The Travelsites.com guide to business travel

If you work for a large company, chances are you've got a team of people (or a least one dedicated business agent0 that does your travel bookings for you.  This doesn't mean you should blindly accept what you're offered however.  You should always check your flight or hotel options before a trip, using one of the large online travel agents.  Orbitz, in particular, does a good job with business travel requests.

If you know that traffic in your area tends to snarl at rush hour, you'd do well to avoid that time to commute to or from the airport.  If you've got favorite areas of town that you'd like to stay in, you should mention this to the agent beforehand.  Often, this can make the longer business trips a bit more bearable. 

You should also endeavor to be booked on airlines and in hotels that have frequent flier programs that you participate in.  True road warriors like the Travelsites crew regard this as free money that you're earning as part of your job.  Often the miles you stash away can be used to fund free travel for the family or premium items that are given as gifts at the holiday.  Either way, there are savings to be had if you think about where you should be staying or flying!

 The combination of doing a little research and using airlines that earn great mileage points can be really powerful. Often, airlines and hotels have promotions where you can earn double or even triple frequent flier miles. If you can catch one of these deals, you can really bank some miles in your account!

If you're one of the millions of the small to midsized business travelers out there, you probably don't have someone looking to book travel for you. More likely, you're using online sites like hotwire or priceline to book your business trips. Even though the airline portions of these two sites don't lend themselves to business travel, the hotel and rental car areas are made for you. In fact, if you're willing to give up a little certainty about where you're staying, you can save your company a ton of money. Hotwire and Priceline can save biz travellers up to 40% on hotel stays. However, you do give up your frequent stayer points in most cases, and you can't be sure that you're going to end up in a hotel with all the amenities that you need to do your job away from home. For instance, you might not get a hotel with wifi or high speed connections in the room.

If you're looking to book a rental car for business, you can't really go wrong with priceline, as it's renting the same car from the same companies at a reduced rate. Again, you're not going to earn points, and even more onerous for some folks, you will probably end up waiting on lines at the counter. For those who rate Hertz #1 Club Gold or Avis Preferred, it might NOT be worth the savings.

Packing for business travel is also important. If you using some of the eagle creek packing systems you can really pack more into your roller carryon. Of course, you want to get everything into one bag that fits in the overhead compartment. Seasoned road warriors try to avoid checking their luggage whenever they can. It can help you save time in getting to your destination and back home again.

Some of the items the travelsites team recommends packing in your away kits:

1. Bose Noise cancelling headphones for the plane
2. Zagats guide for the city you're visiting
3. Extra batteries or charger for your laptop and cellphone
4. If you're traveling internationally, make sure that you bring a power converter, as voltages in Europe are generally 110, not 220

And of course, if you're really travelling for business, you need to schedule a trip to or at least a layover in Las Vegas.

Travelsites Reviews Business Travel Sites:

  Businesstravel.com
  Americanexpress