Francine is a self-employed marketing consultant based in Fort Worth, Texas. During the year, she travels to various cities in the United States to meet prospective clients and make presentations at seminars.
Francine can substantially reduce her airfare expense if she stays in a particular city on a Saturday night. For example, if she flies to Chicago on Thursday, does marketing business on Thursday and Friday, and returns on Saturday morning, her round-trip airfare will be $850. If she stays through Saturday night and returns early on Sunday morning, the airfare drops to $350 and she pays $150 for an additional night in a hotel and incurs $50 of additional meal costs. This saves $500 in airfare (reduced from $850 to $350), at an additional cost of only $200. If she stays over Saturday night, she can either stay in the hotel and do administrative work on her laptop computer or visit friends in the Chicago area.
Francine wants to know how much of the additional hotel and meal costs she can deduct if she stays over on Saturday night. She would also like to know if the deductibility of these expenses depends on what she does on Saturday in Chicago.