Husband’s female colleague’s issue being taken very seriously.

Yes obviously depends on sector.
I can only wfh in uk. The rooftop pool is uk.
If abroad then if it’s somewhere I want to go I’ll pay my flights and use annual leave.
We do lots of holidays outside work too, it’s just a nice bonus.

It seems really odd the company have immediately jumped to this decision. They will need to accommodate disabled workers, breastfeeding mums etc who may need a spouse with them.
It sounds like they’d worked all day, finished work and she asked what doing for dinner. Assuming they would all eat together, perhaps old company that was norm. Shame they didn’t say we usually just sort our own see you tomorrow at 9am.
Lots of reasons why you wouldn’t want to eat with a colleague. I had a friend who travelled auditing and never ate out as she wanted to lose weight. A colleague never came out for meals due to her eating disorder.

Good luck for her from now on doing business that way ! A nice way to make enemies .

My thoughts, too! What the heck?? 😂

I hope you’re taking the piss because fucking hell 🤣

Really weird and inappropriate to bring a spouse to "almost all" of the work trips!

My boss has to spend 2 weeks in Germany but rather than go home over the weekend, he's flying his wife out on the Friday so they can both spend the weekend there. She'll then be flying back alone on the Monday while he stays on.

Circumstances like that would be acceptable, but ad hoc overnight trips? No, that's really strange.

I was away with work Friday and my bf stayed over night with me I did the work thing then met him after and had a lovely hotel together I wouldn’t have gone if we wasn’t allowed

But it’s the hotels themselves that are out of policy. So it has nothing to do with what loyalty level you are. A 5 star IHG hotel with a rooftop pool is unlikely to fall within policy for most employers (if you work in the UK, your husband’s company/industry are the exception), but a standard Holiday Inn, also owned by IHG, will be within the travel allowance of most companies but isn’t 5 star nor will it have a rooftop pool.

Also, I can’t believe anyone would pay for flights just so they could work from a hotel room and use a rooftop pool! Save the money and take yourself to a lovely spa on a non-work day?!

To have guts to complain about the wifes is scary. If she can do that god knows what else she can do. She is to be watched and you need to stand up to her! As now she is inclining you taught bad of her which you did not. So the rule of no wifes MUST be revoked.

I’ve never heard of people bringing spouses on business trips before. I would find it very odd. The only time I’ve ever taken DH to a work thing was the annual Christmas party to
which he was formally invited. I do think she jumped to quite an odd conclusion though.

But the working relationships aren’t exactly going to being improved by this situation. Guys are hardly going to be tripping over themselves to socialise with someone that made a complaint about them.

I wonder if one of the husbands had made a comment about their wife ‘tagging along to keep tabs on him’. Maybe a clumsy, laddy attempt at a joke which has backfired or maybe it’s true.

I don’t think it’s an issue for partners to join now and again but it is shitty and thoughtless that the colleague was told at the last minute that both the wives were there and they had plans when you’d assume that colleagues away together would probably eat together at least.

What should have happened is she had been told they were there and properly invited to join them. She clearly would have felt awkward crashing a couples’ meal in the hotel.

This would have been the point in the conversation when the person complaining was told by management "as this isn't the first time Sweetmarzipan and Mrs X have been away with their DH's, I'm sure that thought never entered their minds"

Quite likely bonus points if that chap dislikes her.

Though I wouldn’t want to talk work over dinner works for work hours not after hours. Dinner is only paid for since they are too far to go home or as extra hours. So she would be disappointed with me as I’d of said sure we can discuss it tomorrow at work.

Depressingly, this rings far, far more true than the complaint as described by OP.

over the weekend she has made a complaint suggesting that I and the other colleague’s wife had deliberately tagged along as they believed she would be unprofessional and inappropriate.

Something must have been said to give her that impression. She'd have to be an absolute fruit-loop to make it up for no reason, let alone complain to her employer about it and risk ruining her working relationships. Could one of her colleagues have said something (even light-heartedly) that was taken out of context?

Unless she has the world's most severe case of main character syndrome, it feels like there are some details missing.

Surely her employer would have told her that people's partners regularly join them on these trips and have done for years? That in itself disproves her suggestion that anyone's wives tagged along specifically to keep an eye on her.

Your husband has been with this company for years...they didn't even ask him for his side of the story?

Depends on location I’ve seen plenty of tag along husbands at the conference at the famous golf resort (they golf, their wife works)
There’s obviously same sex couples too.
As long as the working half is working as required it’s not impacting anyone.

I highly doubt she made the complaint for that reason - that just sounds like someone is assuming the nature of the complaint. I personally would have complained to, it’s a WORK trip, there are so many reasons why spouses should be allowed to attend to. I’ve never in my life heard of companies allowing it.

Sorry

It's pretty common for partners to tag along for bits in my DH industry. I did 6 weeks in Europe with him last year. It doesn't cost the client anything extra so why not?

Huh?

I feel like if you were the person who will walk to a table and saw all of them and even the husband's face's that they looked like they were about to leave. I honeslty would say " Nope I am out of here. Bye fellas"

I think it's normal to have spouses tag along to a work trip once in a while. I definitely do not socialise after the end of a long conference day or whatever. Work pays for a hotel because you're too far away to get home at the end of a day, not because you're literally working 24 hours a day.

However, it is relevant that 1) it's a male dominated industry and 2) that so many wives tag along, as it means you're all mingling and the odd woman who actually works with these men gets left on the outside because she didn't bring a wife. And let's face it, husbands are a lot less likely to tag along to a woman's work trip. They're not SAHM's or work part time (which I assume you must do since you can tag along to so many trips).

So overall YABU and she was not unreasonable to raise it

This is really common in my line of work (university), partners pay flights and their own expenses but room is as you say, same price single or double occupancy

I think it’s better not to have spouses when travelling for work, awkward for those who don’t.