White Collar Travel: The upgrade rotation

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Routine often breeds insight, and the form of business travel that once ruled my life was one of the variety that Ralph Waldo Emerson would have called “the hobgoblin of little minds.” During one project, which involved seven months of weekly roundtrips to Omaha (and platinum status on Northwest by June), I’d get to Logan Airport every Monday morning and see the same names called for upgrades. It was demoralizing. As my miles accumulated, I knew that theirs were, too, leaving me no closer to my goal.

Then, a strange thing happened when I crossed from silver to gold: I started to get the bump. The people normally summoned up to the gate – who I had come to know by sight and the first three letters of their last name – were no longer on my flight. The upgrade candidates behind them were getting the first nod, and occasionally, I’d pick up some first class table scraps. Two months later, I was at the top of the list.

My business partner, who joined me in this weekly grind, noticed the change, as well. Having gotten this far, it didn’t take us long to put the rest together. The people who used to beat us to the upgrades had rolled off their projects: their work was done, and they had moved on to gigs in other cities. We still had plenty of Omaha time in front of us and relished the thought of having to compete with only the people paying for first class, and the occasional heavy-hitter who was taking a rare trip in our direction.Watching this unannounced changing of the guard is good for a morale boost in a life where pleasant surprises just aren’t frequent enough. It entails a sense of accomplishment, a touch of prestige and an expectation of a little more comfort. Everything that cuts your way carries disproportionate weight when you’re a road warrior.

So, if you’re among the many making the weekly “commute” to another part of the country on a long-term project, watch the pre-boarding process, and celebrate when those familiar faces disappear. It means you’re getting closer to a wider seat and coffee in a ceramic mug. There’s a rhythm to business travel, much of it defined by the work the passengers do. Get in synch with it, and the lifestyle becomes much easier to bear.

White Collar Travel: Monday morning mayhem: A business traveler starts the week

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Thomas Hobbes, the British philosopher, unknowingly described the life of the business traveler several centuries in advance: brutish, poor and short. Long hours, inconsistent diet and exercise and extended periods of emotional isolation virtually assure that many will burn out. This state of affairs is at its worst on Mondays, quite possibly the most miserable day of the week for the road-dwelling professional.

Depending on your proximity to the airport and destination, your day can start as early as 3:30 AM. The alarm clock assaults your eardrums (and your spouse’s, unfortunately), prompting you to slog over to the shower – you can’t clean up at your destination, since you may be heading straight to the office. After a quick goodbye to a half-awake, fully annoyed companion, you trudge down to the waiting town car (if the driver’s late … no mercy), while doing the mental calculations on whether 45 minutes of fitful sleep during the ride is preferable to trying to wake up. It doesn’t matter, as you’ll resign yourself to a general feeling of hard-to-describe discomfort.

At the airport, having checked in the night before and printed your boarding pass, you run the security gauntlet, easily spotting the passengers who are not members of your elite, informal fraternity. You kick off your shoes, whip out your laptop and empty your pockets, as if the seconds you’ll save are a matter of life and death, knowing deep down that this behavior is totally irrelevant.

Coffee comes next, of course, since you know you’ll need to spend the flight preparing for your weekly client meeting, which is invariably scheduled for as soon as you plug in at the office. While you loiter at the gate, nursing caffeine into your body, you snag a wi-fi connection and look around while you pull down your e-mail and look for any early morning or overnight crises. The seats are littered with people clad in business casual attire and up, depending on the nature of their companies, clients and engagements. You look for familiar faces, if only to size up the competition for upgrades. New faces are a plus, as it means the odds of a seat up front usually improve.

Thanks to your status as a wandering hired gun, you pre-board per the code on your boarding pass that indicates you’re among the airline’s chosen, perhaps into the coveted first class cabin. You score some extra legroom and a drink while the proletarians board – as long as the flight attendant isn’t jabbering mindlessly at a passenger who would rather have his coffee with cream, sugar and no commentary. This happens all too often, unfortunately. If you weren’t relying on an upgrade and actually paid for a first class ticket – fat chance of that ever happening unless you’re a top-shelf executive – you’d book 1C, so at least you’d get your coffee before the flight attendant gets distracted, starts talking and fails to serve the rest of the cabin.

In the sky, you try to make yourself “billable” (depending on the nature of your job), throwing yourself into client work with the hope that you’ll recapture an hour or two at the end of your day … though that really never happens. So, you spend a few hours on status reports, presentations and writing e-mails that you’ll send later, occasionally breaking to eat, drink or nap.

When you hit the ground at your final destination, sometimes eight hours after having been greeted by your alarm clock, you’re about to start a workday won’t end until you leave for the obligatory team or client dinner, usually at around 7 PM. If you’re deep into a project, it could be worse – desktop dining while slaving away until well past midnight. If dinner’s on the agenda, you shoot to get back to your hotel room by around 11:30 PM (hopefully, you got to check in before going to the office). The bed looks great, but you need to check up on e-mails that were kicked around while you were at the dinner table and couldn’t sneak a look at your Blackberry. Then, you take care of some client work and call it quits sometimes between 1 AM and 2 AM. You’ve been up for 22 hours or loner.

It’s a tough life – and by now, I’m sure, one that sounds hardly worth living. Fortunately, there are some perks. Personal expenses stay low, and you do get to eat at some fantastic restaurants. Occasionally, you can squeeze in some time to enjoy your destination (if it’s worth enjoying, that is). For many, the work itself is a big draw, especially if you’re with one of the prestigious law firms, investment banks, accounting companies or consulting outfits. You’ll get projects that you’d never see anywhere else, work with some of the smartest people in the business world and be compensated rather well (though you’d never admit it). But, life on the road can take its toll on you. After a while, you’ll answer the “How are you?” question as one of my former bosses once did: “any day you’re not on a plane is a good one.”

Top ten ways to become an obnoxious business traveler

by Scott Carmichael on

In my many years of travel, I’ve come across my fair share of completely obnoxious assholes. The kind of traveler that flies mainly for business, on tickets paid for by his or her boss. They usually have a ton of status, but because they never pay for these tickets themselves, they have earned themselves a false sense of entitlement.

You’ll laugh at these things – but they are all from real people I’ve encountered.

“DYKWIA”

Use this phrase a lot. Do You Know Who I Am is one of the most important tools of the obnoxious business traveler. The gate agent or flight attendant may know your name, but without your constant reminding of your importance, they’ll never know just what a big shot you actually are.
Don’t just “have status” – wear it!

Don’t settle for knowing you are an elite “platinum global services 1K member” – buy a lanyard and wear your elite status card around your neck. This way people can see how important you are. Wave the card at anyone that gets in your way.

Remember the phrase “this is not your cabin”

Once you are settled in your first class seat, pay close attention to people who don’t look like they belong in your cabin. Feel free to tell them that the economy class cabin is in the back of the plane. Apply the same logic in the elite boarding line at the gate, or the elite check-in desk. Bonus points for using the phrase “shoo” in your rant.

Always remember that you are more important than the airline staff

If an airline employee gives you a hard time, remind them that you are more important, that you make more money, and that you pay their salary. It is important to make sure these people know their place. The phrase “I pay your salary” is a sure way to remind them that they need to help you.

Always carry too much luggage

Don’t settle for checking bags, that is for tourists and people with floral pattern luggage. All your bags belong in the main cabin. Ignore the gate agents talking about how many pieces of luggage you are allowed as those rules don’t apply to you.

Boarding first is a sign of how important you are

Being in “group one” is a bit of an insult to you – the airline needs to invent a secret “group zero” for people with your status. So, when you arrive at the gate, be sure to walk up towards the boarding doors and make it obvious that you will be boarding first. The objective here is to prevent being blocked by the status-less riff-raff.

Talk loudly on your phone

Remember that your loud and obnoxious phone calls are another way to show people how important you are. Use lots of big words to confuse the uneducated people listening in on your call.

Also, don’t forget to keep talking when you approach a customer service desk. Your call is always more important than their time. Walk up to the desk, hand them your ticket, and use hand movements to explain what you want them to do – but don’t stop talking, no matter how unimportant the call may be.

Tell, don’t ask

When requesting changes from the airline, always tell them, don’t ask them. The commoners “ask” for an earlier flight – you tell the airline what you want, and demand that it happens.

The flight attendant is once again the stewardess

Forget the whole “we are here for your safety” mantra – the flight attendant is actually a stewardess. Think of them as your personal servant. Don’t settle for “a coke” – make insane demands. Ask for two and a half slices of lime with your coke. Or a coke with 4 ice cubes. Anything to make their lives just a little more miserable is going to make you feel a little happier with yourself.

Always take your time

Never let anyone rush you. If you are blocking the aisle when everyone wants to disembark, relax for a moment. Take your time to put your jacket on, turn on your phone and check your messages, and don’t worry about the 140 people standing behind you. They are nowhere near as important as you.

(opening image: Getty)

Business travelers will take upgrades over free food and web

by Tom Johansmeyer on

If you were traveling on business, which would you prefer: free in-room internet access, frequent room upgrades or complimentary breakfast? According to a poll of Hilton’s HHonors program, the room upgrade hit #1, followed by the free grub and finally comp’ed web access. Barbara De Lollis, of USA Today‘s Hotel Check-In column, speculates that this is because business travelers want comfort and can convince their companies and clients to pick up the tab.

Reading this article made me think back to my years on the road as a management consultant, and to my surprise, my behavior aligned with the survey results. Room upgrades mattered most. I’d get a bit more elbow room. It wasn’t about status, importance or even being able to run laps around my temporary living room. Larger guestrooms – and suites, especially – allowed me to put more physical space between where I lived and where I worked while on the road. When workdays stretch past 16 hours, it’s important to have any coping mechanism you can grasp, and being able to segment off the work space sure helped.

While I personally detest the hotel practice of charging for web access, it’s never an issue when I’m traveling on business. The companies and clients for which I’ve worked have picked up the tab without a second thought. When on vacation, I regularly had my companies pick up my internet tab, as well, a small price for them to pay to have access to me while I was away. Likewise, clients and employers pay for food. And personally, I’m rarely thrilled with the food offered at free hotel breakfasts and when I travel on my own, I usually pay for a good meal than suffer through a free one. Also, I never really ate breakfast during my road warrior days, and I know I wasn’talone. So, a free breakfast is really … well … worthless.

What’s missing from the survey, unfortunately, is club-level access. When I was on the road all the time, this was my favorite amenity. It gave me a place to go other than my room, where I could get a drink, grab a snack and unwind. Hiltons definitely delivered best on club lounges, with the two most memorable for me being the Hilton Embassy Row in Washington, DC and the Hilton in London, Ontario. The former was comfortable and great for networking, and the latter had the best club-level service I’ve ever experienced.

Business travelers forced into coach may never see first class again

by Scott Carmichael on

When the economy imploded, corporate business travel took a nosedive. Those companies that still allowed their staff to fly, changed the corporate policy forcing everyone into the back of the plane.

Within many companies, travel policy allowed for first or business class travel on long flights, while others had policies in place that allowed premium cabin travel for high level executives.

To save money (and public humiliation), coach became the new standard cabin for most business travelers, while everyone waited for the economy to recover.

Now there are small specks of light at the end of the tunnel, there is some bad news for business travelers expecting to get back to the front of the plane – companies are enjoying the savings, and may keep the current policies in place. This is good news for some, and bad news for others.

  • Travelers paying their own way for Business or First will see emptier cabins, and (hopefully) lower prices as airlines scramble to fill their premium cabins.
  • The business travelers are going to have to get used to traveling with the commoners, and eventually become commoners themselves (boo hoo!).
  • Airlines are going to have to make some tough decisions – on some routes, they’ll probably remove premium seats, or in some cases they’ll move from three class planes to two class planes. Others may remove premium travel altogether.

The numbers are not looking too bad for the airlines – coach bookings are up 5%, but premium travel is only up 1.8% – given how dismal the past couple of years have been, I’d say any gain is a good gain, even if it does mean fewer people up front.