Recorded in the beautiful home office of Chateau’ Relaxo, FL.
In the words of the immortal Frank Sinatra, “Regrets, I've had a few” and when it comes to travel there have been more than a few regrets.
Before we head into regrets, how about a few travel non-regrets, if that’s even a word.
I have no travel regrets when it comes to food experiences -
* Gator tail in McComb, Mississippi.
* Homemade moonshine in Mobile, Alabama.
* Deer sausage in Statesboro, Georgia.
I have no travel regrets with my travel gear. My travel gear has evolved over the years and has kept up with my travel demands. The only two pieces of travel gear that I have had for the past 20-plus years are a 1990 Mont Blanc pen and my travel wallet that holds all my travel loyalty cards. Yes, I still carry it even though most of the information in it is now stored on an app on my phone.
I have no regrets about my, as my wife calls it, my “Travel Withitness”. Withitness is an educational system term, probably made up by someone that was way overpaid, but it centers around the ability to perceive needs with accuracy and care. I think. Thankfully my travel withitness has allowed me to basically keep up with the times.
* Mapquest - GPS - App
* Travel agent booking - online booking - booking using an app
* Taxis - hotel buses for transportation - rideshare
Not sure if my travel non-regrets are worthy of an episode, but as my idea pool runs dry, you never know.
Enough about the travel non-regrets, it’s time to talk about my travel regrets.
Regret number one
In Sales 101 you’ll be told or you’ll learn, “Do not leave money on the table.” And that’s the focus of my first travel regret.
* AirTran free flights
When I first started traveling I was based out of Atlanta, as in Atlanta, Georgia the world headquarters for Delta airlines. What did I do, I decided to hook my suitcase to the now-defunct AirTran Airlines. However, there was a strategy, possibly not a great strategy behind my airline of choice, but a strategy.
In 2000 Delta-based medallion levels, which translated to points for free flights and upgrades were based on a few factors.
* The number of miles flown
* The number of dollars spent
* The number of connections
So let's deconstruct this a bit. At the time you had to hit two of those three metrics to progress through the levels of Delta medallion status.
* The number of miles flown - At the time I flew domestic, and what’s more domestic than flying strictly in the Southeastern part of the United States. This equates to a bunch of 500-mile flights.
* The number of dollars spent - I’ve always been a steward of my company's money….. Enough on that.
* The number of connections was the lynchpin in this whole status level conundrum. To this day almost every flight connects in one of Delta’s hubs. In 2022 if you fly Orlando to Newark you will stop in Atlanta. In 2000 that counted as two connections, round trip four connections. So in the year 2000 if you didn’t fly out of a Delta hub you could easily add to the number of connections.
During this time many road warriors would take medallion runs at the end of the year. Medallion runs meant you booked flights with as many connections as possible to help maintain your current or achieve the next level of Delta medallion status.
So that’s the reason I flew AirTran. At the time their system for free flights was very simple… it was based on the number of flights aka round trip = 2 flights…. That was it, no miles, no dollars spent, and no connections.
All these years later I still recall that 6 round-trip AirTran flights netted me a free round-trip ticket. So I flew AirTran till 2004… more on 2004 in a bit.
In 2003 I got a promotion, and that promotion included a new office, a corner office with floor-to-ceiling windows on three of the four walls. As I moved into my new office I came across a black binder clip full of Airtran boarding passes. Boarding passes were what AirTran used as currency for free flights. That binder held at least 12 round-trip tickets.
The lesson or the regret here is, Don’t leave money on the table……
Regret number two.
* Next no hotel loyalty
I started business travel in the year 2000 and for my first 4 years of business travel, I booked hotels based on these two factors.
* I stayed where my coworkers stayed, and being the quote-unquote new guy, yes even after four years, I never offered input and just followed the crowd
* For some reason, I felt compelled to stay as close to the meeting site as possible.
Typically those two factors will never help you to build any hotel loyalty which translates to hotel points that you can use for leisure travel.
I stopped doing this in 2004. More on 2004 in a bit.
Why is hotel loyalty important? I’m glad you asked.
* If you don’t establish hotel loyalty you will end up with a small number of hotel points spread across multiple hotel brands.
* In my case being close to a partner or meeting site really had no bearing. I wake up at 6:00 AM, 6:15 AM at the latest, yes I do this on the weekend even if a meeting begins at 8:00 AM that still gives me 90 minutes of lead time.
* Possibly one of the biggest reasons for hotel loyalty is this…… the hotel staff gets to know you, which is code for an extra snack at check-in, possibly an upgrade, and most importantly a reservation when the hotel's website shows “No Vacancy”.
The lesson here is to pick your hotel brand, possibly two at most, and stick with them even if you have to wake up 30 minutes earlier than usual.
Regret number three
* My travel intervention didn’t come soon enough
Ok, time to talk about 2004. 2004 was when I had an intervention, and that intervention came in the form of a friend of the show Chris Brown. Chris was hired and showed up at our regional office on a Monday morning, because everyone, to this day, starts a new job on a Monday. I was told to show him the travel ropes as we were paired up together for client visits. First, a disclaimer, to this day Chris and I are great friends, even though I don’t have the Star Wars chip.
In 2004 if anyone thought that I could show anyone the travel ropes…. They were greatly mistaken. Chris understood travel.
On our first trip, Chris asked “Where are we going to stay?” I said someplace close to the account. This was followed by “What hotel chain?” I replied with …. one that is close to the account. This exchange continued throughout the week with my answers being along the lines of “close to the account”. On Thursday of that week Chris asked “ What hotel loyalty programs do you belong to?” Knowing 2004 me, I probably smiled and proudly proclaimed, “All of them!” Chris quickly countered with, “The Person Who Chases Two Rabbits Catches Neither” and he was and still is correct.
That evening in the hotel lobby Chris showed me how to strategically map out my territory in relation to airports, hotels, and major interstates.
It was that evening that Chris deemed me a “Marriott Guy”. Why Marriott? Because Chris was a Marriott guy and he wasn’t about to change that on my behalf especially since we had been paired up and I had no idea what I was doing.
In addition to his shiny Marriott “brag tags” and brag tags are these luggage tags that airlines and hotels send you as you move through their various reward program levels Chris had a shiny black Marriott credit card, and all I had was the typical corporate-issued green American Express card.
This leads me to regret number four…..
* For the first 4 years of travel. I used my corporate-issued green American Express card.
That same Thursday evening in that same hotel lobby, Chris asked, “Why do you use the corporate-issued credit card?” My answer was, “Because they issued it to me.”
Chris “Did they tell you that you had to use it?”
No…..
“Then why do you use it?”
“Because they issued it to me.”
Moments later I was on Marriott.com completing a credit card application. I was now officially a “Marriott Guy” according to Equifax
Chris, newly employed Chris as in day four of Chris’s employment and he wasn’t using, had no intentions of ever using his corporate issues credit card. Me, I don’t think I took a coffee break until my third week of employment.
So I missed out on four years of points, points that could have been converted into travel or tangible goods.
This next regret involves those points or at least not using those points.
If you spend any amount of time on the travel blogosphere you will come across post after post on how to establish value for those points. Is it better to use the points for airfare or for hotel stays? Which credit card offers the best dollar-to-point conversion. It’s paralysis by analysis.
To this day, my system for cashing in points isn’t so sophisticated, it typically involves five questions
* How many points does my account have?
* Will I be sad if that balance decreases?
* How much money do I have in my bank account?
* What’s my current credit card payment for the month?
* And finally when is it due?
After I answer those I perform some Chateau’ Relaxo math and decide to either use points or pay for it. As I said, not that sophisticated and this system varies monthly.
Here’s a quick Hilton travel tip. When it comes to leisure travel and you’re paying cash for the room always look through the room offerings because Hilton will often offer double points for the stay. It might be $15.00 or $20.00 more for the night, but this is a cheap way to add points to your account If it's for business travel don’t try to bury that room rate on an expense report.
Regret number five.
I’m a “Watch Guy”, still looking for that Rolex GMT Master to be gifted to me.
In 2006 Marriott’s website offered a page of goods that you could spend your Marriott points on.
Bose headphones
Mont Blanc Pens
Ping Golf Clubs
Kitchen Gadgets
And a Tag Heuer Formula 1 Watchfor right around 125,000 points
Now to most watch purists, a Tag isn’t what they consider a grail watch, or at least the Forumla 1 isn’t. But for someone that’s 32 years old with two young children, we just didn’t have the spare cash to buy that type of watch.
It was because of Chris and his advice to focus on hotel loyalty and stop using the company credit card that I had accumulated well over 125,000 in just a couple of years.
To end the story I didn’t pull the trigger on the Tag, and I can’t remember why, but looking back I wish that I had ordered the Tag.
When you talk about regrets all of us have at least one, and while we often correct the behavior that caused the original regret so that it doesn’t happen again there are still lingering pieces and parts of the original regret….. What the hell did I just say?
Over the course of the past two years, there’s been a trend to Focus on Experiences, Not Things.
This is where travel regret number six comes in.
And this is a true travel regret because for years I focused on travel things or things from travel, and not the travel experiences.
And in the words of Tidy McTidy, aka, Marie Kondo, all of those travel things bring me joy.
* The artwork from New Orleans
* The hand-blown glass pineapple from Williamsburg
* In Kentucky, I picked up some tobacco sticks that are neatly stored in our umbrella stand
* And the antique liquor decanters from Tennessee sit on my bar cart
All of those things plus many more things from my travels, bring me great joy.
However, for the first 8 or 9 years of business travel, I didn’t spend any time exploring the places that I was visiting. It was travel, hotel, meeting, and hotel…. Then repeat.
I understood the major destinations, we all do. For instance, when I first went to New Your or New Jersey I knew that visiting the city was a must. In Philadelphia, I knew a visit to the Liberty Bell was a requirement, and yes the crack is still there. And no visit to Atlanta is complete without stopping by the World of Coke or Centennial Park.
But it took me those first 8 or 9 years to realize that there are experiences in every town that I visited.
* Charlotte, NC there is the Whitewater Center.
* Cleveland, MS the Grammy Museum
* Dallas, TX you can get a tour of the AT&T stadium
* Fort Lauderdale, FL houses the Internationa Game Fish Association just in case you’re into fishing.
So how do you find these hidden gems? Yelp and Google maps are a great place to start, with TripAdvisor as a backup plan. Nothing against TripAdvisor I just routinely contribute and reference Yelp and Google maps and not TripAdvisor.
The ultimate backup plan is to ask the hotel staff or the clients or family you’re visiting. These folks will know the hidden gyms.
So think about the things that you enjoy doing during your everyday at-home life.
* Outlet Malls
* Breweries
* Book Stores
* Frisbee Golf
* Geocaching
* Presidential Libraries
I’m willing to bet that you can find an experience no matter where you’re visiting. And if you do, use one of those social media sites and let everyone else know.
That’s it for my travel regrets
If you want detailed show notes, links and pictures head over to podpage.com/travel-stories/
Please leave a message onAnchor, or shoot me an email atTravelFrick@gmail.com.
As I always say, travel safe, stay safe, and thanks for listening.
Thanks for listening.
As I always say, travel safe, stay safe, and thanks for listening.
Thanks for listening.
