When you’re running a startup, there never seems to be enough time or money for everything you want to accomplish.
Like when you need to book a trip to meet a potential client or investor—you might scroll through your go-to travel site, click on the cheapest flight, and book a room at a cheap, unknown hotel. After all, if you want to survive the startup world, you have to be willing to sacrifice travel perks such as priority seating, right?
Actually, booking travel this way can end up costing you more money in the long run.
And what if you need to change your flight or you accidently book a hotel that’s a 40-minute drive from the conference venue? What should have been an affordable, stress-free trip suddenly becomes a costly nightmare.
Spare yourself some frustration and create an internal infrastructure for cost-effective travel. Here are seven tips to help you look for smart ways to save and know where to splurge:
1. Appoint a central travel manager. Have one person dedicated to managing all of your team’s travel. If your startup can’t afford to hire an employee to manage travel, put one person in charge of booking travel to organize itineraries, streamline employee reimbursement, and track airline points to maximize accrual and redemption.
2. Use an aggregator app for trip information. Take advantage of mobile boarding passes to save time and reduce stress. Instead of frantically searching for the hotel business center to print your boarding pass, use Passbook in iOS. You can also download a third-party aggregator like FlightTrack 5 to get real-time flight updates and share your itinerary with your teammates.
3. Plan for backup transportation. Smart travel planning involves more than getting from point A to point B; it also means having a contingency plan in case something goes wrong. For instance, if you’re flying to New York to meet with investors and miss your flight, you probably won’t make the pitch unless your travel manager has a backup plan already in place.
4. Don’t skimp on the hotel. Even if you don’t care where you collapse at the end of a long day, you shouldn’t automatically jump on the cheapest room you can find. Even if a hotel doesn’t look seedy in online photos, it may be located far from your destination, and the taxi fares could fatten the total price. If you absolutely cannot afford a more expensive hotel, book a room through Airbnb to find a cheaper place near your destination.
5. Look for loyalty programs and ways to earn points. A better way to save is to find loyalty programs with special offers, free upgrades, and discounted amenities. Even small perks like priority check-in can make your trips much less stressful. Your travel manager should also be on the lookout for ways to rack up more airline miles. For instance, one of our partners, Rocketmiles, allows you to earn points toward flights when you book a hotel room through its site.
Make sure you’re taking full advantage of your airline’s SMB loyalty program, too. For example, at American Airlines, they have the Business Extra program for small businesses. This program allows companies to double-dip in travel rewards by accumulating a point for every $5 spent on eligible flights while employees still earn their personal AAdvantage miles.
6. Don’t rely on taxis. Depending on where your hotel is located, getting a taxi might take longer than you think. If you can’t walk or take mass transit, you may be better off renting a car. That way, your ride is already waiting for you when you arrive at the airport.
7. Make expense reporting a breeze. If it’s too difficult to manage receipts, employees won’t save them—which will turn reimbursement and expense reporting into a big headache. Have employees use an app like Expensify to capture receipts before they get lost or a corporate card that will itemize travel expenditures.
When your business is new, travel expenses can be a burden. It’s tempting to go for the cheapest flight or hotel every time, but keep in mind that maximizing convenience means maximizing productivity. There are ways to make travel more cost-effective and valuable without sacrificing comfort. Appointing a travel manager, planning ahead, and booking better accommodations can help you make more meetings, save money, and have a much more enjoyable trip.
Photo credit: Robert Couse Baker/Flickr