If you are driving:

• You will be paid mileage and reimbursed for tolls. Be sure to get receipts for tolls and turn them in with your travel reimbursement request when you arrive in Norman. Gas is not directly reimbursed, so no need to keep those receipts.
• The finance department at OU will compare your mileage to the price of a coach airfare and the lesser amount will become the cap for the mileage portion of your reimbursement. Your total travel costs are also capped at $500 total ($250 each way).
• The REU program can only reimburse you for a hotel stay the night before the program is scheduled to start and the night the program is scheduled to end. I.e. A May 24 start date means only a May 23 (night of) hotel stay can be reimbursed.
• Regarding your return home, you can only be reimbursed for a hotel stay the night that the program is scheduled to end. We can set this date by consensus because you may decide you want the extra day/night after the final presentations to do something fun together. The official ending date will be either Friday, July 30 or Saturday, July 31.

If you are flying:

• The REU program will book your flight and send an electronic itinerary to you to print and take to the airport with you. We'll group flights to arrive near the same time on May 24.
• You can be reimbursed for miscellaneous expenses such as mileage and tolls from your house to the airport. Be sure to keep toll receipts.
• If your flight exceeds the cap but others remain below, we reserve the right to simply pay more for you. If the average for all students remains below $500/each we will do this. It's worked out this way for the past three years.

General Information

• Important! Note the date, time, and address from which your official travel begins - and ends. You will need this to file your claim.
  • I.e. I would write down something like this:
    • I was driven to the airport. We left at 10:10 a.m. on May 24, 2004 from my home, 111 Streetname St., Norman, Oklahoma 73072 and drove to the Will Rogers Airport in Oklahoma City. Why: The addresses are used to calculate your mileage to the airport.
    • Parking was free (first hour in hourly is free), so no receipt. Why: Parking can be reimbursed - keep the receipt or have it sent.
    • I was picked up and arrived at the Yorkshire Apts at 4 p.m. May 24, 2004. Why: I got a ride from the happy helpful REU people, but I will still get my per diem based on the total travel day, so the date/time is important.
• Keep all relevant receipts (hotel, tolls, airport parking) and have them with you on Day One. We will make a copy of them for you to keep when you turn in the originals with your travel reimbursement request.
• There is a $500 travel allowance for each student. Each half of your trip to/from Norman is capped at $250.
• Caps (you will not have every item):
  • mileage:
    • your total mileage from address of departure to address of arrival (Yorkshire Apts or an airport) is multiplied by $0.36/mile (see OU's page to check the latest rate)
    • if you drove to Norman, your total is compared to the price of an airline ticket from the airport you would have flown from and the lower of the two is used for this portion
  • per diem: your date/time of departure and date/time of arrival are used to determine per diem
  • hotel: this is capped at the Federal rates: http://www.fedtravel.com/gsa/Hotels.asp?Hotels=Y&Cars=&Flights=Y&Home=Y
  • total: the total is capped at $250 each way, regardless of how the above works out
• Once we process your reimbursement request you'll receive a form to sign. The items may not quite match the amount you turned in. The finance department always double checks the numbers to be sure they conform to the latest rules. Sometimes they change things a little bit.

*NOTE* -- Refer to the OU Travel web site http://www.ou.edu/fis/control/travel.htm. Their information supercedes ours.

Copyright © 2004 - Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma