How would you word this?

[MarklahMarklah]

A friend does talks & demos (about a hobby interest), usually at a set fee + travel.

Whilst on holiday, the friend bumped into an acquaintance/professional contact who said it'd be great if they could set up delivery of a talk to 'his' group. Professional contact ("PC") has since been in touch to arrange dates, etc. PC works for a pretty prestigious organisation. After a little exchange of emails, everything is sorted & booked in for X date at X time. However, contact has signed off the message confirming booking, "...as agreed, your fee will be £££ + travel expenses."
This is the tricky bit. £££ is not friend's fee rate. It is substantially more. Friend would not have quoted this amount.

Friend will be travelling approx 1hr each way and will be delivering a three-hour talk.

Does friend reply to simply confirm everything? Does friend reply but query fee? Does friend reply but acknowledge generous fee?

Did your friend quote for this at all? If so then refer to the quote.

Do you mean their rate is more or what they are offering is more? If they are offering more then accept.

If not, then say 'Sorry there seems to be some misunderstanding. The hourly rate is X and the travel is Y so the total would be Z. Where did you get those rates from?'

Does your friend want to do any more bookings for this group, and if so, would they want to reduce the fee for the future ones or get this new generous rate?

Sorry Doreen - PC is offering a higher amount than friend would quote.
Friend is sure that the correct amount was quoted as they have done a similar event/talk for them in the past, and prices are on their (friends') website.

drspouse - yes, they'd probably want to do future bookings with this group.

Friend is struggling on how to word "You seem to be offering to pay me substantially more than my usual rate for this service. This is very generous, but can you confirm that this is what you mean to pay me? I have no recollection of us discussing this figure but obviously I'd be happy to accept this fee, if that's your 'going rate' for this service."

Friend would not have "agreed" the higher rate, as friend bases price on duration of event and subject/topic. This is a pretty standard, flat rate.
The amount PC's company are offering appears to be in line with that of an after-dinner speaker's fee/entertainers fee for a few hours.

Friend needs to speak to PC on the phone and query this.

It seems to me that PC has an idea of what his 'prestigious company' usually pays/has paid before for this kind of work and is trying to do your friend a favour by indicating the amount the your friend should invoice the company.

If your friend goes back in writing and said "oh my fee isn't £300, it's usually £50" then there's no coming back from that and invoicing more.

Sorry Doreen - PC is offering a higher amount than friend would quote.

In that case just tell her to accept it and do the job. It's probably what they normally pay so accept it with good grace.

Sheldon that's what I thought- this is the company's going rate.
Friend is inherently honest though - to put into some sort of context (these are not true figures), lets say friend would normally quote £80, and company are offering £300, so it's substantially higher.

I guess it's ultimately not my business, but it's a nice dilemma to have!