Which is more weird? Sort of MMR

[heliocentric]

I don't think it's weird to not have a credit card. Unsual, maybe. Not weird, though.

Until I came to these boards I had no idea so many people were expected to use their own cards or front the costs for travel. WTF? How is that even a reasonable request for a company to ask? I am so, so grateful that my company gives us cards and the bill goes directly to them. All I have to do is validate the charges. I don't ask my employer to front the costs for my vacation, why should I front the costs for their expenses?

It seems unreasonable for a company to ask employees to take this burden (because it can be a burden for some people). If my company wanted me to do this, I can see myself telling them I didn't have a CC, either. They should figure it out.

[mrssavy42112]

At my company, hotel & flight is paid outright by the company. Anything else, like a car, is paid by the employee & then reimbursed later. So there is really no way you could travel without a CC here either. I do find it odd that in 2013 someone would not have a CC, but people are weird.

[kadams767]

I think it is weird too. I always have had to use my own card and submit for reimbursement and as far as I know, everyone here does this as well.

[hlke]

I don't think it's weird to not have a credit card, but it certainly makes life inconvenient. We have a choice of using our personal card or the corporate card, but the expense report process is more annoying when you use the corporate card and you lose out on the points/miles of using your own credit card.

I think most of us think this is no big deal because we have paid off credit cards and wouldn't incur any interest by floating our company a few thousand bucks for a month or two.

[chessie]

My company requires you do use the corporate card, anything on personal card they won't reimburse. For DH's company we got him an amex business card which his work pays for.

[livinitup]

Jan 10, 2013 22:24:59 GMT -5 @buckybells said:

1. My company requires employees to use their own personal CC to confirm hotel rooms and make car rental reservations - employees don't pay for them, but need to have the CC on file for incidentals/emergencies/identification/etc. We use a travel company to book stuff like this but there will be a hold put on your own personal CC. Some of us have purchasing cards from the company but we can't use those for travel related purchases.

or

2. My new coworker, who is a 50ish year old professional who has been in the field for 20+ years and probably makes at least 65k a year, doesn't own a credit card and thus can't make these travel reservations

I don't know why she doesn't have a CC and it isn't my business. But it definitely makes things complicated and I'm not sure how we're sending her to training next week (we're working with finance to figure it out). Maybe I'm weird, but I'd be mortified if this was the case and I had to tell my new coworkers that I don't have access to a CC. I also just find it odd that a professional, especially an older one, doesn't even own a credit card. That idea is so foreign to me!

What do you think?

That exact senerio (#2) happened to me, except I was standing next to the 50ish professional, she was my boss, we were at the check-in desk of the hotel AND she was complaining bitterly that the finance guy "Jim" didn't give her a company card to check-in. I was completely baffled as to what Jim had to do with the fact that she didn't seem to have a credit card.

So, I used mine.

I just assumed she had some horific credit history debacle that wasn't fixed yet.

[ijack]

I worked for a company like that and didn't have a CC (bad credit), it really really sucked for me (and the shenanigans I pulled to make it worked wrecked even more havoc on my credit). Now we have a company card and everything goes on it.

[pedanticwench]

I wouldn't have a credit card either, if my company required that I use a personal one.

[Deleted]

Jan 11, 2013 11:08:51 GMT -5 pedanticwench said:

I wouldn't have a credit card either, if my company required that I use a personal one.

I think this is an odd attitude (and I'm just quoting you because you're the last to say it, several people said it).

You're a new employee with a company you very much want to work for an with a job you're excited about. You really would choose to take a stand in your first week about a policy the other 1400 employees already follow?

That's weird.

Also probably 1300 of the 1400 employees travel 1-2 times a year, if at all. I do think it makes sense for most of us not to have a corporate card. I do actually have a purchasing card for other reasons, but most people don't have those and they have a lot of restrictions.

We are a non profit and it probably is not a good use of our money to provide everyone with a CC that they won't be using much. I imagine the processing to get/maintain the cards would be expensive. I am guessing this is why this is pretty common.

I do think the people who travel on a weekly basis should have a card for that, but I have no clue if they do. That's not my area

[makingithappen]

Putting a hold on a personal CC is crap. I have a CC and a good credit score, but have a low limit. I recently called the bank for it to be increased from $500. There's no way I could pay for a flight and room on it.

[SuziSaysDa]

All the companies I have worked for required a personal CC for travel, but if you traveled often and/or had difficulty getting a credit card you could get a corp card, but it was still in the employee's name and the bill came to the employee - it was more like a co-signer situation for the company.

[phunluvin82]

Jan 11, 2013 10:06:45 GMT -5 mrssavy42112 said:

At my company, hotel & flight is paid outright by the company. Anything else, like a car, is paid by the employee & then reimbursed later. So there is really no way you could travel without a CC here either. I do find it odd that in 2013 someone would not have a CC, but people are weird.

This is the same for me. I work for the state. Hotel + flight is paid for, but any other expense (rental car, taxi, bus, train, meals, incidentals) is OOP and we file an expense report afterwards to get reimbursed.

Even if that were not the case, I can't imagine not having a CC TBH. Even if it was just ONE CC that I never used and kept at home in a safe or something. Just in case of an emergency (yes, I have an e-fund, but it could take 3-4 days to transfer the $ to checking...in a true emergency, I'd use my CC and then transfer the efund $ to pay it off).

[karinothing]

This is waht DH work does and I kind of hate it but that is just because they are slow at reimbursing him. I think it is pretty normal.

I do find it odd she doesn't have a CC but maybe she can't get approved for one. Or maybe she had a bad experience in the past.

[dr.girlfriend]

My DH didn't have a credit card (he had seen his mom get into trouble with them) through college, and then once he started applying he kept getting rejected for a lack of credit history. It was a Catch-22. Once he got put jointly on my account, though, he was able to get a card of his own.

[Melissa W.]

From the finance side of it, our company requires employees to pay personally and then be reimbursed. This policy stems from the fact that employees were putting personal stuff on the company card and. We had to fight them to get reimbursed. No, we are not paying for your Victoria Secret underwear, laptops, etc.

[Deleted]

Jan 11, 2013 11:12:51 GMT -5 @buckybells said:

Jan 11, 2013 11:08:51 GMT -5 pedanticwench said:

I wouldn't have a credit card either, if my company required that I use a personal one.

I think this is an odd attitude (and I'm just quoting you because you're the last to say it, several people said it).

You're a new employee with a company you very much want to work for an with a job you're excited about. You really would choose to take a stand in your first week about a policy the other 1400 employees already follow?

That's weird.

Also probably 1300 of the 1400 employees travel 1-2 times a year, if at all. I do think it makes sense for most of us not to have a corporate card. I do actually have a purchasing card for other reasons, but most people don't have those and they have a lot of restrictions.

We are a non profit and it probably is not a good use of our money to provide everyone with a CC that they won't be using much. I imagine the processing to get/maintain the cards would be expensive. I am guessing this is why this is pretty common.

I do think the people who travel on a weekly basis should have a card for that, but I have no clue if they do. That's not my area

This is the case in my company. Each person pays for their own expenses and gets reimbursed later because there are so many of us. There is no way that each person could have their own corporate card.