Job Discussion Forums

eslteach · Joined: 28 Sep 2010 Posts: 94

I never needed a receipt in when I worked in Korea. Did you absolutely need a receipt to get your flight reimbursement after a university contract?

The Great Wall of Whiner · Joined: 29 Jan 2003 Posts: 4946 Location: Blabbing

Yes.

They want proof what was the actual cost of the flight. If I was a boss, I would want the same.

xi.gua · Joined: 15 Jul 2010 Posts: 170

Depends on the school I would say. The schools i've worked at offered a set amount of flight reimbursement. So if you flew under that amount, it was straight into your pocket. If you flew over it, it was out of your pocket. Depends on your school and what you negotiate. But I haven't shown any receipts to my schools, although that would be a better way for me to do business. Maybe I just suck at negotiating.

Paul D. · Joined: 19 Aug 2010 Posts: 55

As Watermelon says - it depends on the school.

The 1st university I worked at paid half the money at the end of the Fall semester and the rest after the Spring term, whether I flew anywhere or not.

The 2nd university required that I actually fly home, but, they paid the entire fare = 13k or so roundtrip to the USA.

The 3rd school was the same as the 1st.

My current school requires an airfare receipt, but it can be for a flight in China. The will pay half this term and half the next semester. But, I'm not sure if I'll have to give them a new receipt for next semester.

The training centers I've worked at didn't offer airfare reimbursement.

eslteach · Joined: 28 Sep 2010 Posts: 94

I just read my contract again and it actually says "round-trip airline ticket will be provided at the completion of the contract."

I would rather just have the cash for the ticket because I dont plan on going anywhere just yet. Is it common to just get cash instead of the ticket?

HiddenTreasure · Joined: 03 Oct 2010 Posts: 81

xiaolongbaolaoxi · Joined: 27 Aug 2009 Posts: 126

Regardless of what the contract says, you can be in for an unpleasant reimbursement process. Two schools pulled out amazing requirements for reimbursement days before leaving, which was decidedly not fun. Would you be willing to turn over the actual tickets [not receipts, not copies, but the things themselves] just before leaving? Right. Would you have fappiao [glorified receipts] if you bought your tickets online from a western website ? Right. "They" apparently decided that this was a great way to cut costs [CTs were not reimbursed for various presentations/paper, months after the fact].

Make sure you know what is going on when you buy your tickets. As in, well before you would actually buy them, find out from the FAO what is needed to get full reimbursement [this applies even if your contract states that the bonus is a bonus, not tied to flight costs that could fluctuate]. Look for loopholes [one FT was told she had to return to country of citizenship, which was definitely not in the English contract and the Chinese language contract was even clearer: no receipts needed] that may come back to haunt you. I had to go to war to get paid by one school (and I think they were very concerned that us FTs were telling other FTs in the area what was going on, which happens to be true, and worried that noone would come to work for them, also true, or that the department chair wanted a letter of recommendation from me so she could work in America, also true). Another school could have made it really fun, but didn't (the FAO wanted to get out of town as soon as possible and had no problem at all reimbursing me.) One thing to watch for (potentially) is whether you will stay in China. I know of some schools that have claimed (after the fact) that if you are staying in China (you travel during to Xian during CNY, for example) that they don't have to pay you. It never would have occurred to me to worry about these things in the west, and the few times it ever came up [in an interview] the interviewer raised the topic, addressed it, and moved on.

Take a tip from Telly... make sure whoever "they" is know that they are dealing with _your_ ticket. As part of the reimbursement warfare, we found out that the school was using information from a Korean teacher's file. Took a serious amount of energy to find that out. I would imagine that if you work at a place with 50+ FTs, this could become a legitimate problem as opposed to sheer and total incompetence. But on a happier note...

Aloha,

XLB

rogerwilco · Joined: 10 Jun 2010 Posts: 1549

All have my contracts have had a stated amount of cash that the school would pay at the end of the contract, typically 8000 or 9000 RMB.
It is none of their business when and where I travel, and I do not want the hassle of providing receipts, so I always insist upon a fixed amount being paid to me at the end of the contract.