White Collar Travel: Hotel Behavior Honed by Habit

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Spend enough time on the road, and your instinct takes over. Soldiers would liken it to their training kicking in. unlike the warriors who protect our way of life, the business traveler’s reflex isn’t intentional. Rather, it evolves from experience and is honed by habit. After a while, you’re “always on” … which is what you want. When a networking opportunity arises – or you get the chance to pick up some competitive intelligence – you want to be ready to pounce.

A friend of mine was headed to Washington, D.C. a few years ago and invited me to tag along. I was involved with a small consulting company at that point and was between projects (which is code for: “I needed one”), so I dashed off with him for a few days. Taking advantage of the status I had with Hilton, I got us a suite on the club level, where we dropped our bags before heading to the lounge.

Again, I had no business plans for this jaunt. But, one of the other people in the lounge atop the Hilton Embassy Row turned to me and asked those four fecund words: “What do you do?” Forgetting my friend, I went from elevator pitch to the intricacies of my company’s style to a friendly game of “mine is bigger” (confession: his was) – standard fare among itinerant white collar folk. It ended with the swapping of cards, though we never spoke to each other again (and knew that we wouldn’t).It didn’t matter that the effort would lead to nothing – I’d suspected the outcome from the start, and I’m sure he did, too. I wound up in character because I couldn’t help it. This one-time trip offered little potential, but my response was driven by years of making connections. If I’d been on a long-term project, I might have seen the guy again in the lounge the next week. Maybe some business would have come from it.

And, my case is not unique. My mentor from an early consulting job once cut himself off mid-sentence when he heard someone at another table mention a competitor’s name. He listened intently for a few minutes before continuing with what he was saying. On planes, of course, we all talk, poke and prod to find a new client or get a sense of what the competition is up to.

The frequent business traveler, after a while, surrenders to the job – sometimes to a caricature of it. It’s only recognized as an occupational hazard years after you’ve given up the life, usually. Until then, it’s like a heartbeat – something the mind-body duality does for you.

White Collar Travel: Don’t judge a business traveler by his mileage account

by Tom Johansmeyer on

There is something incredible about mileage balances that stretch to six digits. The travelers who have them, you suspect, must be the real deal, living entirely on the road. There’s another class of business traveler, however, who is both quite valuable to the airline and is frequently overlooked. They fly domestic, but usually less than 2,000 miles a week. They’ll get short breaks of a few weeks every now and then. As a result, they don’t rack up the miles and miss many of the perks. But, they spend a small fortune over to the airlines every year.

These travelers will never make platinum status – many won’t even see gold. They lose the bragging rights that come with abundant mileage counts but still carry their lives in the bags under their eyes. How do these business travelers get shafted? Let us count the ways …1. Upgrades are rare
They fly all the time but only occasionally find themselves at the front of the plane. To these guys, scoring an exit row seat on the aisle becomes a stroke of good fortune.

2. Vacation dreams vanish
Since they don’t accumulate many miles, these business travelers can’t console themselves with dreams of comp’ed spa treatments in unusual locations. If they pick up enough miles in a year to get an overseas flight, they’ll have to take the perk in coach.

3. They spend more for comfort
Out of pocket, these passengers make purchases to render travel more tolerable. Food, magazines and gadgets become necessary to survival in this weekly grind. Upgrades mean that passengers don’t have to invest as much in their own sanity.

4. They lose bragging rights at the office
It doesn’t sound like much to the uninitiated – and looking back, this activity seems downright idiotic. But, it’s easy to get caught up in the mileage game. The frequent short-haulers lose out, and they hear about it back at the office.

5. They know the airlines don’t care about them
The shorter domestic flights don’t always cost less than the longer ones, but unlike the hotels, airlines don’t reward spending. Instead, they recognize distance. A business traveler flying from New York to Austin every week for a year can spend as much as one running from Boston to San Francisco for the same length of time – maybe even more. But, the benefit will never be the same.

White Collar Travel: Airline reward programs do it wrong

by Tom Johansmeyer on

It’s always amazed me that airlines reward passengers for the distances they go rather than the outlay of dough. Think back to the mileage run made a few months ago by Gadling‘s esteemed top dog, Grant Martin. He sought the cheapest fare he could find to rack up the miles he needed for the next status level. The upside, of course, was another year of premier treatment, and the dollars he put out were essentially irrelevant. Meanwhile, a business traveler who spent the year dropping a few hundred bucks a week on shorter flights doesn’t get the same level of recognition, despite having spent far more. The airlines take care of the wrong passengers.

A better model for rewarding customer loyalty can be found in the hotel space. It doesn’t matter how many nights you spend in a hotel throughout the year – the points you pick up are based on the money you spend. Yet, frequency isn’t overlooked: you can amass status levels based on how often you stay. So, as long as you’re in a room, you benefit from how often you stay. When it comes to cashing in your points, you are recognized for how much you’ve spent.The doling of points based on your financial value reaches beyond the guestroom, as well. The money you spend in the restaurant, spa, gym and anywhere else translate to points. Meanwhile, the airlines only take into account how long you’ve occupied a seat. It doesn’t reflect your full value to the company.

For the airlines, the upside of a more appropriate award system could be greater than they realize. Even though business travelers rarely spend their own money on tickets, they do decide which airlines they’ll take. So, they control the cash, even if it isn’t their own. By thanking passengers in accordance with the financial commitments they make, the airlines could shift how they distribute their goodwill and turn unwilling passengers into regular fliers … and vocal advocates.

White Collar Travel: Accelerate your trip to the hotel club-level lounge

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Access to a hotel‘s club-level lounge is a small perk. It doesn’t equate to an ostentatious suite, but does rank higher than bathrobes. The amenities are nice, usually consisting of a mix of free food and liquor, but they won’t change your life. For me, at least, the lure of the lounge involved having a place to go that wasn’t my room. I could hit the lounge with a book and relax while sipping a drink. It beat the lobby, which usually had too much traffic for my taste. If I needed to get some work done, the change of scenery was a plus, and the environment afforded a bit more privacy than the public areas of the hotel.

Unless you pay a few extra bucks for club-level access, though, you can only gain admittance through your status with the hotel’s rewards program. This takes time, unfortunately, as the hotel uses the lounge as a way to thank you for your loyalty (translation: spending). There’s a third way to get into the lounge that many business travelers don’t think to try – negotiation. It will only take a few minutes of your time, and it could buy you several months of comfort ahead of schedule.If you’re on a long-term engagement, you will be a frequent guest at the same hotel (unless, for some reason, you choose to bounce around). As early as possible in the project, contact the hotel’s management and let them know your plans. Explain that you’ll be staying with them for a while and that you’d like to be comfortable while you do. Tell the manager that you’d be willing to make your reservations far in advance and would appreciate early access to the club-level lounge. You may not be able to get a room on the club floor, but that isn’t as important as lounge access.

Before you make your case to the hotel’s management, put your case together. If you aren’t on a solo project, ask the other people traveling with you if they want to get in on the action (they probably will, even if they have no plans to use the lounge). Note how long you’ll be staying at the property and calculate how much you’re going to wind up spending there in room expenses alone. Don’t lead with this number, but have it in your back pocket. In all honestly, it probably won’t get that far: when you tell the manager how long you’ll be a guest, he’ll already be doing the math in his head. When you multiply that number by everyone who is on your project, the result is an incredible amount of spending power. It will be noticed, and it will have an impact.

The beauty of the hospitality business (unlike the airlines) is that it really does tend to be focused on the guest. If a hotel’s management sees a promising business opportunity, it has the flexibility to accept it. As a result, guest loyalty increases, and word spreads. And, it’s not just a matter of dollars and cents. Most hotel professionals are simply committed to ensuring their guests have positive experiences. If they can do something to help you, they will. Giving you early access to the club level in exchange for a commitment from you for a long-term stay doesn’t cost the hotel any real cash, but it sure brings plenty in.

Asking for early access to the club-level lounge could be the best 10 minutes you invest.

White Collar Travel: Three perspectives on business travelers and their miles

by Tom Johansmeyer on

What would you do with 300,000 frequent flier miles in your account – not to mention enough hotel points to get you 10 days in the blissful destination of your choice? Your imagination is probably running wild, as mine did when I got my first travel-intensive gig a decade ago. I had visions of southern France: soaking in the Mediterranean sun, roulette in Monte Carlo and smoking Cuban cigars from a balcony overlooking the ville.

Six months later, I fantasized about sleeping in my own bed for three nights in a row, in a one bedroom apartment I shared in a suburb of Boston. Eventually, I did burn most of my miles, some of them to Nice and Monaco, but not under the circumstances I expected. Along the way, I saw three major attitudes that business travelers had toward the points and miles they’d collected.1. Points are to be amassed, not used
Among the hardcores, this was the norm. We were all engaged in an unspoken race, the point of which was to make the numbers ever higher. Strangely, this exercise was separate from status. Points are for “winning,” status is about comfort. As far back as 1999, a client mentioned to me that he’d overheard two guys in a restaurant swapping astronomical numbers. He asked me, “Will they ever use those miles?” I just shook my head “no” and let out a mouthful of smoke.

2. My day will come
Road warriors who have plans to leave the life at some point think about consumption. In a few years – when they get “normal” jobs – they’ll take a few mind-blowing trips … in style. Exotic locations, first class seats and unimaginable luxury are the salient objective, and there may be plans for the girlfriend/boyfriend or spouse who tends to materialize shortly after life on the road comes to a close. The major risk is burnout: these folks need to get off the road before they find the prospect of travel under any circumstances utterly loathsome.

3. Go away instead of getaway
I ran into a few people who had but one dream: watching it all expire. They miss their families and crave a normal life. I remember one of my bosses reflecting, “The only thing better than watching ’em get higher will be sitting back and watching ’em expire.”

Be sure to check out Episode 5 of Travel Talk TV, which features a Santa Cruz beach adventure; explains why Scottish money is no good; shows how to cook brats the German way; and offers international dating tips!