The behavior is everywhere, and it’s not going away
Roll out corporate cards and you’d expect personal cards to disappear from expense reports. They don’t. The numbers say the opposite is closer to the truth.
Some of it is structural: contractors, new hires and infrequent travelers often have no company card at all, so a personal card is the only option. But a lot of it is deliberate. Frequent travelers choose their own card because that’s where the miles, points and cashback land, rewards a corporate program would otherwise absorb.
Why fighting it backfires
The usual reaction is to clamp down, issue more cards, write stricter policy, push everyone onto the corporate program. It rarely sticks, because it asks employees to give up a perk they value in exchange for nothing.
And it ignores the real cost, which isn’t the card. It’s the float. When someone pays for a flight on their own card, they’re lending the company money until reimbursement clears. A third of employees have said reimbursement took more than a month, long enough to carry a balance, pay interest, or watch their credit dip. No surprise that 42% told the same survey they feel their employer gains a financial advantage through the expense process.
The better move: lean in, kill the float
The employees are right. Paying on a card you control, and keeping the rewards, is genuinely better. The fix isn’t to take the card away. It’s to make reimbursement so fast the float never exists.
That’s the PuraFi model. Employees spend on their own card and keep 100% of the points, and PuraFi reimburses the money the moment the expense clears, often before they’ve left the counter. No month-long wait, no interest, no resentment. The behavior you were trying to stamp out becomes the feature.
What finance gets in return
Leaning in doesn’t mean losing control. Every expense still runs through policy, receipts are read and coded to the right account automatically, and finance gets clean, automatic books. Finance approves instead of chasing reports, and the cashback on PuraFi-rail spend comes back to your statement.
The takeaway: half your team is already voting with their wallet. Stop fighting it, remove the float instead, and the most common “policy violation” turns into the thing employees like most about working with you.