der_saeufer

My comment was more directed at the meals and incidentals part of per diem, since it's paid to the employee regardless. It eliminates a whole lot of paper-pushing and a lot of complaining that life isn't fair because employee X has expensive taste and employee Y doesn't.

But you're totally right about the hotels--some of the per diem rates are simply outdated. DC has gotten increasingly difficult as well; luckily for me I'm usually headed to the suburbs so the fact that rooms downtown are insane hasn't burned me yet, but I'm depending on the generosity of Marriott properties who offer government rates far below rack rate more and more.

If there are simply no hotels at per diem, a government agency has the option to authorize actual expenses up to three times the published per diem (see FTR 301-11.300). If employers who piggyback off the federal per diem rates don't include that exception, then that's kinda stupid IMO. I ran into actual expenses a lot in a previous job because I'd travel to places that were rest-of-US per diem rate simply because few people traveled there. I sent along the rates of all the hotels in [$smalltown] and whoever was in charge OK'd actual lodging. No big deal.

raino144

Having travelled on Per Diem ~15 weeks a year in the last couple of years, my main "survival topics" are:

- Not drinking alcohol until a Thursday on business trips helps sanity and waistline
- Hotel lounge happy hour can be OK - but see above: got past the point of taking a happy hour beer only because "it's free"
- Uber Eats / Deliveroo are everywhere - easy to have a healthy meal delivered to hotel (or meet driver outside). All through the app so no language concerns.
- Have tried Huel / Soylent in the past to replace one meal a day - it works but is a bit bland. More for an "arrived late and nothing is open" emergency food. Instant ramen / cup soups / cereal bars - all portable from home (including hand luggage by air) - also for emergency only use.

Trying to have "healthy" business trips tends to result in a pleasant side effect of coming home with per diem in hand; when it goes out of the window it results in being exhausted by weekend, empty wallet... and expanded waistline :-O

- Hotel Wifi for FaceTime / WhatsApp calls prevents racking up international usage on the phone bill.

flyerCO

I sometimes book a motorhome/campervan/RV (whatever you want to call it) instead of booking a hotel and rental car. Works best if have a number of cities in a country (such as New Zealand where I'm currently do this) to visit. Comes out cheaper than booking separately, and dont have to deal with planes for short distances.

skyscraper

What about income tax consequences? Someone told me that if I receive more in per diem than I spend (with appropriate records to prove it), then US IRS rules require me to show that surplus as taxable income. I have never tried to check if this were true. Any tax accountants out there? Of course, I doubt that the IRS would come after me just for a few hundred dollars or surplus per diem per year. Anyway, my current company does not have a per diem program so this does not apply to me.

BeeeJay

escog

Not me, but my father worked for the USDA for decades and would have to travel to rural areas where slaughter houses and processing plants were for weeks at a time. He had a government issued car, and would pack the trunk with cooking supplies and small appliances, like a rice cooker, to do his own cooking. A lot of the reason was to save the per diem, but also because he couldn't find food he liked in these areas. We're asian, and finding a good Asian restaurant of any sort in places like Fresno or Modesto 40 years ago was a real struggle.

aamilesslave

And it can be a helluva lot more expensive than $10-$15. Seems when I go to Whole Foods for dinner on the road, the total is always $40-$50.

chrisl137

It probably depends on what the per diem is. If it's less than or equal to the published GSA per diem rate for where you're traveling, it shouldn't be taxable. If it's more than the GSA rate, then the difference is probably taxable (I'm not a tax accountant, or even an accountant at all, but do get per diem at the GSA rate and it doesn't show up in my taxable income and my tax accountant doesn't ask me about travel reimbursements).

mikeef

At my last job, I was only reimbursed for meals that I submitted receipts for, although I didn't need receipts for cash expenses under $20. Except...

On one trip to NYC, I ate at food trucks on several different days, because I figured why pay a fortune at a restaurant? Each food truck purchase was under $20, so it shouldn't have been a problem. But my admin submitted it as one total expense, instead of several lunches, so it kept getting rejected. After we submitted it, there was no way that we could convince the back office that it was actually several small meals. It got to the point where the CFO of our division (major bank) sent us an email asking why we didn't have receipts for the ~$30 total. Seriously. We ended up wasting way more than $30 of everyone's time on it. On the other hand, I never went too far out of my way to save them money again.

I was recently laid off and had about $20 in cash expenses outstanding on the day I was let go. Somebody didn't get the memo about the receipt rule, so they refused to reimburse me. I called the HR rep I was working with, but she also refused to give me the $20. Eventually, they "made an exception" and sent me a check for $20.

If I never work for a large corporation again, it will only be too soon.

Mike

MSPeconomist

TechnoTourist

This happened at the previous company I was at. We eventually got more than a few pennies on the dollar but it took close to a year.

I pay with my personal card at my current company but make sure never to let expenses pile up so my exposure isn't too bad. I'm also a shareholder and in senior management so have a good idea of the financial health of the company.

mhrb

lol. Seems you don't understand what it actually means. I'm going to go ahead and call ........ - please provide links to anyone who's gone to jail for not spending the per diem they are granted...

yyznomad

Exactly.
We were told that our per diems were ours to keep and to do as we wished with it. It was written as company policy. Period.

pinniped

I remember reading about this a couple years ago in a "where are they now" kind of segment. Many of those involved were still reffing games in the NBA.

The scandal wasn't really about per diems - it was swapping full-fare F tickets for discounted Y ones and pocketing the cash. The most interesting part, to me, was that they had been doing this for years and it was completely permitted. They weren't hiding it from the league like I assumed they'd been doing when the news story broke. It was a change in IRS reporting rules that eventually landed them in trouble with the Man. When they settled with the IRS and paid their fines, they were all hired back by the league.

mhrb

So as we all knew all along, they were ........ting about putting people in the nick over per diems?