Any of you travel on business?
My employer has a new set of rates that seem a bit tight but without knowing what others are allowed its hard to comment.
I can claim:
Breakfast if leaving before 06:30 or in a hotel up to £5.
Lunch only if away the night before to £5.
Dinner if in a hotel: 2 courses and a soft drink to £20.
Dinner if home later than 21:00 to a maximum of £15 (to cover a take away - seems ok).
Problem is there is a daily maximum of £20 so if in a hotel, breakfast can cost anything up to £13, probably skip lunch but I don't think I have been to a hotel that charges less than £15 for a main meal and £4 for a soft drink in ages so the policy doesn't cover likely expenses.
What can you folk claim?
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Good enough if you're looking to shed a few pounds, I guess.
lbs that is.
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For me it would be:
Breakfast - up to £10.50
Evening meal - up to £22.50 plus up to £5.00 for a drink (10% tip allowed too)
We don't get to charge for lunch. We could stay with a friend or family instead of a hotel and claim a flat fee.
When I have claimed for an evening meal, I've often charged more than the allowance without it being queried. Sometimes it would nor cover the cost in the hotel restaurant and I'm not funding the difference :-)
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Make sure the room rate includes breakfast!
Don't most employers now try to insist on using a booking partner for hotels and travel? If they book it, you're off the hook.
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My son's company limit the meal to £30 inc 1 glass of wine.
They chose the hotel, in the middle of nowhere, & it was nearly £40 for an evening meal. Which they did not pay - 4 nights so HE WAS OUT SOME £40!!
2/3 months later same hotel -same deal meal was £40
He took a taxi to nearest town - 7 miles had a meal & taxi back - £25 meal & £20 taxis
which they objected to BUT he had the written guide on expenses - £30 meal - Taxis paid if there is no Public Transport - which there was none after 7pm.
They gave in - eats in hotel @ £40.
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>>Don't most employers now try to insist on using a booking partner for hotels and travel? If they book it, you're off the hook.
Yes. I won't mention the name here but my company insists that we use it. Unfortunately the expenses policy does not make provisions for hotel food outside policy.
The hotel rate is £85 outside London but can go up depending on demand so if something is on in Manchester an all hotels are above £120, they will automatically raise the limit.
Problem is that most of the hotels are city center hotels and it won't let you book anything else but an approved hotel within a certain radius. I reckon that they must get a bigger discount if they push a lot of people to the one hotel, but there is nothing more annoying than driving round an unknown city centre, finding a car park because city centre hotels rarely have one and then fighting rush hour traffic in the morning to get to an industrial estate 10 miles out of town.
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£13 for a breakfast always seems to be an outrage especially when it is usually a buffet style.
I did happily pay more than that at the Intercontinental Hyde Park Corner in London when entertaining a lady friend once, it was cooked to order with a chef and griddle affair in the middle of the dinning room.
There is a hotel in Richmond, London that has a large picture window looking over the park and they cook breakfast properly there too and it is worth it for the view.
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My expenses depended on the job in the organisation.
Effectively blue collar were on fixed rates - I cant remember the amounts, but they were OK. Most guys would aim to spend the minimum as they got to keep any difference.
I fell under the "as incurred" policy which meant whatever was reasonable, so a hotel in a capital city at 150 - 200 a night was OK as long as it was booked within the company travel policy (preferred hotel chains / deals) and breakfast was nearly always included in our agreed room rates. I guess a hotel in smaller cities / rural areas would be less than 100 a night
Lunch was whatever was reasonable.....unless we were on a company site where we had to pay for our own lunch, but to be honest, most of my travel was to suppliers so they nearly always supplied lunch.
Evening meal was also whatever was reasonable, so usually £40 a head would be OK'd with no question plus a few drinks in the bar.
Hire cars were "intermediate" which was usually focus/golf/astra unless you were travelling with others in which case you could upgrade to something bigger
Don't ever recall having my expenses questioned/bumped, however, one colleague did after buying rounds of very expensive cognac for several ladies he was entertaining.......
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Breakfast for £5 is too low for business trip.
£10 is reasonable.
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In the UK is £21 for lunch and dinner. Breakfast is always included in the room rate. We get no choice on where we stay.
We're expected to eat away from the hotel as it's cheaper. All meals need a receipt.
Abroad it's all dependent on the country, but similar. No booze is claimable.
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Goodness that all sounds pretty miserable.
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Company I worked for in the early 2000's
Evening meal was basic hotel meal (as they put you there) OR a £25 limit & Receipt needed if you ate elsewhere!
Alternative was £15 allowance - no receipt needed - lots a fish suppers for some.
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> Alternative was £15 allowance - no receipt needed - lots a fish suppers for some.
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We've started doing that for trips abroad, around 60-70% of the receipted rate. Much less admin for everyone.
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We have a travel policy which indicates advisory rates for accommodation and meals, and have preferential deals for hire cars and hotels in cities we visit frequently. But we leave it to the individual to make the decision on what they actually spend and claim, recognising that business need and / or respect for our staffs work life balance means we need to be flexible. £50 for a meal in a hotel in London because you've arrived late at night is fine... if you arrived in Birmingham at 17:00 then something more reasonable would be expected. Same for drinks - one or two is fine, cocktails and a bottle of wine not!
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>> We have a travel policy which indicates advisory rates for accommodation and meals, and have> preferential deals for hire cars and hotels in cities we visit frequently.
Does your employer allow employees to book their own hire cars and hotels?
But we leave it to the individual to make the decision on what they actually spend and claim, recognising that business need and / or respect for our staffs work life balance means we need to be flexible.
Dangerous thinking there ;)
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Travel to be booked through our corporate travel agent, but final decision rests with the employee, with manager sign off if needed. And we find by trusting people and making them responsible and accountable they (a) generally do the right thing, (b) appreciate the way they are treated and (c) perform better. Funny that ;)
Edited to add - posted from an easyJet flight. Lounge access and speedy boarding expensed, along with meet and greet valet parking. They saved me time and let me do 45 minutes work at the airport. . Could have flown BA - cheaper but return flight at rubbish flight time. Could have used long stay parking and saved £75 but would have had to get up at 4:30 am! On the other hand the hotel was just €70, and I only spent €30 on food and drink in 2 days...
Last edited by: PeterS on Tue 22 Nov 16 at 11:23
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The company I left about 6 years back paid up to £25 for dinner (incl 1 drink of any type) but your manager had the discretion to sign off more - receipts always required.
Lunch was never paid unless you were manning an exhibition. Can't remember the breakfast figure but £10 rings a bell, when not included with room.
Hotel limit was £75 but again with some flexibility, though I do remember the travel company once booking my 6 strong team into a hotel 25 miles outside Aberdeen during Oil Week as the cheapest they could get in town was £90. Resultant taxi bills were hundreds more than the actual hotel cost...
You could also claim £5 unreceipted for an overnight stay for "sundries"
Overseas travel had slightly higher rates.
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>> Hotel limit was £75 but again with some flexibility, though I do remember the travel company once booking my 6 strong team into a hotel 25 miles outside Aberdeen during Oil Week as the cheapest they could get in town was £90. Resultant taxi bills were hundreds more than the actual hotel cost...
I suppose it would have been cheaper to hire a people carrier for the week?
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"I suppose it would have been cheaper to hire a people carrier for the week?"
Yeah except we worked different hours...
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>> "I suppose it would have been cheaper to hire a people carrier for the week?"
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>> Yeah except we worked different hours...
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Ah right, that would be a slight problem wouldn't it? :)
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Ours are the cheapest possible flights, transport is out of a different budget so seen as 'free'. Can't remember how much time I've spent in airports. One example we'd finished working in france at 10 am but the flight wasn't til 10pm. We didn't even get hold luggage!
Might sound awful to some people, but I've got used to it. I get paid anyway, so I figure if someone wants to pay me to catch up on some reading and watch films in an airport who am i to argue?
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And we find by trusting people and making
>> them responsible and accountable they (a) generally do the right thing, (b) appreciate the way
>> they are treated and (c) perform better. Funny that ;)
Burn him, burn the witch! ;)
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Son is a contractor, paid hourly although he is a Senior Consulting Engineer,
12 off to West Africa for meeting locally with Govt officials of a really poor country (apart from the top 2/3 per cent)
Company books flights, hotels etc - Business Class for Seniors, cattle class for contractors/lesser employees.
4 days there & ready to leave via a 300 mile flight to pick up Air France to Paris, Arrives for AF Flight - overbooked cattle class - Senior Managers leave in Business class.
48+ hours later gets to Paris, misses last flight home. No seats until mid afternoon on Scotland flights.
Arrives home some 72 hours late, been shafted for Central African Hotel, Paris Hotels + meals etc etc. All receipted so they paid up despite high cost.
However hourly paid 72 hours on top of his "normal week", 12 hour days for 4 days, + travel time there - around 140 hours PAID IIRC - Best week ever in 12 years working for himself.
The Company changed the rules - hourly rate for work & / or travel maximum 12 hours per day.
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I'm salaried so it'd be nice sometimes to get paid by the hour, other times its quite good getting paid a full days pay for 2 hours work.
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When I first joined the Civil Service we had flat rate subsistence banded by grade and location. You could stay in a flea pit and live on chips and trouser or drink the difference. Alternatively, if visiting somewhere like Cornwall out of season one could stay very comfortably and eat well while staying inside the limit. There were day rates for 5-10 hours or 10hrs plus away from base. No receipts required.
Later they moved to vouched expenses and a ceiling per night based on location. Think it was around £15 for dinner - no alcoholic drinks. Finally we had a contract with travel agents who'd do travel and hotels - no choice. They were useless for block bookings though. Insisting on a party of 6 all being in same hotel was regarded as outrageous and required a written justification.
It was also made very difficult to get sandwiches etc brought in for meetings, even those of statutory committees with participants travelling from all over UK. Business case to the Departmental Finance Officer needed.
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>> You could stay in a flea pit and live on chips and trouser or drink the difference.
A comma somewhere would have been helpful. I spent far too long wondering what sort of a meal "chips and trouser" is. I thought it might be a Leeds-ism that I had never come across.
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>> A comma somewhere would have been helpful.
You're the duty pedant tonight then? :-)
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>> You're the duty pedant tonight then? :-)
Obviously, yes, but I really did wonder what 'chips and trouser' is!
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Self Employed is rough 60 -70% higher than staff doing similar level of work.
No Holiday Pay, No Sick Pay, No Employer Pension, 1 week's notice if he is lucky.
That said 12+ years, fully employed & about 6 weeks illness in all that time.
He has his own Pension arrangements, Sickness cover if he is unable to work @ his level due to illness (12 month before claim pays out)
Not everybody's cup of tea but at least the employer cannot say you are off to West Africa, Indonesia or South America next month for a 3 year assignment.
This has happened to people he knows!! OK for Big Bucks pay rises, free house, driver / security guard but it would not appeal to him or me (for the sake of the grandchildren)
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I'm with Peter on this one. We just ask our guys to be "sensible" with expenses, in other words to treat them as if it was their own money they were spending. Hotels are not stipulated but we suggest that Travel Lodge / Premier Inn is the sort of level preferred (if available) and at whatever rate applies in the given location. Meals are not limited either but anything upwards of £25 for dinner would need to be an exception rather than a rule. If entertaining customers they can spend whatever it takes within reason.
Our guys work very long hours in our busy periods and if they want or need to stop for food to keep going we'd never question that.
They're all on a profit share anyway and have budgets to work to both in terms of the income they generate for the business and the costs they incur. It's made very clear that if they increase the one and keep the other under control, they earn more.
Treat people as grown ups and you generally get a grown up response. Not always of course, but that can dealt with on an individual basis if someone is serially "misunderstanding" the way we want things done.
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They're all on a profit share anyway and have budgets to work to both in terms of the income they generate for the business and the costs they incur. It's made very clear that if they increase the one and keep the other under control, they earn more.
I think that works in small businesses/depts, difficult to work in large organisations of any type.
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> Not everybody's cup of tea but at least the employer cannot say you are off to West Africa, Indonesia or South America next month for a 3 year assignment.
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>> This has happened to people he knows!! OK for Big Bucks pay rises, free house, driver / security guard but it would not appeal to him or me (for the sake of the grandchildren)
A fair few of people i work quit and go for such jobs. Double/triple or more your take home, free flights anywhere in the world, virtually guaranteed bonuses etc. However it's not big bucks for nothing. Its always in the kitty litter and somewhat economical less developed. Quite a big churn rate, even with the big bucks some don't last a couple of months.
Last edited by: sooty123 on Tue 22 Nov 16 at 18:13
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Travelling On Business Expense Allowances - Clk Sec
