Work paying for hotel - would you do this?

[stagione]

Work are paying for my hotel when I attend a conference. It’s on a Thursday night and then I am taking annual leave for the Friday so that I can explore the town the conference is in.

Our budget is £300 a night. About 10 miles from the conference town is a gorgeous 5* hotel. It’s £600 a night.

Would it be unacceptable to book this hotel and pay the £300 difference? I’ve done this in the past but it’s been £40 here or there and always when the hotel is in the town where the conference is.

I could do the conference and dinner and then pay for my own cab over to the hotel.

But then mumsnet wouldn’t exist if people actually did the common sense thing and ask the direct question to the right people. You know like we used to do before we had internet forums? That’s pretty much 80% of MN traffic!

If the company allowance for a hotel overnight is £300 per attendee and each attendee to the conference books their own hotel room and claims that amount back through the finance department I see no reason why the OP cannot book the better hotel. Best to speak to your manager and the head of finance and explain your motives for wanting to use the better hotel assuring them that you will pay the added charges. That way you should avoid being accused of trying to defraud the company. Be open, honest, and transparent is your best course of action.

I would stay in a safe, clean, budget hotel for the conference or where everyone else is staying. Check out on conference day. The best thing about work stays like this for me is meeting others more than the hotel facilities which I rarely get the chance to enjoy.

Then swing over for one night at the expensive place , checking in that evening after work and keeping payment entirely separate.

Exactly :)

I've not done it with a hotel but once I went to Brussels for a conference and decided to upgrade to premium on the Eurostar. I just asked work if they'd expense the second class rail fare and they did. At the time it was about £50 difference.

I agree with others who say you won't get the benefit of a more expensive hotel.

PS am I the only one thinking that even £300 is insane for one night? Even in London you can pay less than that for eg a Premier Inn which is perfectly acceptable for a conference stay.

(I often use them for holidays too as they are usually decent enough and have comfy beds, it depends if you want to make the hotel part of the holiday or you just want somewhere to sleep).

It's a lot of fuss just to go to bed in an expensive hotel.

Why ask Mumsnet? Ask your manager/HR/accounts team.

Why pay so much for a hotel you won't even get to until after dinner?

In London you can pay much more than £300 for a crappy shoebox in somewhere that needs a comprehensive refurb. Premier Inn is much more reliable.

I understand wanting to treat yourself, but unless it's Le Manoir I'd stay somewhere cheaper and spend the £300 doing fabulous things during the day you're there sightseeing.

You would need to ask. Doubt it would be acceptable

I would check first. It would be a massive hassle at my workplace, first getting it signed off and then putting it through expenses system, so I probably just wouldn’t bother. A £300 hotel room should be fairly nice anyway.

I don’t see the point of spending £300 just to sleep in the luxury hotel , you’ll probably be late back from the conference, so won’t get to enjoy the facilities

Don't you want to be in the same hotel as everyone else, for networking purposes? There's always a few going back to the hotel bar for a drink after the dinner, and then there's breakfast. I wouldn't want to be out of the loop.

Blimey £600 per night! That’s not far off my monthly wage!

When I've stayed at hotels that were much more expensive than our expense allowance, I've asked the hotel to split the bill in two, and submitted the bill for half the room for expenses. They never had a problem with doing this, and it facilitated the paperwork enormously (usually I would expense half, dh the other half, but it would make no odds to pay the other half too).

Another thing I regularly did (but I was a very, very regular traveller to that city so that played in my favour) was call up the expensive hotel I wanted to stay in, say 'my company has a budget per room of x per night, can you get me a room for that?'. They always, always did, occasionally with massive upgrades thrown in (I stayed in a suite at the Regent for the price of a basic room at the Hilton down the road)

What a bizarre thread!

How will anyone on MN know what your company policy is?

Why don't you just ask your line manager or finance/HR department?!!

No way would I be spending that much of my own money for one night in a fancier hotel on a work trip.

We’re paying less than that per room for a 5* hotel in Sorento in July (peak season), half board… [just for balance, as this is MN, we’re budget airline/inter-railing throughout Italy, staying in a basic apartment in Rome for the first week and treating ourselves and the kids for the second week with our DC, 17m and 20f].

Would it be unacceptable to book this hotel and pay the £300 difference

Check with your manager 🤪

If I was the line manager here I’d be asking what the going rate is for the conference hotels. Because while the policy may say £300 this probably doesn’t mean you always have to book up to the maximum. Some cities will be a lot more expensive than others.

Ooh which hotel? I’d love to do that trip! 🤩

@JustMyView13 - but the point is, there may be totally viable options for eg £200. It's an up to amount - if required. If this were my firm (big well known financial services firm), it wouldn't be looked on well at all to use up the whole £300 when there was no need to.

You need to ask HR. If you don't ask then thry need the tax invoice and you can't produce it in the reqhired format then it could be an issue.

At our hotel, we can easily pull out any sum of both the cost and the payment for a separate invoice. I’d do that and submit for your travel allowance