LTI Student Travel Authorization & Reimbursement
1. Before Travel
To get started, please fill out the LTI Travel Authorization Form and send it to LTI-Travel@andrew.cmu.edu. Your reimbursement will be assigned to an individual admin who can answer any questions you may have throughout the travel and reimbursement process.
If traveling on their advisor's funding, a student must obtain their advisor's approval, either via signature on the form or by forwarding an email of approval. The advisor must indicate what expenses are approved as well as the funding source.
Please submit your receipts within 30 days of returning from travel for expedient processing.
Reimbursements submitted after 75 days risk taxation. University processing of reimbursements can take up to two weeks.
LTI Departmental Funds for Student Travel
Check the relevant box at the bottom of the authorization form if you are applying for departmental funding. Departmental funds can only be used when faculty/external funding is limited or unavailable.
If approved, departmental funds are available in the following amounts:
- $750 for MLTs/PhDs presenting a refereed paper at a conference or organizing a workshop. Funding availability for MIIS/MCDS/MSAII is limited and requires program director approval.
- $250 for MLTs/PhDs attending a conference and/or participating in a workshop. Funding availability for MIIS/MCDS/MSAII is limited and requires program director approval.
- $1500 for students who entered the MLT or PhD in Fall 2021 or earlier. Students do not need to present a paper to qualify for these funds.
The new year of LTI Travel funding ($750/$250) begins 9/1.
The $1500 expires 12/31/23.
Departmental funding is only available for currently enrolled students.
**All funding is subject to availability and business office approval**
If you are traveling on sponsored funds, especially NSF, DARPA, or IARPA funding, please notify us at LTI-Travel before you book your airfare - restrictions apply and your travel may require sponsor approval. Traveling on federal funds requires choosing an American airline - see below for examples of American carriers. The admins at LTI Travel will ensure that your trip is compliant.
Always notify us before booking any international travel that will be paid for with federal funds!
For booking domestic travel, all flights should arrive no more than one day before the event starts and depart no later than one day after the event ends. For international travel, it is permitted to arrive two days before the event begins. Lodging should also follow these same rules. If a student wishes to extend travel, any additional funds spent to do so will not be reimbursed. If a student would like to extend travel beyond these parameters, please submit a screenshot of a roundtrip comparison flight from Pittsburgh to the location using allowable dates for price comparison. Frequent flyer miles or credit card points used to book travel will not be reimbursed.
For domestic airfare, please purchase non-refundable, economy-level tickets, or ask LTI Travel to book airfare for you using Concur.
For international airfare, LTI Travel will purchase airfare for students using CMU’s Concur platform.
Standard baggage fees can be reimbursed.
Please use American-Flag Carrier airlines when traveling on sponsored awards. If unsure, it is better to be safe and go for American-Flag Carriers.
American-Flag Carriers include:
- American Airlines
- Delta Airlines
- Frontier Airlines
- JetBlue Airways
- Southwest Airlines
- Spirit Airlines
- United Airlines
Please retain all original receipts. Receipts must show:
- Itemization (a line for each expense)
- The date
- Your name (if applicable)
- The names and titles of attendees for dining parties of 6 people or less and clear indication of the items that are submitted for reimbursement.
- The last four digits of card used or type of card used
If a receipt lacks all required details, submit supplementary screenshots of credit card or bank statements showing proof of payment (and please redact other expense lines for sake of privacy). Bank statements cannot be submitted without a receipt for reimbursement, as they do not show itemization. Venmo and CashApp screenshots do not contain enough information and require a supporting bank statement.
Non-itemized receipts (aka merchant copies or credit card slips) may not be reimbursed.
- Airfare and baggage
- Daily Meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner)
- Ground Transportation (taxi, Uber, Lyft, etc.)
- Lodging (hotel, Airbnb, etc.)
- Parking
- Economy-Grade Rental Car & gasoline (excluding insurance or additions)
- Mileage according to current GSA rate (personal car only)
Students can be reimbursed for meals in one of two ways:
- $40 Student Meal Per Diem: students (with advisor's approval) may elect a $40 per day meal per diem. This rate is fixed, regardless of travel destination. A travel day rate of $30 applies to the first and last day of travel.
- Actual meal costs (with limit specified by advisor): students will be reimbursed for actual meal costs based on their itemized receipts. Costs must be reasonable.
- One of the above must apply to the entire trip.
- Flight seat and hotel room upgrades are not reimbursable - students must book a basic or standard economy flight and standard hotel room.
- Students are expected to book the lowest cost reasonable economy flight available for their travel dates.
- Travel insurance is not reimbursable.
- Alcohol is not reimbursable.
- Students are not eligible for full (government rate) meals per diem. Students are only eligible for the $40 student per diem or actual costs.
- All business expenses must be reasonable. Reasonability is based on the federal lodging per diem rates. If your hotel costs are significantly above the per diem for a conference destination, please contact us before booking.
- Frequent flyer miles, existing airline credits, and rewards points cannot be reimbursed.
- Travel funding is awarded on an individual basis–one student’s funding cannot be applied to another.
To find the lodging per diem rate for a particular area, use the GSA site.
If travel is interrupted or canceled due to emergencies or extenuating circumstances, reach out to the admin assigned to your reimbursement.
Scan or take pictures of ALL receipts, along with any bank/credit card statements that may be needed. Complete the SCS Expense Reimbusement Report to itemize your expenses and send, along with pictures of all required receipts, to LTI-Travel@andrew.cmu.edu. Travelers must state how much they're expecting to be reimbursed.
The reimbursement process begins as soon as possible, ideally within the week of submission; this may take longer during high volume periods of the semester or if expense reimbursement requests are missing information or required documents.
Reimbursements default as checks sent to the address of the submitter's Workday account. If direct deposit is preferred, please open this form link with Internet Explorer (or save to desktop to open) and send to ap-supplier@andrew.cmu.edu.
For further reading on LTI Travel and reimbursement, here are some helpful links:
- CMU Business and Travel Expense (BTE) Policy
- Please note that although the BTE is a university-wide policy, additional regulations are applied within the LTI.
- Travel FAQs (some general questions from the Controller's Office, ranging from rental cars to meals)