I’ve always been annoyed by the process of finding hotels at per diem rates in DC. I’ve only had to do it a few times, as I started out as a local hire (where you get no per diem) and I bought a house in DC in conjunction with long-term training. While waiting to close on the house, we needed to find a per-diem hotel that allowed pets, which significantly narrowed the field (I highly recommend staying at a Kimpton hotel if traveling with pets). Now, I’m heading back for a three-day training at FSI and I wanted a place to stay. While all the major chains allow you to choose the Government/Military rate after you’ve settled on a property, if their rate is unavailable or higher than per diem, you have to go all the way back to the search results. It would be easy enough for all the hotel chains to simply put the option on the search page, but instead all built “special” search pages which I’ve collected here:

• Hilton
• Marriott
• Choice Hotels
• Intercontinental Hotels
• Best Western

Wyndham offers the discount as well, but not in the DC area so I’m not including them. I prefer Hilton and Marriott, mostly on the strength of their rewards programs. You can always check FedRooms.com or the list of Hotels at Per Diem, but neither is inclusive and both sites will return all hotels that offer the rate – whether the rate is available for your specified travel dates or not. Kind of defeats the purpose, no? 

Leaving post, I was thinking how nice my five consultation days in DC would be after an 11-month training program: we’d get roughly $400/day for me + 1 EFM after having been down to $50/day for 6 months when the per diem dropped to 25%. NOTE WELL: If you stay in the same city where you had your TDY, your per diem for the consultations remains at the same reduced level (though you do get to add in for EFMs). If you have consultations in other cities AND that’s on your orders, you go back up to 100% for that new city. See this intranet-only Ask Admin answer for details.

One question still remains (and is relevant for folks going on some language immersions): if you leave DC (where you were on TDY) and travel on orders to another city/country and then return to DC to finish your TDY, you might be able to go back up to 100%. I haven’t found any citation to the contrary, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

I thought I was so smart. I’d read several articles on Ask Admin (intranet only) on using my lodging per diem during my 11-month long language training towards the mortgage interest, property tax, and condo fees on a new place I’d buy in DC. The answers seemed pretty clear: so long as I was purchasing the home for the express purpose of residing it I could get reimbursed up to the per diem limit [see Arensburger]. So, I was kinda surprised when the voucher folks denied my first voucher which had some $1500 in mortgage-related costs on it. At first, they withheld the whole $7000-odd reimbursement, saying that charges on a HUD-1 couldn’t be paid out of per diem funds. After taking it up the chain, they funded all but the $1500 that was on the HUD-1. I appealed to the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals. After five months, the judge ruled on my side – you can see all the details here.

The two lessons: 1.) In payroll issues, there’s an administrative appeal to decisions that don’t jibe with the regs; and 2.) buying a house on per diem can save you a good deal of cash. Even though it’s on the sliding scale, I’ve saved over $6,000 in interest payments and my furniture rental and utilities were included while I was still above 25%. I’m not sure on the tax liability yet, but it looks like the interest payments are also available as Schedule A deductions. Huzzah!