How to save business travel rewards points for personal use

21 Feb 2019 · 4 MIN READ

Business travelers can save loyalty rewards points for personal use by checking their employment contract, confirming company policy, signing up for personal loyalty programs, and storing their membership numbers in their travel booking platform. In most cases, if your contract doesn't include a specific clause about points ownership, you retain the miles you earn.

When you travel for work, you might be dealing with early wake ups for flights, lost sleep due to jet lag, and even anxiety over having to conduct meetings in new destinations. If you're clocking up thousands of miles every year with regular domestic flights or international hops to cities 5 time zones away, then you probably want more perks than what your paycheck provides.We can't guarantee that your company will allow you to collect points, but we're of the mindset that they should. Your company gets the credit card points or miles for the money spent buying the ticket, and you get the miles from your loyalty program—a fair exchange for the time you spend on the road.Note: If you're a travel manager wanting to make your frequent flyers happy by saving their points for them, this system works perfectly for you too. Just skip ahead to step 5.

Quick steps to save your travel rewards

Check your employment contract for any clause about points ownership.
Talk to your travel manager to confirm company policy.
Get approval to collect personal travel rewards points.
Sign up for loyalty programs in your own name.
Use a travel management tool that stores loyalty program numbers.
Add your program numbers to your traveler profile.
Book flights and collect points automatically every time.

1. Check your employment contracts

There may be a clause in your employment contract that states that your employer owns the rights to your frequent flyer miles —rewards earned through airline loyalty programs based on distance traveled—and not you. Particularly in small consulting firms where employees travel often, this might be the case.Using business points for personal use is a complicated issue. You need to understand how your company handles this. If such a clause or agreement exists, your journey probably stops right here. If there's no information available, go on to step 2.

2. Talk to your travel manager or office manager

If whether or not you can collect travel rewards points—the points or miles you accumulate through loyalty programs when flying—is still unclear to you, ask your travel manager (or whoever is in charge of managing travel at your company) if there's an existing company policy on this matter. If one doesn't exist, be prepared to share with your higher ups how you intend to use the points and why they're important to you, and get your travel manager and other frequent flyers on board.

3. Confirm company approval to collect personal travel rewards points

Hopefully, your company has no issue with you taking advantage of travel rewards. If so, you're ready for the straightforward part.Collecting points is as simple as signing up for rewards programs and then saving the account numbers in the platform you use to book travel.

Now it's time to sign up for loyalty programs—membership schemes offered by airlines that reward you with points or miles for each flight—in your own personal name, and not your company's name.Check out these guides to help you choose which programs to sign up for:

5. Use a modern travel management tool that lets you save those loyalty program numbers to your traveler account

Perk is one of the top-rated tools for business travel management for a few reasons: great travel support, unrivaled inventory (book from anything available on the web), easy booking for travelers and managers, fast invoicing, and insightful reporting.One little thing you may not know about Perk is that we make it super easy to save loyalty program numbers for every employee account.

6. Add the program numbers to your account

Adding your rewards program numbers takes just a few clicks.Just log in, head to your traveler profile and click "Add a loyalty program." Then select the program (here we've selected Flying Blue, our top choice for EU business travelers ). Next, you just add the number. That's it!

7. When you book flights, collect points every time

Now whenever you fly, your program numbers are always saved. Regardless of who is booking for you, whether an administrator for your Perk account handles the booking process or you're booking your own trip, you can collect points every time.When you're searching for a new flight, Perk will automatically check which of your saved travel rewards programs apply. This way, you'll never forget to collect points during the booking process.

If your company doesn’t have a travel management tool that saves time, money and hassle— or one that your travelers love —then it's time for you to discover Perk .

Who owns frequent flyer miles earned on business travel?

Ownership of frequent flyer miles earned on work trips depends on your employment contract and company policy. In most cases, if your contract doesn't include a specific clause assigning points to your employer, you retain the miles. Always check your contract and confirm with your travel manager before assuming you can use them for personal travel.