My last employer just applied GSA per diem rates to all travel, whether for government contracts or not. Really simplified the paperwork for both accounting and the employees, plus it gave the employees a bit of a reward for giving up their late nights and Sunday evenings to travel for the boss. My current MegaCorp [-]slavedriver[/-] employer has a huge policy manual, and god forbid anyone could ever get per diem. Strictly expenses only, with tons o' rules as listed above.
My current travel plans had to be made before the job number was available (not sure why that takes two weeks). Ten of us are traveling and airline seats were disappearing fast. But since Policy dictates one must use only the company-approved travel agent via the corporate intranet, we couldn't get reservations because you can't book a flight without a job number. We were directed by the project manager to use non-approved booking sites and charge the tickets to our company credit cards (which the official site does anyway - don't ask why it has to have a job number since it doesn't charge anything directly to the company).
Sooo... as luck would have it, the tickets were bought just days before the closing date of the AMEX card. I had to file an expense report before travel occurred or risk not having the bill paid on time. Manager approved it, but I'm waiting to see if accounting pays it. And if payment is late by the company, guess who picks up the late fee?
Then there was the time, about 30 years ago, when I worked for a very large engineering firm in the nuclear energy business. I was on a long-term assignment and they would periodically fly me home for the weekend. Park at the airport on Friday after work, fly home, and arrive back at the temporary location on Sunday night. That's three days of parking, at the full daily rate of $3 in 1984. Some bean counter pointed out that the Red Book only allowed parking for the two weekend days. No problem. We opened our copy of the Red Book at the job site and figured out that taxi service was permitted. Now, the construction site was 50 miles from the airport, and maybe $50 or so each way. No problem! Not even questioned since it was In Policy.
I've worked for very big and very small companies. Each has their advantages/disadvantages. Travel policy is definitely a disadvantage at MegaCorps. I miss the days when you could just stop the boss (or even the CEO) in the hallway and just run something by them. "Hey, can I book my tickets on Orbitz, it will save money?" "Sure, if it's cheaper go for it."
FIRE is one day closer each day.
That was several years ago and I traveled 75-85% of the time but spent at least 25-30% of my time making travel arrangements; completing complex travel related forms, and similar tasks. It was a huge waste of resources for them to pay me to spend my time on the travel management tasks instead of what I was hired to do and skilled at.
