It's entirely up to you - you can just tell him that the times he's requesting fall outside your usual modus operandi, so there will be an additional expenses charge of ?xx  (the hotel fee). I think rule of thumb in these cases is that if you make it sound absolutely standard, they go along with it happily, but if you sound like you're asking for something special, they might think you're ripping them off.

In any case, I'd have a deposit off him, cos he's pissed you about a bit already. The last thing you want is to end up out of pocket cos he wimps out of the booking, or gets trollied at his xmas party and just goes home!

I definitely think he should foot the bill for the Hotel - and by that I mean you should take the money off him to cover it rather than let him know where you will be staying. I'd also be cautious about letting him know that you're travelling on your own to this Outcall (I'm assuming here?)  so be security minded and make sure you have a backup plan in case things go wrong.

Lastly though, and I'm sorry to say this, but when clients book miles in advance, when they want to talk constantly to refine the plans, when the requirements keep changing - these are all indications to me that the clients just getting off on talking to me and that come the actual booking he will disappear. I would highly recommend you get a deposit off him without delay to make sure he really is as sincere as you believe him to be.

Fingers crossed for you!
R xx

It's simple, tell him you can't do the booking because it's after the last train back. The ball is then in his court to suggest a solution which could be;

(a) He pays for a taxi back
(b) He pays for a hotel room for you
(c) He suggests you meet in the middle and negotiate an overnight with him

The latter could result in both of you coming to a mutually beneficial agreement.

He should totally give you a deposit and pay for the hotel 

I'm obviously on my own here, but I don't see why the client should pay for the hotel at all? I often take extended evening and dinner bookings and my fees are set to cover the costs which I incur when accepting these bookings - if I can't spare fifty quid or so for a budget room out of the fee for a lengthy appointment (which is going to be ?400 at the very least) then I wouldn't do them. What arrangements I make get to a booking and what I do after I leave it are nobody's concern but my own - I would only expect the client to pay for things that came up during the paid time (dinner, drinks, gig tickets or whatever).

I do have a minimum booking duration based on distance, which applies anywhere outside my home town and works on a sliding scale depending on the time it takes me to get there (and also the time of day - I don't drive either and if I can't get a driver I have to leave early too, so I do sympathise about the trains stopping early) but I would never have the nerve to start asking for more money on top of this. I have plenty of clients who regularly travel on business to meet customers and it is their own company which pays for the hotel - to expect their customers to be responsible for this (or to even know where they were staying) would be ridiculous.

I do agree that a deposit is necessary and also that this is all hypothetical as this one is clearly a fantasist anyway (and please also read this thread, just in case), but this should come out of the fee IMO, not be added on. Anybody can charge what they want for anything, but if you are going to charge people extra for travel and so on, I would recommend making it very clear on your site.

I was initially looking for a budget room to be fair Amy as I felt a bit cheeky asking for him to pay.  He is not the Mr Ward scammer btw. I take your point. I do state that I charge travel fees for certain distances on my website but I had already pointed out that I would be better seeing him in the day when he is off work as he works shifts as my last train home is before ten xx

I didn't think it sounded that much like him either, but since the area's the same and he was messing about I thought it was worth you looking just to be on the safe side . And I know what you mean - the nearest places I regularly get asked to visit are Leeds (last train back here is twenty to ten, so any booking really has to finish by nine unless it's practically next door to the station) and York (last train back ten past ten, so again no good for anything more than a couple of hours in the hotel and then off).

I always check the usual chains like Ibis and Premier Inn as well as Laterooms, but I have found that it can be as cheap to get a taxi home if you prebook it (for anything up to about an hour's drive away, at least). If it benefits you more to get home that night so you're not having to do it all in the morning it's well worth ringing round your local taxi offices and enquiring about distance pickups, plus they will ring you when they're here so you get to leave on time without hassle too.