5 Effective Ways to Make the Most of Your Business Travel

To those who have to do it often, business travel is far less glamorous than it seems to an outsider. Long flights, travel delays, living in suitcases and being away from the comfort of one’s own home can get to even the most avid traveler. Add to it the stress of attending meetings, achieving targets and going back to work the very next day, and business travel doesn’t seem like as much fun.

If you’ve started dreading your business trips recently, it’s time to turn things around and make your travel more enjoyable and less stressful. Here are five tips to help you do just that.

Pick your favorite hotel and stick with it

If you travel out of town or overseas often for work, you’d want to use the same hotel chain or brand to ensure a minimum hassle and a standard level of service suited to your needs. Once you find a hotel you like in a particular city, it should become your go-to accommodation for subsequent trips.

This approach has several advantages. One, it makes hotel booking easier as you need not look for a new hotel every time you visit the same destination, and, two, a frequent guest can earn member privileges, including the right to negotiate a better rate, which most hotels will be glad to entertain given your consistent business. Lastly, the familiarity of a good hotel will take away some of the stress of a business trip.

Take bleisure trips

Turn your business travel into a bleisure (business + travel) trip. Joy Bray from Chi Chi LLC (https://chichillc.com/) says that many millenials are turning business trips into “bleisure” trips by finding time to enjoy local attractions.

Combining work and leisure will make your work trip a lot more bearable and give you something to look forward to while you’re preparing for the trip and when you get there. Plan your bleisure travel down to the last detail, and research the places you’d like to visit or things you’d like to do when you get there to make the most of the time you’ll have left after work.

Explore alternative stay options

If you really want to break the monotony of a work trip, try and bring some kind of novelty in your travel. One way to do this is to try a different type of accommodation, such as a homestay or an Airbnb instead of a typical hotel. Especially when you’re traveling with colleagues, you could save a significant amount of money by opting for a B&B.

Another reason many business travelers are choosing alternative accommodation is the desire to experience local culture and way of life by staying in a traditional home, with a local family, or in a quaint part of the town away from the hustle bustle of the city center. There are so many charming stay options out there, combined with curated experiences for the discerning business traveler. Give it a try if you’re bored of the confined luxury of hotel rooms.

Use a business credit card for all expenses

Whether you own a business or are employed with one, avoid using your personal money or credit cards for work-related expenses. By using a business credit card, you’ll be able to keep your expenditure in check. More importantly, you’ll accumulate plenty of reward points which you can redeem later for free and discounted flights, hotel bookings and more. Moreover, using a credit card over cash makes sense as it comes with travel insurance, extended warranty, and other benefits.

If you travel frequently, get a business travel credit card—these cards have even more benefits as they accumulate points (much like frequent flyer miles), which can be used for discounts on airfare. In addition, such cards often carry other benefits such as airport lounge access, seat upgrades and more.

Buy adequate travel insurance

If you have dependents, you cannot ignore the importance of getting proper travel insurance for each trip you take for work. Travel insurance not only safeguards your loved ones, but it also provides you cover for flight delays, lost or delayed baggage, and medical protection.

Travel insurance with medical evacuation is even more important if you’re traveling to a far-flung location with limited medical facilities. If you or your employees travel a lot internationally, you can choose to purchase an annual insurance policy where you pay the premium only once a year to cover all of your trips during that year.