Business/First class airfare tickets policy.

[Bradley M. Kuhn]

Hey all, the list has been quiet for a while so might as well start a
controversial discussion to get it going again! :)

First of all, I am purposely not naming which project or the individual was
the catalyst mentioned below -- the goal is not to shame them, but to
discuss possible policy changes to prevent the privileged from abusing the
travel budgets.

Also, you'll have a hard time following this if you aren't familiar with the
flight-search-based budget rules in the travel policy, so if you are rusty
on those, you may want to take a look at the travel policy section regarding
that before reading the rest:
  https://sfconservancy.org/projects/policies/conservancy-travel-policy.html
  

So, we've recently had a traveler for a member project become aggressive
with Conservancy -- demanding that they should be permitted to book
business/first class tickets without the required preapproval.  Since this
issue has come up, and IIRC it has never been discussed here explicitly, I
thought it might be useful to discuss here.  Currently, the policy on
business/first class travel is:

>> #### Class of Service

>> Coach and/or Economy Airfare is the only acceptable class for all flights
>> (domestic and international) unless a PLC provides a special exception
>> and a valid reason (such as a need for business class due to a documented
>> medical reason) to Conservancy for written approval.

Historically, since this policy was enacted circa 2011, there are exactly
two instances of this clause being exercised (unrelated to the issue above).
In both cases, there was a serious medical issue for the traveler and both
the PLC and a Conservancy officer gave a one-time pre-approved the
first/business class flight.  (Again, not going to name names of projects or
individual here due to privacy, etc.)

It seems to me this policy is functioning.  I am extremely reluctant to
change this policy, despite that one project is currently pressuring us to
change it.  The current policy doesn't prohibit business/first class travel,
but requires extra *preapprove* steps before booking.  In the case we are
currently facing, the traveler was aware of the policy and simply 'assumed'
that they would be reimbursed at the full flight-budget amount from the
economy flight search.

Admittedly, it would be more convenient for us in processing travel expenses
if there was some "auto rule" in place.  From a logistic perspective,
anything that doesn't require preapproval makes staff's life much easier.

But, even though it would personally save me time in processing requests, I
am uncomfortable with an "auto-max-out budget" in this situation.  Such a
rule would have the weird effect of allowing the wealthy and privileged to
always "max out" their budget, using the budget funds to offset their first
class experience, while those who book coach and cannot afford to pay
themselves the exorbitant ticket prices don't get that same opportunity (we
can't just "give extra money" to those who book a flight that's less then
their budget from the search).  In essence, an "auto max of your budget" is
a method for the rich to get (slightly) richer.

One idea I had is that we could have a short-circuit rule added to the
policy that would state that (for example) exactly *one-half* the flight
budget will be paid if the budget is exceeded without required preapproval
before booking.  This in my mind would give the best of both worlds -- those
who don't / refuse to follow the rules are still penalized, but not fully.

(I'd want to couple this, though, with a strict rule that says a missing
flight search means that *no* flights are reimbursed in any event no matter
what, because this is the biggest time-waster we have in travel policy
enforcement, because despite that we pre-create tickets now and draw
attention to the issue, lots of travelers don't bother to do the required
flight search at least two weeks before travel.  I realize that's an
orthogonal issue of course.)

This is similar BTW to what we already do with hotels: if you fail to get
preapproval before your hotel stay, only the maximum GSA/Dept of State
budget is paid.  However, I am wondering if we should also switch that to be
one-half as well, for similar reasons: it allows people to book fancy hotels
and particularly the Dept of State rates are often well above the average
hotel price for an area.

I wonder if perhaps we could use this "fail to get preapproval,
short-circuit to one-half" principle as a method throughout the travel
policy to solve many of the pre-approval issues that we've faced.

I'm curious what others who travel under Conservancy's policy think about
all this.  I realize I've brought up various unrelated issues, but they all
really relate to the same thing: maxing out a frugal budget in an effort to
offset what are effectively luxury expenses.

 * * *

BTW, keep in mind that zero-cash-cost upgrades, such as mileage upgrades or
frequent flyer upgrade certificates, are not at issue here.  The policy (and
the itself IRS, actually), explicitly don't consider that as the
"organization paying for first class", provided that the flight(s) are
otherwise within policy.
 
Speaking for myself, I am probably the second-most-frequently subject to the
travel policy in Conservancy (after Karen), as we both travel a lot for
Conservancy and the policy applies to both of us just as it applies to all
of you.  I occasionally get zero-cost upgrades due to FF benefits, which I
find a wonderful treat the few times it happens, but generally I spend a
*lot* of my life sitting in coach airplane seats, often desperately fighting
for arm-rest space so I can do Conservancy work while I travel.

SO, yeah, I *personally* would really find it easier to work and sleep on
the plane if I could get upgraded more often, but I really don't even want
to start going down the road of saying: "some of us *deserve* first class
because <REASON THAT IS NOT MEDICAL>".  It's just not the culture of the
kind of organization that I want to work for.  I don't feel comfortable with
a travel the policy that lets those who can afford first-class travel for
cash be able to maximize their coach budgets.
-- 
Bradley M. Kuhn
Distinguished Technologist of Software Freedom Conservancy
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