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I've noticed a surprising lack of threads on SA regarding business travel and/or hardcore frequent flyers. If any of you have done a large amount of travel for work or have known anybody that has, I'm sure you are aware that it has a very distinct type of culture to it. I'm currently in a position that requires me to travel an average of about 4.5 days a week. By the end of 2012 I anticipate having roughly 200 "travel days" that have spanned over 150,000 airline miles and about 125 nights in hotels. The travel that my job requires is 100% domestic, so I can't comment on international travel. I would recommend a read through http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3489180 for anybody interested in information regarding international travel. I'm not sure that there will be any interest in this. When I first started traveling heavily I found the whole frequent flyer culture and everything that goes with it pretty interesting, and I know that the flyertalk forums can be very overwhelming to people that aren't so well versed in all of it. I will try my best to respond to any questions as accurately and promptly as I can, but certainly encourage any other frequent flyer goons to contribute to this thread.
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Nov 9, 2012 04:52
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I am fairly new to this. I've traveled off and on at various jobs in the past 5 years of my life, however I have only been traveling this frequently for the past year or two. I currently rent a condo in Austin, TX where my company's office is located. I live with my girlfriend of about two years, and am in a very happy and monogamous relationship. I've not slept with other frequent travelers, this is due to my current relationship and the fact that most frequent travelers are quite a bit older than me. I've never used escorts or sex workers, while traveling or otherwise. I don't have any friends that do this type of thing, however I have a few co-workers that I'm fairly close with that uphold a similar travel schedule. There are some industry workers that I have developed a certain familiarity with. For the most part this is the staff at some of the hotels and rental car centers that I frequent, however I do occasionally recognize or am recognized by gate agents and flight attendants. The free time aspect can vary and is certainly one of the more difficult aspects of this type of travel. Due to the domestic nature of my travel I almost always return home on weekends. The amount of free time can vary; there are times where I leave home on a Monday afternoon and have no meetings or commitments until the following afternoon. There are other times where I am in meetings on the West coast until 4:00-5:00 in the afternoon, rush to the airport for a 7:00 p.m. flight, land on the East coast at 6:00 a.m. the following day, and have meetings at 9:00 that morning. I will certainly say that this job has made me in no way envious of people who are required to do extensive amounts of international travel. The food is another difficult aspect of it. When first starting on this type of schedule I think most people see a pretty big decline in the quality of food they eat. Due to the nature of my job I often find myself taking customers out to meals and drinks. This can range anywhere from a quick lunch at a diner, to a $1000 meal at a steakhouse. When I'm not with customers I am forced into eating way more airport food (TGI Fridays and Chilis, etc...) than I would like, but it is somewhat unavoidable. I do my best to stay away from fast food, and stick to a pretty basic oatmeal for breakfast and a salad for lunch. For the most part I am wearing basic business/business casual attire when traveling. This is due to both the fact that I'm generally running from the airport to a client's office, and the fact that it helps keep the luggage to a minimum. When I'm heading to or from home on a day that I'm not in front of clients I generally wear jeans and whatever casual shirt I happen to have with me. One of the more interesting things that I have noticed is that I am treated much differently by people when traveling in non business attire. When I'm on the road I don't really have many hobbies if any at all. I normally spend my weekdays either at the airport, in a customer's office, flying/at the airport, or catching up on work in my hotel room. Surprisingly enough I don't really play any video games. When I'm at home I enjoy spending time with my girlfriend, family, and friends; working on cars, cooking, and seeing live music whenever I get a chance. i like Ham fucked around with this message at 05:32 on Nov 9, 2012 |
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Nov 9, 2012 05:28
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I'm rather unhappy with my current pay and am currently looking for another job. This has less to do with the travel and more to do with some poor decisions I made when first starting in my job that have left me fairly underpaid compared to my peers or similar positions with other companies. I am an account manager, and so any positions I've applied for require upwards of 50% travel. I can't imagine that I would be able to do this for more than 5 more years, and even that is pretty daunting to picture. I'm young with no kids and pets, so I'm able to put my career first, however it is a bit of a mental and emotional beat-down to do this all of the time.
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Nov 9, 2012 06:00
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C-Euro posted:What's your standard "loadout" for travelling (clothes, work gear, electronics etc.)? What sort of luggage can you typically fit it all into? I would imagine that if you're travelling so much you have it down to a science. I've generally carry a laptop bag/briefcase and 21" rolling luggage. For shorter trips I've got an overnight bag that I use, and for longer ones I generally bring the 21" roller and a matching 12" piece. You definitely get this down to a science after even a few weeks of regular travel, and the name of the game is avoiding checking luggage. I generally bring 4 dress shirts, two pairs of slacks, a pair of dress shoes, a pair of jeans, running shoes, and workout clothes. Generally I can pack in under 15 minutes the night before, or morning of travel. The biggest thing that I can say makes this easier is that I keep a toiletry kit completely separate of my regular home toiletries. In this I keep the necessities like deodorant and toothpaste, as well as a grooming kit, first aid kit, and a pill box with various medicine/vitamins/sleep aids. This makes it very easy to just throw the whole toiletry kit in a suitcase without second guessing if you have everything you need. As far as technology goes I carry my work laptop and a personal laptop, a laptop charger with interchangeable tips, a work phone and my personal phone, my ipad (I'm the furthest thing from an apple fanboy, but this is the greatest thing ever created for travel), a wireless hotspot as well as a wireless usb adapter, some decent earbuds, an ipod nano, and various a/c-usb chargers with retractable USB cables. While I frequently hit other areas all over the U.S. my most common stops are clients' offices in Dallas, Memphis, San Jose, and Atlanta. I'm in Dallas and Atlanta every week, and normally San Jose and Memphis every other week or once a month. i like Ham fucked around with this message at 06:11 on Nov 9, 2012 |
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Nov 9, 2012 06:08
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An observer posted:What's your favourite airport you've been to? I imagine that it's probably a bit biased, but I honestly think that my home airport in Austin is my favorite. They make a really serious effort to keep the food primarily local, and as such it is significantly more edible than most airport food. I also like how small it is, as it is very easy to get around. The security lines can be get a little rough sometimes, but the first class/frequent flyer lines go pretty quickly. I will say I've developed a serious respect and fascination with any of the massive airports and "airport cities". I know some guys who have worked operations at DFW and the logistics of efficiently moving tens of thousands of people through a secure area of that size is bewildering to me. Honorable mention for me would be San Jose, and Indianapolis for general cleanliness/age; as well as Detroit and Denver for sheer uniqueness.
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Nov 9, 2012 06:29
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C-Euro posted:I never thought to keep a separate toiletries bag, that's a great call. I wouldn't be able to get by with a tablet and keyboard alone simply because I need to keep my work laptop with me. I've gone without the personal laptop before. Sometimes if I'm on a short trip I won't take it, and I went about a month without a personal laptop when my last one broke. One of the main reasons I bring it along is that my company's IT infrastructure is pretty terrible, so my laptop goes out of commission frequently and unexpectedly; so it's nice to have a backup. Also call me old fashioned but I prefer my porn watching to be done on a laptop over an iPad any day 
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Nov 9, 2012 19:16
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Sorry for the lack of response for the past few days. I was home this weekend after a few weeks of straight travel so my time was primarily focused on catching up with friends and family.FrozenVent posted:Is there a way to pack a suit in a carry-on roller and not have it come out looking like poo poo? The short answer is no. I rarely if ever have to wear a suit while traveling. Once in a while I will wear a sports coat, but I generally get by wearing this on the flight the day I travel. Having a suiter built into your luggage will go a long way toward preventing wrinkles though. As stated by Thoguh, TSA doesn't care about regular razors. I used a double-edged safety razor while at home, and it is always disappointing that I'm not able to bring one with me on the road. Probably related here, I don't know about the other guys in this thread, but I absolutely never take out liquids from my toiletry kit and have never had a problem. Not sure if I'm just THAT lucky, or if most agents are too apathetic to really bother with it when it is clearly in a toiletry bag. moana posted:Have you seen Up in the Air and what did you think about it? Yes I've seen Up in the Air. I thought it was a fair, but certainly overstated depiction of this lifestyle. I think more than anything they nailed it with the scenes where they are about to go through security, and the one in the hotel bar where they are comparing statuses with various hotels and rental car companies. The whole status game is a big piece of frequent travel, people take it pretty seriously. RazorDx posted:Can you elaborate on this? I've always been fascinated with this type of thing. I'm inclined to agree with Uncle Jam, the airline and airport staff don't treat you any differently, but the other frequent travelers do. I will also say that it is significantly more prevalent in first class. I'm 25 years old and look about 17 on most days. When I'm in work clothes generally people completely ignore me, or try to strike up conversation and seem genuinely curious as to what somebody my age is doing up there. It's subtle and somewhat difficult to explain until you experience it, but things like trying to get in front of you in the priority boarding lines, and not getting up to let you into your seat when you are putting luggage up in first class. A lot of the guys that do this have a very snooty attitude, they don't want you getting in the way of their travel and will look down upon you unless you are a member of their little club. BananaFusion posted:What airline do you usually fly? How many miles have you ever earned in a year? What's the coolest place you used miles to get to? I've not really used miles to get anywhere interesting. This is due to a few things, partially that when you travel this much your desire to travel in your free time diminishes greatly. It's very hard to rack up miles domestically, and as such you develop the same mentality a lot of people do with savings. Even when I can spare plenty of miles I tend to hoard them because I can't stand the thought of "wasting" miles. I'll end up burning through most of mine next year. I'm sending my mom to Italy in April, and my girlfriend's best friend just moved to France so I will likely use 100-120k to fly us out there to visit for a week. Due to the amount I travel I can basically go anywhere in the U.S. for the weekend for free. My schedule most weeks has my employer paying to "fly me home" on Friday, and to fly my out to another place come Monday or Tuesday. They don't really care where they fly me back to, so as long as I'm using points or personal funds to pay for hotels and rental cars in whatever city I'm going to for the weekend, it's all the same to them. I will probably use some additional points to fly my girlfriend out to spend some different weekends in different U.S. cities next year. routenull0 posted:Suggestions for carry on luggage manufactures? I personally use TravelPro and am VERY happy with their stuff. I did a lot of research before buying anything as I knew my travel was going to get pretty ridiculous. The big thing that really sold me on mine was that it had a built in suiter, which means I can actually pack slacks and shirts and have minimal need to iron after four days and 7 flights worth of travel. As mentioned earlier I use a pretty standard 21" rolling suitcase, which is the largest size allowed for carryon. However mine is expandable, so when I'm going for longer trips I unzip the expansion and gain about 3" of depth and just check the thing. Construction quality is really solid and it has held up well. If you notice pretty much and flight crew will be using TravelPro luggage, so that really helped sell me on their products. I'm not a fan of hard shell luggage at all, but I hack that up to personal preference. I will say that the biggest piece of advice I would offer anybody when shopping for luggage is do not get anything with those stupid spinner wheels. They seem great but keep in mind that when you are going through an airport you generally have your hands very full, and those things will constantly try to roll away from you. Ever frequent traveler I have ever known despises those things. tbp posted:Any recommendations for career paths for anyone that would be interested in doing this? Basically anything with "consultant" in the title, as well as most sales jobs. I know there are a lot of specialized engineering functions that see a high level of travel, but from what I know that generally involves long stints in one area before moving along to another. I will 100% agree with the other posters here that it is definitely not something I would look for in a job, or strive to find. When doing this type of travel you rarely get to see or do much outside of the offices and hotels that you are in. For example I absolutely love the Bay Area and was there yesterday. I left home at 7:00 CST, got in at about noon, met my client at a site at 1, went straight to my hotel and arrived at about 7:00, proceeded to eat dinner, have a few drinks, get some work done and then pass out, I woke up at 3:00 this morning to make my way to the airport to fly out. Hardly got to enjoy what I consider one of the most beautiful places in this country. i like Ham fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Nov 13, 2012 |
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Nov 13, 2012 16:55
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ijii posted:When you are on a business trip, do they pay for your meals outside of client meetings? If so, how much do they allot you? Just realized that I never answered this earlier. Yes my company pays for my meals outside of client meetings. I have an expense account and they allot $50 per day for meals, which is pretty standard for any business travel I've done at other jobs. I've normally heard that this is based on the guideline of $10 for breakfast, $15 for lunch, and $25 for dinner; but they certainly don't enforce it down to that level. Considering that I get free breakfast at hotels, and am generally taking clients out for either lunch or dinner on a given day, I have more than enough to get myself whatever I want for the remaining meal.
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Nov 13, 2012 17:20
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Morby posted:We have to provide receipts for everything. It's ok if you miss one or two as long as they're not over $25. All the Dilbert comics about expense reports are pretty drat accurate. I hate those things. They take hours. Seconding this, expense reports are a royal pain in the rear end and, while I understand that they are a necessary evil, they are a huge waste of time. I've been getting emails from the group that reviews and pays on our expense reports for two weeks now since they audited a few of mine, I guess they wanted ALL of those receipts after all?
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Nov 14, 2012 00:42
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:What's everyone's favorite rental car company? I use National and it's a bit of a love/hate relationship. Our travel policy gives us less options on rental cars than on flights and hotels so they end up being the lesser of two evils (the other being enterprise). I like the grab and go aspect but car selections can be spotty. As an executive elite the special number that I get clearly goes to the same exact reservation line that you get when googling them. So basically god help you if you've got a problem that you are trying to resolve.
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Nov 14, 2012 06:47
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Shbobdb posted:http://www.ubergizmo.com/2012/11/brookstone-scanner-mouse/ Holy poo poo you just made my day. With how much I'm on the road the only time I ever get to scan receipts is the once or twice a month I'm in the office. This obviously occasionally makes the guys who process expenses pretty mad from time to time. I've been looking for a solid compact scanner at a reasonable price for over a year and have not found one. Also seconding the traveling goon meet. God knows if anybody ever passes through DFW or ATL there is a good chance I'm there.
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Nov 15, 2012 14:38
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Daeus posted:AAdvantage is by far the strongest program for anyone who is going to hit top tier though - 8 SWUs, extremely valuable miles when it comes to redemption, and great upgrade percentages? UA is decent, probably better for those doing sub 100k/year. Delta award availability is a joke. I have several close diamond medallion friends and they do nothing but complain about (trying) to use miles. I'm split between American and Delta and I definitely agree with that. American can be a bit of a pain in the rear end for golds and platinums due to the whole 500 mile upgrade thing, but for top tier Aadvantage is the best. You can hit executive platinum in 100k or 100 segments, as opposed to 125k/140 for diamond medallion. Between the SWUs and much more lucrative mileage redemption format, ex-plat on American really is the most rewarding of the top tiers. It does suck that you don't automatically get admiral's club membership, and the general lack of upgrades on your way to ex-plat is a bit of a pain in the rear end. If anybody is looking around and trying to decide on frequent travel programs I can lend quite a bit of insight into the pros and cons of Aadvantage and Skymiles.
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Nov 17, 2012 18:02
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Shbobdb posted:Please do, I am still new to this life and need to make a decision soon. I had been going skymiles but Delta doesn't seem as good out in California. At the end of the day you need to take an hour and look at the routes you plan on traveling most frequently, and see which airlines have the most service and best prices on those routes. Unless you are particularly lucky, whether is it business or personal travel, you will generally be choosing your carrier based on ticket cost and will want to align your program to match that. With that aside here are the immediate pros/cons for Skymiles and Aadvantage as those are the programs I know best. I'll try to keep it as brief as I can. With Aadvantage your miles/points are effectively worth more than most carriers (with the main exception being Southwest, but that is a whole different conversation). When comparing roundtrip flights within the continental U.S. I can spend 25,000-50,000 on American or 25,000-60,000 on Delta. For a roundtrip to Europe it is 40,000-120,000 on American compared to 60,000-130,000 for Delta. The point spend is related to high and low seasons, and in this respect I tend to find it easier to find "low season" fares on American than I do on Delta. So on a recent trip I was planning I could spend 40,000 points on American, or 95,000 points on Delta. This is an extreme example, but it does happen and can really save a lot of miles/points. The top tier status for Aadvantage is Executive Platinum and Skymiles has Diamond, while both programs reward top tiers well I have to give it to Aadvantage. It is quite a bit easier to hit Executive Platinum than it is to hit Diamond as Ex-plat only takes 100,000 miles or 100 segments (flights), whereas Diamond takes 125,000 miles or 140 segments. You get a slightly better mileage bonus on Delta (125% compared to American's 100%), but the lower value of the miles negates most if not all of the benefit there. American gives you 8 system-wide upgrades when you hit ex-plat, these things are incredibly valuable as almost guarantee you an upgrade to next class of service (coach to business or business to first) on any flight, including international and intercontinental flights. With Delta when you hit Diamond you have your choice of two "gifts", you can redeem one of these for 6 SWUs, but Delta SWUs are a bit less valuable as they are pretty strict. The only really serious benefit that Diamond has over Ex-Plat is that you get a free skyclub membership, on American you get a pretty standard elite discount but are still required to pay. Trust me, if you are flying this much lounge access makes a HUGE difference. Now as I mentioned earlier I do think that as a top-tier member Advantage is probably the most rewarding program in the industry (with the possible exception of Southwest, but once again that is a VERY different story). However I do think it falls short for people who don't fly enough to hit ex-plat. As a gold or platinum member you are eligible for unlimited upgrades on full fare economy tickets, but you will quickly realize that you fly a lot less full fare economy tickets than you thought. When flying a discount economy ticket you have to use "500 mile upgrades" which are, in my opinion, the biggest downside to the Aadvantage program. Once you hit gold you start earning four 500 mile upgrades for every 10,000 miles you fly. When you want to upgrade on a discount economy ticket you have to use an upgrade for every 500 miles of travel. This isn't to guarantee you an upgrade, it is simply to get on the upgrade list. Because of this system you are basically capped at a 20% upgrade rate unless you are flying on a full fare ticket. It's very subjective but getting upgraded 20% of the time even as a low tier member is pretty terrible. The other downside to Advantage if you do a pretty small amount of travel is that there is no mileage minimum until you hit gold. With Delta you have a 500 mile minimum, so if you fly less than that it still posts to your account as 500 miles. So when I first started with American I did a ton of flights to Dallas from Austin. These posted as ~300 instead of 500, it doesn't sound like much but if you are only looking to hit bottom tier on a program it can be pretty meaningful. For year end it's pretty much a wash. Delta has rollover miles, which means that if you are a silver elite with 45,000 miles you won't hit gold, but the 20,000 miles you have over the silver threshold (25k miles, 30 segments) will roll over to the next year; this would allow you to hit silver the following year in 5,000 miles and gold in 30,000. However American is really good about offering challenges toward year end to allow you to get to the next status. I was still about 14 segments from qualifying for 2013 Executive Platinum a few weeks ago and I got an email from them saying if I enroll in the challenge and fly 8 more segments they will upgrade me. This isn't unusual for American from what I understand. grumpy posted:Frequent traveler checking in. Here's a quick note on Hotel rewards programs; some of them will offer you a quick path to to elite status. Most hotels and even some airlines do offer these challenges, and they can be a really great way to fast track yourself. I did this with both Hilton and Starwood when I first started traveling so much, however it's not all a complete freebie. Most of them will only allow you to do one challenge in your lifetime, so if you don't requalify the following year and find yourself traveling again a few years later you won't be able to fast-track again. The other thing to note is that apparently a lot of these programs have caught on to people piggybacking one challenge on another to get elite status across the board. Some now require documentation that you earned your stay with the competitor through stays not challenges. On points in general, whether they be for hotels, airlines, rental cars, or parking, there are a few key tips. First is that the vast majority of rewards programs allow you to sign up for free, and often there are deals across brands and categories to convert miles to nights or nights to rental days. It is always in your best interest to sign up for the rewards program for whatever travel you are doing. I fly 99% Delta and American, but due to pricing and weather impact I've had to fly two United and one Southwest flight this year. I signed up for loyalty programs for both of them because why not? I may get stuck on 9 Southwest flights next year and if I hadn't signed up and gotten credit for the one I flew this year I would still be a flight away from a free ticket. If I don't ever fly on them again I can likely convert those miles into extra points to pad my accounts for one of my hotel programs. It takes about a minute to sign up for a rewards program and there is simply no reason not to. Additionally if you have any amount of travel coming up do your research on how to maximize the points you get. A few minutes of googling can result in thousands of extra points and miles. Most hotel programs run promotions all year that change every quarter. Simply googling HHonors Q4 2012 promotion and entering your email address right now gets you 1,000 extra Hhonors each night on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday night of any stays through the end of the year. For a base level member staying at a $100/night Hampton Inn that is basically doubling your earnings. Airlines do similar promotions from time to time, but they are quite a bit less common.
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Nov 21, 2012 19:05
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Nifty posted:Can you please comment on the Southwest rewards program? I'll answer as best I can, but if anybody here actually flies Southwest please feel free to correct me. Southwest as a whole is much different than most carriers, most travelers either love them or hate them, but I will say it is certainly a very interesting company. They have historically stayed at smaller airports and technically have no "hub". This means that Southwest has a tendency to offer a greater number of direct flights than most other carriers, but offers service to fewer airports/cities. They do not assign seats, you are assigned a group and seats are taken on a first come first serve basis. Because of this they have no first class, which means no upgrades, which obviously has an effect on their loyalty program. They assign points instead of miles, which means that everything in their program is based on revenue not distance flown. You earn 6, 10, or 12 points per dollar, depending on the fare class you book under. Similarly, you can redeem at 60, 100, or 120 points per dollar depending on the fare class you are trying to book. As you can tell it pays off on both ends to book early with Southwest. What this basically means is that on Southwest you average a 10% redemption rate, which is generally MUCH better than what you will get on other airlines. To put this in perspective if I were a Southwest frequent flyer I would likely hit top tier status in about 3 months as opposed to 6+ on most carriers, and on Delta/American I would venture a guess that I probably have closer to a 2-5% redemption rate. Their elite tiers are also very interesting. The way I view it is that they have two standard tiers, and one specialty tier. You hit the first two tiers at fairly standard intervals, 25 legs/35k points and 50 legs/70k points. Because there is no first class the first two tiers aren't particularly interesting to me. You get to board early so you are unlikely to end up in a middle seat, and you get some benefits like free wifi and point multipliers; but without the opportunity to get upgraded these tiers aren't particularly interesting. Now at 100 flights or 110,000 points the perks become very unique and very interesting. You are awarded a companion pass, which means that you can name a companion and that person is allowed to fly for free on any flight you are on (within North America I believe). It's one of those benefits that is either really interesting to you or you don't care at all, but it I've certainly not heard about anything similar from any other carriers. When I first heard about the companion pass it made me reconsider my travel in a big way. I have never been a huge fan of Southwest, and have honestly actively avoided their flights whenever possible. While their planes are nice and their staff is incredibly friendly, they are still a budget carrier and it comes across in certain ways to me. I hate the lack of assigned seats, I hate the lack of first class, and because of their cheap flights you get a lot of very inexperienced and very oblivious vacation travelers. Despite all of this I did realize that their prices are generally really good, and they offer service to almost all of the cities that I travel to most frequently. It would be absolutely incredible to be able to have my girlfriend take off work from time to time and just hop on a flight with me for free. As young people with no commitments here in town we are in an ideal place to really take advantage of that perk. At the end of the day I couldn't quite bring myself to make such a drastic adjustment to my travel preferences, but I would be lying if I said I don't find myself thinking about making the switch from time to time. i like Ham fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Nov 26, 2012 |
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Nov 26, 2012 06:16
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Uncle Jam posted:Your company doesn't pay the bag fees? This is where I'm getting kind of confused by your situation. If they do, then why not let them? I'm sure they would prefer you to be working for a day than mucking about in an airplane. I'm sure his employer pays for baggage, but that's only part of the point. `The extra baggage fees are simply a reasonable justification for why one might do a MR, yeah my employer would pay those fees but it would be better if they didn't have to. Obviously the perks of having status are valuable enough to some that, combined with money you can save your employer, it's completely worth an extra segment from time to time. I've never done a mileage run myself in the most traditional sense, but there have been a few occasions where, when it made sense, I chose a flight that cost the same but had an additional segment. If you are booking on reasonably short notice it's pretty easy to check the weather in the connecting city and see how terrible of an idea this is. Sure you can still have mechanical problems, but if the weather is nice you are really drastically reducing your risk for delays. If I'm coming home from Atlanta on a Friday afternoon and there is a connecting flight in Memphis where it is 75 degrees and sunny, I will sometimes take it. It really just depends on the person to see if grabbing an extra leg is worth it to them. Silver Medallion is a really solid bottom tier, I used to have a pretty decent upgrade rate as a Silver whereas getting one without status you are resigned to incredibly low chances and only on full fare tickets. If you are looking to hit gold on Delta or Platinum on American and you are only a few segments or a few thousand miles away, you would almost be silly to not do a few extra legs in order to get a 100% mileage bonus the following year. I'm in the same boat as TouchyMcFeely, although I travel way more I almost always hit on segments before I would qualify on miles; and I think that tossing in a couple of extra legs is more important for those like us. It's always annoyed me how much these programs lean toward overseas travel, where status is weighted more heavily to miles than segments. Seems odd that they line up so much at lower tiers where it's 1000x miles/1x segment to hit status, but once you get up to things like DM you have 125k/140. Not sure why they do it this way as from a revenue standpoint I likely generate way more than a lot of the guys who do 5-8 trips to Asia or Africa yearly and qualify for Diamond. Also gently caress the new Delta website, I have no earthly idea what they were thinking.
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Dec 6, 2012 15:19
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My last trip starts tomorrow and goes through Friday but it looks like I will be at a little over 170,000 miles over 183 flights. 123 total hotel nights and 53 rentals (not days). For statuses unfortunately I will only end as Platinum on both AA and Delta due to the split. Hilton Diamond, Starwood Platinum, and GHA Platinum (just a few stays shy of Black  ).Spookyblack posted:I don't think you answered this question yet but how does your travel/hotels get booked? Do you have an assistant/travel agent that does this all for you, do you do it yourself? My company has an agreement with Rearden, which is one of the largest travel services out there. They have an incredibly well designed (and incredibly slow) website that I use to book, I can call them when I'm on the road but it's a pain in the rear end and you get hit with an extra booking fee so we are told to try to avoid it. I'm pretty sure I could have our sales admin or executive admin book travel for me, but I like the flexibility that I have with booking it myself. what is this posted:National Rent-A-Car. I use National as well. My company has an agreement with National/Enterprise so those are the only choices that are technically in policy. I'm rent enough cars with them to qualify for executive elite almost 3x over, and I can say that it's a complete love/hate relationship. The special number they give you when you hit executive and then again with executive elite goes to the exact same call center as the regular reservation line, which means that if it is after hours it goes overseas. Their customer service is completely hit or miss, and they take almost all of the power out of their reps hands so you can end up getting transferred around forever when dealing with an issue. They also have some locations that are better than others, they are constantly out of everything but minivans at DFW. With that said I do absolutely love being able to just walk out and grab any car on the lot and pay the same price. I'm not sure what the programs from other rental companies look like, but I will say that once you hit Executive Elite and start getting a free day every 5 rentals you end up with more of them than you know what to do with. big dig posted:Personal Life It was amazing to read this given how spot on some of it is for my experience traveling. My girlfriend has gotten much better about it, but she still has a bit of trouble understanding that going out with clients until 11:00 on a Thursday night is not fun for me, it is generally just about the last thing in the world I want to be doing. I also feel terrible for the fact that she has to deal with me on the weekends. Much like you, when I get home on the weekends I just want to sleep in my own bed, have some home cooked meals, and relax. We very rarely go out to eat anymore just because I am stuck doing it most nights of the week. I've been focusing a lot more on being healthy while on the road in the past month or two. When my travel picked up at the beginning of this year my health deteriorated proportionally. I'm in a different boat in that almost all of the hotels I stay at have at least some form of gym, although the size and quality of the gyms are all across the board. I basically stopped ordering room service for dinner as a general rule, it's overpriced and generally really terrible. I mostly hit grocery stores and buy ingredients to make a salad, then pick up some precooked chicken breast (oscar meyer and tyson both make some pre-cooked chicken breast pieces that are fairly edible) and toss that on. Grab an egg white omelet from the hotel restaurant for breakfast, and since I often do lunches with clients I just pick whatever looks reasonably healthy from the menu at wherever we might be. It takes some real dedication to not just order a pizza when you get in somewhere at 11:00 p.m. but I will say that a healthier diet has really helped to make the travel more bearable for me.
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Dec 10, 2012 23:19
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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 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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I took a bunch of time off from Christmas into early January so I will just be hitting 25k tomorrow. Due to destinations this year I think I will likely end up dropping off on AA and really end up focusing on skypesos. Hopefully hit DM around August to at least take advantage of the free lounge access for part of the year.
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Feb 28, 2013 18:48
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Not sure how I just caught this yesterday but for anybody else unaware Starwood and Delta have partnered to offer crossover benefits starting March 1st. Basically it will give perks akin to SPG Platinum to PM and DM Delta frequent flyers, and some of the Silver Medallion benefits to SPG Platinum members. Most importantly it allows you to double dip on rewards, one SPG point per dollar spent on Delta and one mile per dollar spent at most Starwood properties. This is a huge perk for Starwood points, and pretty mediocre for Delta in my opinion. With SPG points working out 1:1 for most major airlines they tend to be about the most valuable in the rewards industry. I was really considering dropping out of SPG and just cashing in my current points for Williams Sonoma gift cards as I tend to make better use of my HHonors points; but between the Q1 2013 promotion, more hotels starting to participate in the "green choice" program, and now this I will absolutely be maintaining SPG platinum and likely increasing my stays at Starwood properties. Perfect timing on their part as I'm sure plenty of travelers are eager to leave Hilton after the recent devaluation of HHonors. i like Ham fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Mar 7, 2013 |
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Mar 7, 2013 20:17
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Shadowhand00 posted:Random question about reimbursements and traveling: Much like Belldandy, I'd have to ask whether it is a customer facing or internal meeting. If it is customer facing, and certainly if it is something your company is billing for I would be comfortable expensing it. If it is an internal meeting and it's only 25 miles each way I would never try to expense it. I guess you could argue that the parking should be covered either way, but I can't imagine trying to get mileage reimbursement for a 50 mile round-trip.
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Mar 22, 2013 00:05
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Once again, I'm with Belldandy, and I think I was a bit unclear on the last post. While I think the argument could be made that when you are working at a satellite office where you are required to pay for parking you should be able to expense it, I know I certainly wouldn't. In my opinion perception of travel expense can be very dependent on your direct manager and the general atmosphere of your company. In a smaller company with a boss who is pretty relaxed about travel expense I don't see there being any problem there, but that would be about the only situation. If I were in that situation I would be asking myself "is it really worth the risk?", the risk in this case being a general bad perception of me as an employee by management. I don't think you would ever get fired for expensing something like that, certainly not without them specifically telling you that it is out-of-policy; but that doesn't mean it looks good.
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Mar 22, 2013 06:41
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