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?

I don’t live in Wiltshire but I can think of plenty of places in my county (which isn’t especially remote or anything) which are many miles from a town, pub, shop or even petrol station (there aren’t really that many round here), there’s basically no taxi services and we don’t have UberEats or Deliveroo - there is JustEat but that’s only really local takeaways in the local area and they don’t go out that far.

She's in Wiltshire!! There will be a shop somewhere nearby! She's not in the wilderness.

What base are you on OP? I live in Wiltshire and happy to bring you some supplies.
what taxi company are you using? Cross street cars are cheap as are A2B

From the Wiltshire Wiki Page:

"The county has an area of 3,485 km2 (1,346 square miles) and a population of 720,060. The county is mostly rural, and the centre and south-west are sparsely populated."

There's not always going to be a 24 hour shop within walking distance!

That is absolutely shocking service from the hotel. I had a similar situation once when I turned up at a hotel and the restaurant was closed for a private event. I was pretty unimpressed but to be fair to them they were massively apologetic and gave me free drinks and brought me a free room service meal to my hotel room.

Did you just get no dinner at all?

In the course of the OP and updates she’s described the situation in detail. And still people are saying there must be shop somewhere !!

I'm in Devon and there are loads of rural places where you won't find a shop open in the evening (especially on a Sunday) or a nearby garage open or a pub within walking distance or any nearby taxi services or food deliveries.

I hope the OP has had a lovely breakfast!

Same. As it's so difficult and expensive to get to without a car, they probably do assume that all their guests will drive there. Which is no help to OP, but might be why they didn't think about how stranded she would be if they closed the kitchen. Where I grew up (rural, but not madly remote) there were two buses a day and no taxis unless you booked well in advance. Absolutely everyone drove - you couldn't buy milk without driving, there was no shop in the village - so there was always a working assumption that you had access to a car.

I live here. Unless the OP is camping in the middle of Salisbury Plain (which she isn’t) she’s not that far from a petrol station. And most military bases are in small towns or large villages.

Possibly unpopular opinion but if travelling completely alone for a work trip to the middle of nowhere, it would make a lot more sense to pack a bottle of water and a box of cereal bars just in case something like this happens. Taking a cab for ages to a restaurant or pub as a solo diner is a lot of faff just for one meal.

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. For comparison, people preparing for surgery will have to fast for x number of hours. People on diets regularly skip meals. People recovering from dental surgery or painful procedures like braces often spend weeks without eating 3 meals every day and they also survive. People doing Ramadan fast from sunrise to sundown and all survive just fine.

Also surprised how many people feel it's totally normal to travel for 4+ hours to a location you're not familiar with and have zero food or drink on you.

I live in Wiltshire- my nearest town is 9 miles away- we have a village shop that closes at 17:00 and last bus anywhere is at 18:00… have you ever visited Wiltshire!!

But what's 'not that far', given she would be on foot? 3 miles isn't far in some ways but I would not be walking it alone at night in an unfamiliar place.

As I said before where my mum lives is 4 miles from a town with 35,000 people in Scotland so that's roughly the size of Chippenham, Warwick, Whitstable, Chichester (according to Wiki).

The nearest town does have takeaways and 24 hour big supermarkets. However, delivery services do not come out of the town. There is a bus service which is like every 3 hours and does not run after 5pm on a weekend. Walking to town would be 4 miles there and 4 miles back along an A-road with no pavement and no street lighting. There is no shop or anything else in the village. This is not uncommon.

If the OP is visiting an army base in the rough area of Salisbury, there are a lot of very rural places around there which yes may have a shop but not one which is open at 8.30pm on a Sunday which is when the OP started her thread. Or open at all on a Sunday.

Not walkable but a taxi could take her. Agree with PPs no Deliveroo type options round here.

She asked several times and was told no. She can't force them to feed her

Lots of people ignoring the very tight budget constraints OP is working with. £200 for taxis leaving her £100 for additional expenses for the stay. I doubt it would stretch to additional taxi costs to the nearest shop, or for deliveroo.

I know of plenty of places where it would be really hard to get a Deliveroo or similar or where to get a taxi to come out to your hotel and take you to get a take out or deliver one would be huge spendies...

It’s a bit of a culture shock , when you come from an area with plenty of takeaways and corner shops .We had that years ago on a Sunday night in Norfolk and ended up just eating the biscuits . You never do it twice though , I always take breakfast bars & fruit .

If you were travelling to a hotel booked by your employer and inclusive of a meal allowance, you would be expecting to eat. OP isn’t fasting for surgery, Ramadan or anything else. She expected to be fed because the hotel caters and meals were included.

I travel for work a lot and also have to pay my own way for most things then claim it back - that's pretty routine. I have a credit card I only use for work expenses and the company is good about reimbursing us promptly (as they should be).

Company expense policy isn't relevant though because unless the hotel clearly stated in advance that the kitchen would be out of use, then it's shocking behaviour from them. Particularly as it's remote enough that guests can't just pop out to a restaurant or even a shop, and ordering a delivery would be a significant expense. I would have absolutely kicked up a fuss at the time, and if they insisted on refusing one of their guests even a simple meal, I'd be escalating it in every possible direction. Bad online reviews, complaints to the owners/managers and absolutely no repeat custom.

However if the hotel did state in advance, on their website or via email, that the kitchen would be unavailable on this date then I'm afraid the mistake was the OP's.

This is bonkers, OP. I hope breakfast was good!

I assume you will have a kettle in the room. Is there not even a small local shop you could get some pot noodles and mug shots from?

I travel a lot for work, I don’t routinely take a bag of food and drink with me “just in case” the hotel fails to deliver on its stated contract. I have enough to think about without doing their job for them. Nor is it acceptable to say “you won’t starve”. The hotel is taking my company’s money, they need to deliver on the contract just like anyone else.

The hotel should have some arrangements in place for other guests, even if a limited room service type menu. Its completely unreasonable for the hotel to say “soz no food” and do nothing about it unless they had previously informed the guests and suggested alternative arrangements. Especially a hotel which knows its in a difficult location.

I don’t find it hard to comprehend a hotel in the middle of nowhere either. I’ve often stayed at the only available place for the work location and not everywhere has Uber and Deliveroo on speed dial.

OP: Why are you funding unexpected extras? These are work caused expenses so should be reclaimable. If travelling regularly they should be supplying some form of credit card to delay the cost until expenses come through. However if they won’t then it may be worth you taking out a card which gives you a few weeks to reclaim the costs to pay the bill rather than finding unexpected costs from your own weekly budget.

You need to ask your company to issue you with a credit card used for expenses.

Then, surely they can pay you the amount due before it needs paying?

If travelling regularly they should be supplying some form of credit card to delay the cost until expenses come through. However if they won’t then it may be worth you taking out a card which gives you a few weeks to reclaim the costs to pay the bill rather than finding unexpected costs from your own weekly budget.

This.

My DP travelled across the UK, Europe and long haul for decades. He had a credit card that was purely for work purposes.