| Topic Name: |
ACN Business Travel |
| Message Name: |
Haven't really thought about it like that |
| Date Posted: |
02/22/2006 |
| In Reply To: |
You book your own travel through ACN's website so pick whatever you want. The policy is to take the cheapest flight that gets you to work on time. However, I'm in a major city that is a hub so almost every carrier flys out of my city.
About hotels, your proj prob has a rate guideline. Just stay in a reg hotel where the prices is in line with everything else.
For example, when I was in DC, the Ritz, Hilton and other hotels were around $200/night. So that was my guideline. Overall, no one really looks at your expenses until you exceed the bill rate to expense ration. For consulting, expenses are normally around 14% of bill rate. So take your bill rate times the number of hours you work in a month, multiply by 14% and don't exceed that number and you can pretty much do whatever you want. |
| Message: |
Don't think I've ever really looked at it from a 14% times bill rate perspective... I've never been on a project that cared what hotel/air carrier/rental company you used as long as your costs were approximately what everyone elses costs are. I travelled to DC for a year before transferring up here, and we could basically stay at any hotel in the city for $150 (government rate which typically applies to contractors for government agencies as well) so alot of people would change every week just to try out different places :-)
We have preferred hotels, but it's basically the big boys, Marriott, Hilton, and Sheraton as well as all of the hotels in their subsidary brands. However, some projects that are longer-term will move to staying in apartments sometimes (it's basically up to whoever is in charge of the budget on the project) to save a bit of money. There's certainly points that are nice about apartments (not having to carry a suitcase every week when travelling is nice) but you certainly won't be getting any points...
Same thing about air carriers I think. The primary concern is that you pick the lowest priced flight with the least number of connections (i.e. cheapest direct flight if there's a direct regardless of whether a 1-stop is cheaper). The system will check out other flights to compare, though if you have a strong preference for a specific carrier you can usually find a way to justify it (times getting to the client, leaving the client, etc.).
I guess my post have been a bit scattered :-) Moral of the story is we don't really have any set-in-stone policies about you can stay here, but not here, etc. especially if the people you like to use are one of the big hotel chains/air carriers. As long as you're expenses aren't out of whack with others on the project you'll probably be fine.
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