As a veteran traveler myself, below are some tips and travel hacks that will help through your own travels.
New to business travel?
Here are some essentials you don’t want to live without:
TSA-Precheck – do you enjoy getting to the airport two hours in advance and waiting in long lines and having to remove all of your worldly possessions to go through an x-ray machine? If so, TS-Precheck is not for you! However if you want to get through airport security with a lot less and minimize your time in the airport then I highly recommend you pay the $85 to get it. Visit their site today to enroll.
Airline status – If your job requires air travel, pick the airline with the most flight options from your airport and stick with that airline until you reach the first level of status. Take every terrible flight option within your company’s budget until you hit status. Since I’m located in the Seattle area, my primary airline is Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan and my secondary airline is Delta Airlines Skymiles since they now have a nice hub out of Sea-Tac.
Hotel status – again based on your territory pick a brand where you’ll have plenty of in-budget options and stick with that brand. The majority of my travel is in the west coast of the United States. I have found Hyatts to be fairly available in this part of the country. I like using Hyatt Hotels because their World of Hyatt rewards system is the easiest and quickest to start earning free stays. Once you start achieving status the perks really do start to show and will make your travel experience that much more pleasureable.
Luggage – it’s important to have a rolling carry-on and briefcase/backpack that work together. I use a Tumi carry-on and backpack system but their are other great, more affordable brands with effective travel systems. I also highly recommend some kind of identifier on your carry-on to help separate it from the rest of the boring, black carry-ons out there. I have Spartan stickers on the back of my carry-on to represent the Spartan races that I’ve done. Aroo!!!