Travel 2.0+

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Adam R. Cox on March 20, 2008 at 12:19pm

Last year I took about 47 trips for business. Some were just overnights, more were 2 nights others were 3 night and two were 5 nights. I generally traveled via (Alaska Air) regional airline, rented a car and stayed @ Holiday Inns. (They all blur together unless something weird stands out then I remember it).

What steers me to use Alaska and Holiday Inn are several things.

1) Point system. I have 4 flights on Alaska and as of now 276K on Holiday Inn.

2)Upgrades: Alaska allows me to get in front of people when I want to get on a earlier flight. Very cool! I also get front of the line on stand-by too!

Holiday Inn upgrades me automatically if a better room is available. Very nice, except there are many times I have a Jacuzzi and fireplace and my wife is @ home with the kids. (I don't tell her about the rooms anymore).

3) Rooms @ Holiday Inn are great. There is only one town that I avoid and they have a great Hilton.
Free Beer & Wine on Alaska Air. Very nice. I generally do not take advantage of that because I am on the clock.

I use the companies travel website and not others, due to policy. I do read the company version of where I am staying. But if I have not been to the area, I surf/google to find out what people say about it.

I will look for and use the advice from other business travelers who know the area. Also if a family is traveling back to a place, I will ask why. Repeat customers will tell you like it is. If they had a bad experience during their trip, but are going back something got them back.

Just my 2 cents again.

Permalink Reply by Judy "the foodie" Asman on March 24, 2008 at 9:56am

Nice, Adam,

Thanks for your comment.

Personally, I can't remember the last time I made any travel arrangements without first starting with Google. I think if we pay close attention to our day-to-day habits, we'll find how much of our consumer decisions are driven by that first step, which is, you know, "looking it up on the computer."