Monday, February 27, 2012

Business Travel App Helpful in Extended Trips

Business travel trips can last anywhere from a few hours to many months. For ease in your travel trip do hotel bookings in advance for an extended stay, rent a car and use Internet phone calls and services. Think of the extended business trip it may be boring to go for meetings and work all the time. Try to make feel yourself at home during a long business travel trip and think in advance for making adjustments in your meetings time to take advantage of the cool location. After taking long business meetings opportunities will arise for going out to visit the surround area where you are staying. But, the problem people face here is that they don't know the place. This problem is solved after the innovation of the business travel app embedded in your iPhone.
Make the business trip a pleasure trip by using pre planning online calender that you can easily get in business travel app of your iPhone. Just make a schedule of your trip by taking out all important information related to the business trip. First book the flight tickets and for reservations in hotels and hire a rent car. Then find out the place nearest to your hotel for taking business meetings. Although some good hotels will also able to provide a convention hall for the meetings and business parties. Book that convention hall in advance for your meetings. Then calculate your time that you can utilize for visiting the place. Just have a look at the business travel app map which will help you to find the nearest places of your destination. All these information put in your iPhone travel app and it will synchronize all the information automatically.
iPhone business travel app allows its users to know the surrounding area by doing just one click on the app. After tapping the name of the place on your app in only few seconds it will display you the map of the entire location you are staying with it's distance and the important places where to go and visit all you will get in just one click. Make the use of short span of time for doing traveling around the place you are staying for a long time. By using Business travel app you will not feel lonely, the app works for you as a guide that helps you to travel a place which you do not know. This will be a great fun for the Business travelers that have to travel alone on the long trips without knowing the place where they are going.
iPhone travel apps another advantage is that suppose you are going to a destination where you don't know there native language and they also don't understand your language, in this situation what can you do? All you need is just a translator, just install an translation app on your iPhone as it hardly takes few seconds and then use it for doing translation. Write the sentences in English and click on the translation by selecting the language you want to translate your sentences. Then you can show screen of iPhone to the person whom you want to talk. This is how you can communicate to someone who do not understand your language. This will help you in your business travel trip by providing you comfort level as you need on the trip.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Business Travelers - Use the Loyalty Programs For Your Benefit

Many people abhor traveling for business, at least when they have to do it frequently. Others know the benefits and actually enjoy frequent business travel. Those benefits include free personal travel and a more luxurious business travel experience.
There are a lot of benefits when one travels frequently for business and takes advantage of the loyalty programs like the frequent flyer programs. The most highlighted benefit is free travel. With enough points or miles one can fly for free, stay for free, and even get a free car rental. And because they accumulate so many miles, the frequent business travelers can fly when they want and take people with them. However, there are plenty of other perks to being a road warrior.
One of the primary perks of being a frequent flyer is the elite status that comes with being a loyal and frequent customer of the hotels and airlines. There is free and often unexpected upgrades. For the hotels that could mean a free suite rather than a standard room. For the airlines that would mean being upgraded to business or first-class seating for a flight. Then there are complimentary things the hotels and airlines do to make travel easier for their preferred customers. The hotels have quick check-in for loyalty members and often access to lounge areas on the concierge floor for status members. The airlines have quick check-in for members also and allow elite status members to board the airplane first. Then there are the small things like maybe a free snack or refreshment in the hotel room when one arrives. Or a free drink on the plane if one is not upgraded to first-class. It is these perks that make traveling so much easier when on the road constantly.
Frequent club members also get access to a dedicated toll-free number for reservations, which is nice during a busy season that one can get a live person reasonably quickly. As one's status level increases that dedicated service improves. The highest elite levels get their own line with perks available for the asking. Also increasing with the higher elite levels is bonus points and miles. Typically, the highest elite levels get an additional twenty-five percent bonus to the miles or points for each trip or stay. This helps the frequent business traveler get more points or miles for a from each trip.
These perks are so nice and welcomed by the frequent business traveler that they do become fanatics about getting miles or points. They also become experts on their particular programs. Every business traveler needs to join their airline or hotel's loyalty program to start enjoying the free benefits.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

How Companies Can Cut Costs on Business Travel

With countries just starting to get over the economic downturn that affected the world in 2009, companies that have survived are always on the look out for ways to cut costs. Business travel is one of the areas that take up a large amount of company spending. It is true that travel is necessary for businesses whether it is within the country or abroad. However there are ways to reduce on the costs of business travel and thus save your company money.
1. Use of technology. With modern technology now available like web conference and video calling, it may no longer be necessary to travel thousands of miles and spend thousands of dollars in order to attend a conference or be in the same geographically location with the person or people you are doing business with.
2. Use of one credit card to buy cnmpany travel. One major benefit of doing this is that the company will accumulate frequent flyer miles from different airlines and even from hotels which will eventually translate into various awards, like upgrades on the class of travel by an airline, free air tickets, free hotel accommodation and even airport transfers which may be a saving for the company.
3. Negotiate with airlines and hotels for special rates. It is surprising how many companies do not do this and yet the amount of money saved in business travel can be enormous if a company negotiated preferential rates with airlines and hotels many of whom are very ready to provide this if it will mean the organisation patronising their services.
4. Have a company travel policy. Lack of a company policy on travel can lead to unnecessary travel abroad, including excessive spending on air travel and hotel accommodation. A company should have strict policies on when travel can be undertaken and by whom and staff members should be made aware of these policies. Also there should be accountability for any business travel done including reason for travel, class of travel, hotels stayed in and number of days spent on business travel.
5. If your company uses a travel management company to handle its travel and hotel bookings, it is important that they are aware of your company's travel policy and its desire to minimise on travel costs. You should use a travel management company that is willing to work with you in minimising these costs. If possible compare the rates of several travel management companies to determine if you are getting the best rates available in the market. This comparison should be done on a regular basis. Also from time to time, you should ask your travel management company to issue you with reports of all the travel done by your company to help you monitor and know how much you are spending on travel.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

A Beginners Guide to Business Travel Insurance

For business trips, a corporate insurance plan is necessary for those needing something more than standard cover whilst retaining the benefits of a standard travel insurance policy - cancellation, medical, luggage etc
Business travel cover will insure your laptop, mobile phone, palm & other related business equipment & include the hiring of replacement items. This also includes the recreation of business documents lost, damaged or stolen during travel.
3 Key Advantages of Business Travel Insurance
Corporate Travel Cover should add 3 key advantages to the plethora of benefits offered by a standard holiday insurance plan:
  • Business Equipment Cover
  • Hire Business Equipment Cover
  • Recreate Commercial Documents
That is the insurer should pay for accidental loss, theft or damage of equipment (Computer & accessories, other commercial related equipment and business documents).
The insurer should also pay you for the hiring of alternative business equipment in the event of accidental loss, theft or damage to business equipment, including misdirection or delay in transit of said equipment.
With regards to work related documents, the insurer should pay for the re-creation of business documents, plans & presentations if they are lost stolen or damaged.
Question: What if I am going on a combined holiday & work trip? Will a business insurance policy cover me?
Answer: It should. However if you travel regularly throughout the year, you may be interested in purchasing a multi trip insurance plan.
Business Travel Insurance vs Regular Travel Insurance
Remember, with work related travel, lots of wildcard scenario's can occur.
The other company can cancel the meeting at the last minute. This often leaves the travelling company to foot the bill, however this would be covered by standard trip cancellation.
Other incidents can befall a business traveler: general illness, business critical equipment can be stolen, lost or damaged. These factors are all things to consider when booking a business trip.
With regards to the value of your equipment, business trip insurance will provide far more cover than a regular travel insurance policy.
While a regular holiday insurance policy will provide coverage for lost, stolen or damaged luggage, this is not the same as the specific cover for business related equipment.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

A Business Traveler's Guide Can Be Your Best Friend

Do you do a lot of traveling? Whether you travel for pleasure or for business this article may be able to benefit you greatly. There are some things you should keep up on if you are an avid traveler. One of the things, which can help you keep up to date on a lot of information, is a business traveler's guide. In this article we will tell you what the business travelers guide is and why you should never leave home without it.
A business travelers guide will keep you informed on airlines and what is going on with them. This way you are always aware of what is going on in your local airports and destination airports you are traveling to. It will tell you which airline is lowering or raising their prices.
It will also give you traveler's tips. It may give you some things you should do and those that you should not. It may offer you helpful advice on what to do or not to do when traveling to certain cities. These offer great information and let you know what is going on at your next destination.
There may be a travel blog. It can be on different topics like travel safety for example. It may give you some tips on keeping safe during your travel experience. You can never receive enough tips on safety. There may be something there, which you never thought of.
With the travelers guide you will also be able to easily find topics you want to browse. It can be airlines, airports and/or car rentals. It can tell you about flights out of different airports. It may give you information about car rentals. So you can find the best place to rent a car. There are always helpful and instructive topics to choose from.
There may be different articles to read on different topics concerning traveling. These can be on a wide array of topics. For example there could be one on 'How to save room when packing'. Or 'Green Travel Tips'.
There can be videos for you to watch also. One video example might be, 'How to avoid Jet Lag'. Another one they could have would be, 'Tips for traveling with a laptop'.
There are many sites, which you can go too and read a traveler's business guide. If you type it in several options will come up. Places like biz-Journals and WHY Go business travels can easily be found. There is also a business traveler's guide in places like the newspaper. The New York Times has one and a lot of other papers do as well.
If you are an avid business traveler or even one who travels for pleasure, the business traveler's guide will be an advantage for you. It will keep you informed about a lot of your traveling needs. It will also help you find some great traveling deals. It can tell you how to earn points while flying. Tell you about the best hotels in the city you are traveling too. The possibilities seem to be endless.
If you have never checked out these business guides, I would advise you to do so before you take your next trip.