I Fly to Work

The Airplane Seat Shuffle: Another good reason to check in early

Friday's "exit row aisle" seat morphed into a "rear row center" seat at check-in.  Thank goodness I checked in online and early, when I still had time to select myself back into the exit row.

The seasoned travelers out there are nodding; you know what happened.  Delta needed to use a different plane for the flight than originally planned.  For whatever reason, it happens.

New business travelers: take this as yet another reason to check in online as early as you can.  Give yourself your best chance possible to ensure a good seat.

Six Web Resources Every Business Traveler Needs

Every experienced business traveler has a set of websites they won't live without.  Our list of travel websites are the tools of our trade -- part of what gives us a competitive edge out there in the world. 

If you're starting out as a business traveler, there's a set of questions you need to be able to answer about your trip.  Here's my must-have website categories:

Which Airplane Seat?

I can't imagine not having SeatGuru.com available.  If you consistently fly just a couple routes, you already know which seats you want.  Since I fly nationally, the only planes I know well are those from Spokane to Seattle and Spokane to Minneapolis.  For everything else, I'm clueless. 

Enter SeatGuru to the rescue!  They have plane maps for each airline's configurations, for each plane in the airline's fleet.  Better than that, they use color to show particularly good and bad seats, and explain why. 

What's the Weather?

Okay, this one's easy.  Weather.com is in my bookmarks.  I can look at the 10-day forecast, yearly averages, and the current air quality -- all easy as can be.  For example, I have an upcoming flight to Los Angeles and wanted to know if the fires would pose an air quality problem.  Weather.com had the answer.

What are the hotels like?

I'm a long-term Hilton member.  For Hilton hotel reviews I search the "Hilton" section of Flyertalk.com's "mile and points" forum.  You'll find discussions of nearly every Hilton property there. Members of FlyerTalk are seasoned travelers, and I trust the reviews.  For "what hotels look good in this city" questions I head over to TripAdvisor.com.  I've found the reviews to be rather wide-ranging and tend to look at the overall tone of the reviews.

How will I get there?

Since buying a Garmin I don't use mapping sites as much anymore.  While I like both Mapquest and Google Maps, only Mapquest is able to feed locations to my Garmin.  If I'm hitting several locations in a row I'll build a route in MapQuest and then download it from my PC to the Garmin.  (What can I say, it's easier to type on a computer keyboard.)

Are flights running on time?

If you don't have the FAA's flight delay site bookmarked on your laptop and blackberry, stop and go bookmark them now.  Seriously!  If you know a region's running slow you can get on the phone and start adjusting your meetings accordingly.  If you're in sales, there's a good chance some of your competition isn't doing this -- remember what I said earlier about getting a competitive edge?

What are my peers saying?

Okay, that question's kinda lame.  But still, I really, really recommend looking at the FlyerTalk forums. 

It was on FlyerTalk I learned about Hilton GLON awards.  (If you're a Hilton Honors Diamond and don't use GLONs, you're spending way too many points on your rewards stays....)

Have a question about a loyalty program?  Someone there knows the answer. 

Need an interpretation of a term of carriage for a particular airline? (don't laugh, there's times when this helps!)  Yep, someone out there has it darn-near memorized.  Heck, the question's likely already been asked. 

Flyertalk is hands-down my favorite resource for learning the ins and outs of traveling. 

We've barely scratched the surface of resources for the business traveler.  This is just an off-the-top-of-the-head "survival" guide of basic site categories you need. 

I'm guessing I missed a few gems.  Fellow business travelers, what sites make it into your "Top 6 List"?

Trying to Sleep on a Plane? Here's Some Tips

Sleeping on a plane comes easily for a few people - my husband being one of them. For the rest of us, trying to sleep on a plane is frustrating to the max. I could sleep more easily in a room full of hyperactive kindergartners than an economy-class plane seat.

If you have problems sleeping on a plane, here are some tips to help.

Get the right seat: try for a window set, in a row where seats recline (some seats don't.) Being in the window seat lets you lean against the wall when trying to rest. The downside of sitting in the window seat is that it's much harder to get to the aisle if you need to use the facilities. Life's a tradeoff.

Avoid caffeine and alcohol: this should be common sense. Caffeine makes us jittery, and alcohol makes us sleep less deeply. Be aware that studies show the effect of alcohol on a plane is double that of drinking on the ground.

Give yourself room: having enough legroom can make a big difference in your ability to get comfortable. When traveling on a long flight, I make a point of only carrying on one bag...and putting it in the overhead storage. I try to only put my laptop, a couple books, and my sleep accessories in the underseat storage.

Try to fall asleep early: it's usually easiest to enter a drowsy state during takeoff. I'm told that during takeoff the cabin has decreased oxygen levels and an increased G-force. The combination of these makes us drowsy. Whatever the reason, I do tend to nod off more easily prior to getting into the air.

Use sleep accessories: a pillow and blanket are crucial to managing your comfort. Earplugs (wax, not foam) and eye masks make a big difference as well.

Before you head out for your next flight, take a few minutes to prepare with some of these tips. You'll have a lot better chance of catching some z's, finally sleeping on a plane.

Five tips for Choosing an Airplane Seat

Knowing how to select a seat on the airplane is one of the marks of an experienced traveler.  You can survive any seat for a quick 1-hour hop.  But on longer flights, or a series of short hops in a row, you'll appreciate good seats.  In my case, my neck and back tell me the difference pretty quickly.  And if I planned to work on the plane, I need a seat that gives me access to my laptop bag.

Here's the list I run through when choosing a seat.

1. Is a First Class upgrade available?  First Class upgrades win, always.  Having said that, I once had a First Class passenger ask for my Economy seat because mine was a bulkhead.  I was more than happy to trade with him.  Usually, free upgrades aren't available until you acquire frequent flyer status -- or in the case of United Airlines, until you earn upgrade certificates.
2. Is an exit row seat available?  I SO love the leg room of exit row seats.  There's some downsides to exit rows.  The seat next to the window usually has less padding and sometimes doesn't have an arm rest.  If I'm in the exit for more than an hour, I avoid the window seat.
3. Aisle or window?  The window seat gives a little more shoulder room.  It also usually has a wider space under the seat in front of you.  On the other hand, a window seat is usually colder thanks to that window.  My rolling laptop carrier figures into my decision.  If I want to work on the plane I'll choose the window seat since the carrier always fits under the seat in front of me.  If I'm just going to read or knit I'll choose the aisle and put my carrier in the overhead.  My carrier's too wide to fit under many aisle seats.
4. Front or back?  Unless you love noise and chaos, choose a more frontward seat.  People who rarely travel (read: families and those who haven't earned frequent flyer status yet) nearly always end up in the rear of the plane.  It's nearly always quieter towards the front.  Oh, and if you're flying United you definitely want to sit towards the front.  United's Economy Plus seats have extra legroom -- love it.
5. Am I familiar with the plane's configuration?  There's five flights I know very, very well.  On any other flight I'll take a quick look on SeatGuru.com.  Before you head over there, take a look at the booking information for your flight.  You'll need to know what type of plane your flight's on.  Once you know that, SeatGuru can show you the configuration of that plane on each airline.  (Did you know that different airlines configure the same plane differently?)  The seat map key uses red, yellow, and green to point out particularly bad or good seats, as well as tell you why the seats were ranked that way.

When you book your next business trip, take a few moments to run through this list.  You'll be glad you did.

Experienced travelers: what other criteria do you use when choosing a seat?  I'd love to hear your suggestions.

I Fly to Work: Opening Post -- sort of

This is my introductory post to I Fly to Work -- and yet it's not.

You see, I ran this blog a couple years ago, hosting it from another location.  Then life got very busy, my job role changed, and I decided to let the iflytowork.com domain lapse. 

But you know what?  I miss blogging.  The business travel life is interesting and ever-changing.  There's ALWAYS something new to learn and share. 

So I repurchased my domain and am hosting it over on Typepad.  I'm hoping to be able to find a few of my older posts to import, but if not I'll recreate them again from scratch.

Who am I?  I'm a "Technical Specialist" (aka sales engineer) for a large technology company.  I live in Spokane, Washington -- which is NOT an airport hub.  I travel about half-time.  I like this level of travel.  I used to travel 100% as a consultant for the same firm.  I don't think I'd ever go back to that level of travel, but I DO like to have some travel -- hence my current job role.

When I first started traveling I was lucky.  I worked with a couple of long-term consultants who showed me the ropes.  I learned the ins and outs of travel loyalty programs, zipping through airports, and generally making the travel life easier. 

In this blog I'll post travel tips, reviews of airports, helpful products and gadgets, and random musings while on the road.  Since I work from home when not traveling I'll also blog a bit about working as a telecommuter. 

I hope you enjoy this blog.  Feel free to send suggestions of any topics you'd like to see covered!