
Ask HN: Ask them to pay/schedule or handle it myself? - tonym9428
Long story short, I have an inquiry from a medium sized company to come out to the Bay Area for an interview. However, they want me to pay for the flick, hotel, etc and will reimburse me. I&#x27;m sure they will, but I wanted to understand what your general policy is on such things. Suck it up and pay for a flight in two days and an airbnb. Or would you ask them to cover it?
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patio11
I've pre-paid probably $100k of travel expenses over the years and gotten
reimbursed for it. (Occupational hazard of consulting and speaking at
conferences internationally.)

That said, it doesn't really matter what anyone else does, right? This is
between you and the company. Some companies are we'll-reimburse-you shops,
some will want to book your ticket, largely because they have internal
processes built up to do one or the other. (A note on market norms for young
HNers: you should expect to get plane tickets and a hotel room for any job
interview in a city which requires flying, courtesy of the company. A company
not offering that is a company to avoid. I personally feel like companies owe
candidates a per diem -- modest payment to defray the cost of meals and
incidentals -- but you'll find that relatively few companies spontaneously
offer this.)

 _Most_ companies should be fairly reasonable with regards to making alternate
arrangements if you're not in a position to do them yourself. You do not have
to elaborate on why. "Hey $RECRUITER, Thanks for the email. It would be more
convenient for me if you could book the tickets/hotel room. What information
from me do you need to make this happen?" will probably work. You will almost
certainly not be the only prospective employee to have ever made that request
in history.

If one does not have a pressing reason why one would do this, I would suggest
one just let companies run their standard processes. It makes things modestly
easier for you. Also, if you have e.g. space available on credit cards, "I pay
and then invoice you actual costs" is strictly superior to "You arrange
travel" \-- you get reward points (whee) and, more importantly, reasonable
discretion with regards to choice of flight and accommodations.

