Really. If you think it’s all about smiling stewardesses attending to your every whim friendly hotels offering fawning service and romantic sunsets on the beach it’s time for a reality check.
Your stewardess will probably stop smiling when you refer to her as one because no one calls a flight attendant a stewardess and gets away with it today. Your hotel? They’ll be pleasant until you check out. The moment you complain about that surprise $20-a-day resort fee or the $5 charge for receiving a fax then the grin on the manager’s face will tighten into a grimace of icy resolve. You’ll hear insincere apologies but you will probably still pay.
But when you do it for a living — when you’re a true blue card-carrying sleep-deprived business traveler — you learn the ropes quickly. By the time you’re a million-miler and maybe sooner you know travel isn’t always fun but you also know travel can be tolerable.
What lessons can you learn from these veterans of the road? I asked some of the most experienced travelers I knew to tell me what traveling has taught them. Here are a dozen of them in their own words:
Expect nothingThat way you won’t be disappointed. “Lower your expectations when you travel,” says Steve Powell an Internet consultant in Orlando. It’s great advice considering a recent that found a near total disconnect between what air travelers expect and what they get. As a result nearly two-thirds of the respondents said they would avoid using an airline altogether if they had a comparable choice. Ouch.
Be niceLisa Wiser a computer consultant from Indianapolis learned about the power of nice when her flight to Pittsburgh was delayed by weather. The gate agents looked stressed so she bought them a $7 box of chocolates. “They looked up at me and said ‘What’s this for?’” she remembers. “I said. ‘Because it isn’t your fault there’s nothing you can do … but you will be catching hell for this all evening.” No only did she receive two food vouchers but she also got an unexpected upgrade to first class. It’s true — nice pays.
Never pay cashWendy Margules a real-estate agent from Newtown. Conn. lost $6,000 when she reserved a villa in Cabo San Lucas. Mexico. “The owner asked us to wire transfer the money and fax the contracts back to him right away and we did,” she says. “Ten weeks later there was no villa — and he was gone.” Putting your travel purchases on a credit card offers you some protection. Margules could have disputed the charge and received a refund.
Travel light“The single most important lesson I’ve learned is pack light,” says Michael Hollander a manager of a marketing company in Torrance. Calif. “Ask yourself: ‘Can I live without this?’ If the answer is yes leave it home.” This is particularly important given that airlines are losing checked luggage at an epidemic rate while some are beginning to charge their customers a fee for all checked luggage. The less you take the less you pay for. And the less you can lose.
Have a Plan BNo matter how simple your itinerary no matter how many times you’ve traveled the same road no matter how sure you are that nothing will go wrong don’t go anywhere without a backup plan. “You need a Plan B,” says Alan Brill an information security consultant from New York. Sometimes a backup plan can be as simple as looking for another way out. Case in point: a recent flight from Minneapolis to New York which was canceled for mechanical reasons. It was the last flight of the day. “Long line of yelling passengers,” he remembers. Brill went to another counter explained his predicament and was immediately handed hotel vouchers meal vouchers and a ticket on the next day’s flight.
untrue. O’Neil-Dunne says you should use them as a guide instead. (As someone who writes a travel column and has gotten it wrong a time or two. I completely agree.)
Don’t trust a reservationInga Smith a photographer from Columbus. Ohio learned that lesson a few years ago when her flight was delayed and she tried to check in to a Holiday Inn. “My room was given away to someone who arrived earlier than I did,” she says. “I was sent to another hotel which was a real dump.” Getting something in writing helps but always call to confirm. That’s particularly true for an airline reservation.
Visualize first classMost of us are stuck in economy class but not all of us stay there. How do people snag upgrades? Well one of the secrets of frequent travelers is to look the part. “I wear a sport jacket,” says Jason Hupe a project manager from Long Beach. N. Y. “If they are doing upgrades then you have a better chance of getting one.” This is true. I’ve spoken with several airline folks who have admitted they’ll pick someone who looks like he belongs in the forward cabin.
Join the clubEven if you don’t plan to collect frequent flier miles (and my advice is to avoid becoming a collector because points are as addictive as they are useless) you should still become a member of a loyalty program. Rick Damiani did and it made his trips go a lot smoother. “Before signing up. I was getting selected for additional screening by the TSA,” says Damiani an applications engineer for and educational computing company in Los Angeles. “But since I became a member. I’ve only been selected twice.”
Keep a photocopy of your passportIt will help you get a replacement much faster when you’ve lost it. Candice Sabatini lost her passport in Paris recently but was able to secure a replacement within hours because she had a photocopy. “Now I’m always telling others to make sure they have a photocopy of their passport — just in case,” says Sabatini a publishing consultant in New York.
Get plenty of restTravelers tend to be sleep-deprived. And worse they’re often unaware of how tired and cranky they’ve become. Peter DeForest a risk management consultant based in San Rafael. Calif. says the importance of a good night’s sleep can’t be understated. “Get some rest,” he advises. “In the morning you’ll find that what set you off was maybe pretty minor and can be overlooked.”
Enjoy the perksDespite all the recent cutbacks travel still has a few things going for it. And even a few freebies. Don’t look the other way when they’re offered. “I steal the soap,” admits Jim Daniel a traveling salesman based in Stockton. Calif. “I carry a preferred bath soap and shampoo so I always throw the hotel amenities into the bag with dirty laundry. When I get home. I put them aside to donate to a local homeless teen outreach program.” Again. I’ve spoken with hotel people and they don’t mind their guests taking the soap. That’s who the soap is for after all.
So there you have it — 12 tips from the people who are in the know. Take their advice with you on your next trip and you never know. You might actually have … fun.
1. Check in ahead of time. Unless there is bad weather. If you have a boarding pass - only rarely will you get the dreaded SSSS on the boarding pass. And you can always ‘lose it,’ and have them print it again - without the SSSS. Seriously. Unless the SSSS line is short - and you do not mind waiting or being felt up.
2. If the weather is forecast bad - do NOT check in ahead of time. Once you check in most airlines have systems that make you go to the airport to have the reservation changed. I had a flight canceled - and the phone res agents could not help me because I was already checked in. Certainly make sure you have a seat assignment but do not check in until you get to the airport in times of forecast bad weather.
3. Never believe an airline about connections or arrivals of inbounds. They lie. They mislead. If you see the pilots - ask them “Do you know when our EFC time is?” They may not know - but at least they’ll realize someone on the flight is paying attention. If ‘waiting for a flight to arrive,’ use the arrivals board cross check the gate then use that blackberry or laptop to see what time the FAA ATC systems states the flight will arrive. If it is too late - go raise a polite stink and do NOT accept ‘ the weather is bad your connection will be delayed as well unless the delay is at a hub airport.
4. Pay extra for a nonstop. Fewer risks to you your bags and your pysche. Drive to a hub city to take the nonstop - a 3-4 hour drive to a hub will ALWAYS take less time than a connection through a hub.
5. Also - SCAN the front page of your passport in color and save it as a PDF file. I know a person who was let back in the country with that scan since the ICE officer could machine read the scan and cross verify it with a drivers license and other ID. Save it on your computer that you travel with.
1. Call the hotel directly for the reservation after checking a- their online rates and b- their competitors. You can snag a lower rate simply by asking - or get an upgrade. I stayed at a 5 star hotel - and got an upgrade to the concierge floor saving us $50 a day by not having to buy breakfast afternoon snacks or alcohol. I offered to pay their online regular room rate. If you do not ask - the answer is always no.
Tripsync. (TripSync com.) enables you to search and book air car and hotel right from your PDA or Smartphone. This way when your flight gets canceled you can rebook your reservations and get on your way before everyone else. Additionally you can use TripSync Mobile to modify your existing reservations receive Flight Alerts view Security Wait-time view Weather and Airport Information and view Departure / Arrival Information.
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Related article:
http://www.elliott.org/the-travel-critic/12-lessons-learned-from-a-life-on-the-road/
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