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I’ve been trying to find a good way to fly my dog to the desert in the middle of summer (more on that solution by septel) and it turns out I have to fly through FCO. The one-ways were crazy…thousands of dollars above the contract fares. As is my wont, I walked around FSI bitching about how hard my life was. Here’s the rub: you’d be surprised how many folks told me that I could use the contract fares on alternate routings (e.g. flying through FCO instead of FRA). Sorry, but no. Check out 14 FAM 546, which basically says that the only time you can use the contract rates are those that follow the orders to the letter (including stop-overs, if they’re on the way) and are the least-expensive way to get there.
As an aside, during my fare search my FCO-post segment was 3x cheaper if booked as a round-trip instead of a one-way. Carson Wagonlit is prohibited from booking a ticket like that, so you’d have to purchase the fare on your own. Before doing that, you’d want to make sure that your EX will reimburse your voucher.
One Response to “Heads up: Cost constructing travel”
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January 28th, 2009 at 4:06 am
Hi, thought people would be interested to know that on my most recent R&R to Boston, I flew to NY and then rented a car round trip. Since we are a family of 4, the cost construct for the two week rental came in under the comprable airfare, for a full size rental car. Cost was about $550.
I hadn’t realized this before, but since we have family in NY and wanted to visit there anyway, it worked out perfectly, sicne we would have had to rent a car in either case.
I justified the larger car using the 1 suitcase per person allowance for domestic travel. Rental car companies have the suitcase capacities for each car size. My controller also permitted the use of taxi fares saved as part of the cost construct calculation.