A little bit of backstory: One of my jobs is to organize and send technicians to various locations to provide maintenance and support for the equipment that we run. We have a few hubs around the United States where technicians are based out of, but often times they need to fly or drive to a location far enough away from the hub where they are entitled to travel and per diem.
I have to review the requests for travel and per diem to make sure they are reasonable, such as not staying in a suite or flying first class, no rental upgrades unless needed, and so on. Once I have calculated the costs involved, I request the funding from another department, and set it aside for the travel so the technicians can be reimbursed once they come back.
On this particular day, we had an emergency pop up where we needed to send technicians quickly out to a remote location in the figurative middle of nowhere. On top of that, most of our technicians were already scheduled to be out on other jobs. The only hub that had people available was the one in Hawaii. So, the guys go ahead and talk to our contracted travel agency to arrange their flights and provide us the info for how much all of that will cost. The guys already know the routine and really try to make sure we're not spending more than absolutely needed on this emergency maintenance. I double check it all and know it's going to cost us a pretty penny to send guys last-minute from Hawaii to Podunk, Nowhere. All in all with rentals, hotels and so on, we're looking at around $35,000 for the trip.
I go ahead and process the requests and request the money from the funding guys (without them saying ok, the trip doesn't happen). Here is the reply, on which our bosses are cc'd (paraphrased for brevity, but you get the idea that this guy is not happy we are spending so much, when usually a trip of this type costs around $5000 with a non-emergency trip from a more local hub):
"I looked the requests over and saw several issues. First, are the technicians sharing hotel rooms? As per (insert applicable company policy reference here) these personnel are to share rooms. Secondly, do we really need 3 rental cars? Why not get one compact and a minivan for transportation? Lastly, the other expenses are over-inflated. I understand there will be fuel costs and depending on the airport they fly into, there could be a bridge toll, but the amount requested is absurd. Please correct these issues and resubmit. Funds are limited and we cannot afford frivolous spending."
Ok, understood! We will go back and reschedule flights and consolidate hotel rooms and vehicles!
This process takes a few more hours while the guys talk to the travel agency and rebook the last-minute flights. Everyone knows that flight and hotel prices skyrocket as you get closer to the dates. We cancel the 3 compact vehicles for the people arriving at separate times at an international airport that is further away from the location (closer reginal airport is now out of available flights) and have them all wait at the airport for hours until everyone arrives and reserve two large SUVs to carry people and several bags of luggage and tools. This results in higher vehicle/fuel costs. We also rebook hotels so the technicians share double occupancy rooms, but the reduction in hotel costs does not begin to cover the other rebookings.
We lay out in writing all the cost cutting measures and efforts to save money as requested in the email from the funding department. All in all, the total is now $42,000.
I sent the email reply all to the funding department with a begrudging response authorizing the $42k.
TL; DR: Last minute travel for emergency repairs cost $35,000. Funding department asks us to rebook to make it cheaper, ends up costing $42,000.
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