mercredi, avril 23, 2008

Ticket restaurant

In France, most companies give “ticket restaurant”(lunch tickets) to their workers. However, if a canteen is available in the workplace, the workers will have subsidised lunch. Hence, they won’t have the benefits of ticket restaurant.

Seb’s workplace has a canteen so he does not have the lunch tickets. Depending on luck, it can be a good or bad affair. In his case, the canteen serves lousy food so it is better to have lunch tickets instead of being confined to the canteen for subsidised lunch.

For me, I always have lunch tickets. The lunch ticket is allocated for each working day in the office. If we are on customer’s site or on leave, we would receive a ticket less. Normally, we received a pack of about 20 lunch tickets a month.

These lunch tickets are not free. The government set some guidelines and depending on the company policy, between 40 to 60% of the value of each ticket is absorbed by the company. The value of the ticket varies as well. It can range from 6.10€ to 8.40€. The above figures are based on my experiences and may not be the exact figures. Example: a ticket of 8€. The company contributes 60% and pays 4.80€ for each ticket while the employee pays 3.20€.

In general, we use these lunch tickets during lunch time. We can also use them for dinner. Almost all eateries and restaurants accept lunch tickets. It helps their business as almost every workers eating out are given lunch tickets. At some supermarkets with offices nearby, we can also use lunch tickets to buy microwave food, sandwiches or salads.

Depending on which area of the city you work in, the value of a lunch ticket is usually equivalent to the price of a lunch meal. So, we can always use up the total value of our ticket. Employers are smart enough to give us “just enough” for lunch. However, if we do eat less than the value of our ticket, we can get back credit note. Seldom do eateries give change in cash. This is to ensure that we return to use the credit note and eat at their place. There are of course times when our bill is more than the lunch ticket.

The lunch tickets are transferable. I can give it to a homeless guy along the street or pass it to Seb for his coffee kick at Starbucks. Note: Starbucks do give change instead of credit note.

I hope the above explanation is clear on this little guide about France’s lunch ticket. Any questions?

3 commentaires:

Anonyme a dit…

interesting to know that tickets could be given to the man on the street. i guess this is also a kind of policy for the govt to assist the food businesses? in economics, we learn some similar policies but i did not know that it works at this level, reaching to its people. (eternal sunshine)

Dumdad a dit…

I used to get ticket restaurant when I worked (I'm now a house-husband) and they were great. One bar we used to frequent would accept them for drinks as well. I remember once going through an old jacket and discovering a half-used book of ticket restaurant. Joy turned to gloom when I realised the tickets had expired! Drat.

P.S. Thanks for visiting my blog.

sohcool a dit…

Hi Dumdad,
Expired half-used booklet of ticket restaurants. That's a shame.
Which bar accepts ticket resturants? I bring food to work so I have extra tickets to spare on drinks.