Paying for Fuel/hotac
 

Just canvasing opinions..... If you divert in your big jet to an off line station how does your company arrange for payment for fuel, accommodation for crew and pax in the event of a nightstop, etc?

Background: A certain airline has just decided to issue it's flight crew with a credit card for payment of such bills. However the card appears to be actually be "personal" card, with the individual pilot being responsible for paying the card company at the end of the month.

Company's theory is:

1. Pilot pays bill for fuel etc, using his/her card and forwards expenses claim (for fuel, etc) to airline accounts on RTB.

2. Accounts then pay pilot due amount.

3.Pilot then pays his/her credit card bill when it arrives

Pilots' theory is:

1. Accounts might be tardy in paying pilot :rolleyes:.

2. Pilot is left facing a bill for, say, 30 tonnes of Jet fuel and 100 hotel rooms without the funds in his bank account to do so.



Anybody else here use such a system?

My advice is not to touch it with a barge-pole. Supposing the company goes bust, leaving the pilot with potentially thousands of pounds on "his" credit card. Any reputable company will issue company credit cards, and there are always fuel carnets for the Jet A1. I had to do it a couple of times, but I had confidence in the company I was with at the time. Having said that, my last company re-imbursed me (for a relatively small amount) and then the tax man saw it as an "allowance" and taxed me on it!

Be very careful. Pilots have been left holding the bag for company expenses before after a shutdown. I'm one of them - I was stuck with a $1,500 bill when the small charter company I worked for went bust back in the 90's. I know of a guy who diverted the day of the 9/11 attacks. He used his personal Visa to reserve crew rooms because the local hotels were quickly getting filled. His company went bust a few months later and he was stuck with a bill for 12 rooms at a very high rate, seeing as the hotel had decided to take full advantage of their windfall. It took a long time and some hefty legal fees to fight it.

wiggy
 

Don't do it. In the 1990's my employer wanted to impose such a system. Just don't sign, you can't be fired for that. I survived 10 years asking the co for a cash advance every trip. No fuel, so what? They'll change their mind fast.

You are not alone, make sure your colleagues are aware of the dangers.

When I was a 25 y-o new boy I was given a company American Express. The idea was that if I could be trusted to represent the company abroad I could be trusted with their card.

No, no, no and NO.

Never accept such a scam.

If they employ you, they pay. Don't sign anything.

In my youth... we were issued with "no limit" company Amex cards. We paid for absolutely everything on them and the card bill went directly to the company and was paid by them. However... one of my colleagues reckoned that technically it was joint liability so if the company had gone bust the card provider could probably have come after us.

Company didn't go bust so who knows what would have happened, my next employer simply sorted everything. Dunno if they paid by bank transfer or account or whatever but no one ever asked me to pay for anything beyond my bar bill even on diversions to unknown places.

There is a limit on how short a post can be on this site, or it is rejected, hence my verbosity. . . . . . original post below



DON'T ! ! ! ! :=

I was left £12k down when my company went bust.
Concur with all previous postings. This is a Basil/Prune first ;)

Surely the Co. can't issue you with a card in your name? you should have to apply for it directly to the issuing bank?

Wouldn't touch it with a barge pole as has previously been said.

wiggy

Did you sign a credit card agreement or an internal company document? If the latter then you may have a leg to stand on, if the former then you could have issues (assuming that your post wasn't theoretical)

if the former then you could have PROBLEMS not "ISSUES" (for christ's sake)

Ask yourself one simple question: What possible reason would an employer have for wanting you to use your own credit to fund HIS operation?

You would have to be completely deluded to even consider such an option!!

Thanks for all your thought guys - Even though the card is only supposedly for emergency use the idea seemed so bizarre I was genuinely interested to see if anybody else knew of anything similar.

You've all confirmed what a lot of us were already thinking.......card's already been binned/cancelled ( and not just by myself), thanks again.

A company I worked for expected people who travelled on company business to guarantee, and pay for, hotac and other ground expenses with our own resources. The hotel stays often went to several weeks in expensive hotels. They provided commercial air tickets for the original journey but any changes or extensions also had to be funded by us.

On completion of the journey we submitted expense reports which some petty minded clerk who had never travelled more than 5 miles from home went through, and if approved through several layers of bureaucracy, it was repaid to us. They sometimes refused to pay out against receipts in Cyrillic, Arabic or other alphabets. I was also asked to provide 'official' receipts for taxi and rickshaw journeys on the Indian subcontinent.

Obviously the approval process took some time and the bill usually hit us in the pocket before the credit from the company. Eventually they agreed that 'under extreme circumstances' they would give an advance but we had to walk on our hands to get this and it usually required a week or so advance notice and we often had to make trips at much shorter notice. At one stage they would only give the advance in cash, not very smart for a number of reasons.

All this was before internet banking, so the administration was a nightmare.

Then they gave us company credit cards but the payment still came out of our own accounts, although they had a longer than normal billing cycle so that if you were lucky, you were refunded before the debit hit the account.

Smudger - it depends on the agreement that was signed. It doesn't have to be a full CCA hence the deliberate words.

Airmail.

FWIW the first many knew about this scheme at all was the cards dropping through the letterbox along with the supporting paperwork that invites us to sign the agreement (and actvate the card by telephoning a UK premium rate phone number..).

No way
 

Under no circumstances do that ever, except: You have a deposit from the Company in your own account that covers the expected amount.

To be fair: The Company would get the Interest rate on the deposit as they funded it.

Sweet and short statement: No way, do not do it, ever, flying became too cheap.

Fly safe and land happy

NG

How some people like to set hares running!

The company in question is British Airways. Nobody yet knows what is going on because according to informed sources the bank jumped the gun and issued the cards before the company issued any communications!

Quite why a major airline with worldwide operations suddenly feels the need to issue flight crew with credit cards after umpteen years of operations and occasional diversions to some pretty obscure places is a good question! The comany communications on the issue when they eventually get round to publishing some will be interesting. Fascinating that so many flight crew have already binned the card before knowing the intentions.

There are a lot of changes taking place at the moment with the declared aim of reinforcing the chain of command/flight crews status/rank etc. That this ever needed reinforcing speaks volumes of the dysfunctional relationship between Inflight Services and Flight Ops.

The latest is that BA has just issued Cabin Service Directors with company telephones. Who knows what they will be arranging during boarding/delays without informing the captain!

Hey - business is business. If the company want a pilot to supply credit to the company, then that comes with a cost - don't agree or sign anything until the company pays you a premium worth the risk you are undertaking for them.

If there is no agreement, there is no deal - simple. If they want something for nothing, then disagree with that sentiment and bin the card.

A good example showing why you should never listen to pseudo-legal bollocks.
The company requests the bank to issue the card in your name, and is fully liable for payment. However, the company should have stringent and enforced rules for use of the card, which holders must sign up to. One I always make and enforce is that any payments made on the card which are not accounted for by proper receipts for legitimate expenses are eventually deducted from wages and treated as salary, ie subject to PAYE and NIC (in the UK), which happens also to be the HMRC rule, boiled down to its essentials. Any decent properly-funded operator will have a fuel carnet or equivalent.