Conference and flight cancellations

With all of the conference cancellations due to Covid-19, there have been questions about how to handle flight credits, conference refunds, and hotels, or if they need to be reconciled in ChromeRiver. We have provided some guidance below.

Flight credits
Most airlines provide only a flight credit for cancellations and not a full refund back to your credit card. These credits are non-transferable and have to be used for business travel. They also have to be used within a year, or the credit will be lost (some airlines are extending this to two years). However, this only means that the flight has to be booked within the year, not necessarily that the flight has to happen within the year.

For employees who rarely travel, and who worry that these credits will not be used in time, work with your supervisor, as there may be another conference you could go to where you could use that flight credit.

Conference refunds
If you purchased registration with a travel card, these refunds will be hitting accounts soon, if they have not already. These need to be reconciled in ChromeRiver like any normal expense. Once it has appeared in your eWallet, process like normal. Please include the expense report number of the original charge (find this on your ChromeRiver home page in the "submitted" tab).

If registration was purchased with a PCard, please forward the cancellation to the PCard holder. Contact asrcentral@umn.edu with questions, or to have a ChromeRiver report reviewed before submission.

Hotels
Most hotels should have reached out with a cancellation confirmation, but if they have not, please call them to cancel.