Is it reasonable to ask for an overnight for a trip 3.5hours drive away?

[PaddingtonBunny]

I don’t travel much for work as I mostly consult from home. I’ve been asked to attend a conference which is 3.5hours away either by car or train.

if I took the train I would need to go the night before to be on time. However I think 7 hours drive in one day plus a conference is also probably a bit much.

Would it be reasonable to put in for an overnight? Im not sure what the norm would be!

thanks!

I would do it. Two hours each way is the maximum I'd drive in a day for business.

Surely your employer has a policy on it?

Our policy is more than 75 miles or 2 hrs drive.

No more than 10 hours working and/or 4 hours driving is our company policy so in this case we would be told to get a hotel the night before or night of.

As mentioned above, there should be a policy on it in your workplace. Ask about it.

It would be very tight and irresponsible of an employer to expect you to drive that distance there and back in a day for a full day's conference.

If they refused to pay for a hotel and you were involved in a serious accident, it is likely they would be prosecuted for it.

Our travel policy says that travel shouldn't extend the working day to beyond 13 hours. It also says you have to take a 15 min break after every 2 hours of driving (unless you're really nearly there!).

So yes, for me, this conference and this journey, would mean an overnight the night before or or the night after.

DPs work if it's more than 2hrs away you get a hotel. They're really good though, you don't even have to request it.

My work policy is more than two hours each way you can stay over. I do occasionally have to argue as I usually work in office x and sometimes have to go to office y which is 90 minutes from x but I live 45 minutes from x in the wrong direction taking it over the two hours but they always accept it once they realise.

Definitely. 3.5 hours drive usually ends up as more due to traffic and at least one break.
If it's a full days conference it might even require accommodation before and after.

I am a consultant. If a client wished for me to attend an event that was 3.5 hours from home, I would absolutely include the cost of a hotel for one night in my fee. Assuming the event was an all day event, I would most likely charge them for 2 full days (possibly, if it's a good client I might charge a discount for the travel day). I might also request two nights hotel stay - depending on timing as a lot of conferences would start at 9am and not be finished until after dinner.

Think about it - 3.5 hours each way is 7 hours of travelling. That's insane to do on one day AND be expected to be on form for an event.

IN the unlikely event someone wanted me to travel 3.5 hours for a 1 hour meeting, sure, I could do it in a day. But I'd still charge them for the full day, at full price.

Yes, I would insist on it

Thanks all. Really useful to have everyone’s input. I work as a consultant so it’s always tricky to know how to pitch things as different organisations have different policies and my current client isn’t based in the UK so their policies don’t stretch as far as me. Thank you!

Just to add, when you say "consultant", assuming that means you invoice them and are self employed, the thing to bear in mind is that actually, the policy that is relevant is YOUR policy because you don't work for them, you work for yourself.

Of course, there's usually some give and take on this but I had a very interesting conversation about this with a colleague a few years ago. He had been asked by a client to fly to Dubai. The firm's policy was that they did not pay for business class flights to Europe/Middle East so they wanted him to fly economy. He told them that they had two choices:

1. He could fly business class in which case he would happily take the flight landing early morning, do the work, have one night hotel stay, fly back, charging them for just 1 day (or 1.5 days) work. OR
2. He could fly economy class, in which case he'd need to arrive the day before, would need a hotel stay for that night and the following night, and would fly back during the 3rd day. He would then also charge them for the full amount of time, equivalent to 3 full days work, plus their 2 extra hotel nights.

His point was that if he's flying economy for one day in Dubai, that basically means he can't work for the rest of the week AND would probably do a bad job for this client.

From memory, they agreed to the business class flight and one hotel night!

Definitely normal to stay overnight and travelling should be paid work hours. You should have money towards dinner and breakfast too

She’s a consultant. Not an employee.

If she has to recover costs it should be agreed they pay overnight expenses along with the day rate for the conference and travelling time.

What time does the conference start in the morning?

If you are a consultant, I'd suggest that you say fine, you will be attending, but they need to pay for the night before in a hotel + subsistence.