<p>My company was flying someone in for an interview. We bought her plane ticket. Because we are a smallish firm with little budget for this kind of thing we repeatedly confirmed with her that she was truly interested and very likely to take the job if offered. It was very made very clear that she was our top candidate. Only then did we offer to fly her in. She was scheduled to come in later this week. This morning she informed us that she was withdrawing her application. When we contacted the airline to cancel the flight they told us they will issue HER a credit of 500.00 on a future flight, despite the fact that we paid for it. Evidently the credit is always linked to the name on the ticket not the purchaser’s credit card. So we’re out 500.00 and she has that credit to use! We let the applicant know that she had the flight credit and asked her to reimburse us, but we suspect we can’t legally force her to do that. Have any of you faced similar situations? Do we have any recourse with either the woman or the airline? </p>
<p>That is the first I’ve heard of this. I had flights in my and H’s names and had to cancel for medical reasons. The credit could only be in our names but the travel sgent wouldn’t rebook the flights without authorization from the company who paid. We did book another flight and reimburse the company and have a release to use the funds toward a different trip. </p>
<p>If you used a travel agency, try talking with them. When I’ve booked directly with the airline, they reverse directly to the card it was charged on. </p>
<p>In the future, perhaps donskype interview and agree to reimburse after candidate comes to interview in person if you get to that step. </p>
<p>If your company used a credit card to charge ticket, I’d contact them. </p>
<p>In future, I’d have a potential candidate sign a legal document stating his/her responsibility to reimburse your company within 5 business days (or whatever). I never go with verbal promises. </p>
<p>This happened to us once and I think we wound up eating it. </p>
<p>One of my employers learned a similar lesson when it hired a worker and paid a hefty hiring bonus to her. She resigned in a week, pocketed the bonus, and there was nothing that could be done in this case since the company did not put anything about the return of the bonus in her employment agreement that both parties signed. The company also did not have any prior experience with hiring bonuses.</p>
<p>If you did not have anything in writing from the person, you might be out $500. An ethical person would work with the airline to make every effort to return the money. However, the person might say, well, I do not intend to use the credit, I do not fly that airline, and this is none of my problems. Sounds like your best bet is to contact the credit card co. </p>
<p>I would also call the CC company. Your co probably was lucky not to get this person. </p>
<p>I see no reason to assume anything negative about the candidate from the information we’ve been provided. She kindly let the company know she was withdrawing her application several days before the scheduled flight. If employees at the company did not have experience flying people in for interviews and did not do what they should to take care of the company’s interests in purchasing the tickets that’s not her fault. She did not ask for the problem, and the OP didn’t say the woman doesn’t intend to see to it the company gets the money returned. </p>
<p>OP here…We don’t blame the woman who cancelled the interview, except for misleading us. We think she likely realized she didn’t want to move across the country, to a very expensive area, for a job that that didn’t promise big bucks…We just wish she’d come to this realization before committing to the in person interview. Our problem is with the airline, not her. We will pursue this with the credit card company and hope we can resolve it that way. We will also be sure it doesn’t happen again in the future!</p>
<p>Anx, I didn’t think you were blaming her. I understand it must be frustrating to try to get it straightened out now. We don’t know what her reaction was when she was told of the problem. If she mostly listened and didn’t commit to a particular course of action it could be because she didn’t immediately know what the best way to resolve it would be either.</p>
<p>It’s interesting. To me it sounds like she tried to do right, not like she was trying to mislead anyone, but I wasn’t there. I hope it turns out the situation gets resolved without much fuss for anyone.</p>
<p>Some other candidate is going to be happy to be getting a job offer! :)</p>
<p>Sounds frustrating but it was better that she informed you in advance rather than flying out and wasting everyone’s time with the interview. The $550 is probably only a fraction of the value of the employees’ time that could have been spent on this recruitment trip.</p>
<p>It is a calculated risk to buy non-refundable tickets for business travel. You lost out this time but you likely have saved money overall if you routinely buy non-refundable tickets, since most trips likely proceed as planned.</p>
<p>I would NOT expect her to reimburse the company for the ticket. </p>
<p>In the future, probably would be good for your company to consider booking with SW or similar company and buy a ticket with no cancellation penalty. </p>
<p>I still think it’s worth discussing this with CCard co to see options available. I’m sure this has come up for others. </p>
<p>Responding to BB in post no. 3: oh the stories I could tell about associates in law firms abusing federal law clerkship signing bonuses (up to $300k for US Supreme Court law clerks). Most of the former clerks are great but there are definitely ones who abuse the set up. But law firms inexplicably continue to pay these ridiculous signing bonuses. And since they want to keep the employees as “at will” employees, it is hard to craft contract terms that will stick. About the only thing worse than the clerks with bad attitudes who leave shortly after pocketing their clerkship bonuses are the ones with bad attitudes who stick around. (Again most of the former clerks are great).</p>
<p>Then there is the enforcement issue; what company wants to sue their former employees to get back the signing bonus?</p>
<p>I hope you can work something out with the credit card company and the airline. </p>
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<p>I think it’s not really realistic or reasonable to to expect a candidate to commit in any way to a company before she/he has met the principals, seen the site and received an offer. It’s possible that she might have been hoping for an offer from a different company but didn’t expect to get it, and then did.
Should she have put all her cards on the table and said you were the second choice without having any offer in hand?
I think the woman acted responsibly by letting you know once she was certain she was no longer considering the job and has no ethical obligation to reimburse you for your fare. If this happened to me, I’d probably call the airline and make the case on your behalf, but if I wasn’t planning to use the fare, why should I be out the $500? </p>
<p>In the future, would it be possible to reimburse the candidates for travel expenses after they arrive? </p>
<p>I don’t think I would have told her about the credit… Why should she get a credit? It seems like she is getting bonus for not coming to the interview. </p>