Travel

By Robert McGarvey

 

New research from Expedia owned business travel management shop Egencia says that we like bleisure add ons to business trips – kind of, sort of, maybe.

We’ve lately been bombarded with trend reporting – paid for by hotel interests? – that has insisted that bleisure  has been cresting, especially with Millennials, and for some years I’ve wondered just how accurate this reporting is.

I’ve also wondered if any of this is at all new.

The Egencia research throws light on this.

Understand, I have long personally added leisure in connection with trips to cities that especially interested me in that moment such as New Orleans (and its long recovery from Katrina) and Chicago (where I made a tour of deep dish pie purveyors and grew to like them, but not as alternatives to thin crust pie, just as something different) and Washington DC (which I have liked as a town since I lived there 45 years ago).

I also strongly believe that a little “bleisure” is just the right touch to just about every business trip. See below. But what I’m talking about doesn’t involve extending stays and adding room nights.

That’s from where I sit. What’s the actual fact?

Egencia waded into this to find the statistical realities.  It surveyed 9000 business travelers. And it has some real insights into bleisure.

One finding resonated with my experiences: “Destination location is by far the biggest factor in determining whether or not to take a bleisure trip, with 30 percent of North America business travelers prioritizing location.”

A fun location, the company said, is the #1 reason to extend a business trip.

Agreed. There are towns I have been to a lot on business and have never spent a second more. Las Vegas, for instance.  Houston is another example.  I’ve traveled to both, a lot, in the past decade and like them fine but haven’t seen any reason to prolong the trip.

My point: bleisure always has to be seen as a contextual choice.

Egencia has still other, rich data. A key finding: “Twenty percent of business travelers have foregone adding leisure portions to their trips because of how it may look to their employer. ”

That is, will your bosses think you’re a slacker if you add on a few days to a Phoenix trip to enjoy spa treatments at some of the country’s best?  If you think your boss will see you as a mooch, you’ll go straight home, suggested Egencia.

Egencia offered a qualifier: “Proximity to the weekend may minimize that perception, with nearly one-quarter of respondents saying this impacts their decision.”  Sure. When a meeting ends Friday midday – quite common with many conferences (although most attendees evacuate Thursday evening, in my experience) – what’s the harm in extending and returning home Sunday night?

When the meeting is a Tuesday-Wednesday affair, we have problems.

Another issue in my experience – not explored in the Egencia data – is the role of an at home spouse or partner. Do you really want to go out on the town in the French Quarter while your partner sits at home watching PBS re-runs?

Proximity to family, by the way, was cited as important by 16% of Egencia respondents in making bleisure stay decisions.

Either way, we are doing a lot of bleisure, said Egencia: “68 percent [of respondents] take at least one bleisure trip per year.”

74% of us are planning or considering a bleisure trip in the next six months, said Egencia.

20% made adding in bleisure a resolution for the year.

Is this a generational thing? Naw. The reality is that Millennials, increasingly, carry a bigger share of the business travel can. But that age group has done so, certainly since the 1970s.  Nothing has changed. Baby Boomers had such decisions to make in the 1970s and 1980s, it’s just that the word “bleisure” didn’t exist.

The choices did

Last advice which is my own bleisure prescription: always build in at least one personally important thing on every business trip. That can be a muffuletta at Central Grocery, a visit to the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, a walk through Central Park in Manhattan, a noon Mass at St. Mary’s Basilica in downtown in Phoenix – whatever catches your interest.  I have not always done that (let me count the trips to Las Vegas) and I regret at least some of those missed opportunities (not so much involving Las Vegas).

But I firmly believe that doing one personally important thing on every business trip makes those trips that much more satisfying. It doesn’t require adding on a weekend, just making a half hour for a noon Mass or a similar amount of time for some gumbo and a beer at Emeril’s.  And you don’t need a poll to know this is the right thing to do to add a dash of pleasure your life.

 

 

 

 

By Robert McGarvey

 

The ACLU has now filed suit against TSA, claiming that agents are searching the devices of domestic travelers.

“Domestic” is the key word.  For some years, the US government – along with many foreign governments – has searched devices owned by international travelers.    That’s handled by US Customs and Border Patrol agents and, in 2017, searches were in fact up 60% from 2016.

But the total number of searches in 2017 hit only 30,200.  Customs, by the way, has a clear right to search such devices – only diplomats are excepted – and it can search people arriving or departing, US citizens as well as foreign nationals.

About 80% of searches are on devices of non US citizens.

And, really, not many people are searched.  0.0007 of international travelers in 2017.

Domestic travel searches of devices is an entirely different matter.

And I know many very senior executives who sometimes travel with highly confidential documents – pertaining to merger and acquisition targets, for example – who would freak out if they feared their documents might have been scanned in a TSA search. And maybe they could have been.  

There’s a lot we just don’t know about domestic data searches.

For what it’s worth, TSA denies it conducts searches: “TSA does not search the contents of electronic devices,” a TSA executive told The Guardian.  

ACLU has a different perspective.  “We’ve received reports of passengers on purely domestic flights having their phones and laptops searched, and the takeaway is that TSA has been taking these items from people without providing any reason why,” staff attorney Vasudha Talla told the Guardian. 

One fact: I personally don’t give much of a hoot if TSA wants to search my devices. Not personally. But I do care a great deal if civil liberties are trampled upon and, per the ACLU, that’s exactly what is occuring.

The ACLU staff lawyer, in a press statement, elaborated: “TSA is searching the electronic devices of domestic passengers, but without offering any reason for the search,” said Talla. “We don’t know why the government is singling out some passengers, and we don’t know what exactly TSA is searching on the devices. Our phones and laptops contain very personal information, and the federal government should not be digging through our digital data without a warrant.”

As far back as July 2017, TSA in fact did issue some details in a press statement:“As new procedures are phased in, TSA officers will begin to ask travelers to remove electronics larger than a cell phone from their carry-on bags and place them in a bin with nothing on top or below, similar to how laptops have been screened for years. This simple step helps TSA officers obtain a clearer X-ray image.”

Notice the phrase:  “similar to how laptops have been screened for years.”  I recall the days when , occasionally, TSA would ask a traveler to remove a laptop from a bag and boot it up. I recall sidelining a computer with a bad battery because it couldn’t reliably perform that chore.  I doubtless grumbled…but it didn’t bother me particularly.

What about today? And the apparent entry of TSA into device data searches? The ACLU suit fingers the hottest button: “the federal government’s policies on searching electronic devices of domestic air passengers remains shrouded in secrecy.”

Thus the ACLU suit.

ACLU, by the way, said it had previously filed Freedom of Information Act demands for data from TSA but the agency had ignored those filings.

The US Customs and Border Protection has issued a detailed, 12 page report on its search of devices of international travelers.  It’s extensive and if you have questions, probably the answers are in this January 2018 document.

TSA, by contrast, is opaque.  Per the ACLU suit: “TSA has not made publicly available any policies or procedures governing searches of electronic devices, especially those held by passengers engaged in purely domestic air travel. As such, the public is unaware of the legal basis for TSA’s searches of electronic devices of passengers not presenting themselves at the border and flying on a domestic flight. Further, the public is unaware of TSA’s policies and procedures for advanced or forensic searches, in which external equipment is used to search, examine, or extract data from passengers’ electronic devices and SIM cards. And the public has no knowledge of TSA’s policies and procedures relating to seizure of electronic devices, retention or destruction of data resident on those devices, or use of the device to access data held on a ‘cloud’ or elsewhere.”

Question: if you have a confidential document, how can you shield it from TSA? I’m guessing if it resides in the cloud, not on the device, you might be good to go. But that’s just a guess.

Question: do you need to start carrying sanitized devices on domestic flights – and that’s been the advice of corporate security for international travelers for as long as I’ve covered the space.

There’s just a lot savvy business travelers need to know to keep organizational secrets safe – and right now we just don’t know all we need to know to make shrewd decisions.  Maybe the ACLU suit will shed the light that’s needed.

At least we can hope.

 

 

When I first saw the headline that American Airlines planned soon to roll out its barebones basic economy fares on international flights, I shrugged with haughty indifference: I’d never buy a seat that came without the ability to actually pick the seat so what does this matter to me?

A few days later the horror set in: I will be impacted powerfully. So will you.

Watch just about every carrier pile into this. Delta of course has offered basic economy to Europe for some time.  United now is saying it will be on board with this later this year. Of course all the legacy carriers want to combat WOW, Norwegian and any other no frills carrier with an eye on US international routes. And they’ve decided basic economy is the card to play.

Basic economy international is trending.  And now that I get what’s going on, I want to scream.

Okay, if you fly upfront, none of this much impacts you. But I hear of fewer and fewer organizations that pay for upfront seats, not even on international flights. Sure, I think that’s pennywise (especially with ever better sleeping possibilities upfront) – but I am not and never have been a corporate accountant so nobody on the highest floors is listening to me about this.

And all the rest of us now have to wrestle with Basic Economy’s spread into international travel.

AA spells out the rules regarding its international basic economy here.  There are changes from the US basic economy” fare, notably passengers to Europe do get to check a bag, gratis.  International basic economy passengers also get to use the overhead bin, unlike AA domestic basic economy passengers.

Here’s the one big difference between “Basic Economy” and standard economy for international travelers: “Seat assignments: Free seat assignments are made automatically when customers check in. Customers flying trans-Atlantic Basic Economy can purchase a seat assignment at any time.”

That means they can’t pick a seat when they book the flight a few weeks, or months, out.

Why this impacts us is that – I’m sure you do likewise- when picking a seat I study the seating maps and occupancy, looking especially for empty middle seats next to the aisle seat I always pick.

Often I’ll review my choices a day or two before travel.

Now I have no way of knowing if I have the right seat because middle seats will fill in as the basic economy passengers check in and many of them, count on it, will check in not long before boarding.

My entire system for picking slightly more comfortable seats to Europe is in jeopardy.

Look at the seat map for the AA 757-200.

The 767-300at least has the rows of two seats on the aisles. But picking that aisle seat does not give me an empty seat next to me which is what I want.

Worse: on domestic flights a growing number of corporate travel policies have nudged employees into buying basic economy -or upgrading on their own nickel.  Expect to see similar on flights overseas. Some companies are blocking basic economy but know that others are embracing the perceived savings.

That means there’s a probability that you may find yourself steered into basic economy on an international flight.

What a horror show.

Honestly, I never much missed flying upfront on flights to Europe because when you picked the right seat, on the right flight, there was a high chance of a lot of personal privacy in the back, maybe even more than in business class upfront.

I think those days are just about over however and what we are looking at is the high probability of planes with every seat filled even in coach on international flights.

Know too that upgrades are not possible, regardless of your elite status, when you fly basic economy internationally.

And you board in the 8th group – after everybody else. (Exceptions are made for those with elite status and who bought tickets with certain AA credit cards.)

Basic economy of course also is a scam.  Yes, ticket prices are a little lower – but the evidence is plain that the carriers are making that up with a raft of fees.  In a recent quarter passengers paid $1.2 billion in baggage fees alone – a new record. Delta even has yanked the free checked bag and now wants $60 for that luggage to accompany you to Europe when you fly basic economy.

The worst news is that there really is no alternative to flying when it comes to Europe. From my Phoenix base, I can – and probably will – drive to Las Vegas and Los Angeles. But I sure am not going to drive to Paris.

What should business travelers do about basic economy in international travel? Start by flatly refusing to fly it when an employer asks – and point out that the “economy” often is a false promise.

And begin agitating for employers to pay for upgraded seating because, really, the days of gaming the system to nab a better economy seat on international flights is coming to a close.

The game is over, the carriers have won.

 

 

 

 

 

How many hotel loyalty programs do you belong to?  Probably lots. Personally I have no idea because I take none of them very seriously.  I join because I usually get free (bad) WiFi and maybe a complimentary drink (which I just about never drink).  It takes a couple minutes to sign up and, once I’ve done that, I usually forget I’ve joined. I know I do belong because I get many emails from Hilton, Hyatt, et. al. and although I don’t open them, they do serve as reminders that I belong.

Maybe I am so casual about hotel loyalty because, at least in recent years, the majority of my hotel stays have been booked by clients who are using their preferred provider deals to score the best prices.  Or I am attending big meetings where the organizer made its deal. I don’t usually have much choice and, frankly, I haven’t much cared either. Hotel rooms are fungible in my calculus. The upshot is that I stay at lots of places and have no real loyalty points cache anywhere.

And I haven’t cared.

But the new Fans of M. O. – via Mandarin Oriental – has won my favorable interest.  And its rewards do not include free hotel rooms.

Repeat: no free stays.

That’s fine by me.  When I am traveling enough to win free stays in a loyalty program usually the last thing I want is another hotel stay – and, yeah, I know most conventional programs let members swap points for stuff like fitness trackers, tablet computers, and phones but I already have the gear I want.

What else you don’t get in the M.O. program is status. At least for now, there are no silver, gold, platinum type levels. At least not in the program. But you can bet that Mandarin’s data system tracks its best spenders and already knows who has the status that matters even if there’s no formal declaration. That’s obvious. Talk to any GM in a large group and he will tell you he gets regular updates of arrivals of heavy hitters and he is expected to act accordingly.

Mandarin, I’d bet, does likewise.

What do certified Mandarin fans get? It starts with free WiFi and an “amenity.” Nothing to applaud there. Nothing unusual. Table stakes really.

What is fun about Fans of M.O. is that members get to pick two amenities from a list of 8: Early check in (as early as noon); Late check out (as late as 4 p.m.); daily breakfast; dining or spa credit; room upgrade; streaming WiFi; celebratory treat; or pressing services.

Knowing me, I’d just about always go for the fast WFi and the free breakfast – but if my packing had failed, the free pressing definitely could be a winner and of course, depending upon circumstances, late checkout or early check in might thrill me.  That is, I like the idea of tailoring my choices to the particular trip.  You don’t have to pick two and live by them forever.

Your trousers got soaked in a storm and now you want to swap out a free breakfast for pressing? Maybe you in fact can: “To change your benefits after booking, please contact the hotel to confirm availability,” advised Mandarin.

The only hitch: bookings have to be online.  But that’s no big deal for most of us. I can’t remember the last time I booked a hotel room anywhere except online.

Mandarin also notes there may be some variation in available amenities depending upon the specific property and dates: “Benefits vary according to hotel and date, but we assure you will always have a selection of benefits to choose from.”

Of course bookings also have to be via Mandarin, not third parties, which is a plus for Mandarin – it may actually have figured out with this program how to thwart the rise of OTAs – but again no big deal for me and probably not for you.  I sometimes have used OTAs to book hotel rooms but am not wedded to doing it that way. Directly with the hotel is fine by me, especially if there’s a perk (and a vague promise about “the lowest rates” really doesn’t do it – sorry Marriott, Hilton, et. al.). Mandarin actually is offering things I want.

Press coverage of the Fans of M.O. so far is largely positive.

Want to sign up? Go here.  It took me about two minutes to sign up. It’s fast and unintrusive.

If nothing else, I hope this program triggers a reinvention of the big hotel groups’ programs – which have always seemed plain vanilla, bland and thoughtless to me.

But I wouldn’t hold my breath on that.

 

 

I know the feeling. When a trip looms usually it just seems simpler to make all required reservations in the same burst of activity, typically around two weeks out to get better airline fares. While I am at that, I’ll book a rental car (rarely nowadays in point of fact), make restaurant reservations, and of course book a hotel room.  But that last move may be a sure money loser.

That’s news from Concur, the travel management company, which said its analysis of data showed that a majority of hotel rooms are booked in the 15 – 30+ day window (a staggering 20% are booked more than 30 days out) – and yet, according to Phocuswire reporting, “during the 8-14 day period, most hotels start discounting heavily ahead of the stay date. This can often be to the tune of a 20% fall in the starting price for a property.”

Read that again. It says that waiting to book a room until shortly  before a trip can produce savings of perhaps 20% on the room rate.

Remember, at every hotel “revenue management” is the new Holy Grail but buttonhole most senior execs and off the record they will confide that their “competitors” suck at revenue management and that’s understandable because it’s a data science skill that requires serious analytical chops.  Airlines were the first to master revenue management, usually called yield in that trade. But they threw sophisticated computers and reasonably smart data scientists at a multi million dollar problem. They got results. Meaning they maximize the amount of money they pull out of every seat.

Few hotels have that sophisticated tech gear, or the brainy data scientists, and therefore revenue management in hotels is, shall we say, more informal.

Ten days out and there are way too many rooms empty and what do hotel managers do? Panic. And slash prices, obviously.

And so they do, said Concurs.

Note: these Concur data pertain to Europe, Middle East, and Africa – but you can be sure the same facts hold in the United States.

Book a hotel room for $250 20 days out and you wasted $50 plus room tax on the $50.

Booking early also leaves you more vulnerable to paying cancellation fee penalties – now in force at Marriott (Starwood), Hilton, Intercontinental and more properties.  To me, a traveler who came of age in the era of free same day cancellations (up until 4 p.m. at most hotels), the prospect of paying a night’s rate as a penalty for cancelling with less than 48 hours notice is horrifying.  So I have advised staying aware of the reality that very, very few hotels ever sell out and, therefore, book as late as your stomach allows you (the day before travel is about right, although I have booked on the morning of travel).  You’ll never pay an early cancellation fee.

This Concur rate data adds more fuel to the book a hotel room late position.

Particularly because you will save big money on the room rate.

Concur executive Chris Baker, in a blog post that is rich in data, showed especially dramatic savings for late bookers of high end hotels in Frankfurt and Paris.

Baker also noted that there are real differences in discounting from country to country.  “All three countries” – UK, France, Germany – “then experience a significant drop [in rates] between 0–3 days. However, prices in Germany are only 13 percent below the median whereas the U.K. sees a larger drop to -26 percent. Germany certainly holds truer when it comes to price fluctuation, but travellers and travel managers would do well to book later there in comparison to France and the UK.”

If you wait too long to book a room won’t you wind up sleeping on a park bench? Nope. Definitely unlikely.

Very few hotels ever are fully booked except during truly special events – the Super Bowl or the NCAA Final Four and a few blockbuster conventions.  Waiting until late to book is not that risky.

I am looking at 4:15 pm in Manhattan and tonight I see rooms at the five diamond Pierre ($338 on HotelTonight) and the Park Central near Central Park is $99. HotelTonight has many more Manhattan hotels to choose among.

In Washington DC – where there’s a large credit union convention this week  (GAC) – the Watergate is $299 and a one bedroom suite is $349.  The Kimpton Mason & Rook is $299.  The Washington Plaza, on Hotels.com, is asking $222 and that Thomas Circle place is my personal fave. Again, a lot more hotels are in HotelTonight. You would not sleep in Dupont Circle tonight if you were now arriving without a hotel reservation tonight. There is vast availability.

Bottomline: Book late. Very late. Save money on the room while ducking those hideous cancellation fees. It’s win-win for you.

 

 

 

by Robert McGarvey

 

The first batch of Alexa hotel skills is showing up in the Amazon library and the blunt question is: are they worth your time and bandwidth to download?

I am a big Alexa fan – there are three in my apartment, all different models – and have urged its adoption in everything from hospitality to banking.  Sure, I know the privacy concerns and I still say the cure is when you are having a convo you want to stay secret – really secret – unplug Alexa.  Poof, end of concerns.  I have never done that so assume what you will about my life.

In hotels I am very excited about the possibility that, soon, we will get answers not by calling the front desk or thumbing through an often out of date and neglected and incomplete hotel guest services guide, but by asking Alexa.

Alexa, can I have more towels? Will you turn down the room temperature three degrees? Alexa, set a wakeup call for 6 a.m.

At home I use Alexa – and also Google Home (Siri is seriously bad, imo; I never use it anymore) – to give me lots of info (what’s the weather? Will it rain today?) and also to perform simple tasks (turn on the living room light) and play music. I can also ask for BBC news briefs.

There are reasons to be optimistic about voice controls in hotel rooms. Lots of big players – Marriott included – have pilots. At least one third party developer – Volara – has taken big steps in making Alexa real and useful in hotel rooms.

So I was excited to see that at least some hotels now have their own Alexa skills – meaning you go to an Amazon page, click on the skill and the enable button and suddenly you have controls at a hotel.

Or don’t you?

This Hotel Business story really awoke my interest: Red Roof Intros Amazon Alexa Skills Technology.  

What’s important is that it is next gen.  It puts the Alexa hotel skill not only in the hotel room, but in your home and office.  For frequent guests at a particular chain or property, this could be a game changer.

Of course I immediately enabled the skill and got busy asking Alexa questions.

The Red Roof skill did not perform well, by my scoring.  The problem: a limited set of abilities.

I asked where the nearest Red Roof was. It told me to log into the website.

I asked how many locations Red Roof has. It told me over 500, then made a silly joke (“they all are special to me and call me on my birthday”)  It finished by telling me – you guessed it – to go to the website “to find an inn.”

The Hotel Business piece flagged this particular skill, do you have any deals?  So I tried that. It told me to go to the website.

What did Red Roof hope to accomplish with this Alexa skill? Hotel Business has the answer: “As consumers continue to rely more heavily on technology in their daily routines at home, we created the Red Roof skill for Amazon Alexa in the spirit of added convenience and ability to deliver important, decision-driving information directly to current and future guests,” said Kevin Scholl, director of digital marketing and partnerships, Red Roof. “Our technology is living and we’ll continue to add information to best support users based on consumer demand and aim to provide booking capabilities in the future.”

We’ll see about that last bit because the Red Roof skill really, really needs new powers.  It’s a rather lame skill right now.

A more fun Alexa skill is Lake View Country House – in Windmere, England, Wordsworth country. Ask how to get to the house – it even gives bus numbers from a nearby train station! It will tell you what room availability is on a particular date. It will not tell you prices, however, and neither will it accept bookings via Alexa.  But for a one-off country house in the Lake District, it’s a fun skill.

There really aren’t hotel skills much of use on the Alexa skills page.

It’s a better verdict for Flight Finders.

There you’ll find Kayak, United, Korean Air, Heathrow, Philadelphia Airport, and a few more.  They all have some uses.

Also with Alexa skills are travel advice company Mr. and Mrs. Smith, a growing number of concierge type services, and lots of information based skills.

Bottomline: Alexa is getting more robust. Can you truly plan and book a business trip using only it? Not now.  But soon.  Very soon.

Skills have to become much more powerful. But they will. They will.

How cool is that?

But I’m a sucker for anything that lets me dodge calling the front desk.  How about you?

 

By Robert McGarvey

 

First there was the peacock – a purported emotional support animal rejected by United Airlines.  Then there was the emotional support hamster, supposedly flushed down the toilet at the direction of Spirit Airlines crew.  

Question: what gives with all the “emotional support” animals?

Question: Do they belong on flights?

Somehow – suddenly – this topic has become one of travel’s hottest buttons. There are many who say the animals have no place on the plane. There are others who insist depriving them of their animal is cruelty.

Heated words get tossed around.

Sometimes passengers loudly squabble and punches are threatened.  

Where do you stand?

Personally, I can’t see a business traveler traveling with an emotional support animal – if I’m wrong about that, tell me in the comments – but we are all nonetheless impacted by this.

Know this: emotional support animals are not protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), landmark legislation signed into law by George H. Bush. Service animals are but service animals – dogs primarily – “must be trained to take a specific action when needed to assist the person with a disability. For example, a person with diabetes may have a dog that is trained to alert him when his blood sugar reaches high or low levels. A person with depression may have a dog that is trained to remind her to take her medication. Or, a person who has epilepsy may have a dog that is trained to detect the onset of a seizure and then help the person remain safe during the seizure.”

The US Justice Department specifically pointed out that emotional support animals are not service animals. “Because they have not been trained to perform a specific job or task, they do not qualify as service animals under the ADA.”

It added: “some State or local governments have laws that allow people to take emotional support animals into public places.  You may check with your State and local government agencies to find out about these laws.”

The flap on airlines is not about service dogs – they have a clearcut right to accompany their owners aboard –  it’s about emotional support animals, where, a kind of wild west rules and just about anything can be claimed to be an emotional support beast.  

Third question: do you want to bring Rover on your next flight?  Dress the part. Amazon sells a nifty Emotional Support Dog Harness for $32.95. It even comes in XL; go ahead, bring that mastiff!

Up until now, it has been relatively easy to bring an emotional support animal on board. That is changing.  Effective March 1, United, for instance, will require documentation for accepting on board an emotional support animal.  The carrier elaborated: “In addition to providing a letter from a licensed medical/mental health professional, customers will need to provide a veterinary health form documenting the health and vaccination records for the animal as well as confirming that the animal has been trained to behave properly in a public setting.”

United said it carried 76,000 emotional support animals in 2017. That was up a staggering 77% from the year before.

Delta requires that paperwork be filed 48 hours before flying with an emotional support animal.  

Pretty much all carriers can be expected to tighten the rules for emotional support animals.

Delta, by the way, has said it carries 700 emotional support animals daily and the beasts, it said, are wandering cabins, biting passengers, and relieving themselves wherever.

If you think some airplanes have become aviation equivalents of Noah’s ark, you’re not entirely wrong. Snakes, ducks, even ferrets have been brought aboard as “emotional support” animals. Squirrels and rats, too.

Airlines had been hoping the federal government would step in and regulate emotional support animals but that isn’t happening. A federal ACCESS Advisory Committee has been unable to agree on rules governing emotional support animals.  The Dept. of Transportation has said it intends to draft its own regulations but there’s no sign of them.  

So now the airlines are seeking to step into this void.

Given airline past behavior it is impossible to see any of this going smoothly, or even rationally.  That’s just not how they work.

If you want to bring an emotional support animal on board, be sure to have your paperwork in order and talk early and often with the carrier before takeoff. Rules are in flux. Don’t get caught in the middle.

If you are on the plane to do business and the idea of sharing your row with a python makes you nervous, speak up. Tell the flight attendant.  Tell the python’s owner.  Say Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer. 

But, right now, probably nobody is going to be entirely happy when it comes to emotional support animals. Not those who want to bring them or those who want them banned.  

I don’t blame you if you want emotional rescue – but don’t you know promises were never made to keep?

 

 

By Robert McGarvey

Recent data from Certify, the corporate expense management company, underlines a reality I have known for decades – as have you, probably – but it is one unknown to many of our friends and even co-workers who don’t do much business travel.

You know what I mean. Non travelers always think that business travel means luxury. It is comfort squared.  They seem sure that I regularly bunk down in Ritz Carltons – I remember doing that exactly once on a business trip and indeed I was impressed. That I fly in first class (never but even business class is ever more uncommon today).  That I eat in Michelin starred gourmet restaurants (sometimes but only on my own nickel and never for business).

My travel reality is much more Spartan – but the Certify results say that yours are too.

Certify breaks out results by restaurant, hotel, airline.

We travel much more modestly than many believe.

Big news – a sea change in how we get around – also is in the recent Certify data.  Certify noted that use of ride hailing services by business travelers has exploded.  “Review of the past four quarters compared to 2016 data shows an accelerated shift in corporate travel expenses to ride-hailing services, underscoring the industry disruption and change in business traveler preference. Ride hailing picked up 68% of the overall ground transportation category last year led by Uber and rival Lyft, respectively with 56% and 12% of the total. Uber also claimed 9% of all expenses and receipts processed by Certify in 2017.”

Certify indicated that so far services such as Airbnb have not caught on in a major way with business travelers, in contrast to our embrace of Uber and its ilk: “alternative accommodations with Airbnb have nearly doubled each year in the Certify data since 2014, yet it still represents just under .5% of the lodging category overall today.”  I’m with this. I remain unpersuaded that Airbnb is a business travel accommodation that will be liked by many of us.  

But this is prelude. What really intrigues me is where we eat and sleep, be it ever so humble.

Here are the most expensed restaurants, showing percent of the category captured:

Starbucks: 5.22%, averaging $12.94

McDonald’s: 2.91%, averaging $9.34

Panera Bread: 1.71%, averaging $44.35

Chick-Fil-A: 1.41%, averaging $26.63

Subway: 1.4%, averaging $20.26

 

Our favorite restaurants are these, on a five star scale:

Chick-Fil-A: 4.4

Jimmy John’s: 4.3

Panera Bread: 4.3

Starbucks: 4.3

Chipotle: 4.3

Personally I am all in with Starbucks and Subway, I’m okay with Panera and Chipotle, and, yep, this is about the category and prices of restaurants I expense.  Some of these totals, obviously, have to be meals for several people (you can’t spend $20.26 on a meal for one at Subway, I don’t believe; I spend half that).  

As for lodgings, here is where Certify says we stay:

Hampton Inn: 8.95% of total lodgings, averaging $240.59

Marriott: 8.48%, averaging $272.15

Courtyard by Marriott: 7.4%, averaging $193.11

Holiday Inn Express: 4.63%, averaging $234.64

Hilton Garden Inn: 4.47%, averaging $227.87

Again, yep.  Personally, as I seek to duck early cancellation fees, I have been looking outside the big name brands.  

I don’t recall spending over $300 on a hotel room in the past four years.  So the Certify prices seem right on.

Here, by the way, are our top rated hotels (on a 5 point scale):

Hyatt 4.4
Marriott: 4.4
Westin: 4.4
Hilton Garden Inn: 4.3
Homewood Suites 4.3

No real complaints about those scores on my end.

Note what’s missing from these lists: Ritz Carlton, Kimpton, all the boutique brands.  We just usually sleep in plain jane, mid priced digs.

With airlines, this is what we fly:

Delta: 20.32% of flights, averaging $396.66

American: 18.68%, averaging $316.55

United: 14.44%, averaging $369.67

Southwest: 11.42%, averaging $274.32

Alaska Airlines: 1.6%, averaging $253.14

 

Your faves aren’t on the top five lists? Here are more extensive results.  

Add all this up and we are flying in coach, staying in one and two star hotels, and we are eating in fast food joints.

Sound glamorous to you?

Of course not.  But next time a friend or family member expresses jealousy about your high flying lifestyle just point them to the Certify data.

Personally I have no gripes about bunking at a Hampton Inn and grabbing dinner at a Subway but luxe they aren’t.

 

 

By Robert McGarvey

 

It was 10 years ago that you probably first experienced inflight WiFi and if you are like me you remember that moment with delight.  GoGo rolled out WiFi to a handful of flights on a handful of carriers (American Airlines, Virgin America, Delta, Air Canada, Air Tran Airways and United) in 2009 and, pretty soon, I was picking flights based upon my guess about WiFi availability.

How cool was it to email at 30,000 feet? Very. And, honestly, the speeds just didn’t seem slow back then – in part because users were few.

Meantime, think about today where there’s WiFi in coffee shops, homes, fast food restaurants and – you know what? – it is pretty much ubiquitous. In Phoenix there’s even free WiFi on the lightrail ($4 to ride all day), just about every coffee shop offers it, and so do apartment house lobbies, doctors waiting rooms, and I could on on.

Where we are, WiFi is.

Except on airplanes.

Let’s put aside the issue of how bad – slow, overpriced, unreliable – inflight WiFi has become. There also very real issues around security (or lack thereof), where everybody from crooks to government agencies may be eavesdropping on your keystrokes. We’ll get to that momentarily.

For now what grabs me is that WiFi is very far from ubiquitous inflight – indeed odds are that any given seat will not have WiFi, according to a report from Routehappy. That report says that 43%
of available seat miles (ASMs) worldwide have at least a chance of Wi-Fi on board. Note that hedge – at least a chance. That’s because many planes claim WiFi but it may not in fact be actually working.

That 43% is up from 39% last year – which highlights the slow pace of upgrades.

This means 57% of seats have zero chance of providing WiFi.

US carriers are better than the rest, per Routehappy: “U.S. airlines offer at least a chance of Wi-Fi on 86% of their ASMs, with 85% of ASMs fully rolled out.”  It added: “Non-U.S. airlines offer at least a chance of Wi-Fi on 32% of their ASMs, up by 14% from the 2017 report.”

Now chew on this: “Three carriers now offer Wi-Fi on 100% of their flights: Icelandair, Southwest, and Virgin Atlantic.”  That means many, many dozens don’t. By Routehappy’s count, 82 airlines globally offer WiFi, so that means 79 don’t offer it on all flights.

A morsel of good news is that “13 airlines globally offer Wi-Fi on 100% of long-haul flights: Air Europa, Delta, Emirates, Etihad, Eurowings, EVA Air, Iberia, Kuwait, Lufthansa, SAS, Scoot, United, and Virgin Atlantic.”

Another morsel: “While passengers have come to expect Wi-Fi on large global airlines, many smaller airlines have now begun offering Wi-Fi as well. Air Astana from Kazakhstan, Air Côte d’Ivoire from Ivory Coast, and Air Mauritius from Mauritius are just a few of the numerous smaller airlines that began offering Wi-Fi in 2017.”

Nonetheless, the bad news is that when flying overseas, you have a better than even chance of not having WiFi access.

Despite the rising global ubiquity of WiFi.

Routehappy, by the way, holds out hope for the disgruntled passengers – myself often among them – who no longer even try to use inflight WiFi.  My usual preference is to read a book on my iPad – and I carefully insure the books I want to access are downloaded before I leave for the airport.

At most I will do a fast email session inflight.  But not usually.

But there are glimmers of hope that our increasingly loud kvetching about WiFi quality will be dealt with by the carriers. Said Routehappy: “Best Wi-Fi is now available on 16% of ASMs worldwide, representing a staggering 129% increase from the 2017 report.”  

It defines “Best WiFi” this way: “Fastest Wi-Fi systems currently available, capable of advanced media streaming (whether allowed by airline or not); comparable to a home connection.”

That is good news on first glance but on second what it says is 84% of ASMs don’t have “best WiFi.”

In the 2017 Routehappy report, by the way, it noted that 6% of flights offered “best WiFi.”

There has been progress in bringing “best WiFi” to more passengers globally – but not a lot, not really.

And airlines plan to get us viewing movies and such on this “Best” WiFi – and how good is your cable connection at home when you try to stream a movie on Friday night?

Right.

Don’t expect better even from “Best” WiFi on long, packed flights.  I know I’m not. I saw the drop in inflight quality circa 2012 as more of us discovered it and started using it. Similar will befall “Best” WiFi and it will surely deteriorate.

That’s why for now I’ll stick with my plan to read books on my iPad, maybe make notes in my paper calendar-planner.

How 1999.

But has anything really changed?

By Robert McGarvey

It’s the season. The downtown Phoenix Convention Center is rocking, the daytime high today will be low 60s (the low was 38 – Phoenix rarely freezes), and suddenly downtown Phoenix is abloom with conventioneers, Arizona State students (there’s a huge downtown campus, a satellite to the main Tempe campus), and the arts venues are throbbing.

Now is the time to discover downtown Phoenix. As recently as 10 years ago it was a lot of dirt. This morning there were, count ‘em, four cranes at work.  Every speck of dirt is filling in, generally nowadays with apartments and condos.

Used to be Phoenix and meetings meant in fact Scottsdale, a separate city.  Scottsdale still hosts meetings (I used to live next to the Fairmont Princess in Scottsdale, a place that is always busy with meetings).  

But my advice is this: cajole your meeting planners to meet downtown.

It’s just so much more fun and, in downtown, you are witnessing the rebirth of an area that had died. There is life downtown, plus extremely good food – Beard award winning – as well as good arts. And you can walk everywhere.

It starts with getting there. Hop the light rail at Sky Harbor, the fare is $2.  Yep. Two dollars.  Or buy an all day pass for $4. Downtown is maybe 15 minutes west of the airport. You could take a cab but why? It’s no faster.

Where to stay? If yours is a convention center meeting you have plenty of choices. A Kimpton, Hyatt (probably the closest), Renaissance, Hilton Garden Inn (in an old bank building), the FoundRe, Sheraton Grand (also very close), Westin, Hotel San Carlos (a historic hotel – read TripAdvisor before booking, comments are very mixed), and a lot more. Whatever you want is downtown.  Well, maybe not a real five diamond property, but there are plenty of choices anyway.  

Was me, I’d stay at the Sheraton Grand – Arizona’s largest hotel with 1000 rooms – mainly because of the convenience. But note: the shopping center across the street is an active construction zone. I walk by it just about daily, can’t say it’s especially noisy, but some might complain nonetheless.  

Where to eat? The must go is Beard award winning Chris Bianco’s Pizzeria,  Eat the Wise Guy pizza ($19), fennel sausage and housemade mozz.  Drink a nice Italian red.  Reservations are not accepted. Singles are readily accommodated at the bar. If the wait is too long, you can also get food in Bar Bianco next door.

Bianco’s eatery is in Phoenix’s Heritage Square, a collection of very old houses a few short blocks from the convention center. Bianco’s neighbor in Heritage Square is Nobuo, where the chef is also a Beard award winner. The food is Japanese and it is clever, delightful.  The tasting menu is $80, for around seven courses.

Next eat at Barrio Cafe Gran Reserva, to me Phoenix’s best Mexican food, from Chef Silvana Salcido Esparza. Go with the set tasting menu (there’s a vegan option that is simply outstanding). You’ll eat authentic Mexican foods that will dazzle you with their originality.  Taco Bell this isn’t. The tasting menu – 5 or 6 courses – is $42.  A wine pairing – Mexican pours of course – is around $20.  Technically, this is well within downtown but my advice is to Uber there and back.  Grand Street – where the restaurants is – is a street where many get lost.  

What to do? I’ll tell you my three favorite haunts.

Many weekends in season I am at the Phoenix Symphony (nextdoor to the convention center) where the fare usually is classical music. This weekend for instance it’s Sibelius and Debussy. A night of Mozart and Beethoven is coming up.  Pops are mixed in – a few Sundays ago I saw a Harry Potter film accompanied by the orchestra.  Tickets often are available same day. Prices range from around $45 to a tick over $100. 

The only disadvantage: most concerts play weekends only.

But you still have choices during the business week.  There’s the Heard Museum ($18), probably the nation’s best Native American fine arts museum – with kitschy, wonderful stuff like Barry Goldwater’s kachina collection.  The Heard is open just about every day from 9:30am to 5 p.m.  Go and you will see art that surprises.  

The Heard, by the way, is in “midtown,” adjacent to downtown. It’s an easy 30 minute walk or take the lightrail west to Encanto.  The museum is across the street.

Also go to the Phoenix Art Museum ($18 admission), where I go maybe a few dozen times a year. Closed Mondays. There’s a rotating mix of special exhibits – I loved the Warhol show and was very impressed with a recent exhibition of contemporary Brazilian art.  It’s a manageable museum. You can see a lot in an afternoon.

The Phoenix Art Museum also is on the light rail. Get off at McDowell; it’s right there. It’s maybe a 20 minute walk from downtown.

You want more? Stop in at Bitter & Twisted for craft cocktails.  Step into St. Mary’s Basilica, the oldest Catholic church in Phoenix (across the street from the convention center).  See a play at the Herberger.  See a show at the magnificent, restored Orpheum.  

The list goes on. There just is so much to do in central Phoenix.  And in the winter there is no better city for walking.