Meal allowance when working away

[Workingfornothing]

Can anyone please advise. I’ve looked but can’t make much sense. Is there a legal requirement for a company to provide you with meal expenses when working away? Currently my partner sometimes works away and sometimes works local. When he’s local he has breakfast at home, takes a packed lunch, and a hot drink in a flask and water/juice, then obviously has evening meal at home. When he works away his employer pays for his hotel, and £20 for an evening meal. That’s it. If the evening meal is under £20 he gets that amount back only. If it’s over £20 he only gets £20. Every time he works away he’s using his own money as he has to buy his meals and drinks (excluding £20) So it’s costing him, and other employees, to do their job. I just can’t see how this is fair. So, is there any legislation to say meals must be provided by the employer?

My husband regularly works away both uk & overseas. Hotels always include breakfast or if he has a very early start can claim for breakfast. Can also claim for lunch & dinner. All goes on the company credit card, no subsistence limit as long as it’s reasonable and not taking the piss. He is allowed one alcoholic drink with dinner.
My son occasionally works away and has a daily limit of £120. Any unspent allowance is returned on his return. Hotels are paid form directly and include breakfast.

I absolutely think he can be more creative than appears currently to be the case, but i think it's bonkers that he needs to take a stock of kitchen supplies so he can make sandwiches (remember there's no fridge) so that his boss doesn't have to reimburse anyone for a boots meal deal or a pasty.

Eating at home is cheaper though even if you live alone, unless you're incredibly inefficient. Most of my lunches will come in at under £2 per portion (soup with crackers and cheese) and breakfast well under £1 (basic porridge or toast with butter).

You do profit on a minimal basis from not doing that while away, but I generally find that gets swallowed up by the odd glass of wine at the hotel bar to break up the monotony or a coffee during the day.

No obligation unfortunately.

There are definitely options for £20 a day though. In the same position, I'd go to a supermarket and pick up a few bits and pieces to cover breakfast, lunch and dinner. That's one receipt.

What does he usually have for breakfast?

Similarly lunch.

There an are awful lot of breakfast and packed lunch options that don’t need anything more than a kettle.

I could eat breakfast and an evening meal out for £20 a day.
Also what's stopping him taking sandwich making stuff with him? It's what we do when we go for a weekend away. We make sandwiches in the hotel room for lunch.

It is, but if SU's DH is working on (for example) a construction site in the middle of a motorway/newbuild estate in the outskirts of London, It's fairly possible that there isn't one within a reasonable distance of his work/hotel to travel to.

We get £15 for dinner and I think £5 for lunch. Doesn’t cover more than a meal deal which isn’t always available!

You can get those portable mini fridges and plug it in the hotel room

That sounds low to me.

When I had to work away in London I used to get breakfast included with my hotel room rate, £6 for lunch and £25 for dinner, and that was over 10 years ago.

Exactly! And take the pack up food from home that they buy in the weekly shop! Breakfast stuff from home too.

But it seems OP won't even entertain these ideas and just wants to complain

It seems tight, and restrictions that are unnecessary. And why can't he sleep in a hotel that does breakfast? Many budget hotels do so?
And why do they care which 'meal' he spends it on. Why not just say £20 for food for the day?

I'd say if he's not being fed by clients or at a conference/meeting during lunch but is working then he should have a modest allocation for that, as well as an evening meal. They can set a budget of course but why be so rigid?

They're too tight to pay for a sandwich?

If he knows this is the case surely he takes either disposable plates knives forks etc or real ones from home. l was away for 12 weeks on one job and did this with a coolbox in my room. Hotehappy to freeze ice packs. You also generally stay the same place week in week out so I would ask them to charge me say £20 for dinner, but gave something for less and ask them to bring me milk, water, fruit etc for the balance.

What’s his normal suitably sustaining breakfast and lunch?

And how does he get to these locations?

Maybe we can help with solutions that are compatible with travel lodge and would help your family budget.

Travelodges and Premier Inns do breakfast.

It sounds like the company is paying for the "no breakfast" room rate.

I do wonder how people like you exist in life with this kind of “duh, I can’t, how” attitude

I thought this comment was ridiculous too. Without knowing what OP's DH looks like, I am envisioning a big, burly, hairy manual worker in a high Viz vest and boots merrily making sandwiches on a desk in a travelodge, using a teaspoon to butter his bread and his Stanley knife to cut his sandwiches.

That seems pretty mean. Travelling for work has to have a limited amount of perks. It just shows ill will to staff to be that tight. It wouldn't cost them much but their staff satisfaction would improve.

What sort of things does he eat for breakfast at home?

Wow my civil service dept is £4 per meal.

You know he could take a cool bag with ice packs to store his usual packed lunches in from home? They last a good couple of days if it’s a decent insulated bag.

If he has breakfast at home and takes a packed lunch on days where he's local why can't he just emulated that when he's not local? Just use food that only requires a kettle. It isn't costing any extra if he'd have taken a packed lunch if local anyway.

Aldi do a pack of individually wrapped pain au chocolat, you can get breakfast brioche rolls, flap jack, instant porridge, sachets of instant coffee or hot chocolate, breakfast biscuits, soft bakes.

For lunch he could buy crusty bread rolls and a large pot noodle, a tin of tuna and a couple of slices of bread for a tuna sandwich. None of that needs a fridge. You can get individually packaged cheese things, like grown up babybells, crisps, biscuits, pepperami, ginsters sausage rolls etc.

If his appetite is so big and his job so manual that he can't just have sandwiches or whatever then it shouldn't cost you any more to buy the above items than your usual packed lunches for local days? No fridge required, every hotel room will have a kettle.

My husband sometimes works away. He gets £30 per day to cover all meals. He’ll usually take some bits from home (pot noodles, fruit, etc) to cover some lunches and breakfasts then boy his evening meal (usually a takeaway or sometimes pub grub if there are a few of them away together). If they’re staying at a hotel that does breakfast and it’s near their job site then the boss will book the breakfast rate but often they need to leave the hotel before breakfast starts to be on site and it’s usually too far to travel back on their break for breakfast.

Most places I've worked it's either actual costs (what you spend, and they can tell you what's allowed eg one alcoholic drink with a meal or no alcohol) or a day rate, seems odd they pick and choose based on what he spends. I'd raise it at work and if they are not responsive look for somewhere better, he shouldn't be out of pocket because work have sent him away.

I mean, I'm fine because I work for a company with a decent expenses policy but go on, I'm curious how you think it's reasonable to shop for and make 6 days worth of1 tuna sandwiches and then store them in a hotel room with no fridge?plus the milk for cereal.

I'm sure we could all feed ourselves in that situation if necessary but it's not conducive to good employee morale, is it?

Plus imagine coming on here and declaring that your diet is pain au chocolate or flapjack for breakfast, tuna sandwich and a packet of crisps for lunch and a pot noodle for dinner. You'd be crucified.