Hotel Reimbursement

[Theresa Shore]

Hello All,

I have somebody who arrived at an international conference in the morning on 5/8/22 but they booked a hotel room for the night of 5/7/22. The hotel receipt says no show and they were only charged for the hotel room with no extra no show fees. I reached out to them and asked why they booked it for the night before even though they weren't actually going to be spending that night. They replied with " I needed to get access to a room to get ready and could not do so with a 5/8 check in until 4pm on 5/8. The only way I could get into a room on arrival was to pay for the night of 5/7. I had several meetings and an event scheduled that day. They told me they would hold the room so I could get in when I arrived on 5/8 but the way the computer works it would be marked as a no-show. " 

It would be charging a sponsored project. 

Would this be an allowable expense and be reimbursable?

Thank you!

[Dave Jacobi]

To my mind, this would be allowable.  If they had meetings during the day, then there was a legitimate business need to be there that day.  They could have chosen an earlier flight that would have gotten them there the previous evening, and we would have allowed the night of lodging without issue.  The only difference here is that the flight didn't arrive until the next morning.