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?

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
Theres loads if reasons how you could use your loyalty card at work.
We do a weekly shop at Tesco every Wednesday and can spend up to £150 in that shop plus incidental throughout the week. We do have a loyalty card in the pretty cash tin but often stuff members ' forget' it. This is for a local authority. We have a Boots one as well and also a Go Outdoors which people have used for their own use.

The managers know who does what so the best thing to do is let them manage and I make sure that I'm accountable for my actions if theres ever an audit done. I'm not desperate to make a couple of quid for the sake of my reputation.

@Pinksparklypussycat - I'll answer your question as best I can. When I first started work ( I am old) you could go down to the accountant's office & ask for an advance . That stopped. Then we were issued with company credit cards which were only to be used for company business , not personal use ( Amex) But , the credit card had to be paid off by the person ( wasn't paid by the company ) so you had to make sure you claimed expenses quickly before the bill came in. Not sure that helps but how it worked for me. ( Have I helped at all there )

Er I think Amex is a charge card not a credit card - not sure of the difference - but just for the purposes of trying to tell it as best I remember it

I’d think this falls into the same category as delay repay for trains. Most companies stipulate the refund is theirs and not yours to claim.

It potentially has tax implications too - a friend of mine used to Personally claim and use air miles on his work travel. Except actually it wasn’t allowed, the company just recently caught up with the tax implications and as it’s a taxable benefit the employees might be stung for the tax going back years.

@Isleepinahedgfund - do you mean air miles used to for work business or those accumulated on a card ? DH gets airmiles on a company card would be very interested if he has to pay tax on those ( as far as I can see mostly used for upgrades on work flights when available / offered )

Don't worry too much - I can google along with the best of 'em

I doubt her work would allow this. I got something in Tesco for work and claimed it back, but got told off for scanning my club card, which was about 10 points, literally pennies.

There's bound to be a policy to cover this and it will be likely prohibited as it can cause tax problems for companies too but what can you do? It's nothing to do with you and she's just have to take her chances. You could suggest she thinks twice if you want to be a good pal but then leave her to it.

Quite a big monetary difference though between claiming Nectar points (worth 0.5% I think) or credit card cashback (usually 0.5%) on your own work purchases vs claiming cashback (often 10% or more) on the work spending of 30 people.

Even if only done on your own spending, you are looking at £5 per £1000 spent vs £100 or more per £1000 spent, or 20 times as much and that's before you multiply it by 30 people. Also, as a pp pointed out it's nearly 10% of the UK average annual wage, except actually worth more than that if not paying any tax or ni on it. Which means if they knew about it, other work colleagues may not think it very fair that one colleague is effectively getting a tax free in work perk / cash bonus which could be worth the equivalent of a 10% wage rise. Would be different if the money could somehow be shared out between everyone / pay for after work drinks or lunches, day or night out etc or went to a charity of the employees choice.

I used to buy food for my company from Tesco's.The card was registered to the company and they used to save the vouchers until Christmas, then buy goodies for the staff Christmas party with it 😊