Quote:
Originally Posted by AgCat
. I was told that the gov rate is $163/night. The additional cost was due to the breakfast provided. That's what they told me, I didn't suppose that. Normal advertised rate is $128 and that probably includes breakfast too. We all stood at the front desk and had a good laugh about the "gov rate". We'll all be laughing all the way to the poor house.
The GSA breakdown for the denver area is 163 for lodging, and 66.00 for meals/expenses. This has nothing to do with the "government rate" that hotels give government employees. While a hotel could theoretically look it up and match that value, most don't; in most places the government rate is different than the GSA allowance.
Per Diem Rates Look-Up
At a hotel you might ask for the AAA rate, the rate for truckers, the government rate, etc; these values go up and down, and don't necessarily coincide with the GSA table. It's fairly well known that when looking for the lower rate, a trucker or AAA will do better than the government rate. When there's a lot of government activity and hotel room availability decreases, the government rate often skyrockets. Last year I paid 38 one night at a hotel, and the next night they wanted 225. We got squeezed, along with everyone else. The problem for me was that anything above my per diem value, which was 125, came out of pocket. I went to a different hotel.
There is nothing in the GSA table which prescribes additional costs for breakfast, or that a breakfast should be included.
Meals and Incidental Expenses ( M&IE) Breakdown
If you check the meals and incidentals breakdown for the 66 dollar rate (applicable to Denver), you'll see that the value allowed for breakfast is 11.00. Again, the hotel can charge whatever it likes, as the government does not mandate that any hotel charge a specific value. The GSA tables are what the government allows for it's employees in a specific location. The term "government rate" used by hotels is just another rate, just like AAA, AOPA, AARP, commercial driver, etc. It's whatever the hotel decides it will be, and if the patron doesn't like it, he or she is free to go elsewhere.
The hotel told you what their rate is, but the hotel is not the government and doesn't speak for the government.