My employer has asked me to travel to Switzerland as relief manning for a period of 4 weeks and I will be staying in a Hotel / Short term holiday accomodation for the duration. I will be maintaining a residence back in Australia during this time.
Normally they would pay a daily food allowance and cover all expenses related to work (eg: travelling to and from the accomodation and workplace and related incidentals. They have decided that this falls under the Living Away From Home Allowance (LAFHA) criteria and are going to apply a fixed rate which is to cover food / incidentals / transport etc which is considerably lower than the previous agreement.
My researcher indicates that LAFHA is designed for longer assignments where you are actually living away from home for periods longer than 4 weeks in more of a rental type of accomodation.
Is there a trigger point where you move from a daily allowance (as per my first example) to a LAFHA situation