Reply to: Accomodation and Travel - Poll

[RichardCranium]

Rate all in but I still travel 1st class and stay somewhere reasonable. One has to have standards.

Ditto.

Get that contract money spent on expenses, not taken as taxed dividends.

I've stayed in some cracking places over the years and LtdCo paid. I can then skip holidays and work through, if necessary.

[Cliphead]

I go direct and negotiate so the client pays all expenses, travel, accommodation and food included. Been very successful so far no clients have balked at this.

[Badger]

I generally quote excluding expenses but this usually gets the agent flustered and they wont even put the option to the end client. So end up with an all in daily rate and find somewhere decent but economical if staying away.

Currently in the Cotswolds paying £37/night B&B

[Bagpuss]

Most of the South of England

Good point, well made - some of the best value places I have stayed have been cheapest. I generally (but not always) avoid the big chain hotels.

The cheapest I stayed in was in Kent.
I found Bucks to be full of good reasonably priced hotels and B&B. Most of what I have seen in the same range here is terrible, many of the so called B&B are rooms in someones skanky house.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

The cheapest B&B I had was £13 a night, en-suite king sized bed.

The worst so far has also been the most expensive. Why is Herts so expensive, when most of the towns are dumps?

Most of the South of England

Good point, well made - some of the best value places I have stayed have been cheapest. I generally (but not always) avoid the big chain hotels.

[Bagpuss]

The cheapest B&B I had was £13 a night, en-suite king sized bed.

The worst so far has also been the most expensive. Why is Herts so expensive, when most of the towns are dumps?

[TheBigYinJames]

i'm on an all-in. lower costs mean bigger profit.

me too. Contracting is not my life, I do it for the money. The less I spend on hotels, the more i have to spend at home. If that means I stay in £25 a night B&Bs, then I don't care, it's only me. I can rough it a few nights a week.

[Jubber]

Depends what I can get. I have worked both, where client pays and all in.

Back in the old days where my only reason for working was to get beer tokens I would always get some dingy B&B and get so pissed every evening I could have slept on a spike and not noticed.

Nowadays I tend to go the '1st Class' route I'm afraid. My last gig abroad was the best yet. Client paid weekly return flight (full price so often upgraded to bizo) and for a pukka hotel (200 E a night) Better rates, better hotels and better whores when one gets older.

[DS23]

i'm on an all-in. lower costs mean bigger profit.

[Pondlife]

Client pays for flights + taxis/mileage. I pay for food and hotels.

Usually I book somewhere half decent though.

[Sausage Surprise]

Rate all in but I still travel 1st class and stay somewhere reasonable. One has to have standards.

Yep - I found a cracking stable conversion in Kent, kind of self catering, that had power shower, broadband access (RJ45 connection in wall) and breakfast cereals, bread, milk and fruit juices provided fresh daily. All this with beautiful countryside and the local village (great pubs, indian, chinese, chip shop and small tesco) 5 mins walk. £56 a night.

[NotAllThere]

Rate all in but I still travel 1st class and stay somewhere reasonable. One has to have standards.

Quite right.

[malvolio]

I use a rate card approach. I know what I need to live on (not that much), I add on travel/living cost (obviously a variable) and another uplift to reflect seniority (aka risk of getting blamed for it failing...) and use that total as the day rate. If I can charge the expenses directly I will - and obviously drop my quoted day rate to suit - but only as a convenience; point is the client pays for them anyway.

As an aside, price is not the driver. After 25 years flogging around the UK's business hotels, I put a much higher value on comfort. My favourtie hotel for a long time was a six-bedroom farmhouse conversion in Gainsborough for around £40 B&B at today's prices.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Rate all in but I still travel 1st class and stay somewhere reasonable. One has to have standards.

[Churchill]

You have to iron her shirt?

Erm, nope.