Work travel can sound glamorous until you realize it’s mostly airport food, delayed flights, and long nights away from home. For one frequent flyer, the miles he earned were the only real perk of spending more than half the year on the road. But when a new boss took over, that small reward suddenly came under threat.
After overhearing how many miles his employee had racked up, the boss decided those points “belonged” to the company and wanted them used for business trips. What followed was a perfect mix of clever revenge and professional defiance that turned an unfair demand into a satisfying lesson in boundaries.
A veteran business traveler turns a corporate overreach into one of the most satisfying workplace takedowns ever shared online
Travel benefits like airline miles, hotel points, and loyalty rewards often sit in a gray area, earned through business travel but accumulated in an employee’s personal account.
According to Forbes and Harvard Business Review, those rewards are typically viewed as the employee’s property unless a company has a written, pre-existing policy stating otherwise.
Employment law experts confirm that in the United States, no company can retroactively claim an employee’s personal reward miles once they’ve been credited to a private account.
Labor attorney Ari Wilkenfeld told Business Insider that “travel points are not a corporate asset unless earned through a company-controlled system or card.” Even if the employer reimbursed the flight, those miles belong to the traveler, not the payer.
For the company to demand their use on future business trips would be legally unenforceable and could violate employee compensation laws.
Historically, only government workers were barred from using miles earned on official travel for personal benefit under the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994, but that restriction was lifted in 2002.
The U.S. Office of Government Ethics now explicitly allows federal employees to keep such miles for personal use, noting that they “constitute personal property once credited to an individual’s account”. If even government workers can keep their points, a private employer certainly has no stronger claim.
From a management standpoint, trying to confiscate perks is also a terrible leadership move.
Research from Gallup shows that nearly 57% of employees leave jobs due to poor management or lack of respect for their effort.
Frequent travelers, especially, rely on these small benefits, priority boarding, lounge access, and upgrades, as compensation for long hours away from home. Removing them not only kills morale but can lead to costly turnover.
In this case, the employee’s decision to deplete his miles and scatter his bookings across multiple airlines wasn’t just petty revenge; it was a rational defense against unfair policy.
As workplace consultant Liane Davey points out, “If employers want loyalty, they must first demonstrate fairness.” Travel rewards earned through personal sacrifice belong to the traveler who endured the trip, not to the boss who profited from it.
Here’s what the community had to contribute:
This Reddit users contrasted your boss with their company’s supportive travel perks
While this group bonded over the sanctity of miles, sharing tales of flashy rental car perks and boss battles
One commenter recounted shutting down a similar mile-grab with a sharp retort
![[Reddit User] − I had an employer try and force me to use miles that I had earned before starting with them.](https://dailyhighlight.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/wp-editor-1760331987627-18.webp "Boss Demands Employees Use Personal Airline Miles For Work Trips, Employee Responds With Petty Genius")
Another cited the 2002 federal law change freeing government workers’ miles
![[Reddit User] − Your boss might have worked for the federal government or a nonprofit that was funded by the federal govt. ,](https://dailyhighlight.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/wp-editor-1760332004640-22.webp "Boss Demands Employees Use Personal Airline Miles For Work Trips, Employee Responds With Petty Genius")
One folk griped about companies hoarding miles via booking agencies
And this user cheered an employee who refused a similar rule
These Redditors loved the Bob Newhart nod and suggested more festival trips
Sometimes, the best revenge isn’t breaking the rules; it’s following them so precisely that the rulemaker ends up grounded.
Would you have drained your miles too, or taken the fight straight to HR? One thing’s for sure: this story proves that a good sense of humor and a well-timed plane ticket can be the ultimate career survival skill.
