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We all want to make the most of our work perks, and that goes double for people who travel, because that comes with its own built-in downsides.

When this traveling employee started to get pushback on his travel expenses, he figured it was time to teach accounting a lesson.

Below are the details of how he accomplished that, and how it turned out.

Let’s see how this lands…

How to save money on travel

I was working as a consultant for a company in New Jersey.

They had a branch in Reno, NV that I had to visit about once every 3 weeks.

I booked my own travel arrangements and billed the client.

The good thing about traveling for work: you get paid back.

After a couple of trips, I got call from the client’s bean counter.

He wanted to know why I was flying to San Francisco.

I explained that there were no direct flights to Reno.

The quickest way was to fly to San Francisco then to Reno.

He had found a route – Newark/Chicago/Reno – that was almost $100 cheaper.

Or do you?

I said I had looked into that but there was a layover in Chicago which made the travel time a lot longer.

He replied that it was company policy to only reimburse for the cheapest fare.

Not a super generous policy.

OK.

On my next trip I found I could save almost $150 by making a stop in Dallas.

But it increased my travel time by almost 3 hours.

My contract specifically said I would bill for all travel time.

The contract lasted about year.

For each trip, I searched for the cheapest fare regardless of the number of stops.

I wish I got paid for every hour I’ve spent on a long layover!

I was paid for a lot of hours sitting in airports saving the client money on airfare.

This employee outsmarted his stingy company.

Let’s see if the comments support it.

This person says, some rules are meant to be broken.

Another user says, cheapest isn’t always best.

Someone else points out this bean counter miscounted.

Another poster says, I’ve been that guy!

One accountant pipes up and says, some of us are more reasonable than others.

This employee got the best of his company’s travel policy, plane and simple.

But it could have been so easily resolved with a polite conversation.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.