things come to mind that I found useful when guests we reimburse are able to provide them.
1. When you book, use a travel agent if at all possible. The cost may be higher (but not always, I have done lots of comparispns on this) and a handling fee charged BUT the expense for handling fee is made up by the cost of the time you spend on doing this yourself, and generally handling fees are ok to incur.
You will have a"proper" invoice, not something shapeless from the internet which may not meet formal local requirements of accountancy. I spend a lot of time chasing what our accountant deems a "proper" invoice... and so am forced to pester our guests for that. I love those who have an invoice, electronic or otherwise from a travel agent or larger airline. Dumping price websites are ot worth it for the hassle to get an invoice out of them (for a fee usually).
Then ask the travel agent to provide you with dated quotes for the one way ticket price of the individual legs, eg. home to New York, New York to Manila, Manila to Tokyo, Tokyo-home. If their is also the issue f airfare class, get the quotes for economy and business.
Save those and include in your claim for reimbursement.
Reason is if I have those quotes, I can prove to the accountants satisfaction that the guest, by buying a mulit-destination trip, helped save money, and I can write a statement to that effect for the file and so meet our internal policy of most efficient use of funds.
If they offer to pay economy and not business you can use thoise quotes to set the amount in a documented way.
The point is to document the savings, as it is not sufficient if the guest and I both know. Bureaucrats need papers.
2. Instead of offering to split by half or third or whatever, propose to the reimbursing organisation that an exact amount per mile is calculated. I do this for our guests, because it is more exact and so meets our auditors requirements. Estimates and guess work are not what accountants and auditors like.
To calculate this, go to a website such as http://www.milecalc.com/ and get the mileage for each leg. and the total. Sometimes, depending on the airline, the miles flown are also given on the itinerary.
Then, using a simple excel sheet, divide the TOTAL of all miles flown by the TOTAL ticket price (incl handling fee etc) and hurrah you have a price per mile. Now multiply the price for one mile with the journey leg you claim reimbursement for. The actual difference in amounts paid may only be tiny, but this is about satisfying accountants not logic.
Provide this calculation for them or suggest it be done.
Other things that make it easier for the organisation to deal with your reimbursement:
Ask them before buying what their policies are. Sometimes guests just book complicated itineraries and tell me afterwards, and then we have the mess. For example, our organisation can only reimburse from previous to next destination, meaning if you spend an additional night in Paris on your way from New York to our city, we can legally only reimburse your flight from Paris.
Save all and any documentation on your expenses. Err on the side of providing too much, rather than chucking that confirmation email because you don't want it.
Check in online and print PDFs of the boarding passes. You can then provide boarding passes to as many places as need them. If you do paper boarding cards, save them religiously.
Same for invoices: get electronic versions, so every orgainsation has their own "original".
Where I work, we can only either accept hard copy originals OR the electronic equivalent, not scans of paper versions. I suspect this is the case in many places.
Hope it helps,
posted by 15L06 at 6:32 AM on November 20, 2014 [4 favorites]
It seems to me that the simplest way to do it would be
Home > Company A City (Company A pays full price)
Company A City to Company B city (Company B pays full price)
Company B city to Company C city (Company C pays full price)
Company C city to Home (Company C also pays full price)
There are three reasons why I would suggest this.
First, it allows each company to pay for an entire ticket themselves without having to split anything, and they can enforce whatever rules they want about class and purchasing it themselves and whatever else.
Second, because each organization would have been willing to have paid for a round trip ticket themselves, it's not really unfair to anyone, even Company C. None of the companies even need to know about one another. Just show Company C what a (hopefully always more expensive) round trip ticket would have cost from Home and say you're giving them a discount by virtue of having to only fly to Tokyo from Manilla instead of from Home.
Third, I actually think it's a bit more fair than splitting the cost in some cases. For example, lets say Home is a short flight to NY, Company A would be willing to fly you from Home to NY and back. But is it fair to expect them to split the cost with Company B and each pay for half of a flight from NY to Manilla?
posted by cali59 at 6:58 AM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]
Home > Company A City (Company A pays full price)
Company A City to Company B city (Company B pays full price)
Company B city to Company C city (Company C pays full price)
Company C city to Home (Company C also pays full price)
There are three reasons why I would suggest this.
First, it allows each company to pay for an entire ticket themselves without having to split anything, and they can enforce whatever rules they want about class and purchasing it themselves and whatever else.
Second, because each organization would have been willing to have paid for a round trip ticket themselves, it's not really unfair to anyone, even Company C. None of the companies even need to know about one another. Just show Company C what a (hopefully always more expensive) round trip ticket would have cost from Home and say you're giving them a discount by virtue of having to only fly to Tokyo from Manilla instead of from Home.
Third, I actually think it's a bit more fair than splitting the cost in some cases. For example, lets say Home is a short flight to NY, Company A would be willing to fly you from Home to NY and back. But is it fair to expect them to split the cost with Company B and each pay for half of a flight from NY to Manilla?
posted by cali59 at 6:58 AM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]
There are a bunch of ways you can go about this, but I think the key thing is that you should be able to demonstrate to any of the companies involved that they are getting a better deal out of all this splitting (whatever the arrangement is) than it would cost them to have you fly from your home of record to their location and back, as a roundtrip ticket.
So if you want to do Home > NYC > Tokyo > Manila, then you should first obtain (and save) quotes for Home > NYC, Home > Tokyo, Home > Manila, etc. As though you were doing each trip 100% independently and there was nothing else going on around you.
And if it were me, I'd go and talk to the organizations with THAT price quote in hand, and get them to preapprove the trip on that basis.
And THEN, once you have approval for that amount, I'd analyze the itinerary you actually want to take, breaking the tickets up by flight leg (if they are priced out per leg) so that no single organization pays more than they were originally quoted, and tell them that you found a way to save them money through amazing logistical synergies, or however you want to describe it. I probably wouldn't overexplain the situation, I'd just say "well it turns out I have to be in XYZ city right before I'm going to be in your city, and the ticket is $X cheaper than I originally estimated. You're welcome." Do it by email, get someone on-record as saying that's good for them, and hang onto all the emails in case someone gives you flack later.
This isn't a terribly uncommon situation for business travelers especially when doing consulting. Sometimes you have to be a little coy about it because if possible, everyone is going to try to get everyone else to shoulder the biggest share of the travel costs (at least in the for-profit world and if they sense that maybe the other party involved is a competitor). So I would personally never reveal the complete itinerary or who the other payors are. Everyone gets a very clean set of airline documents with the flight legs they're responsible for highlighted, maybe with the email approving it attached. Let people hammer out the approvals internally if you like.
The alternative, of course, if people don't work with you, is to book a bunch of roundtrip tickets from home, which will presumably be much more expensive than the itinerary you want, expense that, and then just change it around to the tickets you actually want. They end up shouldering the $200 change fees (or whatever, depending on the airline) without really knowing it, but you get what you want and they get what they want (clean invoices). I would only do this if somebody pissed me off first though.
posted by Kadin2048 at 4:12 PM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]
So if you want to do Home > NYC > Tokyo > Manila, then you should first obtain (and save) quotes for Home > NYC, Home > Tokyo, Home > Manila, etc. As though you were doing each trip 100% independently and there was nothing else going on around you.
And if it were me, I'd go and talk to the organizations with THAT price quote in hand, and get them to preapprove the trip on that basis.
And THEN, once you have approval for that amount, I'd analyze the itinerary you actually want to take, breaking the tickets up by flight leg (if they are priced out per leg) so that no single organization pays more than they were originally quoted, and tell them that you found a way to save them money through amazing logistical synergies, or however you want to describe it. I probably wouldn't overexplain the situation, I'd just say "well it turns out I have to be in XYZ city right before I'm going to be in your city, and the ticket is $X cheaper than I originally estimated. You're welcome." Do it by email, get someone on-record as saying that's good for them, and hang onto all the emails in case someone gives you flack later.
This isn't a terribly uncommon situation for business travelers especially when doing consulting. Sometimes you have to be a little coy about it because if possible, everyone is going to try to get everyone else to shoulder the biggest share of the travel costs (at least in the for-profit world and if they sense that maybe the other party involved is a competitor). So I would personally never reveal the complete itinerary or who the other payors are. Everyone gets a very clean set of airline documents with the flight legs they're responsible for highlighted, maybe with the email approving it attached. Let people hammer out the approvals internally if you like.
The alternative, of course, if people don't work with you, is to book a bunch of roundtrip tickets from home, which will presumably be much more expensive than the itinerary you want, expense that, and then just change it around to the tickets you actually want. They end up shouldering the $200 change fees (or whatever, depending on the airline) without really knowing it, but you get what you want and they get what they want (clean invoices). I would only do this if somebody pissed me off first though.
posted by Kadin2048 at 4:12 PM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]
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In the event you are going to a single city for multiple organizations, the cost is split evenly.
In the event you are going to a single city for multiple organizations, and they have different seat policies (one is economy, one is business, for example), you fly the lesser class of seat, or fly the higher class but reimburse according to the org's policies (which might result in you paying a bit out of pocket if you go with the higher class of seat).
The organization who asked you to go to the last city on your journey pays the return flight home.
FYI - As a former consultant who travelled a lot, this will be messy no matter what you put in place.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 4:54 AM on November 20, 2014 [2 favorites]