It’s happened to so many of us. You’ve landed a job right out of school, and realized you can’t wear yoga pants and tee-shirts to work. Or you just had a baby and need a transitional wardrobe until your old clothes fit you again. Or (as happened to one unfortunate person on a message board I frequent) your husband accidentally dropped off your dry cleaning bag at Goodwill. You need a work wardrobe, and you need it on a budget. The variables increase when your job includes travel. I’m going through this right now, and while it’s fun (hooray shopping!) it’s also stressful having to start from scratch. Here are some tips for getting a business travel wardrobe on a budget, as well as a sample capsule wardrobe to start with. (For more in depth advice, check out my Building a Business Travel Wardrobe series.)

Prepare to spend a little time. Any time you have a budget, you have to spend a little more time planning and searching. That’s okay! It means you will get the absolute most for your money.

Professional, comfortable, and wrinkle-free. These are the most important features of any business travel wardrobe.  Obviously you want to look professional, but comfort is just as important. Any time you spend hours traveling to your destination comfort is key! And once you arrive, you certainly don’t want to waste your precious time ironing.

Shop the sales and outlet malls. Nordstrom has fantastic sales on really nice merchandise.  I also love the sales at Talbots and Ann Taylor. Likewise, outlet malls can have amazing deals. The catch: it takes a lot of time to comb through the rough to find the diamonds.

Sign up for email lists. The best way to find out if your favorite store is having a sale is by email. Before I signed up for Banana Republic’s email list, I never knew they regularly had 40% off the entire store. Talk about a great deal!

Spend the bulk on basics. Definitely spend more on slacks and skirts that you’ll wear over and over again, and less on tops and accessories. Also make sure those items are a neutral color that will go with everything you buy.

Discount stores are great for trends. Target and Old Navy always have fun tops and belts for low prices, plus amazing sales on a regular basis.

For a basic business travel wardrobe, I would start with the following: Read more of this article »

Business Travel 101 is a series from a couple of years ago about making that first business trip as easy and successful as possible. I’ve re-tooled the series, and now it’s more comprehensive than ever! It covers everything a new business traveler needs to know for that initial trip, including essential tips for packing, security, safety, etiquette, and comfort.

For some people, sitting in a cramped, crowded airplane feels the same as sitting in their office. They are comfortable, can get work done, and reach their destination feeling refreshed and ready-to-go. I am not those people. I have to work at feeling comfortable on a plane, sometimes have to talk myself into working, and more often than I’d like, I arrive feeling exhausted and frazzled. There are tricks I’ve picked up on over the years to make the whole flying process easier, and I hope they help you too.

• Pick your seat online. If it’s possible to pick your seat before you check in, you have a better chance of avoiding the dreaded (and uncomfortable) middle seat. For Southwest, make sure you check in as close to 24 hours before your flight as possible to give yourself an earlier boarding number (or pay the extra $10 for Early Bird check in).
• Wear comfortable, wrinkle resistant clothes. The easiest way to feel good during travel: comfortable clothes.  This is not the time for tight-around-the-midsection pants or a movement-restricting shirt. Make sure that you feel good sitting for long periods of time in whatever you wear. I prefer slacks with a bit of stretch in them and pullover blouses, not button downs, as well as flats.
• Stay hydrated. This is important for comfort, health, and looking good. Drink at least 8 oz of water for every hour you are flying. This will keep you from getting dehydrated, which in turn keeps you feeling more alert and prevents your skin from drying out.
• Bring a pashmina. I know I talk about the wonders of the pashmina often, but when you are freezing on your next flight you will be really glad you brought one. This time of year you can use it as a blanket while flying and then as a scarf once you arrive. It can also work as a pillow if you have a window seat. Hooray multi-taskers! (Pictured: the lovely cashmere blend wrap from Nordstrom)
• Keep your skin hydrated. I always keep lip balm with me when I fly because my lips get super dry. A friend of mine always keeps lotion with her because her hands get really dry. If you tend toward dry, you will feel much better if you can address these issues before they become problems.
• Wear comfortable shoes. Shoes that are too tight can become painful during flights. A few years ago I was flying home from California, and because I was running late to the airport didn’t get to change into my softer, more flexible shoes. That flight was miserable–my feet were cold, sore, and hurt a LOT. My advice is to wear shoes that are flexible, breathable, and even a little bit loose.
• Bring entertainment. Whether it’s work, a book, music, knitting, or something else—you will be happier if you have something to do. If your flight is bumpy and the person next to you is snoring, it’s much easier to block out the annoyance if you are involved in an activity.
• Snacks! It’s always a good idea to carry something to eat. You never know when you’ll be stuck on a tarmac for hours with no food, or when your flight will be delayed and you won’t have time to grab dinner in the airport during your layover. Trust me, a granola bar, piece of fruit, or some nuts won’t take up much room but could save your trip.

Readers, any other tips for being comfortable on the plane?

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For the last six years, I have been Platinum on American. The first year at my job I did the challenge (free back then—those were the days!) and achieved Platinum in six weeks. I’ve maintained it since, some years due to segments and others due to points. This year I had to stop flying in the middle of June, and will certainly not requalify for Platinum, just Gold.

Obviously this is a bummer, especially for someone who travels as much as I do. Once I go back to work, I expect travel to be at typical levels, and I would really like to maintain my status. I’m considering calling the Aadvantage Customer Service and just asking if there is anything they can do. Can they see that I got halfway there and then stopped, after six years of consistent travel levels? Do they care enough about their frequent customers to be flexible?

There are a lot of threads on Flyertalk asking if anyone has had success, with a lot of discussion but no results. Has anyone ever asked for a status exemption with an airline? Did they grant it, or just refer you to the challenge?

What do you think, Readers? Is it worth asking for? Or does it make me an entitled brat to even consider?

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Fairfield Inn and Suites is celebrating their silver anniversary! During September they are giving guests a chance to win weekend getaways. The promotion is almost over, but don’t despair. To celebrate their 25 years, they are giving away a $250 Fairfield Inn and Suites gift card to one lucky Road Warriorette reader!

How to win? It’s simple, as always. Leave a comment answering the following question: What are the two things you can’t live without during a business trip? The winner will be drawn at random on Tuesday October 2. As always, only one entry per person please.

There are a bunch of things I can’t live without on a business trip, but the top two are pretty easy: my iPhone and pashmina. Both are multi-functional and have saved me many times on many different trips! So what are your two things?

Good luck!

Thank you, everyone, for entering the contest to win a Traveler Truth Prize Pack from National! The winning truth, as chosen by National, was from carwag25:

Number 1 rule for me is never forget my driver’s license and/or passport. I drove two hours to the airport once and when the ticket agent asked for my ID, I realized that my driver’s license was two hours away. Thankfully I pleaded with the gate agent and showed every credit card, club card, blockbuster card, and business cards that I had, and they allowed me to get on the plane.

Great tip! And good story. I would have been freaking out if that happened to me…. Congratulations!

During the many conferences I attended this year, there was one important lesson that I should have learned but didn’t. It started at the super long two-week conference. Between the laptop, iPad, notebook, knitting, snacks, water, pashmina, conference freebies, and other miscellaneous items, my purse was full. Like, super packed and really heavy full. It was so heavy, in fact, that several people I was traveling with wouldn’t let me carry it, as I was six months pregnant at the time. A woman in my group carried around as much stuff as me, but in her fabulous houndstooth print rolling briefcase, as opposed to a purse that went over her shoulder (similar to this one from Overstock). Needless to say she had a much more comfortable conference than I did. I noticed her bag, and thought, How clever and lovely! Yet it didn’t even occur to me to get a rolling briefcase of my own before the next two conferences I had to attend, where I was seven and eight months pregnant. Whoops.

The moral of this story, friends, is that if you are going to a conference, or any trip where you will need to be carting around a lot of stuff, get a rolling briefcase. Otherwise you will carry too many things in your shoulder bag and end up being uncomfortable and possibly hurting yourself. If you only use it a few times a year, there are plenty of inexpensive options, and it is so worth it!

Readers, have you been to an event where you wished you had a rolling briefcase?

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Business Travel 101 is a series from a couple of years ago about making that first business trip as easy and successful as possible. I’ve re-tooled the series, and now it’s more comprehensive than ever! It covers everything a new business traveler needs to know for that initial trip, including essential tips for packing, security, safety, etiquette, and comfort.

I often feel the goal of my blog is to help people have calmer, more peaceful trips. Preparing well, packing simply, and being mindful of your fellow travelers are all things I focus on often. If travelers enacted these practices, the traveling world would be a better place! We’ve talked about preparation and packing, therefor the obvious next Business Travel 101 post is about etiquette.

Etiquette is something I feel strongly about in my everyday life, as well as my travel life. Not necessarily the traditional, so-many-rules-it’s-hard-to-remember-them-all etiquette, but simply recognizing that you are not the only passenger on the road and acting accordingly. This is a list of my favorite etiquette guidelines, but not by any means all encompassing. If there is one that means a lot to you that I missed, let me know! And let’s all travel nicely.

Security

• Be prepared to go smoothly through security.  Know what the current security rules are for the location you are traveling through, and follow them. Have everything ready to go (laptop, bag of toiletries, shoes off, etc) as soon as you get to the bins. Have all change out of your pocket and your boarding pass out for people to see.
• Once you get through, grab your bags and bins and move over to the nearby benches so you don’t hold up the line.

Carry-on

• Know your airline’s guidelines. All major airlines have the size and weight restrictions for carry-ons on their website. If your bag is too big, they may make you check it. Also, there are slightly different size requirements for international carriers vs. American carriers, so make sure your bag works for each continent you’re traveling in.
• Make sure you can lift your bag. You may not be able to depend on having people around you that can help, and some flight attendants are prohibited from helping customers put bags up.
• Put your suitcase on the correct side of the airplane, facing the correct way. Listen to what the flight attendants tell you to do, and do it. If one side of the plane is made to hold rollaboards, please put your suitcase there.
• Only put your large bag in the overhead. Put your purse or briefcase under the seat in front of you, until you know for sure there will be room. Also, don’t put your jacket in a bin unless it’s going on top of or in front of your bag.
• Put your bag in the bin as close to your seat as possible. If you are sitting in row 25, and there is no room over 25 and there is room over 23, that’s one thing. But if you’re sitting in row 25 and you put your bag over row 8, the people in row 8 won’t have room.
• Don’t make it your plan to gate check.  If you bring a normal sized carry-on that you are happy to bring on the plane or to gate-check, that is one thing. But please don’t bring an oversized bag on the plane expecting they will make you gate-check it. If you are bringing too much stuff, check your bag. If you don’t want to pay the fee, bring less stuff. Don’t slow everyone else down because you’re trying to save $20. Read more of this article »

Texas has finally cooled down a bit. This week we have sunny skies and temps in the mid-eighties. Woohoo, fall is here! It makes me dream about driving around the hill country, enjoying the scenery and lovely weather. This, in turn, has got me thinking about cars in general. I love, love, love my Prius. But I also love being able to try out different cars when I’m traveling. Of course I usually have to take whatever my company allows—I’ve spent a lot of time in Ford Focuses (Foci?) and the like. But I’ve also been lucky enough to get randomly upgraded on a pretty regular basis. Most memorably I’ve driven a Dodge Charger (that baby has some power!), a Mustang (bright yellow, not subtle), and a convertible Beetle (because in beautiful California, why not?).  If I had to choose a favorite, I’d choose the Charger, as it was super fun to drive.

So, because I’m curious, and in honor of our current contest, I want to know what type of rental car you would choose if it were up to you (and not company policy). If you want to leave the specific model in the comments that would be great!

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Don’t forget! Win a Traveler Truth Prize Pack valued at $499 from National Car Rental. Today is the LAST day to enter!

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Today’s guest post is from a fellow Boarding Area blogger, Mommy Points. She writes about the quickest, easiest ways to maximize points—leading to fantastic vacations for her family without spending a dime. Thanks so much for the post!!

With Road Warriorette temporarily somewhat home-bound with her infant, I happily agreed to do a guest post so she could spend some extra time with her brand new family member.  I very clearly remember how busy those days with a newborn can be!  I do a fair amount of traveling myself, but my time away from home pales in comparison to my husband, who is a true Road Warrior.  Recently, he has been away from home at least part of the week every single week for months.  We have a two-year-old child, and I can tell you from first-hand experience how hard it is having a family separated frequently due to work obligations.

While clearly the main purpose of his business trips is because his work requires it, and having gainful employment is a necessity, what makes the trips much more tolerable for us are the miles and points he earns on the road.  Call it a consolation prize to sleeping alone, doing the bedtime routine alone, packing lunches alone, doing dishes alone, teaching a two year old how to effectively communicate with Daddy on the iPhone, etc.  When it became clear that his work travels weren’t slowing down anytime soon, we sat down and strategized how to maximize his time away so that we can reap some free vacation benefits of our own down the road by using the elite status and points he earned while away.

Here are some steps we went through when deciding how to maximize his mandatory travel for our own vacations:

• Look at the number of nights you are likely to have in hotels in a given year, and then go after hotel elite status accordingly.  For example, my husband will have well over 50 nights in a hotel for work in 2012, so we decided it made sense for him to obtain top tier status in both Hyatt and Starwood.  It is usually easier to qualify on stays vs nights, so he did 25 one-night stays at Hyatt hotels to re-qualify for Hyatt Diamond status by late April.  He is now almost done qualifying for Starwood Platinum status via a “Platinum Challenge”.  By doing this we will have our choice elite status with two hotel chains when we travel as a family.  Suite upgrades, free breakfasts, food and beverage amenities, free internet, etc. are now all ours free on family vacations as a direct result of his mandatory business travel.  The same principles hold true for airline status, as having elite status with an airline can result in first class upgrades and a more seamless travel experience when you vacation with your family.
• Pay attention to hotel promotions.  Virtually all of the major hotel chains run points promotions off and on throughout the year.  Assuming you have some flexibility in selecting your hotel chain while traveling, give some thought to who has the best points promotion going on at any given time.  Again to use my husband as an example, we knew he was going to have a cluster of Starwood Preferred Guest stays at some point in the year.  When SPG announced their “Better by the Night” promotion that allowed you to earn triple SPG points by having 15 nights or more in a three-month period, it made perfect sense to time his SPG stays within that three month period.  By doing so he is earning triple the number of SPG points than he would have by ignoring the available promotions.  Earlier this year when Club Carlson was offering up to 50,000 points for staying just one night at one of their hotels, we were sure to switch his business stays to Club Carlson hotels until he maxed out that promotion.  Those points were then used to stay at a hotel in London during the Olympics we would never have been able to afford otherwise.  We earn tens of thousands (or perhaps hundreds of thousands) of additional hotel points per year just by being strategic about promotions.  Along those same lines, register for every hotel promotion that may possibly be relevant for you, as you never know where your business travels may take you.
• Register your business cards for dining rewards programs.  Of course, don’t register your corporate cards for anything your boss would disapprove of, but there are many hotels and airlines that participate with the iDine Rewards program.  There is no charge for this program, and you can earn miles for meals on the road that you were going to eat anyway.  Like most road warriors, my husband eats out virtually every meal while away from home.  Some of the meals happen to be at restaurants where he earns miles for every dollar he spends.  He now has “VIP” status with the MileagePlus Dining program, so he earns 5 United Miles per dollar on those meals.  Since some of his meals involve paying for clients and coworkers, the number of points he can earn from this really add up quickly!  Once you register, it requires no additional work, so it is an easy way to earn some extra miles.

There are many more ways to squeeze the maximum points value from business trips, but those are a few of the strategies that have worked well for us.  Enjoying quality family time together in comfortable hotel suites, or on flights paid for with miles, really does take a bit of the sting out of having a husband who is gone so much during the week for work.  It isn’t as good as actually having him home to read stories at bedtime to my daughter, but it certainly helps!

Hard to believe it’s already been a year! Talk about time flying. This time last year I was planning a trip to Manila and getting ready for Blog World. Fun times!

One year ago:

• I shared my Top Five Travel Necessities for Airplanes, Hotels, and Grooming.
• A friend reminded people how important it is to check into flights early.
• There were multiple instances of passengers joining the mile-high club, one from friends and one made the news….oy.

Two years ago:

• We had some good discussions about women business travelers being treated differently and bringing family on the road.
• Some friends discovered that almond butter is a big threat to national security.
• I realized that printing itineraries for international trips is a very good idea.