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How are you guys handling dress clothes? Not so much suits, but standard button down and slacks. More of my travel is going to be short notice, fly in Monday morning, meetings that afternoon, all day Tuesday, and first 1/2 of Wednesday morning and hop on plane home that night. Mostly concerned about appearance on the day of that flight up, subsequent days I can deal with iron that morning. Usually I have my stuff dry cleaned weekly with light starch, but wondering if I should step it up to help with wrinkles during the trip. All my travel in 2012 was straight up jeans, going to miss that in 2013.
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Dec 28, 2012 01:02
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Even if you get into first class with power plugs, your flight will be half over by the time you figure out where they put the bastards. I almost always have to ask a flight attendant. Compare that to AmTrak that has power at every single seat, right on the wall. And not that half assed you have to take your battery out power. Its a sad day when you feel like a king in AmTraks normal seats compared to first class on flights.
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Dec 28, 2012 01:11
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Thoguh posted:The battery? Most domestic planes on Delta are woefully short on plugs. Occasionally I'll luck out and they'll be some in first class if I get an upgrade. But even that is rare. I carry a spare battery for my phone and have an extended battery in my laptop's CD Drive slot. My 15" MBP's 85W charger hasn't agreed with any in-flight power port I've used: 120V AC, 12V DC with a standalone inverter. On my old one with a 45W charger, I could only charge if I took the battery out so it wouldn't try to charge it, but that would also mean if the MagSafe connector disengaged, I'd have to cold boot. I've charged my iPhone from in-seat USB before, and my iPad has enough battery to play music and games for about ten hours so it hasn't been a problem: ten hours of iPad and 4-7 hours of MBP adds up to a longer flight than I've taken.
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Dec 28, 2012 01:12
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Uncle Jam posted:Compare that to AmTrak that has power at every single seat, right on the wall. And not that half assed you have to take your battery out power. Its a sad day when you feel like a king in AmTraks normal seats compared to first class on flights. I had problems with the power ports in UK's East Coast first class between King's Cross and Edinburgh, but yeah AmTrak is nice as far as power goes. However, it's slower and frequently more expensive than flying in Florida. AmTrak from Miami to Jacksonville takes as long as American from Miami to London.
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Dec 28, 2012 01:20
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Cocoa Crispies posted:I had problems with the power ports in UK's East Coast first class between King's Cross and Edinburgh, but yeah AmTrak is nice as far as power goes. And god forbid you ever have to cross a border. I'd rather clear customs at loving Pearson with only one agent working that go through the misery that is crossing the border on Amtrak again. TWO HOURS. It took TWO loving HOURS to get through the border. As I was only going a short way across the border, that was longer than the entire rest of the train journey.
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Dec 28, 2012 01:31
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Midjack posted:Oh poo poo. USAir? Hah I promise US Air isn't that bad.. I pretty much only fly US Air and United and I have never noticed a major difference. I am very curious as to what will happen if US and AA merge, sounds like US Air would leave the Star Alliance which will suck. Have you AA guys been keeping tabs on the talks at all?
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Dec 28, 2012 05:58
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Despite the pilots wishes it looks very unlikely. Thank god. Why would OneWorld be so bad for you?
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Dec 28, 2012 17:40
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Lyon posted:Hah I promise US Air isn't that bad.. I pretty much only fly US Air and United and I have never noticed a major difference. I am very curious as to what will happen if US and AA merge, sounds like US Air would leave the Star Alliance which will suck. Yeah, it's rumored to happen but in my opinion it looks unlikely. I think US Air is horrible so I am dreading it for the most part. None of their hubs offer a lot of value, in my opinion, except for maybe DCA. however the interesting thing they've stated is that AA will not leave oneWorld. Ideally if they merged having access to both programs would be pretty slick.
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Dec 28, 2012 17:45
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Belldandy posted:Yeah, it's rumored to happen but in my opinion it looks unlikely. I think US Air is horrible so I am dreading it for the most part. None of their hubs offer a lot of value, in my opinion, except for maybe DCA. however the interesting thing they've stated is that AA will not leave oneWorld. Ideally if they merged having access to both programs would be pretty slick. It'll probably stabilize so that we have one US domestic airline per alliance. SkyTeam is DL-only since NW and CO went away in mergers, and they've seemingly been able to integrate to a much greater extent. sellouts posted:Why would OneWorld be so bad for you? The only reason I dislike Star Alliance is their service in Miami is awful. Their terminal is depressing and I hit my head on the ceiling last time I was there, they don't have many flights, and they all seem to connect through IAH, which I don't like as much as ATL or flying direct from AA's MIA hub.
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Dec 28, 2012 18:33
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At least in Canada we only have one choice: Star Alliance or get hosed. It actually doesn't work out too badly. The only problem is the lack of connections from Western Canada to Central and South America -- you either have to go way out of the way through Toronto, or connect through the US. Also: why don't American airports have proper in-transit areas so I don't have to worry about US customs and the various things which they don't allow into the country?
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Dec 28, 2012 18:42
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Cocoa Crispies posted:The only reason I dislike Star Alliance is their service in Miami is awful. Their terminal is depressing and I hit my head on the ceiling last time I was there, they don't have many flights, and they all seem to connect through IAH, which I don't like as much as ATL or flying direct from AA's MIA hub. United and company just can't get their poo poo together much of anywhere. Miami is terrible and Dulles is loving inexcusable given how much traffic it sees (the contrast between the C/D concourses that belong to United and the A/B concourses that everyone else uses is comparable to Miami). PT6A posted:Also: why don't American airports have proper in-transit areas so I don't have to worry about US customs and the various things which they don't allow into the country? They take the legal stance that if you're in the airport you're in the country.
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Dec 28, 2012 18:50
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Midjack posted:They take the legal stance that if you're in the airport you're in the country. It was rhetorical. Their stance is lovely, and that's why I still prefer the mind-numbing experience that is flying through Pearson when I'm going to Central or South America to transiting through IAH or MIA. Hopefully now that Copa is part of Star Alliance we might end up seeing a low-frequency YYC or YVR-PTY flight, but considering their former relationship with Continental they might prefer to funnel everything through IAH as they're doing now. We had YYC-MEX for a while (oh my god, an airport with a transit area!) but that evaporated.
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Dec 28, 2012 19:02
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sellouts posted:Despite the pilots wishes it looks very unlikely. Thank god. I live in Philadelphia and have never seen a OneWorld alliance member be the most cost effective flight. AA and British Airways occasionally have flights for about the same price but I've never seen them significantly beat US Air or United in all of my trips. US Air and United seem to have the strongest presence at Philadelphia and since they are both Star Alliance this means I get to credit all my miles back to US Air/Star Alliance. If US Air went over to OneWorld it would potentially cause me to lose a lot of miles in my preferred program. I just ran a bunch of dummy flights from PHL to all over the country/world and US Air was the cheapest for every spot except Seattle and Berlin where United was the cheapest. Even PHL-ATL US Air was the exact same price as Delta and Southwest/AirTran. Like I said, I fly US Air and United 90% of the time and I've never really noticed a major difference between the two. I don't think I've flown American or Delta in years though, last one I can definitely remember was Delta from EWR-ATL 7 or 8 years ago so I can't really speak there. I have noticed a major difference between US airlines and European ones, but not so much domestically. Lyon fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Dec 28, 2012 |
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Dec 28, 2012 21:50
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But that's how it works -- US Air is cheapest in PHL . Any merger into Oneworld or with AA wouldn't change that. AA wouldn't start running flights into there, US Air is established. It'd hurt competition if anything, but it sounds like AA isn't really putting any competition due to their much higher prices. Looks like the crux of your issue is that you'd lose a lot of miles in your preferred program -- but why is it your preferred program? OneWorld/American generally has a very well regarded program in terms of mile value and seat availability. Monetary cost of the ticket is irrelevant when determining mile redemption cost on AA. From what I've read getting into OneWorld and access to AA and their partners might increase your miles value. I can't find the link currently but from what I've read it is very unlikely that any frequent flyer would lose their miles in a merger -- your frequent travel is too valuable to lose you as a customer over that cost.
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Dec 29, 2012 05:04
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sellouts posted:But that's how it works -- US Air is cheapest in PHL . Any merger into Oneworld or with AA wouldn't change that. AA wouldn't start running flights into there, US Air is established. It'd hurt competition if anything, but it sounds like AA isn't really putting any competition due to their much higher prices. No no of course, from everything I've ever heard AA is superior in a lot of ways. What I'm saying is that since US Air and United are almost always the two cheapest it works out really well for me that they're in the same alliance. If US Air joins OneWorld then any time I flew United I would be out those miles in regards to status/easy redeeming. I don't fly as much as some of you guys where I could qualify for good status on two airlines.
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Dec 29, 2012 17:49
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Now that this thread has died off a bit and become more of a general purpose frequent flyer discussion thread I'm going to go ahead and ask a mod to move it to Tourism/Travel.
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Jan 7, 2013 21:27
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I got my first official assignment of the new year that will require a flight which will be Milan, Italy sometime in February. I need to get the dates worked out but hopefully the first of many. All of January is virtual training and then a week long trip to New Jersey, which is local for me, so February is the start for me I suppose. Last year winter was really busy but this year we seem to have more virtual trainings than on-site ones so far, hopefully that changes. How are everyone else's schedules looking?
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Jan 8, 2013 05:15
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Lyon posted:I got my first official assignment of the new year that will require a flight which will be Milan, Italy sometime in February. I need to get the dates worked out but hopefully the first of many. All of January is virtual training and then a week long trip to New Jersey, which is local for me, so February is the start for me I suppose. Last year winter was really busy but this year we seem to have more virtual trainings than on-site ones so far, hopefully that changes. My planning horizon only goes like 2 weeks but I'm already loaded up for a couple of weeks in late January/early February.
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Jan 8, 2013 05:23
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Lyon posted:I got my first official assignment of the new year that will require a flight which will be Milan, Italy sometime in February. I need to get the dates worked out but hopefully the first of many. All of January is virtual training and then a week long trip to New Jersey, which is local for me, so February is the start for me I suppose. Last year winter was really busy but this year we seem to have more virtual trainings than on-site ones so far, hopefully that changes. I've already done 12,000 miles, amazingly. Should be hitting 30k or so by the end of the month due to several East to West coast trips. Woo.
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Jan 8, 2013 07:38
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I took some much needed time off from before the holidays through this week. Was supposed to hit the ground running and do 8 flights this week, but at the last second a meeting in San Francisco was rescheduled. I'm about to start working a new account in Houston and I'm pretty nervous that it's going to force me on a bunch of United flights. Depending on how things look a month in I might look into doing a challenge/match. I'm definitely very jealous of you guys who get to choose your preferred airline.
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Jan 10, 2013 05:20
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Getting geared up for a trip to London. Been a few years since I've been out that way. Anything I should know about getting through UK airport security with just a carry on?
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Jan 10, 2013 05:29
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TouchyMcFeely posted:Getting geared up for a trip to London. Been a few years since I've been out that way. Anything I should know about getting through UK airport security with just a carry on? No worse than usa domestic travel these days.
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Jan 11, 2013 00:34
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I'm in San Juan for my first trip this year.  The weather was beautiful, but now it's very windy with intermittent rain. I just saw the new Delta safety video on the way here. They're trying to be funny.
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Jan 11, 2013 02:30
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Belldandy posted:I've already done 12,000 miles, amazingly. Should be hitting 30k or so by the end of the month due to several East to West coast trips. Woo. drat you are a warrior. You could take a year off and make status before it expires in the following end of Feb. I gotta give AA credit. After a ridiculously bad trip that left me arriving over 4 hrs later at 3am 3 hrs before my next trip with no ability to reschedule due to another trip the day after that, AA immediately issued a full refund for the trip in 3 hrs and gave me full EQM + RDM + bonuses for that refunded trip. Plus another 5k bonus miles for the trouble. "Trip in vain" really worked. I am going on a real vacation this year and blowing through my 400k miles accumulated over the last few years. Try to get out of the airline status game at above anything but the most basic level.
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Jan 11, 2013 10:33
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Has anyone ever cashed in their miles for a round the world ticket? It is 180k for coach on Delta. I should get there by mid year, assuming I can convert 125k Marriot points -> 50k SkyMiles.
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Jan 11, 2013 23:00
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Yes, doing that with AA. Biggest problem is availability. If you can book 331 days from the end of your trip and can be creative with routing it is pretty awesome.
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Jan 11, 2013 23:02
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Today I enjoyed a few beers at a bar during the 49ers-Falcons game. The bar happened to have a big spread of free food, so I ate a bit of it. Does that justify claiming the cost of the beers as a meal expense? More to the point - do you guys regularly use up your entire meal allowance? I usually spend peanuts on breakfast and lunch (because the easiest options are pretty cheap) but am a bit afraid of what might happen if I start submitting $50 dinner receipts on a daily basis.
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Jan 21, 2013 05:24
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lavaca posted:Today I enjoyed a few beers at a bar during the 49ers-Falcons game. The bar happened to have a big spread of free food, so I ate a bit of it. Does that justify claiming the cost of the beers as a meal expense? I approve expenses for my team and I would not be really happy if they maxed out their allowances daily because it will hurt them in the long run. I don't personally care because I know being on the road is a pain in the rear end, nor will I "do" anything about it because you are entitled to it per our T&E policy but, I do know that Sr. Management in finance DOES care about it and will make submitting expenses an absolute pain in the rear end if you are within the top spend tier. The fact that most of my team are people managers also makes this difficult because they are expected to set an example for individual contributors about responsible expense policies. With that said, I have had people try to expense some pretty ridiculous poo poo. So basically, if you are on the road 5 days a week eat Taco Bell 1 or 2 times.
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Jan 21, 2013 18:41
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Belldandy posted:I approve expenses for my team and I would not be really happy if they maxed out their allowances daily because it will hurt them in the long run. I don't personally care because I know being on the road is a pain in the rear end, nor will I "do" anything about it because you are entitled to it per our T&E policy but, I do know that Sr. Management in finance DOES care about it and will make submitting expenses an absolute pain in the rear end if you are within the top spend tier. The fact that most of my team are people managers also makes this difficult because they are expected to set an example for individual contributors about responsible expense policies. With that said, I have had people try to expense some pretty ridiculous poo poo. Just out of curiosity, what are your limits again and are your employees' expenses billable to a customer? I ask because I almost always hit or slightly exceed the daily spend limit on food and I definitely would if I accounted for everything appropriately. We are given $40/day for food. This isn't too unreasonable to maintain on some trips as when I/we are on site a lot of times the customer will pick up lunch. So if breakfast is $8-9, lunch is free, and then you have ~$30 for dinner (including tip) it isn't awful. If lunch isn't included that's another $8-10 dollars and now you have ~$20 for dinner including tip which basically means you're going to get real sick of your options.
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Jan 22, 2013 01:25
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Lyon posted:Just out of curiosity, what are your limits again and are your employees' expenses billable to a customer? I ask because I almost always hit or slightly exceed the daily spend limit on food and I definitely would if I accounted for everything appropriately. Non-billable as we are sales, but our consulting arm is billable and I am not familiar with their system. We ask to keep it between $75-100 a day. With that said, what we care more about is quarterly spend. Most of our guys are allowed about $3000 or higher a quarter on personal expenses (food, travel, lodging) depending on their territory size. If a customer is involved the sky is the limit and I have personally tested that. I was sweating after I hit "submit". Coming from my viewpoint and many others in senior management, if you are a good sales rep you can pretty much get away with murder. One of our guys who is consistently around ~200% the past 6 years is allowed a country club membership on us because this is how he closes deals. I'd imagine unless you work for a really unreasonable company and that unless you completely suck your manager doesn't really care if you exceed spend. Furthermore in most cases they would defend you unless you are doing something vastly retarded. I get a little red flag in our expense system on plane tickets > $500 and hotel stays > $300 night. I generally do not ask for any justification nor have I ever denied anyone as a lot of the times we have stuff pop up last minute. We have a set rate with a car rental place and those usually end up at about $40 a day before taxes.
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Jan 22, 2013 02:17
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Belldandy posted:Non-billable as we are sales, but our consulting arm is billable and I am not familiar with their system. We ask to keep it between $75-100 a day. With that said, what we care more about is quarterly spend. Most of our guys are allowed about $3000 or higher a quarter on personal expenses (food, travel, lodging) depending on their territory size. If a customer is involved the sky is the limit and I have personally tested that. I was sweating after I hit "submit". Okay, I NEVER exceed $75-100/day unless a customer is involved. I was curious what your company considered reasonable in regards to daily expenses. Sky is the limit if a customer is involved for us as well, some people definitely abuse it a bit though (steak dinners, nice scotch, etc) without actual customers involved or no true justification to take junior level customers out to such a dinner. I imagine your territories are fairly compact region wise? I am based out of Philadelphia but I've been assigned jobs from San Fran to Eastern Poland. I'd say my average expenses for a single trip are probably close to $3k. My most recent trip was: flight to SFO ~$900, six nights at a Marriott $160/night, ~$50/day/food, rental car, etc. The trip before that I spent 10 days in Manchester, UK and I think including airfare total expenses were over $4k. My expenses are (generally) billable to the customer and they know if our European resources are unavailable/the timeline dictates that someone from the US heads over to Europe that it is going to be expensive.
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Jan 22, 2013 04:52
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Lyon posted:Okay, I NEVER exceed $75-100/day unless a customer is involved. I was curious what your company considered reasonable in regards to daily expenses. Sky is the limit if a customer is involved for us as well, some people definitely abuse it a bit though (steak dinners, nice scotch, etc) without actual customers involved or no true justification to take junior level customers out to such a dinner. Yep, $75ish would be very reasonable for us. For our dinners with customers we usually list the people involved and their positions. I have never seen anyone audited but if they had a bunch of non-decision makers and they got flagged it could be bad. And yes, territories are fairly compact. Most of the time our guys will be doing a single overnight stay, if that, a few times a month. Very rarely will they be on the plane - once or twice a month and it will be a destination pretty close so most people don't surpass 3k.
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Jan 22, 2013 08:49
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I just came back from a family trip to India and have one of the most overwhelming and unpleasant flying experiences of my life. My flight from Paris to NY was cancelled and I had to take a confusing jumble of international and domestic flights to get back home 8 am yesterday. Oh, and my baggage is missing. I can't imagine flying internationally for a living. The time debt you generate is astounding. I slept from noon to 7 pm yesterday because of my exhaustion. That said, I feel that my experience was atypical. Frequent international business travelers, how often do you encounter cancellations or delays, and how severely do they gently caress things up for you? Do you have contingency plans or advice for the stranded or delayed passenger?
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Jan 23, 2013 14:19
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Radio Talmudist posted:I just came back from a family trip to India and have one of the most overwhelming and unpleasant flying experiences of my life. My flight from Paris to NY was cancelled and I had to take a confusing jumble of international and domestic flights to get back home 8 am yesterday. Oh, and my baggage is missing. All the time. Going from just ORD to BOS and back yesterday I had 8.5 hours in delay due to weather and mechanical issues. Another fun fact to note is that you are more likely to hit a delay/cancellation in the spring vs the winter as snow doesn't normally shut down operations whereas thunder does EVERY TIME. Stuff doesn't normally get hosed up for me completely, I have had it happen once but if something is SUPER DUPER important I'll fly out the night before just so I have a second chance in the morning to make it there. Usually second time is a charm. I also don't check bags, ever, for the reasons above. There are lots of things you can do but they aren't good for casual travels or people without a ton of expendable income. I have a Priority Pass membership which means I can pretty much hang out at any international lounge in the event of a delay. At least then I can sleep without worrying about my poo poo getting stolen or get drunk for free. But again, unless you travel enough or just don't care about a $500/year membership it isn't worth it. With that said, more airports have lounges that can be entered with a variety of credit cards and other pay-by-the-hour options for lounges. If you are stuck go ask about a day or hourly pass, it is a way better way to spend your time vs sitting in a noisy smelly terminal. On another note, has anyone here encountered a more vile smelling terminal than CDG (Paris?) I've been all over the world and that place is just gross.
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Jan 23, 2013 16:31
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Belldandy posted:There are lots of things you can do but they aren't good for casual travels or people without a ton of expendable income. I have a Priority Pass membership which means I can pretty much hang out at any international lounge in the event of a delay. At least then I can sleep without worrying about my poo poo getting stolen or get drunk for free. But again, unless you travel enough or just don't care about a $500/year membership it isn't worth it. With that said, more airports have lounges that can be entered with a variety of credit cards and other pay-by-the-hour options for lounges. If you are stuck go ask about a day or hourly pass, it is a way better way to spend your time vs sitting in a noisy smelly terminal. Basically this. Plus an Rx for Ambien and/or amphetamines. I like the amphetamines myself, one of my co-workers swears by Ambien. Different strokes (in my case literally) for different folks. I don't travel internationally but I fly from coast-to-coast all the time. Even there, I generate a significant time debt.
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Jan 28, 2013 19:48
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Shbobdb posted:Basically this. Plus an Rx for Ambien and/or amphetamines. I like the amphetamines myself, one of my co-workers swears by Ambien. Different strokes (in my case literally) for different folks. I want to take Ambien so badly on the plane but I am afraid I'll do something dumb based on how I act at home on it. 
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Jan 28, 2013 23:21
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Belldandy posted:I want to take Ambien so badly on the plane but I am afraid I'll do something dumb based on how I act at home on it. That's part of why I'm an uppers man 
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Jan 29, 2013 07:53
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How did everyone end up this month? I am right at ~29,000 miles as of tomorrow morning. I had a few meetings get cancelled on me and should have been around 33k or so. Kinda bummed as 33 would put me right on track for a 3 month EXP renewal.
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Jan 31, 2013 01:53
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Man, I think I travel a lot but I'm a baby at ~20K. How does everybody deal with the antiquated corporate travel services? My company is cracking down so we have to use them but they are more expensive and less flexible than loving anything else I can use. This month I've had to be late to meetings with customers and my expense report is through the roof! I'm inclined to say "gently caress it" but from what I've seen, I get in less trouble with corporate when I blow off customers as opposed to when I fudge proper corporate protocol. I've said it before people: capitalism doesn't work.
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Jan 31, 2013 06:45
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Shbobdb posted:Man, I think I travel a lot but I'm a baby at ~20K. I don't, stopped after 6 months and never looked back. I think I have pretty good justification if ever questioned. Corporate travel services don't scale to people who do heavy travel. I would expect my guys who are infrequent travelers to utilize it as it is great for the occasional trip, but when you are making 3+ changes a week to your schedule having to go through a dumb corporate portal is a nightmare.
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Jan 31, 2013 11:58
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