Barnett on Business Travel for 2018 WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT CHRIS 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 newspapers and magazines. Chris was a contributing editor of Frequent Flyer when JoeSentMe.com founder Joe Brancatelli was the magazine's executive editor. He was the first columnist Joe approached to join JoeSentMe. Chris' column, syndicated for decades in newspapers around the country, has appeared exclusively at JoeSentMe since 2012. October 4: X MARKS THE SMALL AIRPORT SPOT JetSuiteX operates a fleet of tiny Embraer 135 regional jets that once flew as American Eagle aircraft. Seat count has been reduced to 30 and everyone gets more headroom because overhead bins have been removed. Will you fly the airline to its smaller airports? August 9: THE BATTLE OF THE AIRLINE BRANDS Landing a reasonably priced ticket during a federal holiday week in the summer is no picnic. And blowing 50,000 miles on a four-hour flight wasn't enticing. So I orchestrated my own battle of the airline brands. I booked a one-way San Francisco to Chicago/O'Hare flight on Alaska Airlines and a one-way return on American Airlines. Both are merged entities and I wanted to see how those marriages were playing out. July 19: TRADITIONAL HOSPITALITY WINS IN SAN FRANCISCO The Omni, the quietest, most old-school luxury hotel in San Francisco, is suddenly ranked as the second-best property in the Bay Area. May 31: TRAIN BEATS PLANE BETWEEN TORONTO AND MONTREAL VIA Rail business class travel between Toronto and Montreal may be a road warrior's dream experience in North America. It sure beats flying. April 19: IT'S ALWAYS 5 O'CLOCK AT THE 2AM CLUB The ultimate dive bar, Mill Valley's 2am Club, is a Bay Area gem that is also part of rock and roll history. It's cool but not hipper-than-thou. April 5: THE CRAPSHOOT THAT IS BASIC ECONOMY If you like to play the ponies, roll the bones or stand firm on 16, you'll love the U.S. legacy airlines' newest game: Basic Economy. Surprisingly, you can beat the house once in a great while. March 15: A LITTLE AIRBNB, A LITTLE NOIR IN LONG BEACH For a business trip, I ventured into the "sharing economy"--not just to save nearly $1,000 for four nights in Long Beach, but also for the experience. February 8: COMMON SENSE STILL FLIES AT JETBLUE AFTER 18 YEARS JetBlue Airways remains a comparative model of sanity in the increasingly ugly skies. Celebrating its 18th birthday in February, JetBlue has stood firm with a relatively low-cost playbook and mostly resisted the ham-fisted legacy carriers' model of nickel, diming and chiseling its passengers. January 11: NORTH TO A BETTER PLACE IN THE SKIES I made a New Year's resolution to save time, money, hassles, calories and boredom on the road and be productive doing it. Then I booked a San Francisco-to-Toronto nonstop on Air Canada during the pre-Christmas week crush. Surprise. The trip checked all my boxes. These columns originally appeared at JoeSentMe.com. Copyright © 1990-2018 by Chris Barnett. All rights reserved.