At the University of Southern Indiana (USI), we look at the cost of the airfare for just the business days and then we look at the cost of airfare for the business and personal days. If the added personal days cause the airfare to be higher than the business-dates-only airfare, the traveler has to purchase the airfare with a personal method and may be reimbursed up to the business-dates-only airfare after the trip is completed.

At the University of Alberta, we follow the same process as University of Southern Indiana. Travelers need to justify the cost of business only travel and if there is an increase when personal travel is added.
No increase = central payment
Yes increase = personally pay and seek reimbursement for business portion when travel is complete.

Important notes:
1) - They must obtain a quote or screen shot of flight costs at the time of booking and provide in their travel claim
2) - All flights that include business travel must be bought through out Travel Agency to ensure our discounts are applied, but can be paid with central payment or personal payment.

We do the same as the others basically, below is an example of what we have in our travel policy:

C. Non-business Travel Days

Tulane may consider weekends, holidays, and other necessary standby days as a business expense if the dates fall between business travel days and if approved in advance in writing by a V.P. or Dean. If not, Tulane will consider those days personal, and those expenses are not reimbursable. Tulane may reimburse flights in full when adding personal travel to a business trip if the overall cost is the same or lower than the original approved business departure and return dates. In order to obtain reimbursement when personal travel is added to a business trip, the Traveler must document a price comparison by using Concur or Tulane’s currently approved travel agency at the time of booking the airfare, showing the lowest fare available for the approved business departure and return dates. This comparison must be included in the Concur expense report. If using an agent, ask the agent to add the price comparison details to your purchased airfare confirmation, preferred.

Related to this topic. Do any of your universities reimburse travel insurance? I'm assuming so. Reimburse only a portion of travel insurance if there is personal travel involved? I have the tax office asking me if we should be calculating travel insurance for personal portion of trip and adding that to their wages.

thanks!

We do not allow travel insurance, since booking through our program allows for flight credits if cancelled. If it is a full program for group travel, we would allow.

At UConn we do not reimburse for travel insurance since we know employees who book with our TMC are given credits upon flight cancellation that we can track centrally for usage or name change to another traveler for future use. Hope that helps!