To think this is too long to wait for expenses?

[Rhayader]

Everywhere I have worked before, expenses have been processed on a monthly basis, or sometimes every 2 weeks. Meaning that you are never out of pocket for too long. I have never had to claim for anything more than a train ticket, and my biggest claim was less than £100.

DH has been working at a company for a few years now, but he has never had to claim for anything as he as always been with his boss for meals and has never traveled anywhere.

In the last month he has been on two long haul trips and has another 2 in the next 2 months. DH gave all of his receipts to his bosses PA when he got back from the first trip and I have been waiting for them to come into our account but they haven't. Upon asking it appears that the company have a policy where they process and pay expenses every 3 months! By cheque! (DH didn't know this until he asked around).

We are not talking about insignificant amounts of money here, the hotel for the first trip alone was £2K, plus meals, taxis etc. There is no way we can pay this out of pocket for 4 trips and if we put it on credit cards it's a long enough wait that we will be paying interest on the debt.

AIBU to think this is way too long to wait or is this pretty standard and we are just unlucky to have so many trips at once?

YES PLEASE SHOTS! I mean, Europe would suit me well I think, as I speak French and am entitled to an eu passport, (though have a British one by choice ATM). I used to live in Paris as it goes and loved it there.

Would have to convince DH to up sticks of course, but you never know... Oh yeah, and there's the small matter of my toddler DD and me being ten weeks pregnant atm.

Hmmmm, maybe not right now then . I'm very envious of your location though .

Em that sounded weird. I mean there's the small matter of me having a toddler DD and also being 10 weeks pregnant. My toddler DD is not pregnant, obviously .

It is ridiculous. If the journeys are needed for work (and not eg a conference he wants to attend) I'd play hardball and say you expect the company to book the hotel, flights etc and pay the bills direct.

At least if he only needs to pay taxis and the like it will not be £13k!

Gosh I used to get annoyed about amounts like £300 and refuse to pay upfront myself! The only time I backed down was when I wanted to attend a conference, so I paid for the flight myself and claimed it back later, but if it had been a pure work trip I'd have said no. If the company want you to travel, they can flippin well cough up.

Employees should not have to make their employers interest-free loans. Or be required to have credit cards with enormous credit limits.

I would get him to talk to his boss and insist on reimbursement within a reasonable time - eg a couple of weeks, not several months!

It's not for a conference he's visiting international offices of his company, and it's whole weeks at a time, sat to fri eve/sat morn depending on which direction of time zones he's flying in. There is absolutely 0% chance of days in lieu though!

The trip he's on now was meant to happen a while ago but it kept being pushed back. The other 3 are urgent requests by his bosses boss (C level).

DH boss actually tried to stop trip 3 and 4 from happening but he was overruled. I work full time and have 2 small DC (pre school) so it's not particularly easy on me when he is away and his boss knows this. Bosses boss lives in a world where everyone has live in nannies and it probably hasn't crossed his mind. That said, he should get a good bonus from all this so there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

@Decaffstilltastesweird well, I get referral bonuses so I'll tip you the if I see a vacancy...

Thanks shots!

Sorry for hijack op .

It sounds like your DH deserves a spot bonus at least for all the extra work and upheaval to do it. Hopefully he won't have to travel again for a while and when he does, maybe he can speak with the pa re having his expenses invoiced to the company as far as possible. It really isn't an unreasonable request imo, given the circumstances.

Haha no problem :)

Spot bonus seriously unlikely - they are very particular about this sort of thing. It's once a year in a separate pay slip.

A raise might be possible though as that system has a bit more leeway and his boss has far more say.

Maybe he can just start to refuse to fund the purchases himself. if he's not being adequately reimbursed (paying the interest on a credit card wouldn't be good enough - that's taxable) then he should put his foot down. £2,000 is an outrageous amount - he's providing his employer with free credit. They can reimburse him whenever they want. they simply choose not to.

All flights should be paid for by the employer direct anyway. It's only things that can only be paid for on the ground that he should have to pay and then claim back.

His flights are already paid by his company Collaborate, he's just staying in ridiculously expensive hotels and for long periods of time.

OP I have a lot of experience of booking international travel for top execs using a corporate travel company and where I work now we have an in house travel booker - business and first class are considerably more expensive than the different grades of economy class. We are talking thousands of pounds. How much more expensive depends on the airline and the route.

wowfudge i was talking about first from business, not economy to business. They never fly economy or premium economy for business travel. The policy seems to be, business but sometimes first if it's cheap or free.

For one flight he was on the waiting list for first and business and the first seat came up so he got that. On the other first flight, it was not very much more so they just paid it.

A few years ago they tried to change the policy to economy for under 2 hours flight and there was outrage (ridiculous I know). The only time they fly economy is on the (entirely company funded) ski trip each year.

It's sometimes a false economy sending people economy class. Especially long haul. They often aren't in a fit state to do their job at the other end. Ditto flights with a gazillion transfers instead of as direct as possible. I used to have to debate this with one of the directors who had a bit of a point to prove re travel budget.