American Airlines. The belt-tightening is understandable, he concedes. But you definitely feel the 'take away,' and it can encourage feelings of resentment toward your employer.

Many road warriors say they are being ordered to live more frugally while traveling on company business, thanks to the double whammy of a slumping economy and spiking travel costs. Business-class airfares jumped 12.4 percent in February over the same year-ago period, higher than the 6.2 percent increase in economy fares, according to reservations giant Sabre Travel Network. And hotel rates have risen 15 percent in the past three years, industry surveys show. Adding to the sticker shock are all the surcharges and fees that now pop up each time you plug in your laptop or check a bag.

Companies say they have no choice but to inflict some nickel-and-diming on their employees. It used to be that companies would simply chop the travel budget by a certain amount when times were tough, says Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition, which represents corporate-travel buyers. But now it's all about control. Travel policies are tighter, and they're being enforced. Indeed, calls to executives at a half-dozen large organizations show that coach class is pretty much the norm for flights under 10 hours, ruling out premium class on such popular runs as New York to Los Angeles or New York to London. The penny-pinching is even extending into some executive suites; until this year, top officers at troubled online brokerage E-Trade could avail themselves of corporate jets and company apartments in New York and Washington. In a recent S.E.C. filing, the company disclosed that it had gotten rid of these perquisites.

Mitchell says he expects the trend to worsen in the next few months, especially if other airlines follow United Airlines' decision to reimpose the Saturday night-stay rule for discount fares, to make them less enticing to business fliers. That's an immediate $300 fare hike that could have a dramatic effect on travel budgets, he says.

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