Work conference- what commute would you get a hotel?

[JDM625]

My team are solely contracted to WFH. Occasionally, we attend a conference, or are asked to help another team at their office. Our expense policy doesn't specify what distance/commute time we can claim for a hotel, just that it must be over 5miles from home to claim travel.

What commute time would you think is acceptable to claim a hotel? 3hr round trip per day, 4hrs, 5hrs etc?

I think over 4 hours (2hours each way) would be acceptable. Leaving at 7am to get somewhere for 9am would be fine.

Very interesting question. Not sure I’ve ever worked anywhere with a policy on that. Would depend on the timings of the event. Eg if you have to be onsite with the client at 8:30 and it was a commute of two hours or more, I would expect to go up the night before and stay, especially since if anything went wrong with morning transport I’d be late. Generally I think you need to be in two hour plus territorial for an overnight to be justified, and only then if you can’t get back and forth comfortably in the day. Eg I’ve done day trips London to Brussels for a middle of the day meeting and then back.

I remember once when I was very junior having to get up at 3:30am to catch a 6am flight for a client meeting in another county, because my boss didn’t want to fly the night before because he had parent teacher meetings at his son’s school. Full marks to him for being an involved dad, but if I had my time over I would have said “no problem, but I’ll fly the night before, stay at the airport hotel and we can go on to the meeting together when your flight lands, so that at least one of us have had a full night’s sleep!”

Depends on the hours and timings for being in the office. Usually I’d say more than 2 hours each way if a start time of 9am and finish at 5pm, but more than 2 hours might still be ok without a hotel if it’s going to be a short day.

I think it is one of those ‘it depends’ questions. What time does the conference start and finish being the biggest consideration.

As a ballpark, I think 2.5/3 hours is a general starting point.

2 hours each way. I tend to follow what I’d do if it wasn’t work. Eg if I was visiting a friend 3 hours away, I’d get a hotel.

Ours is 2 hrs each way so a 4 hr round trip or if travel is going to need to be extremely early/late in order to make the event.

More than 2 hours each way if it's a full working day or longer. But even then I think leaving at say 6.50 to be somewhere at 9 and then being home 7.10pm having left at 5 is not that bad for a one off or occasionally.

2 hours each way if it’s occasional and a full working day there has been my experience, travel after work the day before.

I think it would be decided on a case by case basis, depending on start and end times and distance from office, not home.

For example, 8am start and 3 hour commute from office, yes, it would be expected you’d spend the night before.

Generally, because my industry is cheap as hell (academia), nothing starts before 10am and finishes by 4pm to avoid this problem.

If 10am start time, it wouldn’t be unusual to expect someone to begin their commute at 6am and travel back the same day if we finish by 4/5pm, as long as they were home by 11pm.

The only exception would be if we are specifically inviting people to attend because they are patients or members of the public who have a disability or for whom a full day of meetings and travel would be too much to ask. We would pay for hotel at one end for them. I do health research so this is quite a common scenario as we collaborate with lots of non-academics on research.

Me, however, with my long term condition that is technically also a disability, I’d be expected to be up and on the train at 6am and getting home at 10pm after a full day of running a meeting. Because funding cuts. 🙄

Depends on the travel situation. Something that might seem like a 90 minute drive could be much more if you're traveling in rush hour. If I'm expected to be somewhere by 9am, hence travelling in rush hour I'd want a hotel the night before if it were a 2 hour drive.

But I'm menopausal and my energy levels are not great. An early start, a drive of more than an hour, a full day of interaction with people in an unfamiliar venue and I'd run the risk of being too tired to do a long drive home that evening. 10 years ago in my early 40s I used to do that kind of thing once a week, every week without too many problems.

It really depends. I've done 3.5 hrs each way for a meeting, crack of dawn start and not back till 10pm but I hate staying in hotels! I think 3 hrs each way (6 hour round trip) would safely justify a hotel where I work.

we have a limit on how much we're allowed to drive in a day, or how long it would make your working day when added onto meetings, conference etc but I don't think there's anything around how long it should be if you were travelling by public transport. I sometimes also depends on travel logistics e.g. if a conference starts at 9am can you get there in time for it starting if you set off from home, and same with getting back. Or if there's a meal in the evening you'd stay over rather than travel back very late at night.

I would say it more depends on “hours out of the house” than travel distance. So it will depend on the length of the conference also. I would say that more than 14 hours out of the house could justify a hotel.

I’ve done 3 hours each way, but I liked my employer and knew we couldn’t afford budget for a hotel!

I would say no more than 2 hours each way is reasonable (leave at 6.30am, back by 8.30pm) .

I once had a three-day training near westernsydneyconventioncentre.com.au and even though my commute was just over an hour, I got a hotel. It made mornings way less stressful and gave me a chance to unwind after each day properly instead of sitting on a crowded train. I also didn’t have to worry about train delays or parking, which was a huge bonus.