Overnight Allowance

Only time I get anything extra is if it falls on a Sunday or bank holiday, etc. and they've been trying to stop the Sunday one and treat it like any oher day (I'm contracted to work Saturdays anyhow).

Otherwise its just reasonable food bills paid, accommodation and travelling expenses.

Teknobry said:
strange, i thought this was much more common! on top of incurring overtime for any additional hours spent travelling, we get hotel and a decent evening meal paid for but also for the incovenience of staying away an extra 42 pounds per night.
it makes working away for a month that bit sweeter.
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If we were working away for a whole month or more than 2 weeks abroad (which doesn't really happen at my grade) then we would get a little extra daily but for 3-4 days at a time nothing.
 
alx said:
I've worked for a couple of oil & gas operators (including a supermajor) and we never got any overtime when travelling abroad for training, business etc. Everything would be paid for obviously, with often quite generous meal allowances, but we didn't really get anything on top. We could claim £8 a night for incidentals regardless (ie newspapers, snacks etc) but that was it. If you had to travel on weekends your manager would usually give you the time back, but not for weekdays.
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We get overseas allowances for being away, around £50 a night if in europe, and £130ish outside. With hotels and meals etc paid for by the client, they don't look at what food you buy, provided you don't take the mick, some clients refuse to pay for alcohol though.
 
I was paid a "extra" payment due to fact I did not sleep in my own bed that night" on top of all hotel bills/petty cash for lunch/fuel (if they do not take card in case years ago) on road etc. also.
 
Having worked away weekly, I didn't used to get an 'sleepover bonus'. We had a set amount of money for breakfast, lunch and dinner plus a few extra quid each day to cover the costs of little extras like newspapers, coffees - that sort of stuff.

We worked very long days but we remunerated accordingly and didn't consider it to be a chore to be away. Plus I always booked the Hilton so collected a shed load of points which are now on my personal account :D
 
I have worked "away" for the last 7 years, for 3 different employers. It was slightly different for my first job than my last two, but I can give you a run down anyway.

Obviously travel and accommodation are all covered. As they should be as a basic. Including any trains / taxis that might be needed, as well as a mileage allowance for trips to and from the local airport (train/taxi could be claimed here instead). This has been the same for every job I have had.

The differences were :

Job one : Paid bonus door-to-door. So Was paid £154 per day from when I left until my return. Boost if you get a 7 week hitch. Full expenses covered without limit (within reason). So that was every meal, and any snacks. Couple beers limit per meal though, but some creative accounting could soon fix any issues there.

Job Two : Dutch contract, so paid in Euro. Only paid by invoice. So only when with customers. 400 Euro per day. Per Diem paid daily door to door. 47 Euro. Simples.

Job Three : UK contract again. Paid by invoice, £205 per day. Similar expenses structure as first job. Unlimited per meal, within reason. But no alcohol allowed.

All these payments were on top of my salary, so they can be considered payments for the inconvenience of not being at home. Working away at weekends earns you days in lieu. However, we generally "forget" these, and our managers generally "forget" we exist, unless they really need us. So when we are not away working, we are usually in the garden with beers.

For reference though, I am mainly employed to work away from home. My salary is decent enough that I am not paid less salary to accomodate this day rate. And I can work away anything from 17 days (the least I've worked in a year in the last 7 years), to 180 days (the most I've worked per year). But can go easily north of 200 days if things get crazy busy.
 
Previous employer did time off in lieu if you had to travel at weekends, but something, but I can't remember what they did for weekday evenings. It obviously wasn't a full day off, but IIRC was something to appreciate that you've been away from the wife & kids for the night.
 
I travel from Newcastle to London for 2 days in the office every 2 weeks.

The company pay for the travel and the hotels plus evening meals and drinks. There's no limit on what we can spend as such, the boss is quite happy to sign off a couple or 3 beers and a decent meal.

I travel down the night before because it saves me getting up at the crack of dawn on the day, so they end up paying for an extra night in Kensington (£100-£250 a night).

The other thing i do is book everything through Quidco and all hotels through hotels.com and then claim it back rather than use the company travel agent, it's often cheaper but more importantly i get all the cashback and every 10th hotel night i get one free to use for my own purposes.

Slightly odd situation for me though, technically i actually work in the Leicester office and working from home in Newcastle is an unofficial perk anyway.
 
I work away regularly in the UK and Abroad, we dont get paid overtime. Its a given in Account Manager/BDM roles that you will have to travel for the job. Everything else is covered, and no one bats an eyelid if ive had a meal in a swanly restaurant or an expensive lunch. We also pretty much get free reign on hotels, with an upper cap of £110 per night, which gets a pretty decent most of the time.

Thing is even if you got an allowance, it would have to be taxed etc.
 
We get expenses paid for (reasonable, travel, hotels, food up to £25 per night) and a fiver for 'subsistence allowance'. We don't get anything on top.

Then again we are - in theory - paid a salary that includes the assumption that you might live out of hotels.
 
We get expenses paid for evening meals when staying away from home, and a £15 overnight 'inconvenience' payment each night we're away from home.
 
All hotels, trains & planes (1st/business), meals, beers, entertainments and taxis are what I expect and get. I am about to embark on a role that sees me spending time on the west coast US but I don't expect to be rewarded additionally for that, I just ensure my package reflects the time and effort I put in.
 
I get nothing extra for being away, but my expenses are all paid with company card (to set limits similar to the others in the thread) so I'm never actually out of pocket unless I decide to go for a beer outiwth dinner. I get no nightly allowance etc, though we could previously claim unreceipted expenses to a capped amount.

The only exception would be if I was seconded away for x months - then I'd receive an agreed uplift

I believe a lot of it comes down to what HMRC will tolerate going back through the other end.
 
pepp77 said:
For my job I occasionally have to travel to either other countries or far away locations in this country, this often means spending an overnight in said place. Currently my company pays for all travel, the hotel and sensible food and drink intake (some will be expensed, some pre-paid or petty cashed). I also get paid overtime for any time spent travelling or working outside my normal contracted hours (for example if I leave my house at 6am and then get to the hotel at 8pm, having been to the customer in between I receive overtime from 6-8am and 5-8pm).

One thing that myself and a colleague have been discussing is an actual overnight allowance, so a set payment for each night you have to stay away for work on top of the normal covering above - we called it an inconvenience payment.

I have briefly broached this with HR who just said there is no allowance, but said nothing more. We are a small company that had 6 employees when I started 6 years ago with no real processes in place, so a lot of what we get paid was just agreed verbally with the owner or MD, we have since acquired two other companies bringing our workforce to about 40 staff, but all 3 companies operate fairly independently, so official processes are now being bought in.

Sorry for the waffle but what I would like to know is who else has to do overnights away for work (or equivalent) and gets an overnight payment for doing so, and if so is it a set payment for all employees or based on salary etc.

Looking for some ammunition to get this active as I am generally the one who always has to stay overnight, last year I spent about 10 different nights away in total and the year before I spent 6 consecutive nights away for a single job, but for that one I got a "good will" bonus for being away.
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As part of my job I travel around the country doing stuff. This requires often a long day of travelling there, and back again, and usually a late night brief and an early morning start (4am).

We have an abysmal expenses policy. We get flat rate 1.0x salary for overtime outside core hours. We get NO expenses for lunchtime or teatime food. We get £6.50 for breakfast and £11.00 for evening meal, however this is void if alcohol is consumed.

We get £85 accommodation cost for London and £74 for the rest of the country. Mostly we stay in absolutely dumps that you wouldn't inflict on your worst enemy.

I think you're already very fortunate and that asking for additional 'inconvenience allowance' is greedy, but it is wholly correct and justified. Sadly the goons in HR don't ever leave the office so they will be very very unlikely to support it.
 
I don't travel a huge amount but when I do, it's always pretty good.

All hotels, trains (economy class) and planes (business class if over 6 hours), taxis and meals are paid for. If staying overnight, I can expense dinner and breakfast and lunch the next day. If I am getting home late on the following evening (usually past 5/6pm), I will expense dinner too. The amount that we can claim for meals and incidental expenses follows the per diem rate set by US General Services Administration, which HMRC also use. However, when meals are being expensed, the expense limits are general rules, not mandatory. As I don't drink alcohol, the allowance usually gives me enough for 3+ courses, depending on the restaurant. If I am traveling with people who are much more senior than me, sometimes we'll just order whatever we want in however much quantity we want.

The company has preferred hotels but they aren't always mandatory. If I am working and overnighting in London, I usually stay in one of the Millennium & Copthorne Hotels hotels like the Millennium Gloucester in Kensington. If I'm in San Diego, I usually stay in a very nice boutique hotel by the beach.

All frequent flyer, hotel and car rental rewards can be claimed by the employee. My boss has many hundreds of thousands of Avios points and pretty good frequent flyer status because of that. Frequent flyer status makes it that bit easier/nicer/quicker when flying, especially at Heathrow.

If we are working away from home for 15 working days or more, we are allowed to claim per diem for meals and expenses. For San Diego (which is where I do my 3+ week trips), it's $71 /day. As it's the standard government rate, it is counted as untaxed expenses. If I was to be fairly frugal, I could probably save a fair amount of money. However, I like to eat well and be generous with colleagues, so I often go out with them and pay for their meals or at least contribute something towards their cost.
 
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I work away from home currently Tuesday-Thursday, and have done abroad in the past with a different company.

No overnight allowance, but generally a rather generous expense scheme so I have always ended up saving money either way. Yes it can be an inconvenience being away from home, but that's the job!
 
RedvGreen said:
As part of my job I travel around the country doing stuff. This requires often a long day of travelling there, and back again, and usually a late night brief and an early morning start (4am).

We have an abysmal expenses policy. We get flat rate 1.0x salary for overtime outside core hours. We get NO expenses for lunchtime or teatime food. We get £6.50 for breakfast and £11.00 for evening meal, however this is void if alcohol is consumed.

We get £85 accommodation cost for London and £74 for the rest of the country. Mostly we stay in absolutely dumps that you wouldn't inflict on your worst enemy.

I think you're already very fortunate and that asking for additional 'inconvenience allowance' is greedy, but it is wholly correct and justified. Sadly the goons in HR don't ever leave the office so they will be very very unlikely to support it.
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HR only deploys the rules set out by the board, people need to understand that. They are powerless admins in most parts, not some holly beings, though most of them will try to convince you otherwise.

That policy sounds very poor to be frank. Finding a sensible hotel for less than 150 quid in London is not easy these days. I was down their last week and was slightly late but the cheapest I could find in the city was......£349!

I'm sure I could have found a small B&B with effort, but frankly I don't have time to trawl so took a Hilton so I could use my honours.
 
The only company I know who made additional overnight payments where when an employee found alternate accommodation (e,g, staying with friends or family) then they received a payment of half the hotel rate, about £60. I know a few people who stayed in hostels and claimed they were staying with family to pocket the money.
 
I used to get 20 pounds per day for working away from home along with hotel and breakky paid for me. this was for my food/drinks. nothing else was given
 
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