A few travel stories
Working for the International Brotherhood of Magicians, at a reasonably senior level, as high as you can get without becoming a mangler basically, and in the sales side of the business though still a technical consultant - so I was a pretty expensive resource to waste my time on nit picking. We booked all our travel via Amex, just call them, tell them where and when, they get back with a itinerary, approved hotels (there's a list), approved travel class, management approval is pretty much automatic. So this one trip I get back home and the expense claim, I had spent three nights of the trip in a hotel in the Philippines, 4 star place, I recall about 80USD per night (cheap). Expense claim people a refusing the re-imburse, because the hotel had charged $1 per night more than the agreed rate. The amount of time I had to spend arguing with the process workers cost IBM at least a dozen times more than the $3 over the limit that had been incurred.
Next one, in Hong Kong at the final leg of a six week trip through Asia Pacific, all client facing, all sales generating, two countries per week, three or four client meetings per country, really exhausting - but I had figured easier on me and the family than many smaller trips over a period of months (all long haul, as origin was Australia). I'm standing in the lobby, in a queue to pay my hotel bill, get a call from a mangler about two levels up, he shouts down the phone at me "How dare you spend 20 grand of my money on this travel" - it was him who had approved the expense request 2 months earlier when we had planned this big sales tour. I always thought it was a bad sign when a mangler begins to think that the company money is actually something they personally own.
Last one, first trip with this company, my colleagues explained the lurk to me. Business Class is permitted if traveling more than 8 hours. Sydney to Singapore is only 7 or 7.5. Hong Kong though is closer to 9. So always book an Asia Pacific tour via HK first, then wherever you need to go next can all be short hops, but the Business Class will stick with you through the entire itinerary. That was a nice time to be traveling, even got bumped to First Class once on a 14 hour to Bangkok - champagne and caviar on being seated. All this ended in 2008 though, none of the actual workers got BC after then, beginning of the end for me...