EIM32323 - Travel expenses: travel for necessary attendance: safeguards against abuse: journeys treated as private travel: example

An employee lives in Banbury and is employed as a systems analyst at an office in Aylesbury. He has a 3 week holiday in the USA. At the end of the holiday he flies back from New York to Heathrow. Instead of going home he drives direct from Heathrow to visit a client in Warwick who needs to see him urgently. The total cost of the journey from New York to Warwick is £2,500.

Although the employee had to visit his client, the reason for the greatest part of the journey, and for its cost, was private, his return from holiday. His journey was substantially private travel, see EIM32320. No deduction is due for the £2,500 that the travel cost.