According to recent surveys, just 33% of business travelers report that business trips make them feel stressed and exhausted. With long flights, living out of suitcases, and rushed schedules, it’s no wonder road warriors have a love-hate relationship with business travel.
However, your next work trip doesn’t have to feel like a death march. With a few business travel secrets, you can maximize your comfort, productivity, and savings when you hit the road for work. Read to discover simple ways to take the pain out of business travel.
Choose the Right Corporate Travel Tool
One of the first and the most crucial business travel secrets is using a corporate travel booking tool like ITILITE to manage employee travel. Compared to booking directly through airline and hotel websites, it offers several advantages:
- Consolidated View of Business Spend: You can see total company travel expenses with a corporate booking platform. This makes budgeting and reporting much more effortless.
- Travel Policy Compliance: The tool allows creating policies around preferred vendors, class of travel, etc. It automatically ensures bookings follow the policies.
- Traveler Safety: Corporate booking platforms provide real-time traveler tracking. The employer can locate employees in case of emergencies or last-minute itinerary changes.
- Negotiated Rates: Companies can negotiate special rates and discounts with vendors. Employees get access to cheaper flights and hotel rooms.
- Streamlined Booking: The tool makes business travel booking easier through flexible search, easy approvals workflow, and integration with calendars.
- Dedicated Support: Most corporate booking platforms provide 24×7 traveler assistance before and during trips. Employees have on-demand help for bookings, changes, cancellations, etc.
- Traveler Profiles: The platform captures all employee preferences and requirements. This enables personalized, efficient booking.
The right corporate booking technology brings structure, savings, and superior experience to business travel programs. It’s the first step towards enhancing any company’s travel.
Leverage Loyalty Programs
Loyalty programs offered by airlines, hotels, and rental car agencies can significantly benefit frequent business travelers. Most programs allow you to earn points, miles, or status based on how often you travel and how much you spend. The key is maximizing these programs to get the most value.
Here are some tips for getting the most from loyalty programs:
- Consolidate your business travel to one preferred airline and hotel chain as much as possible. This will help you rack up points and status faster.
- Provide your loyalty program number every time you book a flight or hotel. Many travel agencies will only remember to add it if reminded.
- Pay attention to bonus points promotions that double or triple your earnings for a while. These can help you earn status quickly.
- Use the airline or hotel-certified credit card for all business travel expenses. This will generate the most points.
- Take advantage of status perks like late checkout, room upgrades, and airport lounge access. Don’t be afraid to ask!
- Redeem your points for maximum value. Use them for high-priced award flights and hotel rooms to get the most cents per point.
- Gift extra points to colleagues if you end up with more than you need. Most programs allow point transfers.
Focusing your business travel within one or two preferred programs with these corporate travel secrets can result in significant rewards through intelligent point redemption over time.
Book Early to Save
Business travel secrets, such as booking flights and hotels for your business trip well in advance, can lead to significant savings. Planning and booking early can often get much lower fares and rates.
Most airlines and hotels offer their lowest prices when booking is done months ahead. As the travel dates get closer, fares and rates will gradually increase. Last-minute bookings typically carry a large premium.
Aim to book your flights 2-3 months before departure. For hotels, 1-2 months out is a good goal. Monitor fares and rates periodically and lock them in when you see a good deal.
Many corporate travel programs have set discounts and preferred rates with travel partners. However, the most competitive and budget-friendly fares may require booking far in advance. Which is why we recommend such corporate travel secrets.
The money you’ll save by planning early can be substantial, especially when traveling frequently for business. The small effort it takes to book early is well worth it. Tracking fares and rates does require more work than leaving it until the last minute, but doing so will reward you with the lowest prices.
Take Advantage of Airline Status Perks
One of the best business travel secrets is taking advantage of airline status perks with frequent flying. If you fly enough to earn elite status with an airline, you can enjoy benefits like:
- Priority boarding allows you to settle in and get comfortable before general boarding starts. You can get overhead bin space and have time to get organized without feeling rushed.
- Free checked bags – Most airlines allow their elite members to limit bags for free, a big perk. No more waiting in line to pay $25 or more per bag each way. This will save you time and money.
- Airport lounge access – Many premium airline status levels come with free access to airport lounges. This gives you a space to relax, eat, drink, and get work done before your flight. Lounges offer much more comfort than crowded gates.
Taking the time to earn airline elite status through work travel pays off tremendously with perks that make each trip smoother. It makes all those hours spent in the air and at airports much more enjoyable. Be strategic with your flights and stay loyal to 1 or 2 airlines to maximize status. Those perks will make business travel feel like first class.
Expense Reporting Apps
Life on the road means racking up expenses left and right. The fifth corporate travel hack is using an expense reporting app to make things easy instead of keeping piles of receipts or struggling to remember what you spent money on. These apps let you snap photos of receipts, record expenses, and submit reports right from your phone.
Finding one that connects directly to your company’s expense software is key. That way, you can seamlessly submit expenses without needing finance to re-enter anything. Apps lTILITE make expense reporting simple no matter where you are.
With just a few taps, you can log expenses, organize receipts, and send off your report. You can even integrate this app with other apps to automatically track spending.
The right app, like ITILITE, tracks and submits everything for you. So, next time you’re on a business trip, let an expense app lighten the load and simplify managing costs. You’ll breeze through expense reporting, and no piles of receipts are required.
Make Your Next Business Travel Seamless with Business Travel Secrets
Preparing for your business trip is the best way to avoid unforeseen circumstances. These business travel secrets will help you ensure that you have a seamless business trip and that you do not face any last-minute stress.
If you want to stay organized on your trip, consider using ITILITE. It is an advanced business travel management platform that helps you plan and modify your itinerary, manage your receipts online, and notify you of any upcoming trip.
Get a free demo to try the benefits yourself.
