Weekend travel meal reimbursement denied

Question

I recently was on a work trip that was planned to span 12 days. The location is about 3.5 hours from home and multiple members of the team would be driving up across different days. We had an Airbnb rented for everyone.

One team member was given a grocery per diem to stock the house with food for everyone, and I was given a $125 personal meal budget (that is, $125 total for the whole trip, not per day).

I had planned with my employer to stay over the weekend to save the mileage and time instead of driving home late Friday night and driving back Sunday to begin work on Monday. I agreed I could be "on call as needed" over the weekend since I would be in town.

So, the weekend comes and I get sick, so I stayed in the Airbnb and did not work. The rest of the team went home or were doing personal things while in the area over the weekend.

The groceries in the house were minimal by this point, so on that Saturday I went to the grocery store and spent $52 to cook a meal for myself and left all leftover food at the house for the rest of the team to use.

I got sent home on the following Monday because I was still sick, so my trip was cut short.

I expensed the $52 because I left all the food at the Airbnb for the team and the $125 budget I was previously given had been exhausted in the 7 days prior.

The $52 expense was denied by my employer because it was "personal time over the weekend".

Should I argue I am owed this money?

Also I would have taken the food home if I had known I wasn't going to be reimbursed for it, but that was never disclosed to me. I also could argue I saved my employer money by not driving back home for the weekend (about $280 worth of mileage expenses).

Yes, it's only $52, but I'm a salaried employee and I don't gain anything extra from these work trips.

For added context my employer has a history of exploiting people and being very stingy.

Answer 1

Major edit to this answer as the information in the question changed drastically.

You were supposed to spend 12 days at a remote location as part of a group of 10 co-workers. You yourself were paid per diem amounting to $125 total to cover your expenses for 12 days, including food. Your group received similar amounts. One of your group received $500 to buy groceries for the entire period. You also tried to claim $52 for groceries on the weekend.

In terms of process, a per diem payment is supposed to cover all expenses. You should not, normally, be making additional claims for food over and above your per diem.

However the amount you were paid, $125 for 12 days, is absolutely not sufficient to provide food for 12 days. Even adding the $500 (between 5 people over 12 days amounting to slightly less than $10 per day). This amount is insanely low by any rational standard. Nobody can expect to feed themselves on a business trip in a remote city on $20 per day. The amount will not come close to reimbursing your group for the expenses they will have necessarily incurred.

For reference the "normal" per diem rate within the US is $60-$70 for food alone, depending on location. The IRS standard rate is $63 per day for food alone. (Per diem means "per day" so per diem rates are always quoted as a daily rate.)

The only reasonable solution to this is for the entire group of you to a) complain in the strongest terms to the company until you get a reasonable repayment of expenses. The standard rates quoted above would be good amounts to ask for. b) Your entire team should absolutely refuse to go on any further trips without guarantees of reasonable repayment of expenses at the above rates.

Your $52 is irrelevant. Each person on your team is owed around $600.

Answer 2

Per diem means a daily allowance for lodging and meals. The standard for government employees is used in private business, too. Right now, it'd be $183 per day for lodging with $74 for meals in Los Angeles, and a whopping $315 for lodging with $74 for meals in New York City. That's for each day, my friend. I pulled up these two cities because they'd be at the high end of the range, but the meals allowance probably wouldn't change much for the low end of the range.

You've been hoodwinked. And yes, per your statements here, it's probably a waste of time for you to fight over $52.

The other misstep, unfortunately, was volunteering to stay over the weekend. As those were days off for you and you could have gone home, your employer would not be on the hook to feed you, even though you'd be producing a cost savings for the company by not driving home on Friday and driving back to the AirBNB on Monday.

Your employer took advantage of you and the whole team. So the real question becomes how long you're going to stick around until you're called upon to partake in this kind of madness again. Next time, consider documenting your understanding of all agreements about travel in an email or two with your boss before you leave, and if you're still working for this shady character, forward the final email in the thread to a private email address for safekeeping.

It's horrible that you work for such a snake-in-the-grass of a person.

Answer 3

I was/am second-generation Job Shopper. In our neck of the woods, $125 per diem means $125 PER DAY, and is fairly typical of split rates. If your employer is giving you $12.50 per diem expense allowance, you need to update your resume and get the bleep outta Dodge before you learn what other bad habits they have.

The manager who set that rate is delusional.