Travel Information

Unallowable Expenses

Reimbursement requests should not include the following unallowable items:

  1. Costs associated with upgrading travel class beyond coach class. Travelers are encouraged to use leisure and excursion fares that result in lower fares but may restrict travel to certain times or dates.


  2. Costs associated with personal travel or for personal convenience. Travelers are also reminded that when combining business and personal travel, allowable reimbursement is limited to the lowest cost alternative for travel to the business destination only. It is the traveler’s responsibility to obtain and submit documentation of the lowest cost travel to the business destination. Ticket rescheduling fees for personal reasons, rather than business reasons, are not reimbursable. Therefore, the business purpose of the ticket rescheduling fee should be stated on the face of the voucher

  3. Costs for travel on non-U.S. flag carriers, if charged to a federal grant or reimbursable from another federal funding source. A U.S. Flag Carrier is an air or ocean transport company whose country of registry is the United States of America. Use of a foreign carrier who is a business partner of U.S. carriers will not satisfy the requirement to use only U.S. Flag Carriers. The ticket MUST be issued by a U.S. Flag Carrier under a "code share" arrangement with a foreign carrier to be considered allowable. If you are paying for travel with federal funding, you MUST advise your travel agent that you require a U.S. Flag Carrier or "code share" carrier. If you need assistance in determining whether or not an airline qualifies as a U.S. Flag Carrier, our three contracted travel agencies, Sponsored Programs Accounting and the Purchasing Department have current listings of Department of Transportation approved U.S. Flag Carriers. It is the traveler’s responsibility to verify that an allowable carrier is used.

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Last Updated: September 2, 2003