compensation for work travel expenses

[Anonymous]

When you have to travel for work, what does your company pay for? All meals when you're gone? Dry cleaning for a longer trip? Phone calls?

Trying to get a sense of the norm. For my last job, they only paid for breakfast at the hotel, which seemed odd to me when lunch was not provided by some conferences.

[Anonymous]

All meals when traveling, business related expenses like internet access and phone calls, tips, and taxi/transport costs. No dry cleaning but I don't go on trips longer than 3 days or so.

[Anonymous]

We get the same as the government per diem.

My dad works for an engineering company and also gets the same as the government's per diem, but must show receipts.

None pay for dry cleaning or phone calls.

[Anonymous]

Breakfast and dinner. Hotels. Flights. Cabs/taxis. Laundry if it's more than a week.

[Anonymous]

Everything. All meals, transportation, Internet access, incidentals, and tips. They will pay for laundry if you've been traveling for x amount of days. Of course, I can't remember x right now. I think it's four straight days.

[Anonymous]

My last company didn't cover lunch on the theory that you would pay for lunch if you were in the office. I recall that there were $ limits on dinner, and no alcohol. Next company covered most things but excluded anything from the hotel minibar including water, and no dry cleaning (theory was that you'd pay to have your clothes cleaned at home).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My last company didn't cover lunch on the theory that you would pay for lunch if you were in the office. I recall that there were $ limits on dinner, and no alcohol. Next company covered most things but excluded anything from the hotel minibar including water, and no dry cleaning (theory was that you'd pay to have your clothes cleaned at home).

That's rather cheap since if I were not traveling I have the option to bring lunch from hone.

In my entire career, including 3 jobs with extensive travel (140+nights annually) I have either been on per diem or all expenses paid.

[Anonymous]

All meals (including alcohol), airfare (including luggage fees), taxis, rental car/gas or mileage in a personal car, tolls, tips, laundry if traveling for more than five consecutive days, internet charges/business center. Minibar, if you don't expense a meal (so if I grab a nutrigrain bar instead of breakfast, it counts). No pay per view. You need to have a good reason to expense a bar tab outside of a meal.

I've never had an expense report challenged, but I don't abuse my expense account either.

We don't do per diem--we have to turn in receipts and get reimbursed for actual charges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All meals (including alcohol), airfare (including luggage fees), taxis, rental car/gas or mileage in a personal car, tolls, tips, laundry if traveling for more than five consecutive days, internet charges/business center. Minibar, if you don't expense a meal (so if I grab a nutrigrain bar instead of breakfast, it counts). No pay per view. You need to have a good reason to expense a bar tab outside of a meal.

I've never had an expense report challenged, but I don't abuse my expense account either.

We don't do per diem--we have to turn in receipts and get reimbursed for actual charges.

This except we get per dime and don't have to do receipts for meals or anything under $25.

[Anonymous]

It seems like per diem used to be enough that I could come out ahead, but not anymore. Not sure if my tastes got more expensive or the per diem shrank.

[Anonymous]

All travel and hotel costs ( except laundry and personal services), car rentals and cabs. We get a per diem for meal expenses.