Travel and Direct Pay

Effective June 1, 2023, UNCW will no longer participate in the American Express Credit Card Program. All American Express Cards under this program will be canceled as of this date. Any employee that has an American Express Credit Card through this program will no longer be able to use their card and will be required to pay their balance in full on or before that date.

As an alternative, we encourage UNCW employees that travel for business to apply for a UNCW Visa Travel Card if they have not already done so. The use of the Travel Card is a standard business practice designed to ease departmental expense tracking and remove financial liability for individual employees. If you do not have a UNCW Visa Travel Card, sign up today for the Visa Travel Card training - ACT 204 on Percipio and complete your UNCW Visa Travel Card Application located on the Controller's Forms page.

Some advantages of using a UNCW Visa Travel Card are as follows:

• Easy to apply for a UNCW Visa Travel Card
• Convenient training course ACT204 offered in Percipio
• No personal financial liability
• Separation of personal and business travel expenses
• Allows you to register and pay online for in-person conferences
• No more waiting until after the trip ends for card transactions to post to your departmental fund (important at year end)
• Other than food, most travel expenses can be charged to the card
• Reduces risk to traveler for fraudulent activity
• Minimum monthly card limit of $10,000 (can be increased for student group travel)
• UNCW is tax exempt in North Carolina, so NC lodging establishments should not charge sales tax (savings to the department’s fund)
• Card transactions post into the Chrome River eWallet making the completion of expense reports easier
• Travelers can take pictures of receipts while traveling and upload them into Chrome River reducing the risk of losing receipts while traveling

Please review the new Gift Card Guidelines and Procedures (PDF)

Gift cards are a convenient method of providing a gift to an employee, student or non-employee.  Most often they are used to

• encourage participation in research and surveys
• acknowledge an employee’s service or retirement
• say “thank you” to a conference participant or volunteer
• award a prize to a student in a campus competition

No matter the reason for a gift card, the IRS considers gift cards to be cash equivalents and therefore may be taxable to the recipient.  For that reason, there must be a clear audit trail of the purchase and distribution of the gift cards. Please contact Joanne Ferguson if you have questions about the guidelines or procedures.

OSBM updated their per diem meal rates effective July 1, 2022. In accordance with OSBM guidance, UNCW is using the US General Services Administration (GSA) lodging per diem of $96. Lodging in excess of this per diem rate will continue to route to the travelers' supervisor and budget authority for approval.

Please continue to visit the Department of State website for the most current foreign travel per diem rates. Any Chrome River pre-approval or expense reports submitted after July 2, 2022 will calculate at the new rates.