I remember when I was at Google (2013->15), the travel system was "gamified", and was an enormous waste of time. You had to come in at or below the median pric

I remember when I was at Google (2013->15), the travel system was "gamified", and was an enormous waste of time. You had to come in at or below the median price for a trip. If you came in below the median, you could bank the difference and eventually use it to get a nicer hotel, first class upgrade, etc on future travel. And if you came in over the median, and had no banked credits, you had to get a VP to sign off on your expense report. This all sounds great on paper, and I'm sure it reduced the travel expense line in Google's budget. But unanticipated effect was that you had engineers making mid 6-figure total comp spending way too much of their time finding travel deals so they could come in below the median. Talk about penny wise and pound foolish.