Employee Travel Payment Policy

This policy describes the rules governing payment of applicable service charges, fees, and/or taxes related to employee travel. Its purpose is to inform employees of the billing methods they can expect with use of their travel privileges.

Scope & Eligibility

Applies to employees/retirees of Air Canada (AC), AC Rouge, AC Vacations, AC Express and Fasco who use their employee travel privileges.

Rules & Limitations

In the world of employee travel, there is usually no guarantee you will board the flight on which you listed yourself. It all depends on space availability and customer demand, unless otherwise indicated. Our payment policy takes this reality into account. Read on to understand how your trips are reconciled and billed.

Rules

Billing is for flights flown, not for flights booked.

Billing occurs upon completion of one of the following, whichever comes first:

  • You have returned to your point of origin; or
  • 30 days have elapsed since travel began; or
  • You have completed eight sectors of travel

Billing occurs regardless of the boarding priority booked or used (see Exceptions & Unique Situations).

Pass holder must ensure that their own valid credit card is saved in their travel profile at time of travel.

It is the pass holder’s responsibility to:

  • Ensure there is a valid credit card in their travel profile
  • Update any expired or cancelled credit card information in their profile
  • Verify that all credit card numbers, dates of issue, expiry dates, cardholder names, etc. are entered in their profile correctly

Resolve any disputes over credit limits or charges directly with the credit card company

Limitations

Any change of direction after the first point of turnaround will result in additional allotments being taken from your travel profile, even if you have not returned to the point of origin (see Exceptions & Unique Situations).

Trips that are not completed within 30 days will be billed as separate trips (see Exceptions & Unique Situations).

Credit cards belonging to anyone other than the employee (i.e.: parent, partner, friend, etc.) should not be used to pay for travel privileges.

Not permitted to use more than one credit card to pay for different legs of the same trip (i.e.: one card for outbound trip, another card for return trip).

If the pass holder’s credit card fails to process payment, their travel profile will be deactivated without warning until the payment is paid.

Procedure

Managing your credit card information in your travel profile: The most common reasons billings fail to process are credit card related. If that happens, your profile will automatically shutdown until you pay the amount due. To avoid this inconvenience, take the following steps:

Save and/or update a credit card to your profile

Go to the Employee Travel Site > My Profile > Payment Information > Edit Payment

Your credit card is declined and your travel profile deactivated: If your credit card fails to process, your travel profile will be automatically deactivated with no advance notice. You will not be able to travel or access your profile until you pay the outstanding charges. Here’s what you need to do:

Billing inquiries: Any questions concerning credit card charges billed to you by Air Canada should be directed to Air Canada only. Do not contact the credit card company. Doing so will result in a chargeback with associated fees to Air Canada, which we will have to pass on to you. To ask about charges to your credit card, please contact us:

Exceptions & Unique Situations

Traveler did not return to point of origin within 30 days or eight sectors, but it counts as more than one trip

  1. An employee travels from Montreal to Vancouver to Hong Kong
  2. The employee then does a turnaround to travel back to Vancouver, but changes direction and continues to Toronto, then onto Frankfurt and back to Toronto (instead of returning to Montreal)

All travel occurred within 30 days and 8 flight segments, but it will be billed as more than one trip because the employee did not return to the point of origin. Here is a breakdown of how it would be billed:

Employee billing

Trip 1: Montreal → Vancouver → Hong Kong

Trip 2: Hong Kong → Vancouver → Toronto → Frankfurt → Toronto

Explanation: A trip is considered complete when the first of one of the following takes place: the traveler returns to the point of origin, 30 days elapsed since the travel began, eight sectors of travel were completed.

According to the example above, the employee may think that only one allotment will be deducted since she traveled within the 30 days and 8 segments required, and did not return to the point of origin. However, any change of direction after the first point of turnaround counts as a trip. The change of direction occurs when the employee travels through Toronto, onto Frankfurt, and then back to Toronto.

A trip with no turnaround that still results in an extra trip

An employee:

  1. Travels from Montreal to Toronto to Calgary to Vancouver to Hong Kong
  2. The employee then does a turnaround to travel back to Vancouver and continues to Edmonton, then onto Winnipeg and back to Toronto

All travel occurred within 30 days and 8 flight segments.

Billing breakdown:

Trip 1: Montreal → Toronto → Calgary → Vancouver → Hong Kong (turnaround)

Hong Kong → Vancouver → Edmonton → Winnipeg → Toronto

Explanation: In this example, the employee did not change direction, therefore his travel counts as one trip even through he did not return to his initial point of origin.

Passes with limited allotments are deducted even when different boarding priorities are used to travel longer than 30 days

  1. An employee travels from Halifax to Toronto to Vancouver to Sydney
  2. The employee then travels back to Vancouver ands flies directly back to Halifax

Billing breakdown:

Explanation: On this trip, the employee used different passes on different legs of the trip. She traveled from Halifax to Vancouver with a C2/Y10 pass and used her incentive pass to travel between Vancouver and Sydney. Even though she only used her incentive pass on some of the sectors of the trip, she returned to her point of origin which will trigger billing.

Non-compliance

When in doubt, it’s better to contact actravel.voyageac@aircanada.ca or call 1-833-847- EMPL (3675) to ask for clarification than to risk making the wrong assumption.

This policy is subject to change without notice.
Last update: Jun 1, 2021