This month, we are restarting our monthly Newsletter that was once called the Czar Report. The Newsletter is being completely revamped, enhanced and reformatted. It will be called Insights, and I hope that you will come to find it even more valuable and worthy of your time to read.

In the first edition, I formed my thinking around the Academy Award nominee film, Up in The Air. This week, I thought I would break the pattern and offer some advice from one “Road Warrior” to you as you travel. When you spend as much time on airplanes as I have, you begin to develop behaviors that work, and you make them routine. When I am on a trip, I am a total creature of habit. Without that as part of your pattern, you will make far too many mistakes, and those mistakes almost always become a financial cost, or worse, a trip where you lose control. So, first and foremost, if you are going to travel with any frequency, develop a routine and stick to it.

Travel Tips from a Road Warrior Executive

Pointers on Reward Points

If you are beginning to travel frequently for business, take advantage of the multitude of rewards programs available. You’ll be certain to find one to suit your goals or lifestyle. There are rewards programs for hotels, airlines, auto rental companies, phone companies, credit card companies, dining establishments, and many others.

However, it is also important to be aware of the various partnerships within rewards programs. You can make the most out of your rewards points if they are earned within the same “network” of rewards programs. For example, American Airlines partners with Hilton Hotels and those programs allow you to convert earned rewards points from one to the other as needed.

FrequentFlier.com provides summaries of the largest frequent flyer programs, including contact information and lists of participating mileage and award partners.

But the real reason to have frequently flyer status, meaning lots of flights on the same airline, is because of the privileges you get when flying such as : Preference lines on check in, boarding early (even first), preference seating and upgrades. In my view, the points you gain to buy tickets may be a nice bonus, but the real benefit is all that things that makes flying less hassled.

Seasoned business travelers try to avoid checking their luggage whenever possible. My rule, unless I am on a five plus day trip, I will find a way to carry on. Packing carefully, and using hotel laundries, etc., all make that possible. One of the most important reasons you do not want to checks bags…You want to have everything with you when a flight is delayed. You can only have the flexibility to change planes, if you have the bags with you. Carry on!!!

That said, there will be times where you will be stuck with checking. In those cases when carry-on is not an option, the following tips will make checking your bag much easier:

- Take batteries out of any item you do not want to go off (such as an alarm clock)–it may cause an embarrassing situation.
- Don’t stack piles of books or documents on top of each other; spread them out within your baggage.
- Don’t forget to place identification tags with your name, address and phone number on all of your baggage, including your laptop computer. It is a good idea to place an identification tag inside your baggage as well.
- Consider putting personal belongings in clear plastic bags to reduce the chance that airport security personnel/screener will have to handle them. (Now recommended by TSA)
- Consider getting luggage locks from one of two companies, Travel Sentry or Safe Skies. Airport security screeners have tools for opening and re-locking baggage with either of these companies’ logos, thus avoiding damage to the lock or bag if a physical inspection is required.
- Never pack and check anything valuable, fragile, or perishable into your baggage.

The Carry-on Survival Kit

In addition to that novel, or business book, you’ve been meaning to read and your laptop, the following is a list of necessities to include in your carry-on:

- Jump drive or memory stick with all travel expenses, project/client documents, and important emails (information you would need if your laptop crashed)
- Destination contact information, travel itinerary, directions, corporate travel phone number
- Photocopies of all travel documentation (identification documentation)
- Have your passport if traveling overseas…Check for this three times, and then guard it with your life. You do not want to be in a country without your passport
- Noise-canceling headphones for the plane
- Earplugs and a sleeping mask; yes , if you are traveling a long distance, or on a red eye, you need to sleep, and you need it quiet and dark to do that
- Pain reliever
- Guide for the city you’re visiting (such as Zagat’s)
- Extra batteries and/or charger for your laptop, PDA, and cell phone
- Protect your laptop, you must be able to have the access to a computer, be careful
- Have a capability to get to the internet through a mobile phone data service. Those hotels charge far too much for internet access
- Save up magazines so you can use the time to read things that at home you simply do not have the time to get to.
- Make certain that you have the charger for all your electronic/Bluetooth devices
- Take your vitamins and any medicine you need – assuming you take them, this needs to be part of your routine
- A very small camera – you never know when you will need to record an event or a facility
- Plenty of business cards
- Make certain you have the contact information not just for the current airline, but also for the others. You never know when you may need to talk to them
- Make certain you are a member of at least one airline club. These are an oasis in the chaos of an airport.

Best Advice: Be Flexible

After police thwarted a terrorist plan to fly from London to the United States with homemade explosives, there is yet another dimension to airport security. We all know that there was travel before and after September 11th. (Remember when you could send your party off at the gate?) Travelers must be flexible at all times. This may involve extremely lengthy waits and security checks. This may include being grounded or being forced to discard packed items, repack, or check everything. As terrorists get more sophisticated, our security measures will do the same. We must adapt our travel patterns accordingly. This week it’s a liquid, next week it could be powder.

Back to the carry on: you need to learn how to make a decision when you change flights. Weather in your area is not what mostly matters. Where you are going; or where the equipment is coming from is what really matters. Equipment problems, “maintenance has the aircraft” is a serious warning sign. Worse still is the saying, “We will have an update in 45 minutes.” What they are saying is, we are not quite certain what is wrong nor do we really know how long it will take to fix it.

The minute you see weather or equipment delays, it could be time to consider a flight change. I do not change flights often but I do when I conclude that the equipment on my current flight is in serious trouble. The airlines have very few “free aircraft, hence if yours is in trouble, then it might be time to see if they have another flight going your way. That said, unless you are in a small airport, flying from a major hub is not a probably not a great place to change airlines. The only time I do that is when I have status with that airline and if it is in the same general concourse area. You will waste more time getting to the flight than you may have available. In short, stay alert to changing facts.

Finally, consider checking with TSA (online) or your air carrier prior to arriving at the airport for any recent changes in security policy and procedure, so that you’re prepared when you arrive.

One final comment: The true warrior knows that allowing delays and flight cancellations to get your emotions boiling, gets you nowhere. Cool it, do NOT DRINK, and just accept the fact that there are going to be times that you are going to have your trip messed up. When that happens, you will almost always have more time to burn that you had planned…so, one last piece of advice, make certain you have more work to do on the trip than you know you will have time available. You may be a movie lover, but candidly, if you settle back, and relax, the airline clubs and the seat in an airplane will be some of the best quiet time – (or as my wife refers to it “white space”) you will ever have. Take advantage of it.

Got any other great ideas…Please share them with me and I’ll pass them on.
Info@gerryczarnecki.com

HAPPY FLYING!

My Quote of the Week

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson