Who here would seriously prefer living in a tent if they had the chance of a nice hotel bed? If the hotel is an option then form a queue behind me :)

Well,

I had a very nice time staying at this Hotel 4-star hotel in Vicenza: Hotel Villa Michelangelo Colli Berici Vicenza
courtesy of the RAF, some years ago when there was a flap on in the Balkans.

One could say, 'it was a little over the top' and 'the Holiday Inn would have sufficed'! Things have changed a little since then (JPA and Hogg Robinson) and most crabs are now used to living in tents in various places or on a bunk in a boat anyway. As others have stated, those days are gone and they would just not get away with that sort of extravagance these days, which came about because of 'rates' and Squadron staff being able to book wherever they wanted and widespread abuse of the type that Engines talks of. (No point denying it!). The rates for this place were based on taking every meal in the place even though there was a cheap Pizzaria down the road. For some strange reason, the CAOC at 5ATAF was very popular for visits and overnight stops. ;)

It is human nature that if the rules allow it, people will adopt the maximum. If you give someone a £26 allowance for meals, they will spend it, If you give them a daily rate, they will have a burger and keep the money!:E

For me, I was personnaly very grateful, having lived in a bunk on a boat for some years to be given a taste of the 'RAF method' if even only for a short time but, it is an example of why the MOD is in such the financial state it is today. I was for a time, a Millionaire (days of the Lira).:cool:

As an aside, if you are ever in that part of Italy, I thoroughly recommend the place. Vicenza is so much less touristy than Verona and within easy reach of Venice. Now if I get saving on my civvy salary, I may one day be able to take Mrs W there as well.:ok:

I think in this instance it comes down to cost and requisite timelines - the decision to use HOTAC for ELLAMY was not a decision made by the crews, that's for sure. Before they had left the UK, teams from higher agencies had scoped the tasking and, in the required budget and timeframe, HOTAC was the only option.

There are many reasons why this is the case, mostly down to all of Defence being stretched in HERRICK and being cut too far. The Air Transport, MCSU and other support elements required to deploy and support this op were simply not available without cutting down the footprint to the absolute minimum.

Yes, in an ideal world we can have Plan A in the draw ready to action and deploy for a small- to medium-scale op in toto. But we need to face facts that we can't fully deploy Plan A for something the size of ELLAMY alongside a commitment the size of HERRICK on so many levels.

It's too easy to sling the mud. And yes, over the years many crews have portrayed an overly princessish neediness (sometimes justified, sometimes not). We all do what we do and,ultimately, we'll all do it however we're told but am I the only one who finds this particular line of bickering nothing but toxic? :confused:

Careful, Mate. The subject of a nasty P&SS witch hunt. People from the deployed FJ sqns went there because it was in the Op Order and it was the Adminners that made the travel and accomm arrangements.

Also check out RAF QRs of the day. As an example, remember that QRs stated that flights over 2.5 hours duration (civvi) were to be class 2 (Club/Business). Some thought that was wrong. I wasn't convinced it was necessary. But you tell me which QRs were mandatory and which were optional.

The best of all this is the fact that MOD pays over the odds for Hotac.From DHRS or whatever in the UK to insisting on paying the middle man overseas , a lot could be saved for the same product.That is why we have budget problems and don't get me started on paying extra for a non-standard item when the standard would do.

Going back some time now, but as one of those who frequently had to arrange the accommodation for both crew and pax, the options to use military accommodation overseas was always fully examined, but it was never cheap, the food was often either not suitable, or non-existent at the time we wanted it and one other relevant point, it's not free; the host nation always gets paid at their rates and the costs can be eye-watering for what were very basic facilities. When we did try it, the admin effort involved in taking over and handing back the facilities was phenomenal; the end result was almost always a hotel/motel.

Army Mover

You have hit the nail on the head. Attempts to cut costs on short term detachments or AT stopovers invariably did not work at all, or finished up costing money.
One favourite trick of Command Accounts was to send out a team ahead of a Detachment to negotiate special meal "contract" rates. This team rarely travelled on Military Aircraft, and they did not always travel Economy. And of course, because detachment rules were not in place, they paid themselves the going Foreign Office Rate.
These special meals were always time dependent. You can guess it, quite a lot of flights were planned to operate outside these times. Even when the planning was good many meals were still purchased twice.
The number of times we swapped over from contract to rates to contract to actuals, all because some bright spark of an Accountant wanted to make a name for himself.
Bit like QNH / QFE / QNH / QFE.
Now please don't start me off on that one.