Business Travel Tip: 2011 Travel Resolutions

While it’s easy for experienced travelers to keep doing things the way they’ve always done, adopting some new habits this year can make for a more efficient,smoother travel experience. With access to important travel information and tools via the Internet, it’s easier than ever to be a savvier traveler.

Here are a few resolutions for 2011 that will help you manage your travel, reduce travel-related stress, and with any luck, get you there on time – preferably with an upgrade!

Be a mileage maven. Keep track of all your frequent flier miles and points in one place with an award tracking program like Award Wallet or MileageManager. You’ll make much more efficient use of your miles when someone else is managing them – get alerts when you reach a new award level, stay informed on approaching expiration dates, and let them deal with claiming missing miles or points for you. Some programs also track hotel and rental car points so you can keep track of all your travel points together.

 Another hint: if you use your miles for seat upgrades, do it sooner rather than later – with all of the airline merger activity, it’ll be harder to get an upgrade on planes flying consolidated routes at full capacity.Increase your chances of getting a seat. Flights are more often oversold during peak business travel hours since business travelers are more likely to miss or reschedule a flight than leisure travelers.

 Reduce your chances of getting bumped by knowing which airlines are more likely to overbook – the Department of Transportation’s report on passengers denied boarding is a great place to start (google “Air Travel Consumer Report July 2010”). JetBlue rarely oversells flights so they’re a safe bet, along with Hawaiian and AirTran. The worst offenders? Continental, US Airways and American Eagle.

Keep knowledge in the palm of your hand. 75% of frequent business travelers never leave home without their smartphones – make technology work for you to anticipate travel snags and stay on schedule. Harness the power of always being connected by staying informed during each part of your journey.

 track flights and receive flight status alerts to know if your flight is delayed or cancelled or if the gate changes; email, text or post your flight info to social media sites like LinkedIn so your colleagues can track your flight and know in advance whether you’ll arrive on time; and check weather conditions at airports you’re flying into to anticipate flight delays or diversions.

Taking advantage of more transparent air travel information and new technology and outsourcing administrative tasks are some small changes that will have a big impact on how efficiently you plan and manage your travel, leaving you with more time to tackle job-related tasks. Just like with your smartphone, before long you’ll begin to wonder how you ever traveled without these simple tools.

Source = foxbusiness