Overnight/away from home expenses allowance

originl

Is there any rule on the minimum someone is entitled to for staying away from home because of work?

I'm going on a training course from Sunday night until Friday morning. The five nights accommodation is covered, as is breakfast, but I feel like I should be entitled to refreshment allowance for my lunch and dinner.

Any help is much appreciated!

GRM

originl wrote: »

Is there any rule on the minimum someone is entitled to for staying away from home because of work?

No.

FWIW my employer would pay me £18.75 per day in your example to cover dinner and any incidental expenses.

Jinx

The companies I have worked with cover all expenses for food while away (up to a set limit). For example lunch is normally provided by the company/site doing the training and you can normally eat in your hotel and put it on your room (our limit is 25 quid for dinner) or eat out, keep the receipts and claim it back. You arent normally out of pocket due to travelling for work just normally lost time for travelling.

ETA - its quite common for our employees to ask the finance peeps what they can have as quite often office staff simply cannot afford to pay for these things outwith their normal home budget. Most of us eat at the hotels and put it straight on the bill.

GavB79

Are your lunch and dinner provided free for you when you are not away for work? Assuming that you pay for food at home, all you are being asked to do is pay for when away - just buy half a loaf and a packet of ham from the corner shop. And a pot noodle. Same difference.
Accommodation is fair enough as you are still paying for your own home although not getting the use from it those nights, so paying twice in the form of rent/mortgage AND hotel for the same night is asking a bit much.

ohreally

Lunch £12.00, evening meal £25, £20 social allowance.

lazer

GavB79 wrote: »

Are your lunch and dinner provided free for you when you are not away for work? Assuming that you pay for food at home, all you are being asked to do is pay for when away - just buy half a loaf and a packet of ham from the corner shop. And a pot noodle. Same difference.
Accommodation is fair enough as you are still paying for your own home although not getting the use from it those nights, so paying twice in the form of rent/mortgage AND hotel for the same night is asking a bit much.

Thats i there is a corner shop near you etc, somewhere to keep the bread and ham, without it going off etc.
My old work we didn't use to get an allowance for lunch, but after a lot of questioning we were basically allowed it, the £25 allowance we used to get for dinner, was now also allowed to cover lunch

Dinner should definately be provided when away, it is far more expensive to eat out every night than to cook your own dinner at home

lazer

ohreally wrote: »

Lunch £12.00, evening meal £25, £20 social allowance.

very genorous - can i come and work for your company?

ohreally

lazer wrote: »

very genorous - can i come and work for your company?

Its not really generous as most of this gets spent easily when working away and eating out day and night.

scheming_gypsy

i've never had lunch allowance as you'd have to provide that as part of your working day anyway, but with regards to evening meals... we'd never mention it and buy a drink at the bar on the room bill; if it went through we'd get fed and put that on the room bill. On the final day we'd check out by walking past reception and out of the door so everything got charged to the company credit card that booked the room.
If we ever got pulled for it we just told them that we'd taken it for granted that because they booked us on a course away from home, they'd cover expenses and we hadn't been told other wise..

Bigmoney2

I think the incidentals allowance for nights away from work is £5. This is set by HMRC.
For a residencial course I would have expected evening meal to be included and possibly lunch.

McKneff

ohreally wrote: »

Lunch £12.00, evening meal £25, £20 social allowance.

I could feed me and ny OH for a week on that.

Sandwich and a coffee at lunchtime £5

Evening meal - £10

drink/entertainment - buy your own,