What Does A Per Diem Travel Form Look Like: Fill & Download for Free

Job in consulting.Innumerable people reach out to me for referring or knowing what does working in consulting look like.What people see -High salaries - This fact is quite all over the place.Great learning curve and exposure - Yes, there are myriad of opportunities which one can make use of to grow exponentially and expedite their career growth.New places to visit for work - with visiting different clients, one gets opportunities to visit different places.Privilege points for flying - quite obvious since you’re flying so much, you collect a lot of pointsFancy hotel stays - again, famous all over the place. Looks good for social media though.Great reimbursement structures - per diem and travel expenses etc are paid by the firms.Parties and office events - again, consulting firms are famous for this. Yes, consultants do have a happening life that way.Networking opportunities - you just don’t get to network within your firm but also with every client that you work. So you can build a great network.I wouldn’t deny that these are false. But there’s a whole lot of backstory to it -Salaries don’t usually match up to the amount of work that you do - There are product firms that pay a hell lot of money with better lifestyle.Really long work hours - Ok ok, everybody knows this. But overlooks it for the salary credited. But what people don’t realise is overworking leads to exhaustion. And, it is real fast.Monotonous work - yep, this happens as well. Not something that is talked about but this also happens way more than what one imagines.You visit new cities but you really don’t get time to explore - Yes. If somebody pays you to visit places, they obviously aren’t paying for you to chill there.Loneliness in hotels and outside food takes a toll on health - Yes. Been there. Experienced that. Might not be true for others, but I felt bored of this quite easily and don’t really look forward to it the way I did when I started working. Now I only look forward to these when there’s some learning in it for me.Family time goes for a toss - Yep. Even today when we are working from home, there are times when I login, work and sleep. But still, family time is better in work from home. Otherwise it gets really difficult to manage work life on weekdays. That’s why you’ll see all consultants treasuring weekends.Although consulting life looks really glamorous from the outside, there are a lot of sacrifices that one has to make to keep going. And it only increases as you step up in your corporate ladder.Additionally, nowadays, there are a lot of product companies and startups that pay at par or better than consulting firms (obviously not for directors above in consulting) with a better lifestyle.Throwback to one of my favourite client places in a remote location. Credit - My GalleryHere’s another answer of mine describing my big 4 experience -Cheers,Srishti.

While the replies to this question offer a lot of good information, it's pretty much all in terms of "dollars-per-hour", and that's misleading.Keep in mind that this answer is written in January of 2016. Amounts will increase as the years go by.In my experience, generally speaking, a new-hire Flight Attendant earns a very low salary, barely above the poverty line. (I started in 1991, and earned $18,000 my first year.)A senior Flight Attendant (15+ years) earns an average of around $60,000 per year. Some earn more; they choose to fly more hours, and some earn less because they choose to fly less.The job is very flexible, and one can "self-adjust" one's salary quite a bit.That's it in a nutshell. Having stated that, here are some details, in case you're interested. (I know it's long... REALLY long! I somehow got started writing and couldn't stop, so feel free to skim and scan, or just skip altogether!)A number of years ago, USA Today did an article listing the best-paid professions in the country. And they listed Flight Attendant as one of the highest paid professions, citing it at somewhere around $165,000 per year. It made waves throughout the airline industry, particularly among Flight Attendants and Flight-Attendant-wannabes because at that time, average pay was closer to $45,000. Suddenly, everyone wanted to be a Flight Attendant.But the article was an example of a journalist who couldn't be bothered to research, let alone actually verify her information. You see, our hourly pay is only calculated on the actual time that the plane is moving. That is, from the moment the captain releases the brakes and the aircraft pushes back from the gate, until it arrives at the destination and the captain sets the brakes.We don't receive pay for checking in 2 hours before departure, gathering paperwork for safety/security briefings, briefing crews, figuring work positions, duties, safety checks, changing planes (running to the next flight) or even while we're boarding passengers onto the plane or saying goodbye to them as they get off, or for the flight debriefing afterward. That's all "free" - working for nothing. (It isn't uncommon to begin a day at 6:00 a.m. and end at 8:00 p.m., and only receive 6 or 7 hours of pay. Indeed, I've put in as much as 16 hours for as little as 5 hours of pay.)The USA Today journalist didn't bother to learn that little fact.She saw a list of pay rates, like the one below, and gleefully added it all together, to come up with something like $80 per hour. She simply multiplied it by 40 (hours per week), and multiplied that by 52 (weeks in the year) to come up with the figure of $165,000 per year!(Flight Attendants all over wrote letters to USA Today demanding a correction; it never happened!)Here are approximate pay rates (as of January 2016) for airlines in the U.S. Obviously they differ from airline to airline, and this list is by no means complete. But it should give you a general idea of how (and how much) we're paid:"Flight Pay" forms the basis of our pay, while the additional pay factors are added on in addition to Flight Pay. Also, like Flight Pay, these additional factors are all calculated "per flight hour", with the exception of per-Diem pay.Flight Pay: Between $16 and $67 per flight hour, depending on seniority and market (i.e. domestic routes vs. international routes, charters, Military charters, etc.)The following are in addition to Flight Pay, and are also calculated per flight hour. They may be called by different names on different carriers, but these are the basics:Position Pay: Between $0.60 and $7.00 per hour. Paid for working a more demanding position, such as Head Flight Attendant/Lead/Purser, or galley position.Night Pay: Up to $0.80 per hour for flight time between 10:00 p.m. and before 6:00 a.m.Language Pay: $0.55 to $2.50 per hour if you have passed testing and been approved as a Language Speaker in a foreign language, and that language is required for that flight (i.e. Mandarin on a flight going to Beijing). Obviously, you don't get paid extra if you speak Japanese, but the flight is going from New York City to Frankfurt, Germany.Reserve Pay: $1.20 - $2.50 per hour. Reserves are usually the junior Flight Attendants who do not have a monthly schedule of predetermined flights to work. Rather, they're in the Reserve Pool, and are called upon as needed. They usually have no idea when or where they're going to fly, for how long, or when they'll be home until they receive their assignment either the night before, or with as little as 2 hours of notice. (It can be a miserable life!)Holiday Pay: Some airlines use a convoluted calculation (that makes no sense) to figure holiday pay, while others simply pay "time-and-a-half" for flight time falling within a holiday. Either way, it rarely works out to more than time-and-a-half.Per Diem: $1.50 - $2.65 per hour for every hour away from home. (Example: I check in for work at 6:00 a.m. on the 3rd, and I get back on the 5th at noon. I'm away for 54 hours. My per-Diem at $2.25 per hour is $121.50.)Federal law requires that an employer reimburse employees for travel expenses while on company business, or they can pay them a set amount each day to cover expenses. Airlines pay an hourly amount from the moment a Flight Attendant reports for duty until they are released at their home base at the end of a trip. This is not considered pay because it's reimbursement for meals, drink and travel expenses while on a trip. It is not taxed.Vacation Pay: We do get paid vacations, and both the vacation time and the rate of pay varies between airlines. It's my understanding that at most airlines, vacation pay is far less than monthly pay. Taking a vacation is akin to taking a huge pay cut for the time you're on vacation. Most of my fellow Flight Attendants pick up a lot of extra hours in the months leading up to their vacation, sometimes flying as many as 150 flight hours (that's a lot) just so they can afford to take their vacation. And many simply stay home while they're on their vacation; they can't afford to go anyplace, even when the flights are free!Other: There are a number of other pay factors, such as Under-staffing Pay (when the flight is short a Flight Attendant or two, and the rest have to work harder to make up the difference), Short Call (you're given very short notice to show up for work), Drafting (you're pulled from your normal schedule and reassigned to work a different schedule, or you're forced to work into or on your day off), Publicity Flights, Promotional Pay, and a number of other situations that can effect your pay. These don't usually happen frequently enough to make a significant difference to one's salary.Generally speaking...Flight Attendants may usually work around 85 - 100 flight hours per month. Some work more, some less. Most airlines have set up Flight Attendant schedules in such a way that makes it very flexible for them. For example, if I'm scheduled to fly a 2-day trip on Tuesday, I can trade it with my friend Mary, who is flying a 3-day trip on Friday. She'll fly my trip for me, and I'll fly her trip for her. Likewise, if Mary want's to earn more, I can give her my 2-day trip. She'll get the pay instead of me. I can "pick up" flying to earn more, trade vacations, schedules and work positions. I can choose to not work at all by "giving away" my schedule to other Flight Attendants who want extra hours.Per Diem pay is very helpful because with care, it can be a source of income. Many of us bring food from home, or we eat cheaply on the planes, or in the employee cafeterias where food is less expensive. As a result, while we may earn $150 of per-Diem on a 3-day trip, I can eat for much less than that. The result is that much of my per-Diem is like receiving a little extra income.Junior Flight Attendants (i.e. new-hires) often carry the brunt of the job because they frequently work less than 50 hours or less per month, making it very difficult to make ends meet financially. Reserves are usually guaranteed to be paid for at least 65 hours per month (it varies between airlines), and that helps. But consider that if they aren't flying, Reserves aren't earning any per-Diem.When I was a Reserve in the early 90's, I ate as much airplane food as possible, and I drank a lot of water (instead of buying soda, coffee, tea, juices, etc.) I scrimped every penny I could... I had to because I couldn't live on 65 hours of flight pay per month. I qualified, and received food stamps (and was threatened with termination if I picked up my food stamps while in my uniform). For a Reserve, receiving per diem can mean the difference between eating and not.A few other notes...We do receive paid vacations, but in most cases, we receive only a fraction of our pay while we're on vacation. My airline pays us up to 3 hours and 15 minutes of flight pay for each day that we're on vacation.One of the most astute observations that I read here was made by Heather Wilde, below, when she wrote, "You don't become a Flight Attendant for the money." I couldn't agree more. If you take this job to become rich, well, you're in for a huge disappointment. There are wonderful reasons to become a Flight Attendant, but those reasons aren't for everybody.Here are the reasons that I love the job, and why I have kept it for so long:Time Off: I work, generally speaking, between 3 and 4 days a week.Travel: I love to fly, and I love to experience new cultures, new people, cities and destinations, whether it's upstate New York right here in the U.S.A. or "Arab Street" in Singapore.Free flights: Yes, the flying is free, and of course I absolutely love that little perk. But let's put it in perspective. We fly on employee passes (pass-riding), and we fly standby, meaning we only get on if there's an empty seat. And as airlines overbook more and more, an empty seat is becoming increasingly rare. I've been stranded, unable to get a flight home. Once, when I was living in San Francisco, I flew from Denver to New York, to Houston to San Francisco (SFO), all in one day, just to get home; the flights from Denver to SFO and from New York to SFO were all sold out.Pass-riding means that we get whatever seats are left over; usually a middle seat in the center, non-reclining section next to the bathrooms at the back of the plane where it's the smelliest and noisiest. By the time we get on, there's rarely any space for my bag, and I have to climb over people (and endure the glares of the guy who thought the seat next to him would be empty). But hey, it's free!We are allowed to ride in Business Class, and even First Class, if there is an empty seat. But nowadays, airlines give away so many free upgrades to the top-echelon mileage flyers that it's almost certain not to happen. But I do remember the day...!Pass-riding requires plenty of planning and lots of patience. I never try to come home on the last day of my vacation; I might not make it. Even if a flight looks fairly empty, it can fill up fast if another airline cancels a flight (and sends all of their passengers over to my flight), or if the aircraft breaks (mechanical cancellation), or if there's a weight restriction (all of the allowed weight is taken up with extra cargo, and the plane leaves with empty seats, but they won't allow any pass-riders). Pass-riding, for all its perks, is stressful and can be very unpleasant. But I don't travel for the ride, I travel for the destination, and when I arrive, it's all worth it!People: My nature is one of giving, nurturing and caring. I considered a career in nursing, but it doesn't offer travel and the time off I want. Here, I can use my nurturing skills in an unsupervised environment with minimal pressure. I'm free to "be myself" (well, mostly!), and I can and do use my interpersonal skills to make my customers feel like they're the only people on this earth who matter to me at that moment.Co-Workers: No doubt that Flight Attendants are family. We're all a very close-knit group who have shared life-changing events time and again, from joys to grief. We bond in ways that most people never bond with their co-workers; there's a tightness, a closeness that comes from facing our fears together, knowing that we are each responsible for each other, and that we are committed to pulling together through the best as well as the ever-present possibility of "the worst".And here are a few things that I don't like about the job:Pay: I'm generally satisfied with making enough money to live without worry. I don't want to stress over how I'm going to pay bills, put food on the table or a roof over my head. And the pay I receive covers that, and even provides a little extra for me to spend when I take a vacation. But in this industry, corporate management is constantly demanding more for less. "Productivity" has become the buzzword, and as top management line their own pockets with yachts, mansions and in one case, even an island, the front line people like us are being squeezed out with less pay, reduced benefits, etc. Sadly, that's the way ALL Corporate America is going... I get it. But I don't like it!Being a Flight Attendant is work, hard work. We don't just try to look pretty, flirt a little and serve coffee and cocktails. At the end of a long day, we're usually pretty wiped out. And when we arrive at our destination, we don't have a day or two to go sightseeing, shopping or sit by the pool. We're lucky to get 5 or 6 hours of sleep before we have to be back at it again. Living out of a suitcase has its disadvantages!Lack of control: If you work a 9-to-5, five days a week, you know when you will be home. You can plan your week, your month or your future. We can't. I don't know my schedule for any month until the middle of the month before. So I set my dentist appointments, hoping I can make it. And for the most part, management has little sympathy for conflicts with their schedules. (I remember one Flight Attendant who was called in to work on her day off. It was her wedding day, and she was in tears. Pleading did no good, and ultimately, she was fired because she didn't show up to work. Four months later, the Union was able to get her job back, after threatening legal action.) As a Flight Attendant, you are at the mercy of the airline, especially for the first five years or more, until you are able to accrue some seniority.In the end, the good outweighs the negative, and life is good. I love the work, and I am grateful for the opportunities that I've been afforded to see the world. I've relished it, savored it and soaked it up, and I'll keep doing that until I can no longer put one foot in front of the other!To quote Rosalind Russell in "Mame":"Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!"

One of the biggest scam I noticed in this year is: (I am fresh graduate out of college working in MNC in bangalore)Everyone knows that in most of MNC's employees travel to outside India, to european countries or US mostly. During this trip they are paid a fixed amount called as per diem. Here I will be taking about case similar to my company, where we are given full amount of per diem in form of corporate credit card or forex card before starting of travel.We have two options:(1) If you leave the amount you saved in your card and let company's finance dept settle it and give you back the remaining amount, company pays the taxes and gives you remaining amount back.(2) To convert those euros or dollars at good exchange rates we mostly take out foreign currency as hard cash in foreign country and then convert it in India when rate is good.Most of people follow approach 2.Now we forget that the amount we saved out of per diem is taxable as per IT rules.What IT Dept India says is:If any amount of per diem (allowance) is given and it is fully spent by the employee it is non taxable but if you save the money then it has to be included in your taxable income.So if company finance dept is handling that, they will pay the tax but if you take the money out as cash, company assumes you have spent your per diem completely so they dont pay any tax.Now in approach 2, it becomes your reponsibility to pay the tax.But According to me almost all employees dont, atleast in my company no one does, not even a single employee (right from big managers to engineers). Sometime they take out whole amount in cash just to save it from tax.Excuse they give:(1) They are not aware about it: If today some rules comes saying that amount equivalent to what you save out of your per diem will become non taxable from your salary, everyone will know it. In short, everyone knows all means of saving tax, but when it comes to paying they give excuse saying that they are not aware.(2) Why should I pay tax, Govt. will waste in scams. Truth is, Politicians have power of wasting tax payers money, they do that, you have power of doing tax chori, you do that. Basically we all are same, we belive in misusing the power we have, politicians have power to waste it we have power to hide it.(3) Its my money, I saved it. I dont know why the sense of service to humanity, country and society is diminishing. We MNC engineers today are one of the most well doing salaried class of india, most rich and we dont like to share it with country, such a shame!Everyone here is talking of scams which are affecting us in some way or the other, may be puncture scam, beggers scam, etc.But I think we should look towards some scams which we are doing, we here refer to (pseudo) educated, emerging and aware Indian middle class.Please come out of air bubble you are livin in and contribute something to our country and nation. It was this nation which took care of you for some 20 years of your life, please dont shy away from giving it back to the nation.And if someone feels that it will be small amount, let me tell you, I came last year in 0% tax slab(as I joined after mid year), I paid around 15ooo tax due to per diem. This year I fall in 20% tax slab, I might have to pay 50-60k as tax, just think about majority of people who fall in 30% tax slab, how much tax they are stealing!I would like to tag some people who might have more knowledge on this issue, please correct me if I interpretted any fact wrongly.Roman Saini SirHrishikesh Patki Sir