I travel for work, and have accrued about $12k worth of airlines points. I don’t really want to use them for personal travel, as I travel too much as is.
Would it be possible to:
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Book a flight.
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Get a receipt for the booking.
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Cancel the flight within 24 hours for a full refund back to my card.
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Book the same flight using points.
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Use the receipt in my expenses to get reimbursed for cash.
Or is there something I’m missing? Do they have any contact with the airline to confirm the receipt is legit?
I almost don’t even consider this unethical, as the company is paying the same as they would if I didn’t use my points.
Really it depends on how your employer handles expenses for travel, and how lax they are about verifying receipts.
Several places where I’ve worked have had things in place that would stop this kind of thing from occurring (whether that was the intended purpose behind those things or not)
But if they only require you submit the purchase receipt, then you might be able to do what you suggest. But if there’s any info on the receipt that could lead them back to the canceled ticket (confirmation number, etc) then it could backfire on you if they check it. They could probably even use the credit card transaction number to the same end. But I’d expect that to be more involved and less likely unless you did something to make them suspicious.
Possible? Maybe. Risky? Also maybe.
Fair enough. Probably not worth risking my job over then. I didn’t know if it was possible to verify receipts like that. But if it’s a possibility, then nah.