For the über-Road Warriors - those who spend their lives on the road

What do you do when you want to find a good deal on a hotel? I’m always wary of paying too much – business travelers like us need some basic hotel amenities and services without the exorbitant prices of luxury hotels. There are a few services that I find to be most helpful in my quest for high quality with reasonable price.

Priceline.com. My best experience with Priceline.com came when I was traveling to Europe and needed to find a place in London to stay for just one night. I had never used Priceline before, but decided I’d try to be a good negotiator (as their ads encourage) and I specified a general area in London to stay, along with the level of hotel I wanted (3-4 star), and price (a price I thought was too low and would never be accepted). Lo and behold, I got a hotel room at an excellent hotel, within walking distance of the Underground, for such a cheap price that my dinner at the hotel cost almost as much as my room! A great discounting victory for me.

HotelsCombined.com. I’ve been known to spend way too much time searching all over the Internet on the various discount travel & hotel sites to find cheaper hotels. This is time consuming and wasteful. HotelsCombined.com takes all those travel sites (over 30 separate sites) and rolls them up into one search function on one site, thus making it a lot easier and faster to see what deals are available across the board. You get to see a large number of hotels with low prices all in one fell swoop on one site. Easy, fast, clean – awesome. I like how you can browse hotels by country on the site, and it also gives you a method of writing and reading hotel reviews.

Are you looking for help in finding cheap airline tickets or discount hotels and car rentals for your business travel? How much time are you wasting running around on the Internet, planning your next business trip? LowFares.com is a free site that is specifically structured to enable you to search dozens of travel websites from one place, thus assisting your efforts to find great travel deals fast.

You simply do a search for airline tickets (or hotels or car rentals, etc, which are all critical components of business travel), as you normally would on travel sites, then pick which travel sites’ results you want to compare, and LowFares then delivers them to you. It’s easy, requiring a minimum of searches. And one of the great things is that it has all the heavy-hitting travel websites in there, such as Orbitz.com, Priceline.com, Expedia.com—basically every legitimate site, so you won’t be missing out on any deals. Another thing I like about the site is that if offers a low fares travel news page where they periodically recap top travel stories.

Here’s a very interesting rewards system for the frequent business traveler that I just heard about. It offers a unique twist in that it does not give reward points or frequent flier miles to participants, instead it actually gives you cash back. Straight up, real cash money—the green stuff. The site is called No-Points.com.

This system is perfect for those business travelers who first spend their own money on business travel expenses, then get reimbursed by their companies (as opposed to using a company credit card or agency for their business travel expenses). The majority of the jobs I’ve had in my life have included this type of process, where I had to bear the initial cost of all my travel expenses, then I submitted an expense reimbursement report at the end of the month.

The No-Points.com cash back system is a great match for travelers who are booking their own hotel stays and flights, for they can do book and purchase through the merchants at No-Points (which include the popular Hotels.com, Travelocity.com, etc), and thus receive cash back for those hotel and flight expenditures, usually up to 5% cash back, and sometimes more. Thus, you, as a traveler, can get reimbursed for your expenses from your company and ALSO get cash back on those expenses.

The last 4 months of 2007 was like a blur to me.  Rather than just cover Europe (my second abode), I had to include another continent -- good ole USA -- to my list of destinations. In addition, visits (reporting to the head honcho) to the headquarters in Japan had to be pencilled into my calendar more often. 

The re-organization in the company wreaked havoc to my travel schedule. It is a temporary thing which will soon be over. At least, that is what they keep reassuring me.

In any case, I am back online over here at KMM.  I've got tons of stories to tell about my experiences as a business traveler, working mother and life observer.  

I've got several entries saved up during the holidays. I'll post them tomorrow. I just want this particular headline up there to alert some people I know (thanks to rss) that I am really back. for good.

Singapore Airlines said that they will have the most luxurious commercial aircraft in the sky.  Well, judge for yourself.

When All-Business Class Airline Maxjet turned 1, they shared their joy by offering a great travel deal: US$999 (taxes and fees included) for a roundtrip ticket to London-Stansted from New York JFK or Washington Dulles.   All travelers had to do was use the promo code ANNV06 when booking.

Now that Maxjet is celebrating another year of service, they are again offering a somewhat similar travel deal, except that this time, you do not need to use a promo code and LA is added in the city of destination/origin. 

Maxjet Turns 2 Sale offers limited seats for the following flights:

London to/from New York JFK
$499 each way, if you fly Tue/Wed/Sat
$599 each way, if you fly Thu/Fri/Sun/Mon

London to/from Las Vegas/Los Angeles
$599 each way, any day 

You have until the end of October to book for travel until February 2008.

I am back again after a temporary hiatus. 

I am used to traveling all over the EU (where I am currently temporarily based) with only 1-2 business-related trips outside the continent. However, due to our company's recent re-organization, I found myself scrambling to get myself from one continent to another and with only a few days to prepare myself.

I was on relatively new ground at work and I had to spend every evening (and even weekends) poring over spreadsheets and writing numerous emails to people who were in the same position as myself.

I have crossed so many time zones that my body is now confused whether it should rest or get up and work.  I have even given up on adjusting my watch.

I have never had this kind of schedule before. 

My mileage is piling up but my work-life balance is definitely tipping over on one side.   And, sadly, I missed that momentous moment when my youngest son took his first steps.

I have 3 more trips scheduled: 2 days in Barcelona from the 23rd of Oct, 3 days in Amsterdam from the 29th of Oct and 9 days in Boston from the 5th of Nov.  After which, I am done. At least, for the year.    

It has been great for my career but bad for my family and personal life.  I will make it up to them soon.  And I will also make it up to Road Gladiator, as well.  

Tired and sleep after having stayed up all night to finish that report?  Need help to boost your energy so you can get through yet another day full of meetings?  

Apparently, all you need to feel refreshed is a quick 15-minute midday nap (that cold shower in the morning should help wake you up in the morning to last you until lunch break) and a cup of coffee.  

"Scientists say that a successful midday nap depends on two things: timing and (no kidding) caffeine consumption. Experiments performed at Loughborough University in the UK showed that the sleep-deprived need only a cup of coffee and 15 minutes of shut-eye to feel amazingly refreshed.

1. Right before you crash, down a cup of java. The caffeine has to travel through your gastro-intestinal tract, giving you time to nap before it kicks in.

2. Close your eyes and relax. Even if you only doze, you’ll get what’s known as effective microsleep, or momentary lapses of wakefulness.

3. Limit your nap to 15 minutes. A half hour can lead to sleep inertia, or the spinning down of the brain’s prefrontal cortex, which handles functions like judgment. This gray matter can take 30 minutes to reboot."

Now if only you can get rid of your colleague after lunch to find a place to crash (if your hotel's location is nowhere near) for a few minutes. 

via LifeHacker
photo source 

A hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) is a vehicle that combines two (or even more) sources of power to provide propulsion power.  It reduces carbon monoxide emission and the use of fuel. 

At least, that is how I understood the explanation given to me by the guy over at Enterprise Rent-a-Car.

I took a hybrid out of curiosity more than anything else.  But I am glad that I did. As I later found out, renting a hybrid car has its advantages:

1. If you know that you will be covering a lot of miles, it will be more cost-effective to rent a hybrid car. Sure, the rental rate is higher BUT you will save a lot more on gas. 
   
2. You'll help save the environment.  Apart from reduced noise emissions, hybrid cars also have less negative impact due to the reduced smoke emissions.

When driving a hybrid car, you have to keep in mind that you need to drive a bit slower (so if you are a Schumacher-wannabe, forget it!) and you have to avoid abrupt stops to avoid wasting a lot of energy.

I'll be in Boston on the 8th of November and I will probably try to get another hybrid from Enterprise at Logan International.  You should try it out yourself. 

[photo source: email]

BigString is, to date, the most interesting e-mail service that I have ever chanced upon.  With this service, you will never...

• feel remorse
• be afraid that the delicate information you sent is being forwarded to others
• say oops for clicking "send" too soon

Heck, with BigString, you can even lie through your teeth and say that you never sent such and such kind of email to anyone.

With BigString, you will be able to make your emails:

• self-destruct
• be recalled or erased after a certain period
• changed even after you have sent it
  
• non-forwardable
• non-printable or savable

You can also use it to send video mails, large attachments and secure mails.

I am getting one NOW!