Travel FAQs

Currently, there are no travel restrictions in place. However, if you are traveling internationally, you must seek permission using the following process:

• Administrative unit travel requests, outside the United States, must be approved by the Vice President of the planning unit. For questions, please contact financecustomercare@ohio.edu.
• Academic unit travel exception requests should be addressed to the Provost Office for review.

All travel arrangements must be made through the University travel provider, Christopherson Business Travel (CBT), in accordance with University policy 41.121 - Reimbursement for Official University Travel and Entertainment.

Currently, there are no travel restrictions in place. However, if you are traveling internationally, you must seek permission using the following process:

• Administrative unit travel requests, outside the United States, must be approved by the Vice President of the planning unit. For questions, please contact financecustomercare@ohio.edu. 
• Academic unit travel exception requests should be addressed to the Provost Office for review.

All travel arrangements must be made through the University travel provider, Christopherson Business Travel (CBT), in accordance with University policy 41.121 - Reimbursement for Official University Travel and Entertainment.

For guidance related to calculating mileage if you work remotely or have a hybrid work arrangement, please see HR's webpage https://www.ohio.edu/hr/flexwork.

Scroll to the FlexWork Policies and Guidelines section of the webpage and click "FlexWork Operational Guidelines PDF" document. Mileage reimbursmeent is addressed under the "CompliancE" section of the FlexWork Operational Guidelines manual.

Student travel is governed by policy 22.001 at this site: 22.001 | Ohio University.

If you are an Ohio University student currently enrolled in one of our study away programs, please contact the Office of Global Opportunities (opens in a new window) with any questions or concerns.

For personal travel, we strongly advise all students, faculty and staff to follow travel alerts from the CDC (opens in a new window).

All individuals who are returning from locations with increased risk of exposure are asked to check in with and follow any recommendations of their local department of public health (opens in a new window) before returning to campus.

There are no restrictions at this time for in-person meetings with either internal or expernal parties. However, virtual meetings have become the norm and can still be used if people are uncomfortable meeting in person for any reason.

There are no current restrictions for travel within the State of Ohio.

You are free to make domestic and international travel arrangements at this time without restrictions except that international travel must be pre-approved before arrangements are made using the following process:

• Administrative unit travel requests, outside the United States, must be approved by the Vice President of the planning unit. For questions, please contact financecustomercare@ohio.edu.
• Academic unit travel exception requests should be addressed to the Provost Office for review.

All travel arrangements must be made through the University travel provider, Christopherson Business Travel (CBT), in accordance with University policy 41.121 - Reimbursement for Official University Travel and Entertainment.

Essential business travel is defined as travel that is absolutely necessary to fulfill the mission of the University; can only be completed by the traveler’s physical presence and does not create an unacceptable health hazard.

If the charges were posted against a grant account, the charges MUST be moved off of the grant to an operating account of some kind if there is not specific guidance from an agency. Grants can only incur the costs if the event/trip actually occurs. See Institutional and Agency Responses to COVID-19 and Additional Resources (opens in a new window) for agency specific guidance. 

If you have questions please contact ORSP@ohio.edu and finance.grants@ohio.edu so the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSP) and Grants Accounting can work together to answer your questions.

You must reimburse the “per diem” or the cash advance to the University Bursar immediately. If you are not on campus to return the per diem, you need to reach out to your program contact and make arrangements to return those dollars. You can also reach out to financecustomercare@ohio.edu and Finance will work with you to make the necessary arrangements to return the funds at a future or through an alternative means.

There are no guarantees that you will be fully refunded for anything. If you cancel within the required cancellation period for hotels and rental car arrangement, you generally can do so without penalty. For airline tickets, most airlines will at least allow you to use the ticket for a future trip. However, airlines are continuing to modify how they are handling airfare cancellations. If you have booked non-refundable airfare, you have agree to the terms and conditions of that airline ticket at the time of booking and should not expect a refund. Be sure to carefully read the terms and conditions of the airfare you purchase. If purchasing cheap airfare, BUYER BEWARD, as there are often restriciotons associated with cheap airfare that are not favorable to refund or credit terms.

Event cancellations are generally assessed a cancellation fee and to date, our experience has been that they are not waiving cancellation fees (which they are often entitled to under the contract).

If the employee booked University-sponsored travel that is no longer allowable, they will not be held personally liable for those costs. However, the costs of cancelled travel will have to be absorbed by the planning unit. If travel was booked through the University travel provider, CBT, the employee should reach out immediately to financecustomercare@ohio.edu to start the cancellation process and take advantage of any refund or credit opportunities that might be available to you.

The itinerary cancellation notice from CBT needs to be attached to the transaction to support the cancellation of the trip. Please be advised that given the cancellation volume being experienced in the travel industry (especailly in the airline industry) by CBT it may take up to 4 business days to receive the cancellation document. Please be patient as our travel provider works to address the most critical needs at this time but rest assured, CBT will get you the necessary documentation as soon as possible. If you have questions about documentation, please contact financecustomercare@ohio.edu and someone will address your question/issue as quickly as possible. 

Under travel policy 41.121, see section 4 entitled Drive vs. Fly rule. You can choose to drive to your location vs fly but you can only be reimbursed for the lesser of what it would have cost to fly to your destination vs drive to your destination.The President has indicated that non-essential travel should not be occurring until further notice.

There have been no decisions to hold students harmless with regards to airfare. The student should work very quickly to reach out to the airline to get their ticketing addressed. Since most of our students book airfare on their own for the majority of study away experiences, conference attendance, etc. (OHIO and non-OHIO), we have not communicated to students these fees would be covered by University resources. It will also be hard to use University sources to cover these costs because the student will maintain the rights to the airline tickets (they can’t transfer the value to Ohio University) which means they can still use the tickets for their own travel needs. 

If the airfare change is outside of a student budget or is cost-prohibitive, they should reach out to OGO for advice and guidance.

For all Christopherson Business Travel (CBT) airline cancellation requests, please reach out to a CBT travel agent at 866-266-8806.  For all other inquiries, please submit a ticket to Finance Customer Care at financecustomercare@ohio.edu or 740-597-6446.

If you hav booked airfare outside of CBT (which is not allowable under policy), CBT may not be able to asist you since they did not book the reservation and will not have access to your reservation information.