Friend using Cashback websites for work purchase

[Awebby1985]

Hi, long time lurker on MN but first time poster! Met a friend for lunch on Saturday a whilst chatting about work, my friend mentioned to me that as her work as a PA/assistant she frequently makes hotel/travel bookings for her team of around 30 people and said that when making these bookings always uses her personal online cashback account/website to make the bookings and makes around £200 a month from this.

So my question is, is my friend doing anything wrong? She is not stealing anything from the company as the travel would still need to be booked regardless?

Most of the (largish private sector) companies I’ve worked for in the last twenty years have expected you to buy things on your own credit card and reclaim them. All of them have been entirely fine with using a credit card that gives you cash back. My current company does all hotels and travel bookings through a central procurement system which I think probably gets them cash back, but things like conference attendance and professional memberships are still paid for personally and reclaimed. I probably make all of twenty quid a year in cash back, and would be 100% happy to explain this to anyone in my chain of command who wanted to know - it’s not influenced my decision or disadvantaged my employers in any way.

However I think the OP’s friend is on much more dodgy ground because of the scale of the scheme.

It would be a disciplinary offence where I work. (Large multinational.)

I suspect it would be seen as a sensible idea where dh works . (Small start up.)

There is no “skimming off” and no “inducements”, “bribes” or “sweeteners”. It’s someone who’s used their initiative to their advantage while not depriving anyone of anything. Good for them.

My work wouldn't care about this. I do something similar with my fuel and when I mentioned it they just laughed.

piglet
You are massively overthinking this

What about if you send your receptionist to the local cafe to buy sandwiches a couple of times a week to buy sandwiches for meetings
And because she strikes up a good relationship with the owner, they give her a free sandwich and bar of chocolate when she is there

Do you dock her wages because she doesn’t have to buy her lunch a couple of times a week?

My assistant books restaurants for me for work lunches, using OpenTable
You usually get 100 points per booking but there are some restaurants that give you 1000 points per booking
When you get to 10,000 points, you get a £100 restaurant voucher
Has she asked us to do this? Of course not. Do I know when I’m in a 1,000 point restaurant which is a bit odd? Usually.
But so what? In a company of people getting lots of free meals all the time, she gets a few a year using the vouchers she earns

You would have to be beyond tight and scabby to begrudge someone using their initiative like that

A friend did something very similar Was asked for her letter of notice or would have been sacked for misconduct. Can she 100% justify (and proove) prices were not more competitive away from the cashback site?

It's actually quite an interesting question from a tax point of view. Normally it's not taxable for someone to get nectar points / air miles etc (as per HMRC guidance that previous posters have linked to), so long as that person is getting them in the same circumstances as anyone else and not making decisions as to where to shop based on a reward scheme.

However I'd say this person is getting quite a lot of extra income not from this sort of normal spending, but rather benefiting from something in the course of her employment. She's only getting the points because she works there and it's not her own spend. I would suspect HMRC would therefore view this as additional cash income and it should therefore have been subject to PAYE / NIC. I think if I ever came across this in my course of work it would create some interesting arguments as to what to do and how to treat it!

@TrentBridge
HMRC have issued very clear guidance on this, and OPs example doesn’t breach it

I’ve got colleagues who put £100k events on their work Amex, and collect the points which are immediately converted into hundreds of pounds of Selfridges vouchers for them to go and spend. HMRC don’t have any ability to look into it because it’s within their guidance
The amount doesn’t make any difference to them

Our firm would call it "gross misconduct warranting summary dismissal".

The guidance is clear about "personal spend". This isn't personal spend and the amounts are large. As I said in my post, I think HMRC would see this as income being attained by "virtue of the individual's employment" rather than trivial income being picked up as a side effect of someone's job.

Unless you can find me the specific guidance in which case fab and could you send me the link - this is my day job and I'd love to be able to discuss it when I'm talking to clients!!

in the company ( I used to work for ) it would be fraud and not tolerated. But then people used to have to book flights / travel / etc on their own cards and claim back . I am with @pigletjohn , need to be utterly clear on expenses

DH gets air miles - but he either has someone booking it for him or he does it according to company guidelines. Not the same in my view as getting a discount you keep.
So one thing is HMRC - the other thing is the company guidelines / rules.

So 1. make sure the company is happy how she is doing this & then 2 declare to HMRC - if both are good she is fine.

So free personal air travel via air miles is fine. Cash via a cash back site isn’t. I can almost see those angels dancing on the head of the pin.

I use my nectar card when I fill up the company van. I'm now trying to track down the relevant policy to see if I'm going to get fired!

@Nesssie for us that would be fine as long as -a) the petrol station that takes nectar card is one of tge closest to work, and b) their petrol is competitively priced

@Alsohuman airmiles are often ok if you get them as s consequence of booking, but not if they are the criteria for booking. i’m allowed to collect airmiles after booking. i’m not allowed to use specific sides to actually do thr booking , or select - for example BA for but if BA is cheapest, i’m allowed to take the airmiles

@myself2020 We can only use BP stations, and I fill up on my way to/from work so I'm definitely not going out of the way to get to a specific station to benefit.

I don't see a problem with this as long as the friend isn't selecting a more expensive option due to a booking site having a higher cashback %. As long as it isn't costing the company anything more it shouldn't be an issue as the company can't use the cashback themselves so the bottom line is it doesn't cost the company anything.

That being said if the company they work for gets wind of it and its against policy then they could be in trouble. Especially as some booking confirmations say it has been booked through a cashback site. Also if the cashback site gets wind of it they may close the account when they realise it isn't for an individual but they are also making money from it so probably wouldn't care. And lastly there may be some HMRC implications if they got wind f it.

I can't see the difference between using a cashback site or getting cashback on a credit card.

If my employer told me I couldn't use my credit card for company expenses because I got cashback (or some other benefit) I would sweetly say I wasn't applying for another card, so they needed to pay for all my company expenses themselves, or give me cash. I wonder how long that policy would last. (and no using a debit card isn't the same because the money leaves your account almost straight away and weeks before most companies reimburse you).

And if I was sent to a shop to buy something for work and had a loyalty card I would use it too. I can't really see why you would, unless you were eg buying soap at Boots for the staff loos but the principle applies.

in the company ( I used to work for ) it would be fraud and not tolerated. But then people used to have to book flights / travel / etc on their own cards and claim back

I assume you were all very well paid and had very large credit limits?

Companies' mean expenses policies are a topic for another thread.

So does that mean I shouldn't be using my Nectar card when I nip to the garage when we run out of milk for work? Or that if I have to go somewhere for work and have to fill up with petrol and claim back later that I shouldn't use my airmiles credit card and Shell card?

Hit send to soon. If that's the case someone else can go or the can give me cash!

My current company allows this but a previous company would not.

I have about 500,000 air miles courtesy of the travel I do through work.

Technically she is pocketing what should be a company saving, given that the majority of travel does not include her. It's very different to being allowed to use your own airline points number on your trips.

I think in my place that would be gross misconduct. Not to mention that it probably constitutes fraud according to the cashback website's T&Cs.

@feairweathercyclist - yes - by and large people had to pay for expendable travel themselves and then claim it back - so quicker you claimed the sooner it was back in your bank account. I see your point - it needed an amount of cashflow - but usually expenses were paid back within 4 weeks so no interest due. Very strict guidelines as to what kind of ticket allowed . Over and above that any "points" delivered to your card were not expected to be given to the company. I think that is different to booking 30 flights on a personal card getting cash back. I may be wrong.

& yes @fairweathercyclist - most large company expense rules are very strict - well at least the one I worked for. & I am not sure that is not a bad thing.

@BasiliskStare, what happens if you haven't got a big enough credit limit or even no card? I'm happy to pay for things myself so I can get airmiles but it wasn't too long ago I didn't have a credit card.