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Post by nicolas1 on Jan 2, 2012 7:03:06 GMT
Hi,
Is there a minimum age required to receive the expat travel allowance for the dependents of an employee
Thanks
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Post by GroveWanderer on Jan 3, 2012 9:22:10 GMT
I'm not quite sure I understand the question. Whenever you travel on a company-paid vacation, the company gives you ticket money plus travelling expenses for you and all your dependents who need a ticket. If your child is too young to need a ticket, the company (naturally enough) does not give you ticket money. Once they become old enough to require a ticket, you will receive a travel allowance for them, based on the fare amount they are liable to pay. Once your children are old enough to require a full adult fare ticket, they will receive the same amount as any other adult would.
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Post by vpainter on Jan 5, 2012 14:12:07 GMT
GroveWanderer answered your question well.
FYI:
Once the kids are older: once the children go past the 9th grade they will be on EAP. If they attend 10th - 12th grades outside KSA, they will receive a roundtrip airline ticket home 3 times a year but will not receive expat vacation monies as they did while in the kingdom. If they go to 10th - 12th grades in the kingdom, they will still receive the expat vacation money, with no need for the 3 tickets home.
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Post by Fire_Tim on Feb 3, 2012 0:57:07 GMT
Vpainter,
Now I am confused. I am still in the states just got my job offer and starting the whole process BUT my recruiter told me that there was no high school over there so our high school age children will have to go to boarding school. Also, does the company pay for vacation tickets for us or do we just get an annual travel allowance issued to us each year?
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Post by vpainter on Feb 10, 2012 7:53:31 GMT
There is an American curriculum high school right outside Dhahran on the U.S. Consulate grounds. Dhahran High School is a very good college preparatory school and is a part of the International Schools Group, Dhahran. You can look at their website. About a third of the students from the Aramco Dhahran Jr High attend there. Aramco pays 100% of the tuition. There is the Bahrain Dept. of Defense High School that is a week day boarding school and the kids can come home on the weekends. There are British and Indian curriculum high schools as well in Khobar and Dammam. Or you can choose a boarding school of your choice anywhere in the world and Aramco pays up to a certain amount.
You are given your repat vacation money once a year when you request it, once eligible for it. It is the cost of regular priced tickets round trip to your home airport for each family member, plus some for spending money. You buy your own tickets and if you get a good deal, then you have more to spend doing fun things.
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Post by Hadia on Feb 10, 2012 9:51:11 GMT
Is the repat allowance recalculated each year to reflect changes in airline fares or does it stay the same? The new hire worksheet gives a sample repat figure but it's unclear how it's calculated and what changes to anticipate year to year.
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Post by GroveWanderer on Feb 10, 2012 16:08:24 GMT
The repat allowance is more or less a standard, full-fare economy class (YE) return ticket to your point of origin. I don't think they individually check each person's flight each time but I know that some years it goes up, some years it goes down, in line with the prevailing industry trends in airfares. I suspect they update the prices to each destination around once a year. In addition to the basic ticket price, according to the IR manual, the company pays "a travel expense allowance, inclusive of excess baggage, equal to 25% of airfare, plus a local taxi allowance to and from the Company-approved in-Kingdom departure airport [...]. Payment of airfare and travel expense allowance is for the employee and each eligible family member."
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Post by azraeil on Feb 11, 2012 11:33:16 GMT
They haven't changed mine for the last 5 years and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
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Post by Hadia on Feb 11, 2012 13:02:27 GMT
How close or far off was your actual first year's repat amount compared with your new hire worksheet? Was it fairly close to their estimate on the worksheet?
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Post by David_and_Nita on Feb 12, 2012 3:03:48 GMT
An example: We had a child born in May. We went on repat the Dec after she was born. We were allotted 150% of the previous year's travel allowance aka the travel allowance was based on number of dependents not age, etc.
Our repat allowance has been exactly 150% of the new hire worksheet (hired with 2, currently have 3) without any change.
This amount is net payment and is direct deposited about 1 month or so before the trip.
Hope that helps.
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Post by azraeil on Feb 12, 2012 7:46:56 GMT
The repat allowance is based on the number of dependents that you have
For example
Your allowance - USD6K
Your wife - USD6K
Your child below 12 years old - 75% of 6K
The allowance will only change once your child reaches 12 years of age (they will get the same allowance as you do)
I can't really remember what the new hire worksheet amount is but that 6K has not changed for the last 5 years since I've been here. That's 5 repats.
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Post by GroveWanderer on Feb 12, 2012 14:41:34 GMT
Well, all I can say is that I've been here a little longer than 5 years and my repat travel allowance has changed many times. Usually when it has changed, it has gone up but not always.
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Post by dgc00 on Feb 14, 2012 7:46:45 GMT
I believe that it is calculated in USD and converted to payroll currency. The USD for mine have been the same for past 4 years - however, value of the Canadian dollar has influenced it greatly over the years.
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