So I took a little hiatus from the blog. When I started it in January, I really had no idea what to expect. My first blog post had over 5,000 views. I don’t even know that many people so it was exciting to watch the numbers continue to rise. I had committed to myself that I would post once a week and even had a following of people waiting for each post. Then as it often does – life happened.
I am a client services professional and in March, I was assigned to a challenging assignment out of state with a tight deadline. A lack of sleep and continuous travel took over my ability to write posts for the blog. I was exhausted. While I’m still traveling each week, I now feel like I have a bit more room to breathe and wanted to pick this back up. What better way than to start with a topic, I’m currently very familiar with – business travel.
If you follow me on Facebook, you’ll have noticed that I’ve been spending a lot of time in Charlotte, North Carolina. Since I practically live there, I have gotten in a habit of calling the Westin “home” so friends and family aren’t really sure where I am when I talk to them. If you had to guess, I’m probably in Charlotte.
As I type this, I’m at 30,000 feet on my weekly commute to Charlotte. If you think about commutes that New Yorkers typically have, I think I’ve actually gotten the better end of the deal. Instead of a 1 hour commute each way daily, I now only have about a 2 hour commute twice a week.
Since I live in the Upper East Side, the closest airport is LaGuardia in Queens. I just looked it up and it’s approximately 7.7 miles from my apartment. Google maps says it should take about 20 minutes give or take due to traffic. Not too bad for the city. If you’ve been to LaGuardia lately, you’ll know that it’s an absolute maze to get there because of all of the construction. You wind around so many times that you start to wonder if you are actually going anywhere or if the Uber/cab just wants to get more mileage out of you. You may ask why I just don’t go to JFK or Newark instead due to the construction. That my friends is because by the time I would get there, I could probably already be in Charlotte.
This will probably freak some of you out to know but I don’t give myself much room to make my flight. I normally leave my apartment around 5:30 for my 7pm flights. I typically roll in around 6 for a 6:20 boarding time. No misses yet. Thank goodness for TSA Pre-check.
For those of you not familiar with pre-check, it is a service where you can expedite the normal security lines and you don’t have to do those annoying things like take your shoes off or pull your computer or little liquids out of your bag. Definitely a life saver for my cutting it close habits. There is an application and background check process but it’s worth it for those who travel frequently. If I’m going to be spending my time at the airport, I want it to be as minimal of time as possible.
When you fly so much you start getting little perks like flight upgrades. Lately I haven’t been on a flight where I haven’t been at least upgraded to Delta Comfort. First Class upgrades are nice but on such a short flight, the only real difference is they offer you a beverage before the flight takes off and it’s in an actual glass versus a plastic cup. Oh and you definitely have more leg room than the back of the plane. My legs are so short that I don’t really need the extra space but I could see why that would be a plus for taller folks.
Traveling frequently also means that you are bound to deal with delays and cancellations. Some delays are manageable – others have you pulling your hair out. I got my flights cancelled back to NYC two weeks in a row because of the Nor’easter weather so I started packing extra clothes just in case. I also had to deal with a 17 hour string of delays and cancellations due to bad weather two weeks ago that I almost just gave up and went back home instead of trying to deal with it. That day really was a bad case of the Mondays by the time I got to Charlotte. Getting there at 3pm, I lost over half of my day. Unfortunately no amount of status can get you on a plane when no planes are flying. I swear the gate agents have probably heard it all. When they say that there is nothing that they can do, there probably really is nothing that they can do. Your best bet is to be nice to them and when there is one extra seat open on a flight getting out, they may remember you.
When my 6 pm flight home from Charlotte got delayed last week I didn’t want to take any chances so when my app told me I could choose an alternative flight, I did. The 4 pm had also gotten delayed until 5pm and had available seats. There was one problem. We had just left the client and it was already 4:30. I took a chance and changed myself to the 5. We got there by 4:45. I ran through the rental car parking lot as fast as I could and got myself to the security line. The pre-check line was longer than usual but still moved quickly enough. When you have pre-check, you go through a less intrusive body scanner (not the one where you have to cross your arms above your head) and the scanner started beeping when I went through. I thought to myself you have got to be kidding me. The security agent told me that I had been selected for random additional screening. Of course I had. She told me I needed to walk back through until it cleared me. That scanner not only selected me once for additional screening, but THREE times in a row. The lady giggled and said that never happens. Once they checked three of my items and gave me the okay, I went running through the airport. As I got to the gate barely breathing, they were started to close the boarding door but I was able to slip right in before it was shut. Normally when I get on a plane, the first thing I do is shut the window and turn off the air above my head. That day I needed the air on!
While business travel has its perks like earning points and not having to worry about grocery shopping for the week, there are also downfalls. It’s not as easy to maintain a healthy lifestyle on the road. Some nights I eat at 5 star restaurants. Other nights I’m eating 99 cent chicken nuggets at the airport right before my flight takes off.
Before this gets any longer, I’ll cut it off here. Until next week!
Xoxo, Alicia
Alicia in the City 