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Travel Expense Rules

Creato 5 apr, 2023 • Ultimo aggiornamento 19 gen, 2024 • Per Circle Lead

The Golden Rule

To get reimbursed for travel-related expenses while traveling on organizational business, you must optimize expenses at least to the same extent you would were you paying personally, and at least a reasonable degree given the overall context of the purchase and the company.

Re optimizing expenses at least to the same extent you would if paying personally:  Generally, for flights this usually means you should book whatever routing, seats, and class of service you would book when paying personally, and for hotels, you should book whatever hotel class and price range you would book if paying personally, etc.  If asked, you must be able to show evidence that would lead a reasonable person to believe you would likely make similar personal spending choices, such as receipts for past similar personal purchases (just asserting you would is not enough).  If you want to book a more expensive option than this because you think the benefits to the organization are worth the extra expense, then you must get an explicit spending authorization for the difference rather than relying on this default travel expense policy.

Re optimizing expenses at least to a reasonable degree given the overall context of the purchase and company:  This part is necessarily subjective, so if you thought you did optimize to a reasonable degree and the relevant role that must approve the expense disagrees, that role will defer to your interpretation and instead just note the disagreement, rather than deny the expense based on this part of the criteria (except in cases where that role reasonably claims gross negligence). However, once you've received this warning, any similar cases in the future that fit a similar pattern will be denied outright based on the relevant role's interpretation.

For Lodging Expenses

When travel is for an official "Partner Retreat" scheduled by the organization, your lodging will be arranged for you and paid for directly by the company, unless you elect to book your own lodging and receive a per-diem lodging reimbursement instead.  Your per-diem will be the lesser of $100/night or your actual out of pocket cost for your chosen lodging (you may interpret "cost" to include any negative cash impact on you, such as lost rental income if staying at your own property that would otherwise be rented).  To make this election, you must either notify the relevant role before that role makes any lodging reservations, or confirm with the role that the change will not negatively impact the organization.

For all other travel, you may claim lodging reimbursement at-cost.

for Meals & Incidentals (M&I)

You may claim M&I reimbursement when an overnight stay is effectively required for travel (or equivalent; e.g. a red-eye flight); meals incurred for day trips without an overnight stay are generally not reimbursable as a travel expense, however may be under other rules (e.g. a lunch with a client to discuss business matters).

For Partner Retreats: When travel is for an official Partner Retreat or for similar co-working and collaboration with other Partners, M&I reimbursement is allowed at a per-diem rate of $20 per day, including travel days.  You may also expense at-cost any groceries used to cook a group meal to offer at the official retreat location, as long as all partners in the area are invited to share in the meal, and it includes dietary options that work for nearly all partners.

For All Other Travel: M&I is reimbursed using per-diem rates for the relevant location, beginning on the day of arrival at your destination and ending on the day of departure from your destination.  For destinations within the United States, the per-diem rate is 100% of the GSA-specified rate; for travel outside the US, the per-diem rate is 50% of the DoS-specified rate.  If a meal is included for you during a day of your trip (e.g. a client provides lunch, or you book a hotel rate that includes breakfast), subtract 25% off the per-diem rate for an included breakfast, 25% for an included lunch, and 50% for an included dinner; this does not apply if you couldn't reasonably take advantage of the meal.  For arrival & departure days at the start/end of a trip, treat meals you could have had at home as "included", and the maximum allowed per-diem rate in any case is 75% of the full-day rate (or 100% for an arrival from or departure on overnight travel accommodations).

In either case, the following rules also apply:

  • M&I reimbursement line items on expense reports show the relevant per-diem rate and the number of days claimed.
  • If meal expenses are incurred for purposes other than personal consumption (e.g. taking a client out to dinner) and would otherwise be reimbursable, the portion of the meal attributable to non-partners shall be reimbursable beyond the per-diem rate if submitted separately with a receipt, with the partner's share explicitly listed and subtracted out.
  • If you change location in the middle of a continuous trip, use 50% of the departure location rate plus 50% of the arrival location rate for the day of the change.
  • When travel lasts more than 15 days in the same location, per-diems drop to 50% of the otherwise-allowed amount after the first 15 days if your lodging includes a kitchen.
  • If you wish, you may use a Partner-Controlled Budget to expense M&I per-diems over these allowed amounts, up through the limit allowed by the IRS for full deductibility.
  • A late departure only counts as "overnight travel" if an objective 3rd party would likely believe that you are sleeping while traveling and arriving the next morning; you can’t bill a departure day at 100% if you are just leaving really late (even if it's after 3 meals) and arriving even later that “night” (such that you’d then go home and sleep for the night).  So, an overnight train trip or a red-eye flight departing at 10pm and arriving at 6am clearly meets the criteria for overnight travel; arriving at 3am only does if you can reasonably claim that you slept on the travel and arrived the next morning ready to start your day at 3am (vs. go home and crash).

For Transportation Expenses

You may claim reimbursement for transportation expenses when traveling on organizational business.  This specifically means transportation that:

  • Gets you from wherever you were before the organizational business to the location of that business.
  • Gets you from the business location, either back to wherever you were before or on to wherever you choose to go next, whichever costs less (though if your next destination is also required for the organization's business, it will be reimbursable at-cost regardless).
    • In other words:  The most you can expect reimbursement for is the cost to get you back where you started; if you instead decide to go somewhere different next then you can get reimbursement for that leg instead, but never more than it would have cost you to get back to your starting point, nor more than you actually paid to get to your next destination.
  • However, you can still claim reimbursement using a simple round-trip comp if your overall trip gets you back where you started, but includes a short stay elsewhere for personal reasons right before going to the business location and/or returning to your origin (i.e. a multi-legged trip).  For multi-legged trips, you may disregard any extra personal stops and short stays along the way and not count them as points of origin or next-locations, and the organization shall reimburse you for what it would have cost to get directly to and return directly from the business location without other stops involved (or, if less, for the actual cost of your overall travel from and back to your origin).  For the purpose of this policy, a "short stay" means whatever feels reasonable in the context of the overall travel, but never more than two weeks.
    • In other words:  Feel free to book a multi-legged trip and just submit a roundtrip comp for reimbursement, as long as the roundtrip rate isn't more than you actually paid for the whole trip (attach your actual receipt as well to show that).  However, if you're staying somewhere along your route for a long time, then that counts as your origin/return point (i.e. it doesn't count as a multi-legged trip).

Further, the following rules shall also apply:

  • If you choose to travel by car over a long distance, you may only submit for reimbursement at the lowest cost of your reasonable transportation options (e.g. mileage, train, or airfare).
  • Reimbursable airline tickets purchased with a Partner's frequent flyer miles shall be reimbursable at the lower of: (a) the airfare the Partner would otherwise have spent on the ticket (which must still meet all required thresholds for "optimizing expenses"), or (b) a typical cost to purchase those frequent flyer miles from the airline in a bulk sale purchase (e.g. $0.018/mile on American Airlines).
  • The organization will pay flight change fees when flights are changed for business reasons or personal family emergencies.  For other personally-motivated changes, the organization will split the change fee with a partner when the motivation for the change is unexpected, undesired, and not just for personal convenience or preference.
  • You may only rent a car for travel on organizational business if you're covered by an auto insurance policy that covers liability from an accident, with reasonable and customary limits.  The cost of such an insurance policy falls within the basic professional infrastructure requirements in the organization's Partnership Grant Agreement, and is thus a personal expense and not reimbursable (even if you purchase it as an add-on from the rental car agency).
  • For long-distance trips that require significant time zone adjustment, you may stay one extra night for recovery purposes and consider that night still "traveling on organizational business".
  • Frequent Flyer: partners with an airline's 50k mile tier status (or an equivalent level of business travel across multiple airlines) may expense up to an additional $3,000 each calendar year for travel conveniences or improved accommodations while traveling on company business, provided the spending still benefits the organization in a reasonable way (e.g. by easing the burden of travel to enhance the quality or quantity of time or energy the partner dedicates to organizational work).  This spending does not have to meet the usual requirements for "optimizing expenses", nor do these expenses need to be submitted within the usual deadlines, as long as they're still submitted within a year of being incurred.  This budget does not carry over year to year; any unused portion is lost at the end of each year.  This budget may be used to bring someone else along on business trips to assist with various personal functions to ease the partner's travel burden.

A partner may choose to spend more on transportation than allowed by these policies and still be reimbursed for the allowed amount by the organization.  However, to claim such a reimbursement for the allowed amount, a partner must submit both their actual receipts and a "comparable" cost quote showing the transportation expenses which would otherwise have been fully reimbursable, along with a brief explanation highlighting how/why the requested reimbursement is allowed by these policies (unless self-evident from the included receipts/comp).

For Quarantine Expenses

If your travel on organizational business legally requires you to quarantine after the trip (whether at the business location or at your own home upon return), then, for each day you fully align with the legal quarantine requirement, you may expense up to $75 of additional general living expenses that you wouldn't otherwise have incurred if you hadn't been quarantined.