charging travel time to the client

[Sausage Surprise]

If I spend a couple of hours on the train to a client site, I'm not worried about it. But I have a potential client in the US who want me to fly over to them for some initial consultation. They've agreed to handle flight and accommodation costs naturally, but I feel I should be compensated for time in the air also. It's all a bit of a hassle really.

Just wanted to gather some opinions/policies people have. One idea is to charge half my hourly rate for any travel time. Another idea is to charge a premium rate for work "on site". Another is to (try to) do some work on the plane and charge a full rate for that (actually did that once in 1999 and the client paid but acted skeptical).

Hmm...picking up client spelling preferences early too...

[NotAllThere]

...
Don't believe that charging travel time will hurt your future prospects. If the client sees you as an external company, they will be expecting it anyway.

Indeed. I know one project where internals were not compensated for travel time, but the external consultancy was!

[darrenb]

A good range of ideas there. I'm surprised so many people have American clients actually. What is it, rates higher over there now? Or the UK market just too boring?

[craig1]

I do quite a bit of international work and have standard clauses that I always get inserted in my contracts. The main one is:

- The client/agency (or whatever the contract calls the contract primary) accepts that it is reasonable for the contractor (or whatever the contract calls me) to bill a whole daily rate charge for any night where the contractor is required to stay away from his primary residence at the request of the end client and the contractor has not worked chargeable days on both sides of that night.

I've never liked the wording of that but it was given to me and it's not been rejected yet. For example, if I need to be in a two day meeting in Madrid and be there for 8am on the first day, I fly out the day before, get paid for that travel day and the two normal working days before coming home the last working day. If I have to go to, say, Calgary, then that's usually two paid travel days, one there, one back, even if it's just the timezone issues that mean I'm not sleeping at home on the way back.

I then have some clauses around travel expenses. Mainly that it's their responsibility to pre-pay for travel and accommodation but if they choose not to do so then I can reasonably charge premium economy flights for <5hrs flight and business class for 5+ hrs flight and I get to charge accommodation costs at up to the standard rate of dinner, bed and breakfast for a standard room at the nearest Marriott. That's built me a shed load of Marriott points over the years and got me a nice three week holiday for free in a suite in one of their resort locations a few years ago, I have enough points for another two week one if I saw fit. Also, my nice Platinum reward card always gets me a free upgrade, usually to a junior suite, at the price of a standard room. The weirdest upgrade was in the Newcastle Marriott where I was upgraded to a themed room as the only upgrade room available, it was Arabian Nights themed, it was difficult explaining that one to the wife when talking to her over Skype video!

In pre-contract stage, I always get agreements that travel except to a UK head office will be chargeable for time and expenses on the same terms.

If you're dealing with a big international firm directly then they'll rarely complain, most have deals with preferred local hotels that they'll happily put you in and are used to dealing with consultancies that are far less reasonable. They may beat you down to economy flights trans-atlantic but then that's where trying to blag an upgrade at the airport with reward status comes in! If you're dealing with an agency then it's all about confidence, if you approach them with the attitude of "oh come on, surely you know this is how to do international business" then they usually back down not wanting to look like this is their first ever time dealing with international work, if they don't back down then hard-ball always works once the client says they're happy to pay. If the client won't pay then the primary contact with them is likely to be an amateur at international work and I'm most likely going to want them to learn a bit before I work with them.

That said, I had one client who point blank refused to accept the travel days billing on a contract where I was likely to only have one billable travel day per month. I said as a compromise then "how about a £75p/d rate rise to compensate?", he accepted even thought that cost them far more than what the travel days would have cost them.

That's not the only approach you can take with international work, I have a friend who does similar stuff, he has dual rates in his contracts but no travel days. I think his typical rate is 50% on top of normal rates for days when he's working away. He'll make a good bit more out of it than me but I think that's a harder sell to get over on agencies and clients these days.

[craig1]

A good range of ideas there. I'm surprised so many people have American clients actually. What is it, rates higher over there now? Or the UK market just too boring?

The niche market I work in has really gone international in the last decade or so. In 2001, I'd rarely go abroad with most of my work being UK and western Europe. Now though, the top end of the market is all international mergers creating super-firms with 24 hour timezone working. The most complex one I did was a 4 firm merger with me getting travel to the Americas, Australia and South Africa, I didn't get to go to the Asian offices for some reason.

If I want the higher day rate jobs then I need to work internationally. I can work domestically quite easily but then day rates drop significantly.

[DirtyDog]

A good range of ideas there. I'm surprised so many people have American clients actually. What is it, rates higher over there now? Or the UK market just too boring?

I enjoy working with different environments. Current client might have some work in America and / or Canada, but I've been out to the far east already for this one.

[SussexSeagull]

I would expect expenses to be covered but wouldn't expect travel time to be covered as such. However, the overall ' hassle' would be reflected in my daily rate.

[darrenb]

But I think I should make them realize there is a cost associated with it, so they don't start trying to take advantage and have me fly over every week.

[jamesbrown]

But I think I should make them realize there is a cost associated with it, so they don't start trying to take advantage and have me fly over every week.

There could be many additional costs though; have you quoted a rate that reflects the additional costs of doing business in the US, including insurance etc. (which is super expensive)?