E-MAIL CHRIS   PRINT   2008 COLUMNS   ARCHIVES   SEARCH ARCHIVES A DAY ON THE ROAD, NO HASSLES NEEDED By Chris Barnett July 10, 2008 -- Despite the new fees, fares, rules and rip-offs being piled on travelers, you can still survive a business trip without tearing your hair out. On a trip this week from my home base in San Francisco to Spokane, I didn't have to worry about getting trapped in morning rush hour traffic or pay $25 a day for airport parking. Nor did I shell out $25 to check my garment bag for the flight, $2 for a soft drink or a dime extra for an aisle seat in the emergency row. What's more, I didn't have to endure an understandably grumpy flight attendant who recently took yet another pay and benefits cut and was sweating a layoff while her airline's chief executive and his cronies pocketed yet another hefty bonus. Instead, I booked a clean, good-sized room at the La Quinta Inn near Oakland Airport for $169 a night. It included free parking for my car for two weeks on the premises, not in some faraway lot. Plus, La Quinta tossed in the basic budget hotel fix-it-yourself, all-you-can-eat breakfast. It has a pool if I wanted to swim a few laps. The shuttle bus was on-time. Then I flew Southwest Airlines and had an empty middle seat for spreading out my files. Granted, paying $303 roundtrip on Southwest for a two-hour flight booked 14 days in advance would have ruffled my feathers a year or so ago. Not today. Considering how the Big Six are pummeling their passengers, even elite-level frequent flyers, I was grateful for the seat, the fare, the laptop- friendly 32-inch seat pitch, the smiling cabin crew and the no-charge, in-flight serving of OJ. Choosing Southwest was a no-brainer. In shopping for fares between San Francisco and Spokane, United Airlines quoted $643 roundtrip with a plane change in Denver and long layovers. In other words, a total waste of time and money. Alaska Airlines wanted $283 roundtrip, but with stops in Seattle. So, I suppose I could have saved $20 over the Southwest nonstop if I were willing to fly Alaska and endure the plane change and Seattle layovers. Meanwhile, unless you're lucky enough or powerful enough to be a member of the limo-and-first-class club, or "fly private" (as the moguls call it), you're at the mercy of an army of Big Six revenue managers and corporate cost-cutters. And it's getting tougher to beat them at their own game unless you're able to snag special promotional prices. Car-rental outfits are a good example of the handiwork of the bean counters. With gasoline well over four bucks a gallon now, the economy and compact cars are often among the priciest offered by the rental firms. Sometimes, they are even priced higher than the SUVs and on a par with full-size cars. After shopping the rental companies' own Web sites and taking a fling at Expedia.com, I found the best car deal with Hotwire. This is a so-called "opaque" site where you don't know who is renting you the car until you book it with a credit card. Hotwire quotes car classes and daily rates, but not the rental company, which is fine with me. Like airlines and hotels, car-rental outfits use Hotwire when their yield-management computers show they won't sell out that day at a particular location. Rental companies will discount their rates because they hate to disclose to their competitors or customers that they have to dump excess inventory. They are selling blind and you're buying blind. But unless you prize brand loyalty and reward points over cash saved, why worry? I opted for a compact car at $26.99 a day with all taxes and fees included. In a split second, Hotwire told me National Car Rental would fulfill my request. Bingo, I'm booked, but I don't know what I'll be driving. I'll haggle when I get there. When I landed--on time--I found the car-rental counters inside Spokane's clean, compact airport terminal, not a shuttle ride away. The staff was friendly, but there was a minor hassle. I asked the agent for a Toyota Corolla, which gets 30 miles per gallon minimum on the road and is, in my view, a great compact car. I was told a new 2008 model was available and it was mine. Oops, she said a moment later, it's been rented. How about the new retro 1950 Chevy station wagon or a spiffy, new PT Cruiser? But when I checked their fleet book with photos and statistics, it showed that neither gets the Corolla's mileage. Sorry, I said, no dice. Some tenacity and three or four phone calls later, the National agent just happened to find a Corolla, cleaned, gassed and ready to go. It had 28,279 miles on it, but these cars are workhorses, so that was no problem either. I took the "full tank" fuel option at $4.01--a 43-cent-a-gallon savings over gas stations in the United States and a $1.48-a-gallon savings over stations in British Columbia, three hours to the north. Bottom line? Southwest, National Car Rental and La Quinta Inn all performed and Hotwire worked. You can't ask for more these days.

ABOUT CHRIS BARNETT Chris Barnett writes about business-travel tactics and strategies that save time and money and help minimize hassles. He is based in San Francisco and has written for a wide variety of major newspapers and national magazines. Barnett on Business Travel is syndicated by Copley News Service. THE FINE PRINT Joe Brancatelli makes this space available to Chris Barnett in the spirit of free speech and to help encourage editorial diversity and the wider discussion of important travel issues. All of the opinions and material in this column are the sole property of Barnett. This material may not be reproduced in any form without the express permission of Chris Barnett. This column is Copyright © 2008 by Chris Barnett. JoeSentMe is Copyright © 2008 by Joe Brancatelli. All rights reserved.