I took a 5 month contract traveling around Arkansas for work. Per diem is 115 day. I have to get hotel and food out of that. Any tricks for traveling so I can save as much of it as possible?
Making the most of per diem
I took a 5 month contract traveling around Arkansas for work. Per diem is 115 day. I have to get hotel and food out of that. Any tricks for traveling so I can save as much of it as possible?
Did this for a few years pre-covid
Book hotels with breakfasts, motels are okay too. You generally want to look for breakfast buffet, avoid shit like "continental breakfast" unless it has pictures when booking. Always load up on breakfast so you skip lunch and can just get a better dinner.
Look for hotels closer to main highways/freeways vs. closest to job site.
If you can book through your own site make a hotels.com account as the rewards program is fairly decent, 10 nights = 1 credit being the average of hotel spent.
Avoid Extended Stays, these hotel chains profit greatly off hosting DV victims, mothers with out places to go, witness protection people, and so on. They also often lack any features for breakfast/food.
Never ever ask night shift where good food is around there, do it on check in. If the person is anyone other than a white dude or white female don't bother as you'll always get shitty answers. NEVER trust Indians or Chinese for where to eat.
Avoid downtown hotels during weekends because they suck in costs, weekdays are often the better bargins.
Always ask for late check out if available. Holiday inns often do it for no fees.
Brands to look for
America's Best Value
Pro's a bunch in AK, cheap as shit, most always have breakfast
Con's they are no frills at all, basic everything
La Quinta
Pro's all have breakfast, general good value for the cost, most have some gym
Con's Mexicans always fricking stay at these places and cause shitstorms especially if there is a mexican restaurant in the parking lot
Red Roof
Pro's lots of the southern hotels have been renovated due to a new CEO or something recently, most anywhere
Con's nothing really that special about them, usually no breakfast
Avoid Motel 6's and Extended stays when possible. The ONLY redeeming factor with extended stays are that they generally have a kitchen so you can cook at home.
Hampton Inn's and Comfort Inn's are nice but they are going to eat into your daily cash flow
>Avoid Motel 6's
do the opposite of this, book a morel 6 for a month it'll only be like $1200 in little rock, it's your CHEAPEST option
The problem with motel 6's are they generally have absolutely no breakfast for the price of other hotels that do. If OP is trying to max his value, he'd be fine going to an America's Best or La Quinta for the same price and get breakfast that he can load up on to save cash.
Furthermore if he's traveling around AK the possibilities of month discounts goes out the window. I am assuming OP is most likely doing something similar like I did where work for a few days or weeks here, travel to X place repeat, go to Y place.
I've found them to be safer(highway patrol or truckers just idling watching the lot), often having more security(cameras), and things open later so when you get off have something to go eat or do. Really depends on where you are working though. I've just found them to be consistently cleaner and better all around than staying in some random place close to my work. You'll have to weigh everything but with AK specifically I always wanted to stay by a walmart shopping center or highway exit.
You’re right about only doing a few days/couple weeks at a time.
Also next to the highway sounds like a good move then. Stopped over night at the cheapest hotel I could find in St. Louis on the way to AK. Pretty sure there’s at least 2 drug dealers working out of the building, keep seeing junkies in the lobby. Luckily they had parking by the front door.
Wingate is also a decent hotel brand to look out for.
Depends what your per diem is as well, are you looking to just pocket the cash or is it a "you use it or lose it" situation. Mine was the later and we had similar $ per day.
Generally I'd look for 55-75 dollar hotels with a breakfast buffet, load up each morning, maybe take a plate back to my room if they had any to-go snacks or fruits to save for "lunch", then just take the rest to eat something good each night. Biggest issue was managing my weight where I often was glad to stay in a Hampton Inn or La Quinta due to having a gym. Having BBQ, Steaks, or Seafood each night is fricking great but holy frick you can become a fatass because 50 dollars still goes a long ass way in the south. For sure if you can get a hotel with a fitness center for not all that much more go for it, try and stick with it because you can really frick up easily when living on someone elses dime.
Motel 6 will have the cheapest rate by far if you book it weekly or monthly,only one that comes close is redroof, motel 6's are also pretty solid for the price, some are really shit but most are solid. If you gotta book one every day than stay wherever, but la quintas and America's best never have weekly or monthly rates
Making your own food would be ideal for saving money anyway, buy a hotplate, make lots of fried rice and quesadillas
The thing here is that you can pay 10 or so dollars more for a La Quinta than a motel 6 where you have a overall better experience being a fitness center with a breakfast buffet. The way OP worded his posts means he wants to get the most out of his 115 per day. Meaning try local food and drinks, use that cash for local events and so on. If so he'd be best getting something with a very good built in breakfast option, which La Quinta has this hands down.
Speaking specifically to save $$$ Extended stay would be the best overall as most all are equipped with a full kitchen and about the cost of a motel 6 most the time and could make meals in bulk. Though I doubt OP just wants to spend 5 months cooking at home if he has had a job like I did, generally you at the end of the day just want to try some of the best southern food you can get for a decent price.
Thanks a ton for the detailed answer, why do you mention hotels near highways over closer to job site?
>AK
OP asked about Arkansas not Alaska
Also if you are using your personal CC to do all this you can double dip on points+rewards.
1. Use hotels.com bank 'free nights' at each booking
2. Use CC for points during payment
3. enjoy CC and hotels.com rewards
Most the time I would just bank up a lot of hotels.com site points then on weekends when I had off redeem some of them for a good hotel near downtown or some fun event going on without using much of my actual money.
Holiday Inn Express has free breakfast
Buy food from grocery stores to save money. My first stop for any trip is the grocery store to buy supplies for lunch or dinner.
That might be pushing his budget a bit
Days Inn
Hampton Inn
America's Best
La Quinta
Comfort Inn
Super 8
All tend to have some breakfast, LA Quinta hands down has the best followed by Hampton, then America's
Holiday Inn Expresses are nice but they tend to operate around the 100 dollar mark.
Didn't realize it was both lodging and meals. GSA lodging PD alone is 98 and meals + incidentals are 59. I think OP should have negotiated those rates better, nobody would blink an eye at going by federal per diem rates. Unless the employer is skimming off the top.
Or paying lodging and transportation directly which is what I've seen more often.
Yeah this. I’ve always expensed the hotel and pocketed the per diem.
>115 for lodging and food
Goddamn man that’s nothing.
For Arkansas that's fairly decent
Hotel should be no more than 75 a night with tax
You can easily get a full on large size Steak+fixings, BBQ 3 piece dinner+sides or Seafood meal for 30 bucks
Decent mid day lunch special for 10
OP by no means will be hurting on cash, I assume either he is getting a vehicle as well+gas paid for or getting the 56c or whatever it is now per mile. So there is a net takeaway.
It’s full hourly driving the company car with gas card so not a bad deal. Found out today I’ll actually he in Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas for the most part. Also found out that it if I have to find a hotel short notice or can’t find a hotel that isn’t a shithole for under $80 that I can give up the lodging portion of per diem in exchange for the company booking a hotel on their dime. They put me in a suite at home2 through the weekend which is way out of my budget. Will try to abuse that as much as I can probably since I’m making good money on the job. Comfort vs an extra 10-15 a day I guess.
All of those you should easily be able to make due with 50-80 dollar a night hotels. Again, La Quinta is probably best bang for buck all around.
An actual decent thread. Im fricking shocked
How’s da coomin’ in Arkansas?
>$115 per diem
Bro, you got fricked, even in Arkansas. Enjoy the roaches.
I get 65, but my car, gas, and the hotel which are all generally nice are completely excluded.
Really depends he could be making a shit frick ton on the contract but the per diem just is lower, I don't see how 115 is bad for AK unless you're a gay who won't consider anything lower than a holiday inn express.
nta but i'm of the mind that if my employer requires me to travel, they should at least make me comfy. might sound uppity but i know how hard it is to find people willing to travel for work, give me my holiday inn express and my steak at outback, with a few beers at that.
115/day is more than enough to be completely comfortable in AK, I honestly can't imagine what you are doing if unable to get a good hotel and meals on that unless you are using LA or NYC prices. You aren't going to be in hiltons each night but there will be no issue getting decent meals and hotels while traveling on that budget in the south. Per Diem isn't meant to be an all expense thing for living lavish, it's to supplement and cover what would be considered average necessities for working outside your normal area of work.
How much do you think a passable hotel costs a night? A decent meal? Gas? 115 is bad enough when you’re paying rent and cooking at home. It’s far worse when you’re paying for a room by the night and needing to eat out every meal. Anyone who signs up for this or defends it is being taken advantage of big time. You’re losing money from it.
For AK? A Quality Inn or La Quinta is going to be around 65-75 a night most the time, especially if you're using a booking site through your company/agency.
Decent meal? A 3 meat plate with bbq pork/brisket/ribs + sides should be about 20-25 bucks for dinner.
> Gas?
What? Why would that be per diem? That's out of scope of it, 56c a mile is when I was doing you get for gas/wear on your car if using your own. Many companies simply cut that shit out and you rent a vehicle+itemize gas on your expense report.
>Anyone who signs up for this or defends it is being taken advantage of big time. You’re losing money from it.
Anon, you know this is AK right? I've done 120 in most states that weren't large cities. Most anywhere in the midwest, texas, fair amount of the Southwest outside cali, and so on is fairly easy. Per Diem is just extra on top of your daily billed hours, salary, or so on to help pay for expenses for being out of your normal area of work.
What company have you done where per diem is including gas+car shit?
https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-issues-standard-mileage-rates-for-2023-business-use-increases-3-cents-per-mile
because I don't know who you worked for if that's the case as they broke the law.