How much is your per diem?
 

My company is not known for being extravagant (they prefer the term "well-managed"), but I'm curious as to how their meals policy stacks up with other companies.

The policy is "reasonable expense," but in practice, I've found the cap to be $35 per day (very occasional exceptions allowed).

My usual way of dealing with this amount is to have the free breakfast in the hotel when possible, skip lunch (or just have a cheap snack), and then have a decent dinner with a coupla drinks at a mid-range place.

What's your company's per diem/meals policy, and how careful do you need to be to stay within the limits?

As a consultant I havent had one (we have been charging the exact amount of the expenses) but I am considering changing that to simplify billing. Another way you can stretch your per diem (or pocket more of it) is to get status at a hotel that serves evening appetizers, drinks and so on in their executive lounge. That has been dinner many nights for me.

$70 / day for all individuals who travel. They watch it pretty closely, but I have never had to cough up the difference when I go over.

Some interesting related threads:

What is the strangest thing you've expensed?
Hotel Dry Cleaning: Your company's expense policy?
You write the travel policy - what goes in it?
Travel per diem and hotel allowance
What "fraud" do you commit on expense reports to avoid questions?
expense acct question
Expense report guidelines
Do you expense your booze on flights/in airports?
Corporate Travel Policies
What's Your Hotel/Meal Per Diem, Company Size?

For what its worth the federal Meals and Incidentials per diem ranges from $34 to $69 depending on region of the country.

Depends on the city and country ... range between 20 (Tuvalu) and 126 Tokyo. Hotels between 33 Lampung (indonesia) and 399 Bermuda

Ours varies by city -- regardless I still find that travelling costs ME money unless I'm content eating fast food on the road. I also look for hotels with bfast included to ease the pain.

35 a day except in five or six cities, then it's 50.

Yep, pretty much right on. In fact there is a decent site on GSA that breaks down the max lodging plus M&IE for each state--very useful for fellow "federal" employees:

GSA DOMESTIC RATES

For US Government overseas travelers on Uncle Sam's dime, you'll have to go to State's site:

STATE DEPT OVERSEAS RATES

One of the things on state's site that I noted is that there is no lodging reimbursement for Baghdad or Kabul! :td:

$50 / day. Then no reimbursement above that.

With my company it's basically "whatever it costs, within reason" meaning I have an understanding with my boss that I don't try to rip off the company and try to make wise choices, and he signs the expenses at the end of the month.
This has worked great for the past 2.5 years.

$48/Day
10 breakfast
14 lunch
24 dinner

Depends upon where the porject is and how many hours I will be billing. If it is a high cost area and only 40 to 50 hours per week then I can more about the per diem rate. If it is a low cost area and I will be billing 70 to 90 hours per week then the per diem is a small factor.

Usually get from $35 to $50 per day for meals. But no recipets, If they offer $35 per day I get that every day. If I spend more it cost me, if I spend less then I get to keep it.

$169 a day to eat in Tokyo! It's one of the perks of being a Federal employee overseas. When a meeting takes you to Tokyo....just eat like the locals do at yakitori stands or curry houses and you can earn some serious extra income!

My company policy is $45/day for domestic and $65/day for International. They start paying once you arrive in the city. They are evaluating changing the International rates...cost of food in Melbourne or Singapore for example is much lower than London or Tokyo.

Anywhere from 50-100$ a day for me. Depends on the city and if Breakfast/Lunch are provided or not. Usually those two meals are provided for me, thus its 50-75, if not its usually abour 100.

Right now, we're actual expenses within reason, but there've been rumblings about switching to a flat per diem for meals and incidentals as a way of reducing accounting costs for processing expense reports.

I cannot abide by the GSA per diem for lodging. At one of my recent client sites, for example, the government rate at the Homewood Suites is $89 and the GSA limit is $74. I'd end up having to eat the difference every time. And many properties won't extend the GSA rate to contractors.

The GSA domestic per diem for meals, however, I think is reasonable as a total, but I don't like their breakdown by meal. $39-$49 for most of my client sites, $64 when I visit our headquarters each month, is fine with me. I'd rather have one nice meal, however, than three mediocre ones.

$120 a day - I usually average spend $30. The $120 figure doesn't include $$ too wine and dine clients.

$45/day to use as you please. Anything above that, you are on your own. If I'm on reimbursement instead of per diem, $45/day, one alcoholic beverage per receipt. The rest is all on me.

No per diem, just "reasonable expenses." I think the expense reporting system flags anything over $15 breakfast, $25 lunch, $40 dinner, but your boss just needs to give approval of anything greater. Overall, a very good and fair system. I try to eat cheap for breakfast and lunch then have a nice $30-40 dinner, which I think is fair.

No receipts necessary except over $25.

No per diem, just "reasonable expenses."
All food expenses covered, including wine, pre/post dinner cocktails.

No receipts necessary except over $25.

(All travelers are directors/owners of our company.)

The same, except:
Receipts for EVERYTHING.
Lunch is not paid for on weekdays.

My previous company was reasonable expenses, portal to portal. I got mileage to and from airport, lunch at the airport, etc. Heavy flyers could expense RCC memberships, but later reversed it and said you had to pay for it yourself. Our ops manager didn't buy my argument that I probably bought 5 sodas and munchables a week at the airport at $6 each. That's $30 per week just for snacks. At 50 weeks per year it comes to $1500. BUT, they won't allow a $400 RCC membership where I can get this stuff for free.

My other pet gripe was when I would go to ballgames when travelling. On one hand, it would be acceptable for me to go to TGIFriday's, and have a cocktail, ful dinner and dessert, costing $40. If I went to the ballgame and paid $15 for a hog dog and soda, I couldn't expense the general admission ticket to the game. :confused:

FWIW, I was responsible for multi million dollar budgets and project pursuits.

Dollars chasing dimes. :rolleyes:

$2,000 a day. :)

What kind of $ would these be? As there is nothing in your profile to indicate where you live it could be Monopoly money for all we know!

I belive his/her company policy may state that 2 bottles of Cristal are allowable at each meal.

There is some silly regulations in the IRS guidlines for Domestic travel/reimbursement. My former company switched over to it.

Lets say you go to Atlanta on business. Atlanta per this IRS Publication 1542 defines Atlanta as a $38 (old publication is all I have) city. Other cities in GA are a different per-diem.

Since the projects tended to be long term, we were in one city for many months.

The IRS publication stated that if you were allowed more than this city by city amount .. .part of the per-diem would be considered income to the employee for tax purposes. So everyone had to follow this rule since the company refused to process any tax forms for the differential.

There got to be an arguement on short term vs long term staff on a project. Long term (in a corporate apartment) HAD to take this IRS ruled per-diem. Short term staff who stayed in hotels could bill 'actual expenses' that were reasonable (approved by the client). So some people gouged the client by staying 8 months in a hotel just to avoid the apartment-dictated low per-diem (and the hotels would be more $$ than monthly corporate apartments).

Out of the US .. it was totally different and varied based on the location .. pretty reasonable for most foreign cities.

Not sure if this ruling/publication currently is in force ..

Any job openings do you think? May I register my interest now - I will do anything within reason -then again -maybe not. Think of my liver - I know I shouldn't drink more than a bottle a day!

US dollars - the last time I checked, at least. ;)

Only Krug, my friend. :D

$45 per day for meals and incidentals. More is possible if you save receipts and can explain it.

US/Canada - $75 per day for meals and incidentals.
International - $150 per day for meals and incidentals.

M8

$70 maximum per day for meals. We must submit receipts for everything. No receipt then no reimbursement.

Pier diem was $45.

It's now $0.

I need a job.

$39 for meals.

Whatever it costs, within reason.

My old company was receipts for everything. My new one is receipts only when item is over $75.

Freakin' awesome. It cuts down on paperwork a lot! All I need to send in is air, hotel, and rental car typically. Everything else I can throw away.

It's also easy to average meals. i.e. if I have an expensive meal, I'll balance it by a cheap one, and file as 2 medium meals. Everyone is happy.

Yeah but keep those receipts...you never know what the tax man will accept as deducatble come next April...

I love per diem systems -- instead of the whole flight home being spent preparing expenses it could be used for something productive. Like sleeping!

We just switched in November from a receipts system to a per diem system and I am already loving it. I still have to itemise business expenses of course, but it is a lot easier to find folios from hotels and rental cars than it is to scrounge around for a receipt from a street hotdog vendor that you grabbed a quick bite from!

$15 breakfast
$25 lunch
$50 dinner

Kindof weird I guess broken out by meal.

Really weird :confused:

Unbelievable...
 

$30/day, all receipts. I always knew the company was one of the more stingy ones out there... but give me a break.

I've taken to finding out where Whole Foods, Wild Oats, Co-Ops, etc. are wherever I go and making sure I get a room with a fridge. $30 will usually buy you enough food for a day, and it's better than eating fast food.