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At my previous company, I was once told the reason was integration with their accounting systems and enforcement / guidance around travel policy. e.g., don’t sp

At my previous company, I was once told the reason was integration with their accounting systems and enforcement / guidance around travel policy. e.g., don’t spend more than $X / night at a hotel in a certain city. Definitely seemed like these middleman agencies were a solution to a problem faced by the finance team.

duxup 7y ago
Yeah I suspect that was it. Oddly, I don't think a lot of this stuff really accounts for the complexities in air travel. Like I literally couldn't rent certain types of cars ... and the no cars.... all in the name of saving money. But I could take a taxi everywhere for 150% of the cost of car rental (at least) because you still had to get from A to B. The end result was "don't check that box!" but any other box was ok even if it did the same thing or worse.
- tejasmanohar 7y ago
  Yeah, that's another big problem. Rules are complex, but most companies in the space are taking a simple approach by defining static rules rather than ones built on top of market conditions that humans can easily reason about (eg "this non stop flight is $500 more, is it worth it? it's the only reasonable way to be awake during tomorrow's meeting"). It's all very broken, and we're hoping to solve it
- Rebelgecko 7y ago
  I recently had a fun experience with something called the "Fly America Act", a law which says that when the US government is paying for your travel you have to fly on a US flagged airline. For my trip, the flight would've been about 6 hours (direct!) and cost $600 on a foreign airline. On the cheapest US carrier, the flight was about $850 and took 10 hours due to a layover. When you take hourly rates into account, it easily cost the government an extra $1000 for me to travel on the US airline. I wish I could've taken the direct foreign flight and just sent United a check for $250. Would've been a win/win for everyone— the American airline gets its corporate welfare without any of the costs they incur when someone actually gets on their plane, and I wouldn't have had to waste 4 hours of my life each way sitting in an airport to satisfy a dumb law.
  - nrf1 7y ago
    The Fly America Act is pork for the Airline industry; they aren't intended to save the taxpayer money. Exactly the opposite. I've even seen identical itineraries -- one under a US flag carrier and the other under a foreign flag -- with a mid-3-figure price difference. The airlines know what they are doing. Call your congresspeople.

duxup 7y ago

Yeah I suspect that was it. Oddly, I don't think a lot of this stuff really accounts for the complexities in air travel. Like I literally couldn't rent certain types of cars ... and the no cars.... all in the name of saving money. But I could take a taxi everywhere for 150% of the cost of car rental (at least) because you still had to get from A to B. The end result was "don't check that box!" but any other box was ok even if it did the same thing or worse.

tejasmanohar 7y ago
Yeah, that's another big problem. Rules are complex, but most companies in the space are taking a simple approach by defining static rules rather than ones built on top of market conditions that humans can easily reason about (eg "this non stop flight is $500 more, is it worth it? it's the only reasonable way to be awake during tomorrow's meeting"). It's all very broken, and we're hoping to solve it
Rebelgecko 7y ago
I recently had a fun experience with something called the "Fly America Act", a law which says that when the US government is paying for your travel you have to fly on a US flagged airline. For my trip, the flight would've been about 6 hours (direct!) and cost $600 on a foreign airline. On the cheapest US carrier, the flight was about $850 and took 10 hours due to a layover. When you take hourly rates into account, it easily cost the government an extra $1000 for me to travel on the US airline. I wish I could've taken the direct foreign flight and just sent United a check for $250. Would've been a win/win for everyone— the American airline gets its corporate welfare without any of the costs they incur when someone actually gets on their plane, and I wouldn't have had to waste 4 hours of my life each way sitting in an airport to satisfy a dumb law.
- nrf1 7y ago
  The Fly America Act is pork for the Airline industry; they aren't intended to save the taxpayer money. Exactly the opposite. I've even seen identical itineraries -- one under a US flag carrier and the other under a foreign flag -- with a mid-3-figure price difference. The airlines know what they are doing. Call your congresspeople.