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Nifty posted:I perform audits on behalf of banks, on companies that are applying for loans with the banks. Job is about 1/3rd travel. I also use all those points and travel a lot on my own too. I keep track of this cause I'm a nerd and so far 2014 I've been out of town 71 nights for business and 61 nights for pleasures How do you track it? Spreadsheets or something fancier? I don't bother much with tracking hotel nights, but I do track flights in unnecessary detail - originally with a spreadsheet, but I gave myself a six month project last year to program myself a database-driven website to keep track of stupid things like which aircraft families I fly the most out of a given airport or which tail numbers I've been on the most. I've been thinking about adding hotels, but I'm not sure what I'd really want to track about them.
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Nov 9, 2014 04:03
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I use my flight memory dort com. The stats are fun to check myself with, equipment, airport, upgrade, distances, time, etc. Hotels stats I couldn't give a poo poo less about. Nights spent I can track via status level I guess. I've been considering tracking tail numbers on planes tho. I have a disease.
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Nov 9, 2014 05:15
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Aristotle Animes posted:I use my flight memory dort com. The stats are fun to check myself with, equipment, airport, upgrade, distances, time, etc. Hotels stats I couldn't give a poo poo less about. Nights spent I can track via status level I guess. We should start a support group.
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Nov 9, 2014 13:24
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Seeing other people's flight maps always makes me feel hopelessly domestic. (I did have a lot of overseas travel as a kid as an air force brat, but as my flight log starts at age 18, those flights aren't counted.) I need to just suck it up and book some personal overseas trips rather than waiting on work to eventually send me somewhere. Tail numbers ended up being a huge rabbit hole for me. It seemed simple enough at first, until I realized that most airport concourses are designed for silly things like efficiency and not for making the tail number visible from the concourse windows. From there, it's been a lot of learning about how various airlines' fleet numbers work, where various equipment keeps its construction number printed (I love that the 737 has it on a panel at the top of the frame for the passenger door, makes it nice and easy to record), and then running that all through planespotters.net (and for older flights, the BTS on-time statistics), and then verifying with FlightAware's tail number search. Why FlightAware can't tell me the tail number given a flight number/date/route, I don't know, since it clearly has that information if I search on the tail number itself. On the plus side, all that tail number research has been helpful, especially on some of my older flights before I really started tracking. In 2008, I had a trip leg from ORD to CLE to JFK, so I'd been assuming that with a Cleveland layover, they were both Continental flights. Once I found the BTS statistics, I realized that it was actually a pair of American flights where the same aircraft was transitioning between hubs via Cleveland – and, with that, it was also the first time I'd flown more than once on a particular tail. P.D.B. Fishsticks fucked around with this message at 15:01 on Nov 9, 2014 |
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Nov 9, 2014 14:53
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I travel periodically for work (video game producer, currently working for a publisher) and also because it's a hobby. Live in Europe, from Vancouver so make that trip around twice a year, plus I go visit studios, business partners, as well as trade shows and the like. I rarely get enough time with a single carrier/network to qualify as a frequent anything, but still travel way more than the average bear.
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Nov 9, 2014 15:14
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canoshiz posted:If you guys use Concur their mobile app lets you take a picture of the receipt and enter it as an expense directly from there. No fancy expense system. We have this oracle looking lovely expense system. I just want to kill myself before doing the 7K in expenses I need to do before Wednesday. One of my big problems is the bag full of receipts and tracking the names of the clients I took out for dinner or drinks.
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Nov 9, 2014 15:23
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Mackieman posted:We should start a support group. Got you beat on the shortest flight! SFO-MRY, it's a emb120... sweat elegant age of the turbo prop over Monterey Bay. I'm actually going down there today but the price was stupid this time around so I'm driving from SFO. You can see how shoddy I am about tracking some of this stuff (195 personal flights... what the??) I can't be bothered to fill everything out proper each time, or I got started filling it out one way and now don't see the point to changing all my past stuff. Tail numbers seems like it would be a nightmare but I am really curious sometimes. I've debated whether to do the cockpit door numbers for whatever those would tell me instead. P.D.B. Fishsticks posted:Seeing other people's flight maps always makes me feel hopelessly domestic. (I did have a lot of overseas travel as a kid as an air force brat, but as my flight log starts at age 18, those flights aren't counted.) I need to just suck it up and book some personal overseas trips rather than waiting on work to eventually send me somewhere.
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Nov 9, 2014 16:04
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The Risk posted:No fancy expense system. We have this oracle looking lovely expense system. Before you go out to dinner/drinks write down the date, names of the people attending and the location in your phone notes program. Before bed, enter the total amount. But maybe that is impractical at the rate you take people out?
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Nov 9, 2014 16:09
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The Risk posted:No fancy expense system. We have this oracle looking lovely expense system.
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Nov 9, 2014 17:33
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P.D.B. Fishsticks posted:How do you track it? Spreadsheets or something fancier? Track my out of town nights just using a Google sheet, so I can edit wherever I am. It's just four columns.. two columns each for personal and business: out of town nights, and destination. My flight memory isnt impressive enough to even post it, but I use that too. Can't fathom keeping track of everything you guys do though, I just put origin/destination, and airline.
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Nov 10, 2014 22:30
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sellouts posted:You finding a lot of flights going out with open seats in first or a lot of plats clearing with upgrades? I was getting regular upgrades on Untied from SAN to second and third tier markets; I'm just a peon on AA and the routes I fly are usually pretty busy. Forgive my ignorance; does AA do complementary upgrades?
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Nov 10, 2014 23:12
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Noggin Monkey posted:I was getting regular upgrades on Untied from SAN to second and third tier markets; I'm just a peon on AA and the routes I fly are usually pretty busy. Executive plat has infinite complementary ones, but platinum/gold have to use 500 mile upgrades.
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Nov 10, 2014 23:33
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The sticker thing is my number one dissatisfier comparing AAdvantage to Skymiles. I find them challenging to use and track. edit: this may mean i am pants on head stupid
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Nov 10, 2014 23:49
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air- posted:Executive plat has infinite complementary ones, but platinum/gold have to use 500 mile upgrades. I think this is coming to us airways once they merge the programs which annoys me. Upgrades on us are pretty decent right now and I get them fairly often as gold. I haven't looked into all the details yet so I don't know if it will actually make my life worse not.
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Nov 10, 2014 23:56
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If the question is "will it be worse" the answer is always "yes".
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Nov 11, 2014 01:25
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Lyon posted:I think this is coming to us airways once they merge the programs which annoys me. Upgrades on us are pretty decent right now and I get them fairly often as gold. I haven't looked into all the details yet so I don't know if it will actually make my life worse not. As a gold on AA, I managed to get an upgrade only once: LAS-DFW and it was early on a Sunday morning. I always had spare 500 mile stickers.
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Nov 11, 2014 01:33
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Midjack posted:If the question is "will it be worse" the answer is always "yes". air- posted:As a gold on AA, I managed to get an upgrade only once: LAS-DFW and it was early on a Sunday morning. I always had spare 500 mile stickers. Balls, what the hell is the point of the lower tier status on American then? Even as a silver on US you could get upgrades if there was availability. I will probably hit 75k this year but I think that will be the highest I can reach at this job.
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Nov 11, 2014 01:50
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The only thing worse than a 2 hour delay on the last flight of the day is having the rental agency promise they'll wait and finding out they didn't bother 20 minutes after closing time. gently caress you Hertz.
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Nov 11, 2014 02:44
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Lyon posted:Balls, what the hell is the point of the lower tier status on American then? Even as a silver on US you could get upgrades if there was availability. I will probably hit 75k this year but I think that will be the highest I can reach at this job. Booking exit rows/"preferred" seats, baggage allowance (now cut), 25% bonus mileage, early boarding. Better irrops handling. Credit cards have replaced/duplicated some of these and gold upgrades do exist, but it all depends on flight times and routes. I mean I've been on flights with over 40 exec plats on them. It all just depends.
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Nov 11, 2014 04:08
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I was having trouble with my hotel Internet connection, but only on one laptop. Basically, Internet Explorer couldn't connect to jack consistently. I could ping https://www.google.com but not https://www.cnn.com. I just configured Google as my DNS provider, and that seems to have fixed it. Has anyone else experienced this?
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Nov 11, 2014 04:54
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sellouts posted:I mean I've been on flights with over 40 exec plats on them. It all just depends.
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Nov 11, 2014 06:23
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air- posted:As a gold on AA, I managed to get an upgrade only once: LAS-DFW and it was early on a Sunday morning. I always had spare 500 mile stickers. Lyon posted:I think this is coming to us airways once they merge the programs which annoys me. Upgrades on us are pretty decent right now and I get them fairly often as gold. I haven't looked into all the details yet so I don't know if it will actually make my life worse not. Regardless of the upgrade method, it's likely most US Air fliers will see their upgrade rates drop like a rock. Small White Dragon fucked around with this message at 11:05 on Nov 11, 2014 |
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Nov 11, 2014 11:02
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taco show posted:SNA is easily the worst for this. I have to fly MSP-SNA fairly often and on Monday mornings I've seen upgrade lists in the 60s and 70s for a plane with only 114 seats in coach. I go out of my way to fly ATL-SNA instead. Longer flight, but nicer planes, for more first class seats, and far fewer elites. I actually have a pretty good upgrade percentage on that route.
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Nov 11, 2014 15:30
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Thoguh posted:I have to fly MSP-SNA fairly often and on Monday mornings I've seen upgrade lists in the 60s and 70s for a plane with only 114 seats in coach. I go out of my way to fly ATL-SNA instead. Longer flight, but nicer planes, for more first class seats, and far fewer elites. I actually have a pretty good upgrade percentage on that route. RE: ATL - SNA I flew this on Delta instead of ATL - LAX just to try it out. Being a Delta hub, there are SO MANY Delta elites on these flights, it's ridiculous.. I was hoping maybe I'd get better upgrade potential flying into SNA but so far.. no  . It's definitely a nicer crowd though (OC vs LA)
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Nov 11, 2014 17:10
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SuperSix posted:I'm in college and I'm just curious, what do you guys do? nikosoft posted:I work as an IT consultant in the EHR industry. There are contracts available all over the place, but I generally try to stay on the west coast to make travel easier. IT Consultant as well!!! *waves* I'm surprised there's not more of us in this forum! Traveling from LAX to MIA/FLL every week for work.
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Nov 11, 2014 17:12
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Thoguh posted:I have to fly MSP-SNA fairly often and on Monday mornings I've seen upgrade lists in the 60s and 70s for a plane with only 114 seats in coach. I go out of my way to fly ATL-SNA instead. Longer flight, but nicer planes, for more first class seats, and far fewer elites. I actually have a pretty good upgrade percentage on that route. You chose a connection in ATL and fly the wrong direction to get there over the direct flight to SNA to play upgrade roulette (or upgrade at all). Your employer is ok with this? Is it remarkably cheaper?
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Nov 11, 2014 17:32
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If I'm flying redeye west to east I have deliberately picked a longer flight to get more sleep, but I sleep easily on planes and that's pretty easily justifiable.
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Nov 11, 2014 19:24
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:If I'm flying redeye west to east I have deliberately picked a longer flight to get more sleep, but I sleep easily on planes and that's pretty easily justifiable. Tell us your secrets! My biggest problem is being too tall I can't support my neck without Cramping my back.
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Nov 11, 2014 20:20
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Xguard86 posted:Tell us your secrets! My biggest problem is being too tall I can't support my neck without Cramping my back. For me, it's two Advil PM and some Bose Q20is but I'm only 6'. Better living through chemistry. 
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Nov 11, 2014 20:59
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Xguard86 posted:Tell us your secrets! My biggest problem is being too tall I can't support my neck without Cramping my back. How tall are you? At 6'3" I don't normally have a problem though it helps if the headrest can be elevated.
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Nov 11, 2014 21:06
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Xguard86 posted:Tell us your secrets! My biggest problem is being too tall I can't support my neck without Cramping my back. Planes put me to sleep - not anything I deliberately do. I will fall asleep on a plane at any time of day/night unless I force myself not to. Feel good, man. 
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Nov 11, 2014 21:11
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Xguard86 posted:Tell us your secrets! My biggest problem is being too tall I can't support my neck without Cramping my back. Only time I've slept well on a plane I skipped any heavy food & drink before sleeping.
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Nov 11, 2014 22:27
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Cocoa Crispies posted:Only time I've slept well on a plane I skipped any heavy food & drink before sleeping. Only time I've slept on a plane I was pretty drunk from the bottle of vodka I bought at the duty free before getting on the plane.
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Nov 11, 2014 23:16
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asur posted:How tall are you? At 6'3" I don't normally have a problem though it helps if the headrest can be elevated. 6ft 2in so not like Sasquatch. My biggest issue is just as I fall asleep my head sags and rolls and then obviously I wake up. How do yall keep your heads stable? I've considered a neck pillow but I've heard mixed reviews.
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Nov 11, 2014 23:44
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Xguard86 posted:6ft 2in so not like Sasquatch. My biggest issue is just as I fall asleep my head sags and rolls and then obviously I wake up. How do yall keep your heads stable? I've considered a neck pillow but I've heard mixed reviews. I put the seat back and the bend the head rest, or if you're in the window seat lean against the fuselage.
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Nov 11, 2014 23:48
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asur posted:I put the seat back and the bend the head rest, or if you're in the window seat lean against the fuselage. It doesn't flop over? I try to make a little brace but it just bends and my head rolls out. This seems like such a simple thing but...drat if I can even lightly nap.
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Nov 11, 2014 23:58
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Loop your belt around your forehead and the headrest
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Nov 12, 2014 00:02
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Xguard86 posted:It doesn't flop over? I try to make a little brace but it just bends and my head rolls out. This seems like such a simple thing but...drat if I can even lightly nap. I have same issue with floppy head syndrome. Sometimes those bendy headrests are screwed up and won't support any weight either. I have a basic neck pillow but it won't stay put. I'm gonna try one of those stiff thin ones next time. Just finished a 20k round trip route and it got brutal at the end.
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Nov 12, 2014 00:03
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Get a wide/comfortable strap to wrap around the top of your seat and across your forehead. Like a giant head band.
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Nov 12, 2014 00:15
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my head flops around like crazy and it doesn't really bug me. I either take the window to lean up against the wall or i just dangle my head all the way forward like an idiot. You could make your neck really swole i guess?
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Nov 12, 2014 01:28
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