As a person who grew up during the Cold War, with its threat of mutual assured nuclear annihilation, I often spared a thought for the astronauts aboard the Skylab and Salyut space stations. If it did all kick off on Earth, I wondered how they would ever get home. Perhaps they would just go mad and smash everything in sight before eventually running out of oxygen.

I was reminded of these childhood nightmares this week when investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed. What, I wondered, were the bank’s business travellers who were overseas at the time thinking when they heard the news. Indeed, some may have considered – at least for a fleeting moment - smashing up their hotel rooms.

I suspect that there were probably far fewer travellers than would normally be the case anyway. Given the scale of the bank’s multi-billion dollar losses in the past year, you can bet that the company’s business travel had been severely restricted. On top of that, it is rumoured than Lehman staff were not topping up their vending machine cards too much last week, just in case things went belly up.

In an environment like that, the thought of being on a business trip with a far greater potential for personal financial loss probably kept a few of their employees at their desks.

So where does the personal financial loss come in? For most business trips, the airline ticket is paid upfront by the company – often through a centralised credit account held at the travel agency. Getting home is probably not an issue, since the return leg of your ticket is still valid.

The potential pitfalls come when you check out of your business hotel and try to use your corporate plastic. If your company has gone bankrupt there’s a good chance that the issuer will have stopped all of the company’s cards, knowing that the chances of getting paid are slim.

Increasingly too, corporate credit cards are being issued with individual rather than corporate liability. If this is the case, your card will work when you check out but it will be down to you to pay the bill. In normal circumstances, you would then submit an expense claim to your employer – uh oh.

Ian Skuse at travel law specialists Piper Smith Watton, says: “If the corporate made the booking and the hotel had to look to the failed corporate for payment, I'm sure most hotels would demand a card imprint from the individual as security for payment. I think it would be practically difficult for the individual traveller to demand that the hotel honour its agreement with the corporate - when it knows it will not be paid.”

Nigel Turner, director of public sector and industry affairs at travel management company Carlson Wagonlit, said: 'The implications for business travellers should they be away on business in the event of financial difficulties would depend entirely on the individual circumstances of the business in question.

“The majority of business travellers would travel with a return air ticket paid for in advance, and would be able to come home without incurring personal cost or difficulty. Employees should take advice from the administrators or their own company regarding additional expenses.”

Andrew Burch, business development manager at business travel agency Hillgate Travel, which has managed the business travel at Lehman Brothers in the UK for some years, would not comment on any specifics of the bank’s situation.

However, he added that the agency “would never leave anyone high and dry”. He says that anyone traveller booked through the company could still contact them for help. “

If anybody who is a Hillgate Travel customer is in trouble at any time we would get them home. It’s just like after 9/11, you get them home and worry about the rest afterwards.”

Speaking specifically about the potential problems facing travellers when they check out of hotels, Burch says that Hillgate would take over responsibility for the bill from the traveller although the company “would obviously check the bill first” although he says there have been no cases of this happening recently.

While Lehman Brothers travellers may have few problems, other business travellers might now start feeling a little nervous.

Many companies work with their business travel agency on a credit basis. Norman Gage, director of business travel at the Advantage network of travel agencies, said a 15 or 30-day credit period is widespread. He said a number of his agency members had now started checking with Dun & Bradstreet to see whether their clients were having financial problems, particularly in the wake of the Lehman Brothers collapse.

“Lehman Brothers have caught a nasty cold but the sub-prime business is not the only piece of lending they have been doing,” he said. If other banks do not step in to guarantee that other lending, further bankruptcies seem inevitable.

And if your business travel agency is not as understanding as Hillgate, you may be left nursing a substantial financial hangover from your last ever business trip for your former employer.