I’m surprised at TJ’s response, when he is so anti buying anything new because of the environment and all that…
Anyhow, depends if it could be a deal breaker or not. If you know the clients well and you think they will take it on the chin, just say is it really appropiate to travel half way round the world for 10 mins of input that you could do from the UK, and the environment and all that?
or if you dont really know them, go along, get yourself and your co recognised, then at the end of the meeting repeat the above.
I used to fly from Leeds Bradford to Heathrow, just to attend meetings that lasted an hour with people in the same company, more to get to see them face to face, made things happen a lot quicker in future… Was it stupid, yes did it make my job dramatically easier, no, but it did make future telephone conversations easier when you had met face to face.
“go, whats the worst that can happen”
You could die horribly in a plane crash