How to Travel (preliminary info page)
Basics
Graduate students traveling for research or to conferences should generally not be paying for their own travel. In many cases your adviser's research grant should cover the expenses. The university and the department also have some funds to help students travel to meetings, summer schools, etc.
Generally, all business related travel expenses are covered, typically costs of transportation including air fare and getting to and from airports, lodging, meals, and conference registration fees.
Reimbursable travel must be approved in advance. Apply for approval through the concur app at my.rutgers.edu. To apply you will need to know various account numbers and other codes as well as your planned trip dates. You should be able to get these codes from your adviser or whoever is paying for your trip, or if necessary the business office. You will also need to specify the expected expenses for the trip. Meals can be specified as a "travel allowance", often referred to as a per diem.
Once you receive approval, plane tickets you need to buy should be bought through concur or directly ordered through the Rutgers travel agent. Train tickets can be bought directly. Rutgers generally expects you to choose the minimal cost alternative, such as economy class plane fares. While the air fare can be directly charged to a Rutgers account, typically all other charges are paid directly by the traveler and reimbursed.
Lodging / hotels can be reserved through the travel agent, but exceptions are possible. Concur will remind you about lodging, and ask for a reason you are not reserving lodging through Concur.
Rental cars should be intermediate size or smaller, only reserved if needed, and also reserved through concur or the travel agent.
Keep receipts for any expenses you have during travel; you will need to upload images of them along with screenshots of the charges showing up on your credit card bills when asking for reimbursement.
You need to ask for reimbursement within 60 days of completing travel. If you are late, approving your reimbursement can require higher administrative levels of approval, which might not happen. The reimbursement request is again done through Concur by filing an expense report. Do not forget to include the air fare expense already in the system. Even though it is already in the system, you need to manually attach the airfare charge to your reimbursement request.
In addition, all students should prepare in advance by, for example, installing appropriate apps on their phones, which might include airline apps, local public transit apps for you destination, the TripIt app which connects to Concur, etc.
International Travel
Many students in the program travel internationally, for conferences and research as well as for personal reasons.
Domestic students who are not experienced in international travel should be aware that it can take a few months to obtain a passport, and visas are sometimes required for travel.
International students should check on what constraints they have due to their visas to come study in the U.S. Please contact Rutgers Global. Many students ask the GPD for a status letter in support of visa applications for their research / conference / personal travel.
You should consider if your phone will work in your destination, and whether to get a sim card or plan that will allow it to.
Legal issues with students on international travel have arisen, particularly since COVID, leading to many univserities changing travel policies. It appears that travel to conferences is not a problem, but students with AY appointments plus summer support will not be allowed to travel during the summer for research -- they are supposed to work on campus.
Links
Related travel web pages include:
- The main Rutgers booking travel webpage, with information and links to other pages, is https://procurementservices.rutgers.edu/travel_and_expense/booking_travel. You can find training videos at https://procurementservices.rutgers.edu/travel-and-expense/concur-travel-and-expense.
- The department has a summary travel policy web page at https://my.physics.rutgers.edu/apps/travel/, but be warned that the travel system and policies can be updated more often than the department directions.
- Travel approvals and reimbursements are done through the concur app. Log into my.rutgers.edu, choose the app icon, and then type concur into the search box to find it. For reimbursements, you will need various documents to upload (pdfs / images of receipts and credit card bills), as well as account (and task) numbers for the expenses to be charged to. Different expenses on the trip can be charged to different accounts. See also the procurement page about reporting expenses: https://procurementservices.rutgers.edu/travel-and-expense/reporting-travel-expenses. Even though you need to buy plane tickets through Concur, you need to attach your plane ticket charge to your reimbursement request.
Travel Policy Violations?
If you violated travel policy by, for example, not approving your trip in advance, buying plane tickets outside Concur, etc., you will not be reimbursed unless a travel policy violation approval is given. The procurement web page linked above, https://procurementservices.rutgers.edu/travel_and_expense/booking_travel, includes a section "Travel Request and Approval Forms'" that includes a link to a "Travel Policy Violation Approval Form". Fill out and submit this form. You might want to try the practice form first.