I had a reservation at a Holiday Inn Express last week for Thursday and Friday.  On Monday I received a call saying they were unable to honor my reservation so I made a reservation at another hotel.

On Thursday I got 2 more calls from the hotel reinforcing that they were unable to honor my reservation (and adding that it was due to flood damage at the hotel).  Then today I checked my credit card statement and I was billed for 1 night for failure to cancel.

Step 1: address this with the hotel directly and have them reverse the charge.
Step 2: get American Express involved to reverse the charge.  Hopefully I won’t have to do this, but American Express always comes through for me and they have a nice online dispute form.

I have saved voicemails stating the hotel was unable to honor my reservation so hopefully this resolves itself quickly.

For five years I have been an on-site trainer traveling all alone 80% of the time.  This has been great experience, but I was looking for a change of pace without leaving my coworkers or my company (since good coworkers are much more valuable than many other things).

My division recently opened a new type of position in Sales and the job description featured all of the extra things I do for my coworkers above and beyond my position so I was a shoe-in.  Now I’ll be classified as 60% travel instead of 80% (which doesn’t sound like much, but I think it’s more like 25%-80% which means some months I’ll probably only make a couple trips).

I’m not sure the full details of the travel, but some aspects are much nicer:

1. All of my expenses just have to follow my company’s guidelines instead of various client policies
2. I’ll most likely always travel with at least 1 other person which means less dining alone
3. I’m sure the sales guys will always pick up the tab so that will decrease the credit card points I get from meals which is a downer, but right now meals contribute very little to my points.
4. I’m hoping that I will be flying home mid-day instead of on the last flight of the night which means I can actually make plans on Friday nights again.
5. We are doing a lot of work internationally right now so I should get to go to more places since I’ll be the only one in this division.
6. I hopefully never have to open MS Project again (but I do need to learn Visio)

Since I’ll be in Sales I do need to upgrade my wardrobe, but if Sales meet their goals the compensation will make up for any clothing purchases.  I do need to check out Corporette and Road Warriorette to make sure I’m doing this whole business wardrobe right.