Work trip - no food in hotel!

[Boxingshibes]

I'm way for work for the week. I'm staying in a hotel in the middle of nowhere. It took me 4 hours to get here in v hot trains.
Room and hotel lovely but I went down to the bar/ restaurant and asked about dinner- to be told as they have an event on the kitchen is closed.
They offered me a free drink but apologised and said unfortunately there are no takeaways that deliver.
I'm on a meal allowance. I'm pissed off!
And I'm having to pay £200 for taxis for the. Grr
I'm hot hungry and annoyed. Aibu?

Usually work covers food when away, especially in remote locations. Not sure why that would ve you out of pocket?

As I understand it, the OP is on a tight budget and has no company credit card, so using her own debit card for food which she had not catered for (sorry) causes her immense problems. AIUI, she will eventually be reimbursed for the food by her company but in the meantime, has to cover her family’s day to day bills.

You don’t like what they say; that’s not their fault! If they can’t accommodate extra people; they can’t! Imagine everyone had an excuse? Don’t do all the shit mentioned above; trading standards will not care. It’s down to yin to ask before you get there, make a booking (holy hell what an idea!)

Eh? Of course it’s their fault. She’s not an extra person to accommodate, she’s a paying guest with a hotel booking. The hotel has a restaurant and usually has dinner service: it’s up to them to say it’s not available, not for guests to check if it is! Should OP have phoned to check if they also do beds, and towels, and have windows?

It would be a novel idea if people would actually read the thread before posting .

I didn't blindly post it, I did read it first to check how useful it was, and as a former hotel manager with a degree in hospitality management, found it was reliable to post.

I think a lot of it was the lack of money to throw at the problem rather than simply ‘not possible’. My husband once got a pizza delivered to a tank crossing on Salisbury plain 🤣 but entirely possible that on a Sunday evening in the middle of the countryside, that the only options were unsatisfactory and expensive.

This made me laugh, as I've been close to that myself. Trips to the SPTA can sometimes be like that.,.. but can also be immensely fun.

In all honesty for OP welcome to the world of business travel. Some days it's the business lounge in premier airport, some days it's traveling for 24 hours to arrive starving in the middle of the night with everything closed. When traveling for a late arrival it's always 50:50 that food will be available so I will usually grab something on the way if I really want to be sure.

In reality a booking from "Corporate Travel" isn't a personal recommendation based on experience, it's a name plucked at random from a list, just treat it as so.....

Is there no mess at the barracks you could utilise before coming back to the hotel?

When you say you're on a meal plan, do you mean worj booked you into the hotel in a dbb basis?
If so, that's dreadful practice on the part of the hotel. I doubt the base that you're working at would want to be using them if they pull stunts like that.

Yes it's a dinner-bed-breakfast
But I did get dinner tonight!! Woohoo!

Glad to hear it op! Definitely have a word with your manager about travel expenses going forward. Very unfair on you.

If you've paid for a DBB tariff, then they've breached the terms, they need to compensate you accordingly. I'd also report them to Trading Standards. You'd PAID for dinner as part of your tariff (that's if I'm not misunderstanding the comment I'm quoting), so that forms the contract that they must provide you with dinner! So they've breached that clearly.

And fucking tedious and annoying and environmentally ruinous and boring and irritating and damaging and 💥

Then why not post your own knowledge and experiences? If you are a professional you would know a hell of a lot better than a stupid chat bot just guessing the answer.

@Boxingshibes what did you have for dinner?

Hope you can come to a better agreement with work for situations like this.

Well in that case they absolutely should have catered for you in some way.

I'd make another complaint and say if you've booked dinner, you should get dinner.

Well this thread has made me plan for a famine like situation where I'm going in September. Outside the main tourist season and to a relatively undiscovered seaside town in Italy. Arriving at around 11.30 pm and add an hour or two for bag collection, immigration, and transfers from the airport.

I can see sleepy Giovanni at the desk getting the chef out of bed to make us something at that hour, can you? Also it's a Sunday night and by the looks of things all the restaurants will be closed by the time we arrive.

Never fear, there is a coffee maker in the room + mini fridge. I'll freeze some plain cheese sandwiches (not smelly), put them in the checked bag, and throw in some biscuits and other scoff. I'm kind of looking forward to my 2am picnic now lol! 😊

I agree. Absolutely shocking.

"Lots of people are acting like being denied a hot meal is the absolutely worst thing in the world when it's really not a big deal, especially as a one-off."

She's being denied ANY food not just a hot meal. It's not a Jeremy Clarckson prima donna situation.

As for people who have to fast for an operation or who do Ramadan - those are very different circumstances.

I'm presuming the taxi price is for a few trips e.g. there and back every day that she is there.

Because she has to advance it and she doesn't have the money at the moment.

Are you sure you can take food you've prepared yourself with animal products on your flight? If you're starting outside the EU and going to Italy, I doubt it's legal.

Hi, I work in finance, I just wanted to add the taxi firm might be happy to invoice your employer directly for your week’s trips. If you talk with your finance department and see how quickly they can raise a payment, or they might take a credit card payment over the phone if your manager can use his card. Please don’t be embarrassed to ask about these options, no decent company would want their employee to be paying out of pocket expenses which put the family budget under strain and they shouldn’t assume everyone can wait to be reimbursed.

I do get your point, I was very tired last night when I put my comment up, so wasn't alert enough to make a clear concise post on my own, as I normally would. I also haven't worked as a GM in a long time so had a bit of self-doubt too, hence using the tool. I didn't mean to offend anyone by using it.