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Yes, the employee. Why do you think it's shady? In my years of working in and around people with the same setup I've never heard of any complaints, and I know m

Yes, the employee. Why do you think it's shady? In my years of working in and around people with the same setup I've never heard of any complaints, and I know most of the other large consulting companies do it the same way. AFAIK the thought behind it is that not every expense on the card is for work - as a consultant, I travel every week and I put all kinds of expenses on the card (not all of which are strictly "for work" or allowed to be reimbursed by the company). This way, my company still pays the bill for whatever expenses I mark as reimbursable, but the company doesn't have to worry about being on the hook for when I use my card to buy a pair of pants. To me, it's basically the same as having a personal CC and my company reimburses me for the expenses - except in this case, it's a lot easier for my company to pay part of the bill directly (instead of me being an intermediary) and I also don't have to worry about hitting a credit limit.

tempsy 7y ago
The point is you're trusting the company to not screw you over and refuse to reimburse you or pay the bill, for whatever reason. Everyone has some horror story of waiting months to get reimbursed for something from an employer. It's less annoying if it's very occasional or the amount is small, but when you're racking up thousands a week there's a non-zero risk.
- myalphabet 7y ago
  I suppose that's true and I would probably be worried about that if it was a smaller company or a company that had a real possibility of not being able to pay the bills. At my company that pulls in billions per year and has hundreds of thousands of employees that use this expense system that I've never heard one case of someone having an issue getting reimburses, it's not much of a worry to me.
  - tempsy 7y ago
    We live in a post Lehman Brothers world...anything can happen. Personally would rather keep my personal expenses to my personal card and refuse a personal guarantee for any corporate spending, especially if it's going to average thousands a month.
    - rurp 7y ago
      Seriously, how hard can it be to bring both a personal and corporate card on a trip, and use each as appropriate? I've never had an employer issued cc but it's baffling to me that some employees have no problem personally guaranteeing company expenditures. I can imagine all sorts of scenarios, including a complete unexpected collapse, that would leave the employee out to dry.
astura 7y ago
>it's basically the same as having a personal CC and my company reimburses me for the expenses The company collects all the rewards for the spend but you take on all of the risk of repayment. If you used your personal card you'd collect the rewards. Using personal cards and being reimbursed is a nice perk for many.
- myalphabet 7y ago
  >The company collects all the rewards Erm, no they don't. I personally collect all of the rewards from it. I have a nice fat account of AmEx MRs (and plenty of hotel and airline points) thanks to all of my corporate card spend. edit: I have no idea why this is being downvoted. Do you want me to show you a screenshot of my MR account as proof, or something? AmEx corporate cards absolutely give the card rewards to the employee, not the company. See https://millionmilesecrets.com/news/you-can-earn-american-express-membership-rewards-points-on-amex-corporate-cards/ https://millionmilesecrets.com/news/you-can-earn-american-ex...
  - astura 7y ago
    My AMEX corporate card didn't allow me to earn rewards. I didn't know some did. It also had a personal guarantee. From your link >However, if your company has blocked the American Express Membership Rewards program, you will NOT be able to enroll your corporate cards. Also >To earn American Express Membership Rewards points, you have to pay $90 to enroll your American Express Green Corporate card or American Express Gold Corporate card. So only worth it for people who know they will be big spenders and who won't leave the company for a long time. For someone who travels only once a year (like me) totally not worth it. I'd rather collect the ~$30 cash back on my 2.5% cash back card.
syedkarim 7y ago
Why would you be buying any personal items with a company credit card? Isn't that what your own personal credit card is for?
- myalphabet 7y ago
  It isn't extremely common to do so, but the most basic example I can give is incidentals at a hotel. The hotel room and some incidentals are reimbursed by the company, but other incidentals are not (ie some consulting clients do not allow the reimbursement of alcohol). It's typically easier to just put it all on the corporate card and mark some of the transactions as reimbursable and some of them as personal than it is to finagle a way to settle the hotel bill with multiple credit cards. There's also the one-off situation where I really needed a new pair of pants while traveling (my only clean pair of business-appropriate pants split down the middle) and for some reason the only card I had on me was my corporate card. Obviously extremely rare, but I've heard of similar situation (but with a belt) happening to another colleague.

tempsy 7y ago

The point is you're trusting the company to not screw you over and refuse to reimburse you or pay the bill, for whatever reason. Everyone has some horror story of waiting months to get reimbursed for something from an employer. It's less annoying if it's very occasional or the amount is small, but when you're racking up thousands a week there's a non-zero risk.

myalphabet 7y ago
I suppose that's true and I would probably be worried about that if it was a smaller company or a company that had a real possibility of not being able to pay the bills. At my company that pulls in billions per year and has hundreds of thousands of employees that use this expense system that I've never heard one case of someone having an issue getting reimburses, it's not much of a worry to me.
- tempsy 7y ago
  We live in a post Lehman Brothers world...anything can happen. Personally would rather keep my personal expenses to my personal card and refuse a personal guarantee for any corporate spending, especially if it's going to average thousands a month.
  - rurp 7y ago
    Seriously, how hard can it be to bring both a personal and corporate card on a trip, and use each as appropriate? I've never had an employer issued cc but it's baffling to me that some employees have no problem personally guaranteeing company expenditures. I can imagine all sorts of scenarios, including a complete unexpected collapse, that would leave the employee out to dry.

astura 7y ago

>it's basically the same as having a personal CC and my company reimburses me for the expenses The company collects all the rewards for the spend but you take on all of the risk of repayment. If you used your personal card you'd collect the rewards. Using personal cards and being reimbursed is a nice perk for many.

myalphabet 7y ago
>The company collects all the rewards Erm, no they don't. I personally collect all of the rewards from it. I have a nice fat account of AmEx MRs (and plenty of hotel and airline points) thanks to all of my corporate card spend. edit: I have no idea why this is being downvoted. Do you want me to show you a screenshot of my MR account as proof, or something? AmEx corporate cards absolutely give the card rewards to the employee, not the company. See https://millionmilesecrets.com/news/you-can-earn-american-express-membership-rewards-points-on-amex-corporate-cards/ https://millionmilesecrets.com/news/you-can-earn-american-ex...
- astura 7y ago
  My AMEX corporate card didn't allow me to earn rewards. I didn't know some did. It also had a personal guarantee. From your link >However, if your company has blocked the American Express Membership Rewards program, you will NOT be able to enroll your corporate cards. Also >To earn American Express Membership Rewards points, you have to pay $90 to enroll your American Express Green Corporate card or American Express Gold Corporate card. So only worth it for people who know they will be big spenders and who won't leave the company for a long time. For someone who travels only once a year (like me) totally not worth it. I'd rather collect the ~$30 cash back on my 2.5% cash back card.

syedkarim 7y ago

Why would you be buying any personal items with a company credit card? Isn't that what your own personal credit card is for?

myalphabet 7y ago
It isn't extremely common to do so, but the most basic example I can give is incidentals at a hotel. The hotel room and some incidentals are reimbursed by the company, but other incidentals are not (ie some consulting clients do not allow the reimbursement of alcohol). It's typically easier to just put it all on the corporate card and mark some of the transactions as reimbursable and some of them as personal than it is to finagle a way to settle the hotel bill with multiple credit cards. There's also the one-off situation where I really needed a new pair of pants while traveling (my only clean pair of business-appropriate pants split down the middle) and for some reason the only card I had on me was my corporate card. Obviously extremely rare, but I've heard of similar situation (but with a belt) happening to another colleague.