White Collar Travel: Five embarrassing confessions of a business traveler

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Business travelers love to look poised, in control and too important for mere words, but there’s a dark side to the lifestyle that can be downright comical. Sure, some of it will come across as sad, depressing or simply stupid. When you step back from it, though, it’s hard not to let out a chuckle. The trivial becomes incredibly serious, and almost every situation seems like an opportunity to pull off some grand scam that truly isn’t worth the effort.

I’ll confess: I was guilty of much (well, all) of what you’re about to read. I can take some comfort in the fact that I wasn’t alone, but that also means I spent a lot of years associated with some pretty strange people.

1. Hoarding soap
Might as well start off with the lowest of the low: I’d always swipe the soap. It’ not because I was broke – if I were, stealing soap wouldn’t have done much for me. How much does the average guy spend on soap? Ten bucks a month? I’ve never broken down the expense, but it can’t be more than a rounding error in the average household’s budget. In pocketing the soap, felt like I was somehow winning an undefined competition. One day I realized I had more soap under the sink than I’d ever use and called it quits. Well, it wasn’t a lifetime’s worth – I’d only scrounged enough for around two years.

2. Dashboard Chinese
Expense management was always a priority – and not just for the company. I quickly realized that you could scrounge a few extra bucks if you got creative with your meals. Generally speaking, you could count on at least one team dinner a week, which meant no cash but you got to eat better than a normal human being.

The other meals on the road? Skip breakfast in favor of in-room coffee (or nab something free if complimentary continental breakfast). Lunch was best in a subsidized employee cafeteria, or absent that you go on the cheap with pizza or a burger. So far, the day cost around $5, against $5 for breakfast and $10 for lunch (back then, at least). Dinner’s the tough one, and you only get $20. On one project, I found I could get a quart (yes, that’s how it was measured) of chicken and broccoli at a frightening-looking Chinese restaurant on some back road in Whippany, New Jersey … for $5.

Per diem: $35
Total cost: $10
Difference: $25
X5 days on the road: $125

It may seem demented at first, but that strategy turned into an extra $500 a month.

3. Road warrior
Why fly when you can drive? While the prevailing view of business travelers is that we’re addicted to points, the reality is that we all cave in the face of something far more attractive: cash. Mileage is better than miles, especially since it accumulates more quickly and offers faster gratification. Driving distances that should be flown was a great way to stuff your bank account, especially if you were about to leave the road to look for a new job.

4. Overpaying for points
Well, it’s not always true that we’ll take cash over points. Perhaps the greatest flaw in economics is that human beings are rational – especially human beings who spend 15 hours a week on planes and in airports. There are circumstances in which points trump cash, even though this is irrational behavior. Now, I’m not talking about actually buying points (at least not directly). But, when you have a choice between airlines, it’s often tempting to take the more expensive ticket on the airline on which you’ve been accumulating miles, even if you have to pay the difference personally. It’s rationalized as the present cost of a future upgrade.

5. Accepting a layover
Like overpaying for miles, this isn’t entirely rational (okay, it’s not even close). When the time you spend at home every week is measured in hours rather than days, you’d think nothing matters more than taking the shortest route possible from Point A to Point B. When you’re living on a precarious balance of caffeine, nicotine, liquor, adrenaline and greed, however, there’s little room for that sort of thinking. To keep your miles on one airline, you accept a layover rather than switch airlines to spend less time in the sky. Trust me: it makes sense at the time … even though you’ll never use them.

Earn double miles on US Airways this spring!

by Grant Martin on

US Airways just launched a promotion last night awarding double elite and earned miles to all registered travelers between now and June 15.

Elite miles, of course, are the special non-redeemable miles that count towards elite status, awarding passengers special perks like no baggage fees and better seat selection. Earned miles, on the other hand, are miles that can be cashed in for free flights and other goodies.

This means that with this promotion, one would only need to fly 12.5k miles to reach the lowest tier of elite status, silver preferred.

This is a fairly generous offer from US Airways considering that they ran a similar promotion last year. Our hope is that the trend catches on with other airlines and that just like last year, most of the legacy carriers offer double miles at some point.

Passengers need to be registered for the promotion and to book after registration, so scamper on over to US Airways’ promotion site right now and sign up.
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Are Delta Skymiles worth anything any more?

by Grant Martin on

The ire of Delta Skymiles members continues to grow stronger and more vocal.

To summarize, many loyal Delta passengers are miffed at the recent poor value of the airline’s frequent flyer miles, or Skymiles. It’s true that on the surface the airline claims to offer mileage redemptions for the same price as their competitors — but when one actually goes to search for available tickets, those cheap seats are almost nowhere to be found.

The Cranky Flier sums up the problems pretty well over at his blog, where he simply states:

One thing I’ve found… is that Delta SkyMiles are really not easy to burn and when you do, they end up costing a lot more than on other airlines in terms of miles and dollars. As a loyalty program, SkyMiles is hard for me to love as a non-elite.

One can see from the rocking comment section beneath the post that there is unanimous agreement from the ranks. Want more insight? Head over to the Delta thread on Flyertalk where frustrated passengers have been venting for months.

For Delta’s part they acknowledge the difficulties with their award calendar but don’t seem really interested in finding immediate solutions. Blaming IT integration issues, they hope to have things ironed out by summer.

And until then? Diversify your mileage portfolio.

RELATED: Where did all the bargain fares to Europe go?

Sometimes, collecting frequent flyer miles with a credit card pays off

by George Hobica on

Are frequent flyer miles worth collecting anymore? I’ve asked that question elsewhere, and have been advocating the use of credit cards paying up to 5% cash back as a better alternative for many travelers who rack up most of their miles using airline-affiliated credit cards. For many people, now that there are new fees associated with cashing in miles, the answer is no.

Most of us travel domestic economy, and $25,000 spent on a frequent flyer credit card only gets you a domestic coach ticket, assuming you can even find available seats and aren’t paying a fee to cash in the miles at short notice or to redeposit them if you change your mind. That same $25,000 spent on a 5% cash back card gets you $750 which you can spend anyway you wish. You might even be able to find a seat to Hawaii. Try that with your frequent flyer miles.

So do I personally collect miles with a frequent flyer credit card? You bet I do. Recently, I applied for a British Airways Chase Visa card ($75 annual fee), but only because they were awarding 100,000 miles after you charged a paltry $2000 to the card (caveat: sadly, this offer is no longer available). My BA Executive Club account had something like 300 miles in it, so it was time to top it up. I wasn’t planning on going anywhere in particular, but just a few days ago I learned that my Oxford college was having a reunion, and I thought, fun, might as well go.

So I went to spend some miles. What I found at ba.com was pretty shocking. On the day in April that I wanted to fly from New York to London, I had exactly one option: a first class seat for 75,000 miles. And the return didn’t look much better, although there were several business class seats on BA’s new London City Airport to JFK all-business-class flight for 50,000 points. Award seats in economy (not that I was devastated) were sold out in both directions.

Needless to say, I didn’t have enough points, but BA kindly suggested that I buy the outward-bound first class flight with miles plus $285 in cash and $163 in fees and surcharges. Not that my return flight was free either. I got hit with a fuel surcharge plus taxes and fees of $358.

So my “free” flight, including the BA Chase card’s $75 fee, ended up costing me $881. Still, not bad considering that when I checked on Expedia.com, these same flights would have cost over $14,000 had I bought them with cash. Lesson learned: if you play your credit cards right, collecting frequent flyer miles with them can indeed pay off. Just don’t expect to have a lot of seat choice or to get something for nothing.

George Hobica is the founder of Airfarewatchdog™, the most inclusive source of airfare deals that have been researched and verified by experts. Airfarewatchdog compares fares from all airlines and includes the increasing number of airline-site-only and promo code fares.

Donate and earn miles when you give to Haiti relief

by Grant Martin on

Donating to the earthquake relief effort in Haiti should be a no-brainer, but for those who haven’t given or who would like to give more, the travel industry is offering a few additional mechanisms, some with incentives.

As of Tuesday morning, here’s a comprehensive list of how you can donate your miles via assorted airline or hotel websites.

  • American Airlines will give you 250 miles if you donate $50 to the American Red Cross or 500 miles for $100.
  • Continental OnePass members can donate to the American Red Cross directly, and CEO Jeff Smisek is reported to be matching coworker donations up to $50,000
  • Similar programs are in place at Delta and United.
  • Spirit Airlines, which flies daily flights to Haiti, is returning 5,000 miles to anyone who donates at least $5 to their charities.
  • JetBlue and Southwest won’t let you donate miles, but they do have donation links to the relief effort on their main pages.
  • In addition to matching the donations of their employees, US Airways allows Dividend Members to donate their miles.
  • Hyatt Gold Passport members can donate increments of 5,000 points by calling 1-800-228-3360, Hilton members can convert 10,000 points to a $25 donation at their site and Priority Club and Choice members can also chip in.
  • Starwood hotels are matching all donations, where 4,000 points will equal $50.
  • In addition to the $500,000 that Bill Marriott gave to the relief effort (classy!), you can donate your Marriott points here.

Did we miss anything? Drop off links in the comments below and we’ll update the post.