Identify travel, an attendant’s time and any private assistance you plan to arrange, after confirming what the office provides. Check the underlying application’s current fee and any applicable fee-relief criteria separately. An accessibility request is not itself a fee-waiver decision.
Budget for the visit, not for an exemption
Plan the trip as you would any other appointment, with an added margin: accessible transport, a possible overnight stay if travel is long, and time off for whoever accompanies the person. If rescheduling becomes necessary, ask the office what that involves before missing the date. Treat any assumption about reduced or waived costs as something to verify, not as a starting point.
Three cost streams are easier to control when they are kept apart rather than estimated as one number. The statutory charge attached to the underlying request is published, changes on its own schedule and is unaffected by any accessibility arrangement. The assistance itself is a second stream, and part of it is often supplied by the office at no charge once it is requested in writing, so asking before paying privately for the same service avoids a duplicate expense.
Ordinary travel and lost working time form the third stream, which the household carries whether or not an accommodation is granted. Hypothetical example: a soil scientist books an appointment three weeks ahead, arranges accessible transport, and only then works out that the return leg cannot be completed the same day; adding the second night at the planning stage costs less than an urgent booking made the evening before. Keep the written reply from the office with the receipts, because a later request to move a date is far easier to support when the record shows what had already been arranged and when it was agreed.