Unexpected Extra Travel Costs and Grants

Question

When traveling, there are many things that can possibly happen or go wrong that would require extra money to fix. While these things may not be directly related to the research travel one is doing, these expenses would not pop up if you weren't traveling.

For example, if one gets stuck in the airport on the way back to one's home institution, you may need to get an extra night at a hotel before you go home.

The question is the following: When is it appropriate to claim such an expense on one's grant?

There are clearly varying levels of such events. One is something out of your control like weather pushing your flight back a day. Some are completely in your control and you messed up, e.g., you miss your flight and need to pay a fee to get on a later flight. Others are due to scheduling conflicts and new plans arising, e.g., another talking engagement shows up and one needs to pay the flight change fee in order to make sure one can present at both conferences.

Are all/some of these scenarios appropriate for claiming against a grant or asking reimbursement for?

Answer 1

These things happen, and as long as the expenses are reasonable, they should be covered by any reasonable funding body. It is a good idea to make a phone call to see whether you are permitted to spend the money, or at least to find out what budget limitations you have.

For instance, the other day my plane was diverted to a different airport. The only way I could make the PhD defence on time was using a taxi. So I took the 80 km trip and paid the 230 euro and fully expect that I'll get this money back.

If I had have purchased a used car to get me to the defence and a bottle of whisky for pain and suffering, I wouldn't expect to get that money back.

Answer 2

In general, it is always reasonable to ask for unexpected expenses to be covered. Unlike the other answers, however, in my experience, getting reimbursed for unexpected expenses almost never happens if you go over budget. For travel on large grants the PI can often shift money around to cover unexpected expenses, if he/she wants, but that money has to come from somewhere. For small grants (e.g., $1000 travel grant) or internally funded travel, there is usually a budget and there just is not any extra money to shift. When visiting another university to give a seminar, they take on the responsibility, to an extent. Sometimes they give the visitor an explicit budget and other times they deal with over spends.

I would suggest prior to spending any money, but especially money that you do not have, that you contact the "funder" to confirm. Without prior confirmation, I would assume that I will not get reimbursed for unexpected expenses.

Answer 3

With few exceptions, I consider all travel done as part of my university appointment (be it project meetings, formal academic visits, conferences, etc.) as regular business trips. That is, going to that project meeting isn't my personal choice, but something I have to do as part of my job.

This means that I expect not only to get fully refunded for all expected costs of the travel, but that my employer also takes over the risk of unexpected costs. This includes cancellation or rescheduling costs, as long as the reason for cancellation is another business appointment or any other reason that is outside of my control (but not if I cancel for personal reasons - I have in the past been refunded after cancelling for personal reasons, but I saw this as a nice gesture by the grant holder more than something I would have expected). These expectations are also clearly covered by the travel guidelines of my current university (the same was true at the place where I did my PhD).

If additional costs come up due to a screw-up from your side, things get a little bit messy. In theory, my university would not be required to pay for any travel that you booked in error. In practice, my university has a tendency to cover even major screw-ups (such as booking a wrong flight on a ticket that cannot be changed), as long as these circumstances are rare, clearly unintentional and of no profit to you. They would probably be very suspicious if you, for instance, ended up in Hawaii for an additional week due to your "mistake".

Answer 4

Everyone recognizes that your business trips are, well, business and not for leisure. Consequently, everything that can go wrong is part of what you do for work and should be reimbursed (and typically will). For example, I have missed the plane from Houston to my home town more often than I care to count (either because my inbound flight was late, or because the connecting flight had been cancelled altogether because of weather). In such cases, I rent a car for a day to get me home. Nobody has ever asked me to justify this: everyone understands that it would be unreasonable to hang out at the airport for the night to take the next flight in the morning. This is simply the cost of doing business.

Answer 5

In the universities that I have worked, the university carried an insurance policy that covers business travel. Exact coverage details vary. Depending on the details of the insurance policy, you might have to declare the trip in advance. You might also have to contact the insurer when you incur/about incur the expenses. I suggest to check with the relevant authorities in your university.

If your university does not have such a policy, it might be a good idea to buy it when you buy your travel, especially if you go to places where you do not ordinarily have medical coverage (e.g. a foreign country). Such an expense is normally reimbursable (but you might have to go through the university's preferred insurer; check!).

Answer 6

Not only with respect to travel, emergencies happen and money needs to go from category A to category B in your account.

For most situations, Universities won't just set up an account for sponsored research for X dollars and say "go spend it on your research". Money will be apportioned by categories as were specified in your application -- A dollars for salaries, B for bennies, C for travel, D for capital equipment, E for supplies, and so on.

Because the government can audit whenever they feel like it, most systems are set up to meet the regulatory requirements of the big government agencies, and they will audit on their own every now and again to make sure they're in compliance.

Now, most agencies will have strict rules about how much money can change categories before you're supposed to give them a ring and ask for permission. My experience is that a $200 hotel bill will generally not exceed those limits.

Answer 7

For the reimbursement of business travel cost, it usually won't matter whether the cost was expected or not. You had certain costs, and when you hand in your travel cost account, you will be reimbursed or not depending on regulations that should have been defined in advance.

Before going on travel, you will usually get a business trip admission from your employer that defines to what extent travel costs are covered. Usually, this definition will refer to some local regulations, that (at least in my case) try to define very specifically what cost can be covered. Sometimes, an upper limit for reimbursement may have been set, and then you're bound by that, whether the cost was unexpected or not.

If you don't get reimbursement from your employer, you may have a travel grant or stipend, which usually define an upper limit on the cost that is being covered. Again, for that limit it generally doesn't matter whether any cost was expected or not.

In case you're going over any predefined budget due to unexpected circumstances out of your control, it may be worth negotiating to have that reimbursed as well. However, I wouldn't expect that to work, unless there's other funds to reallocate from, and usually you wouldn't have legal entitlement to that.