Discounts and Travel Expenses at No Cost
Discounts on Travel Expenses
A state employee may not be reimbursed for the value or cost of a discount on a travel expense unless the employee paid money to obtain the discount. If a state employee receives a discount as a benefit of making unrelated purchases or conducting unrelated business with the provider of the discount, the discount is considered to be provided free to the employee.
If a state employee paid money to obtain a discount, the employee may be reimbursed the lesser of:
- The cost of obtaining the discount.
- The amount of the discount.
— and — - The maximum that may be reimbursed to a state employee for the type of travel expense incurred.
Example
Rosie is a state employee who uses her personal credit card for most of her monthly purchases because her credit card company offers a bonus structure for use of the card. She is able to trade in points that she earns from her credit card purchases for air miles. Rosie decides to use her air miles for a state business trip, and therefore she does not incur any out-of-pocket costs for the airfare. She would like to claim what the ticket would have cost her on a travel voucher. Rosie is not able to do so because she has not incurred an airfare expense for reimbursement purposes.