£30 - surely no longer enough for work expenses and Xmas party!

[Thursday5pmisginoclock]

For those in corporate roles where you can claim expenses…what are you company policy amounts for an evening meal when working away? Our £30 allowance feels so mean, and it’s the same amount for Christmas party! I mean what do you get for that nowadays??? Especially if we were to meet in London?

also why is the personal car payment still £0.45ppm - I am pretty sure it was that 10 maybe even 15/20 years ago!

inflation has not caught up surely…?

Is this commonplace?

We get £25 for dinner and 45p per mile. But Christmas Dinner is just paid for centrally at the location they organise.

@Appleofmyeye2023 we sometimes get around it as well, but it is difficult. We have an automated expense system that auto rejects all claims deemed too high. There is an alternative way, but it’s extremely time consuming and luck of the draw if you get reimbursed. I’m ok navigating Switzerland on a budget, but tokyo I find very difficult and usually end up out of pocket.

It would be low in my industry (city finance). Our budget this year is up to £55 per head for our team lunches, and then there's the evening do after which is paid for.

But it depends where you are and what industry you're in. In my old job we got bugger all.

I get £25 but also blue light card which gives 20% off at many restaurants. I managed to get a starter, main, alcholic drink and desert at a chain restaurant recently which came in at just over £25

Ours is £30 for a whole day. I think it's fine. But I work for an NGO.

When I travelled with work I was away from home 5-25 nights . Use your head here, one night of a cheap processed pizza is fine, but for someone like me being away for over 200 nights in a year in uk, Europe and long haul, I needed to eat proper meals, with proper nutrients, and whilst I wouldn’t have a pud most nights, or a glass of wine, when you’re stuck in a crap US city over a weekend and it’s a dive, having a sweet treat and a glass or 2 of wine is pretty much the only consolation to not being at home watching strictly, cuddling up with family.
your advocating people who travel to eat badly and unhealthily…great, thanks for your wisdom on this 🤦‍♀️🙄🤯

And as for mileage I get a car allowance, but that's not supposed to cover mileage. I can reclaim mileage at 14ppm but tend to lose about £30 per trip if I go up north, which is where I usually travel to, as its so out of line with real costs. Luckily I only travel around once a month and am leaving this job soon as it's a temp contract

We get £50 compared to £30 a few years ago so some companies are recognizing this. I agree £30 really doesn't go far unfortunately these days.

We get £20 in total for meals/drinks for 24 hours. You must be having it away

HMRC allow £140 for Christmas party 🥳🎉🎂🎉 it's about enough

As someone who has worked in corporate London for years… £30 a head sounds incredibly mean!

I would say minimum £50 a head and then you might get one drink included if you’re lucky!

£30 is basically just a main course! Unless they want you to go to Weatherspoons?!?!

A lot of people don’t understand that its not just the occasional one night/day of travelling, its often many days/weeks away with nonstop work. I want to get decent nutrition and I don’t have the time to look for the best cheap places (its not a holiday!). one night fast food is fine, but 10 days straight?

At my workplace, it’s £40 dinner allowance for staff working away from home, but if you’re taking out a client it’s £120 a head. Essentially if you dine with the client on a business trip, the budget is triple. Ludicrous.

£30 is plenty for dinner. Why do you need multiple courses? Most people wouldn't have multiple courses if they were at home and it's a subsistence payment, not entertainment which is different.

Is the Christmas party mandatory or optional? If its mandatory then the full cost should be covered. If optional then you have to accept that you're choosing to go so £30 contribution is fine. Again, you choose what you do presumably so choose something cheaper or pay the difference.

I am a civil servant and my department allows me to claim £21 for 24 hours so that’s dinner and lunch but thankfully(?) not breakfast as we are expected to book a B&B rate. The idea of a subsidised Christmas meal is up there with flying pigs etc so I guess on that basis YABU.

I am shocked that some of your companies don’t just pay for the whole thing (not talking about any public services or LA jobs as I know the funding isn’t there).
We arrange two corporate events (a Summer and Christmas one). Both are all expenses paid for the employee and a plus one, excluding travel! This Christmas, we’re attending a ticketed event which includes an all inclusive bar which does keep the cost down but it’s around £120pp. Summer event costs more pp as it’s an all day and night event. This is on top of Christmas bonus and Christmas gift packages that we hand out. Our team are incredible, we want them to feel appreciated and not feel pressured to spend money on socialising with the team.

I’m outside of London, ours is £25, think it’s £30 for London. I can get three courses plus a drink, and normally pay about £2 myself. Christmas party we have to pay, but do get a Christmas bonus, so I’m not grumbling!

@TigerQueenie yes, I need more than one course. Breakfast is usually around 6am, lunch a sandwich/small rice dish, so I need a decent sized nutritious meal once a day. I’m a healthy weight 5ft person, my calorie requirements aren’t particularly high, but i can’t live for days on end on tiny meals.

🤣yes, we used a cute littl app in my final days…cute when it worked 🤷🏼‍♀️

maybe I was more experienced and closer to retirement to be playing hard ball with my senior directors. They were asking me to travel, at one point, every other week into Basel . Well if they wanted me to do that, I needed to eat properly. So, I just refused to use app and would manually take around the good old fashioned expense sheets when I got back. Would tell them to pay or I would stop travelling. Simples.
I was senior enough and with an expertise they couldn’t get elsewhere, plus they knew my salary was under competitive. Generally a little focusing on that point helped them understand my position.

id also add, that as I travelled on my own, I mostly didn’t want to go out of hotel at night searching for restaurants and sitting at a table by myself. I said explicitly I would be mainly eating in hotel, and reserved my rights to have room service if I was tired and couldn’t face a formal restaurant ( e.g. just wanted to chill with iPad and pjs). Room service isn’t cheap- but it IS what I had a t home effectively.

it’s fine eating fast food, cheap food and finding random cheaper restaurants if you’re travelling only very occasionally and maybe 1 or 2 nights. If you’re only in your own bed at home for 100 nights per year, they better bloody well remeber it’s me doing them a favour and not quibble about paying some £ extra for a decent meal. I never charged them over time (wasn’t allowed to) for all the extra hours travelling incurred, all the late arrivals home, all the Sundays spent travelling out. It was the very least they could do.

don’t under sell yourself. Remember it’s you that will be giving up your time and home comforts.

thank god I retired 5 years ago. I have still not felt the slightest urge to get on a plane or stay away from my own bed 🤣🤣

I really don't think it's helpful running a race to the bottom. We should all be fighting for fairer pay and conditions.

But, for what it's worth... Higher Education here, and yes, there's sick pay, but not much in the way of job security nowadays. Don't get me started on the pensions debacle. However, these were traditionally the pay off for lower pay - and it's not the 'benefit' many think it is, any more.

We get £26 for a whole 24 hour period so I’d be eating like a king if I had £30 to spend on one evening meal!

From the OP:

"For those in corporate roles where you can claim expenses…what are you company policy amounts for an evening meal when working away?"

Nothing about "the odd night", its about the policy when working away from home. Too many people here seem to think the grind of living out of hotels is some kind of perk to be punished. Anyone who does this regularly will cheerfully swap their "perk" for getting into their own bed at night.

I'd hazard a guess that most of the PPs saying "eat cheap junk food" or that its easy have never done long periods doing the weekly travel for work. The allowances based on HMRC guidelines haven't changed in 20 years and don't distinguish between "a day in London" and "three months of five nights per week in the arse end of nowhere".

We don't get anything from the company towards our Christmas do

My company is £35 outside of London and £55 inside.

For Christmas there's a £70 per person budget to be spent on a lunch/dinner as seen fit within the teams.

Supper at Wagamama will cost you not a lot more than £15. Of course you’re unreasonable.