I was looking to the travel summary for Brussels send by the ICANN Constituency Travel "Per Diems Per Diems are intended to cover incidental expenses incurred to attend the ICANN meeting, including meals, ground transportation (such as taxis to and from the airport, hotel, and venue), parking, etc. The cost for obtaining a visa, if necessary, will be reimbursed separately. Please see the section on visas below." P6 But it not clear what is "if necessary". All the best Sébastien Bachollet sebastien@bachollet.com +33 6 07 66 89 33
-----Message d'origine----- De : alac-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org [mailto:alac-bounces@atlarge- lists.icann.org] De la part de vivek anannd Envoyé : samedi 24 juillet 2010 04:43 À : Alan Greenberg; SAMUELS,Carlton A; ALAC Working List Objet : Re: [ALAC] Revised travel policy statement
dear alan/carlton
i had specific reply twice that visa fees will not be refunded and i have to meet in the per diem charges. If i lay my hands on the mail from the travel team i shall send the same. reg Dr.V.C.Vivekanandan Ministry of HRD IP Chair Professor NALSAR University of Law 3-5-874/18 Apollo Hospital Lane, Hyderguda,-Hyderabad- 500029 Adjunct Visiting Professor, University of Buffalo Business School, New York ALAC Asia Pacific Member ICANN (Internet Corporation of Assigned Names & Numbers) Ph:+91-40-23210170 Mobile-+91-9866050494 vivek@nalsarpro.org,personal:vivekvc2001@yahoo.co.in
________________________________ From: Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg@mcgill.ca> To: "SAMUELS,Carlton A" <carlton.samuels@uwimona.edu.jm>; vivek anannd <vivekvc2001@yahoo.co.in>; ALAC Working List <alac@atlarge- lists.icann.org> Sent: Sat, 24 July, 2010 2:01:37 AM Subject: RE: [ALAC] Revised travel policy statement
ICANN has generally accepted paying visa fees and travel costs to obtain them *if formally requested and justified*. The put a hurdle in the process in that some people were either not aware of or did not want to press their case. To ICANN's credit, for Brussels the said in the original guidelines that they would reimburse visa fees and courier charges. Although not mentioned, I presume that included travel in cases where there was no option.
Alan
At 23/07/2010 02:15 PM, SAMUELS,Carlton A wrote:
Vivek: I will leave it to Alan to answer you fully but visa fees are usually refunded and not calculated as per diem. More than 2 years ago we faced this with some of my colleagues from S. America. I've had to pay a visa fee only once - to go to Brazil. It was US$20 and I simply didn't bother to claim; the time alone was more expensive.
Carlton
-----Original Message----- From: alac-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org [mailto:alac-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org] On Behalf Of vivek anannd Sent: Friday, July 23, 2010 1:37 AM To: Alan Greenberg; ALAC Working List Subject: Re: [ALAC] Revised travel policy statement
Dear Alan
was going through the consultation o the travel. I would like to express my experience on one or two issues-
1. ICANN travel constituency refused my request from my travel expense from my institute to Kolkata airport ( for Seoul as well as Nairobi) which costed around 175$ each time by taxi and said that they can give only the airfare-and i should cover the same in per diem or it means that the ALAC member should live in a city where there is an airport ! This to me is irrational and unreasonable.
2.Another issue is that of Visa-fee - It costs again anywhere between 100 to 200USD and this again is covered by the per diem - normal practice in academic conferences where there is sponsorship where they cover your visa charges and handling fee of the agent.
3. The fact given by many on the cost of BCD is true. For all the meetings i attended i used to check the route in my local travel website which gives the price and it is almost 50% less - which means that ICANN pays for Business class and we travel in economy class ! It is a loose-loose situation for both IICANN as well as the traveler.
4.The routing done by them is to criss-cross - e.g. They asked me to fly from Hyderabad to Dubai and then back to Sydney - which means flying four hours to west and flying 4 hours back from Dubai over India to reach Sydney. I had to insist that the shortest route cuts the travel by almost 8 hours by flying via bangkok directly from Hyderabad and they relented in the last minute
5. In the last instance to Brussels I asked for a route which is shortest and i could not convince them. Then i asked the BCD Travels in India ( incidentally by travel agent) who came up in two hours the route i wanted and i mailed it to BCD US and then they obliged and again the cost of BCD India was 30 % less. Other travails are many - Every time i will tell them for Vegetarian Food and all the times it was not made except in the last trip where i had to remind them few times - They had given the instruction as Vegan !
I find your suggestions are covering all the concerns and sure things can be worked out to improve the quality of air travel and stay and related issues. Dr.V.C.Vivekanandan Ministry of HRD IP Chair Professor NALSAR University of Law 3-5-874/18 Apollo Hospital Lane, Hyderguda,-Hyderabad- 500029 Adjunct Visiting Professor, University of Buffalo Business School, New York ALAC Asia Pacific Member ICANN (Internet Corporation of Assigned Names & Numbers) Ph:+91-40-23210170 Mobile-+91-9866050494 vivek@nalsarpro.org,personal:vivekvc2001@yahoo.co.in
________________________________ From: Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg@mcgill.ca> To: ALAC Working List <alac@atlarge-lists.icann.org> Sent: Fri, 23 July, 2010 9:25:03 AM Subject: [ALAC] Revised travel policy statement
In light of the comments received, I have re-drafted the message to Kevin. I have also revised the introduction. I have advised Kevin that a revised version will be coming.
The major changes are:
- highlighting that travelers purchasing their own tickets is optional, not the only method; - clarifying and strengthening the case that per diems and not reimbursement is preferred; - explicitly mentioning the need for a travel agent who is aware of transit visa issues; - mentioning that there should be an exception process for handing abnormally high local travel costs (to/from departure airport); - streamlining the approval process for tickets that are issued by ICANN's travel agent.
Please let me know if you have any additional thoughts.
Alan
======================
Dear Kevin,
Thank you for joining the ALAC Executive Committee wrap-up meeting in Brussels. We appreciate you listening to our concerns, and we found your insights based upon your discussions about travel support with other SO/ACs helpful.
The current process for travel support is unwieldy and appears expensive for ICANN. Many (or perhaps most) of the volunteer travelers seem unhappy with the experience and results. To spend that amount of effort without the "gold medal" performance that you were aiming at must be disappointing.
I suspect that minor tweaks are not likely to fix the problems, so I offer a new approach. I think that it may address the overall concerns that ICANN has regarding fiduciary responsibility while putting more control in the hands of the travelers.
In short, I am suggesting that you OPTIONALLY allow travelers to make their own air travel arrangements, but subject to a number of constraints. I am also offering one variant that will maximize the benefit to ICANN and its constituent units of the budgeted travel funds.
I believe that you will still need an "official ICANN" travel agent, but offered as a resource not as a requirement. I am sure that many travelers will be happy to use them if the process were streamlined. Moreover, they will play an essential role in ensuring that the overall process costs are "reasonable", which should be a prime the target. I do not know if you currently use the same travel agency for staff travel as you do for volunteer travel, but I would suggest that doing so maximizes the agent's desire to keep ICANN happy on all counts, and guarantees them a substantial amount of guaranteed business.
I support the current allocation of travel by "slots" allocated per group per meeting, but with an important variant I will discuss later in this note.
0. In the interest of transparency, I would suggest that whatever air travel rules are used be applied equally to Board members/liaisons as well as other volunteer travelers.
1. Travel is based on economy or business class as per the current rules. However, for long haul travel (flights over 6 hours or overall travel time over 18 hours), I suggest that booking on premium economy be allowed. Premium economy includes few of the real perks of business class, but does afford a modest increase in passenger comfort. Such bookings would still be subject to the price limitations to be described.
2. Prior to starting travel for any given event, your travel agent should compile a list of "ball-park" air fares for the list of cities typically used by ICANN travelers. The list might include 50-60 cities but based on my personal experiences, it should not take much time or effort to compile. I acknowledge that doing this well will require a good travel agent who understands the issues related to travel from and to locations that are "unusual" in the sense of traditional business travel and understands transit visa issues for those not from North America or western Europe. If some needed cities are omitted, they can be added later. Estimates should be based on fares of regularly schedules "business oriented" airlines. By that I exclude charter airlines, fares provided by consolidators and fares offered by airlines that focus on vacation and tour-package travelers - all of whom tend to provide very poor service to recover from irregular operations. The estimate should include the service fee that would be charged by the agent if they did the booking.
3. I recommend that there still be an "exception" policy to handle requests outside of the constraints described here, but there should be far fewer of them. One exception that I would explicitly call out would be travel to and from the local airport where such travel clearly exceeds what could reasonably covered by per diem allocations.
4. Hotel nights and per diem (if used - see later) should be based on the need to be sufficiently rested for the first scheduled meeting. I have included details of such scheduling in previous messages, and can do so again, but I will not clutter this note with such details. In short, the person should be allowed to arrive early enough to get a full night's sleep the night before their first meeting. For venues where flights only arrive in the evening, this may mean that they be allowed to arrive a day early.
5. Hotel nights and per diem should be based on departures that allow the participant to attend all scheduled meetings. This should include the ability to stay in their room until a reasonable number of hours prior to flight time. Both this rule and the prior one are equivalent to the "reasonable" constraint placed on staff travelers, and volunteers should be offered no less.
6. Air travel fairs up the $300 or 10% (which ever is greater) above the estimate should be allowed. The $300 figure is what was used for a number of years and (as far as I understand) resulted in a higher level of traveler satisfaction and was not an unreasonable average burden for ICANN. I have added the 10% to accommodate similar issues for those travelers where business class is allowed. With the ICANN travel agent understanding this rule, many of the current exemptions would no longer be necessary.
7. For those travelers who can provide their own air travel at substantially below that of the estimate (perhaps the same $300 or 10%), ICANN should be willing to provide travel advances to pay for the ticket.
8. If a traveler needs to arrive early or late due to the lack of reasonable air options, the hotel and per diem should be covered by ICANN. There will be relatively few such cases and they can be easily audited or verified. Any such "extensions" are subject to audit by ICANN with the penalty being permanent withdrawal of self-reservation privileges.
9. If there is a substantial amount to be saved on airfare by scheduling an earlier arrival or later departure, such schedules should be allowed with ICANN paying the additional hotel and per diem, but only if the net savings is at least the greater of $300 or 10% of the original estimate. If making their own reservations, the traveler must document such savings. It is possible that the traveler may not be working for those days, but ICANN is still coming out ahead!
10. For reservations made by the traveler, unless an exemption has been granted, ICANN will reimburse no more that the lesser of the airfare paid, converted into US$, or the original estimate plus the greater of $300 or 10%.
11. I suggest a variation of the strict slot principle. Specifically, that the total airfare per group be compared to that budgeted (with allowance for business class travel granted for medical or size reasons), and that the group be allowed to use any significant savings for other pre-approved travel purposes (either to allow additional people to attend later ICANN meetings or for other events that support the mission of the group. For Board members, this should probably be tallied on an individual basis.
12. I would suggest a *reasonable* deadline for submitting travel expenses with a commitment by ICANN to pay promptly after submission if the deadline is met. I would be happy to comment on "reasonable".
Although not related to air travel, some people have hypothesized that reimbursing real and reasonable expenses instead of per diems would result in a net savings to ICANN. However, I strongly question whether this is worth the additional staff time required to administrate it, the volunteer time to submit claims, or the grief that will be caused by the occasional rejection of claims.
I am submitting this proposal on my own behalf, but with the general support of the ALAC Executive Committee. The proposal will be discussed at the ALAC meeting next week, and it is possible that the ALAC as a whole may endorse this or a similar proposal.
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