Business Travel

I usually write about this on my Product Management page, but sometimes I have to share the love.

I have been a product manager for a long time (since 1998), more years than I care to acknowledge, and for a period of time, I traveled a LOT. One year, I hit 1K status on United by April 1st[1], mainly due to three trips to Singapore in the first quarter of the year.

Alas, that heyday for me was 1999 - 2009, and since then, my travel has been somewhat less. Part of that is a change in the role(s), and part of it is the advent of pretty damn good teleconferencing software.

I am on my first international trip since 2019, aka pre-Covid, and this one was a sixteen hour single hop from SFO to Melbourne, Australia, and man, do I hate this.

The good

It isn't all bad. I needed to renew my passport, and this time, I was able to submit all the items online. In the past you had to fill out a paper form, go to a Kinko's, pay $10 to get a "Passport" photo to staple to it, mail it to the local State Depertment office with a fat check, and wait 2-3 months.

Or you could go to an expediter (CBT is one I have used in the past) and you can get it within 72 hours, as long as you give them a fat fee.

This time, I took a picture with my iPhone (OK, my wife helped), filled out the details online, and paid the $130 fee. The estimate was that it should be back in 8 weeks.

2 weeks to the day later, I received it in the mail, expedited by the USPS.

To get into Australia, you have to have an ETA permit. It isn't really a visa, but it is like a pre-qual, and it was trivial to do. Completed online on an app on my phone, it was trivial.

And the benefit was that getting into Australia was trivial. I was able to use an electronic kiosk, and breeze through the lines.

The Bad

16 hour flights SSSSUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKK. Seriously, 8 hours in, and you realize that there are 8 more hours to go? Fuck me.

Coach seats are abysmal. Yes, I am permanently United Star Alliance Gold (a benefit of a million mile flier, I do not have to achieve or maintain my status year on year) so I get into the Economy Plus cabin.

That gets you a little more leg room, and, because of my million miles, they try really hard to keep an empty seat next to me.

Except the night before, a flight to Sydney got canceled, and a lot of those passengers were rerouted through Melbourne the next night, and thus every seat on the plane was filled.

Fuck. At least I was still in an aisle seat.

Food on international flights has always happened, the commoditization and cash extraction on domestic flights hasn't spread to the international flights, so that is a good thing. But the quality of the food blows donkeys.

The dinner (fortunately, the flight was at 11:05PM I wasn't too hungry) was almost inedible. The rubberiest chicken with a bland sauce on overcooked rice, and a dinner roll that could be used to drive a nail into a hardwood board it was so hard.

That sucked. I picked at it.

Hey, and now there are three tiers of "Economy" class (used to be "coach").

For a long time, United's economy cabin was split into two tiers, Economy, and Economy Plus. Mere mortals could upgrade to the Economy Plus for a fairly reasonable $75, and if you were flying international, that was totally worth the $$$.

But now, they have three. Economy (aka "Steerage"), Economy Plus, and Premium Economy.

Premium Economy is what used to be called "Business Class". For this flight, my round trip in Economy (with the free "Plus" upgrade due to my status) was $1,536 all fees included. Premium Economy was $3,600 + fees for a round trip ticket.

Waiting in the gate area, I learned that my 4 colleagues flying on the same plane booked themselves into the Premium Plus cabin, because our company's policy allows it. For flights over 9 hours, you are allowed to book a Premium Plus seat.

Alas, I am one of those people who likes to travel frugally. I view travel expenses as spending partially my money (I get a fair quantity of restricted stock units, so it really is my money) and if I wouldn't spend my own money for something like that, I won't do it for work either.

Your mileage may vary, but business travel isn't really an opportunity to spend your company's money to have a good time. I am there for a purpose (this trip, supporting the business at a conference, and to fill in for my boss who couldn't travel), and not to do side-quests.

The Weather

I usually check the long-range forecast in my destination(s) and plan accordingly. This time, the forecast was for a lot of rain. So I grabbed my travel 'brollie'[2].

None of the people traveling with me had this forethought. I guess they will "buy" one and probably try to expense it (note: if you do that, it is almost certainly to trigger an audit, and a talking to by the finance team).

But I didn't want to dive to hard into this, except that this time there is a unique status:

"Sheep Grazier" warning? What the fuck could that be? Is this some local colloquialism? Let's click and see...

Yep, it really is a warning to sheep farmers that need to take action to prevent bad things happening to their sheep flocks.

Wild.

Anyhow, that's all for this fun post.

1 - 1K is the elite frequent flier status, and it requires 100,000 miles of travel. That year, I took 4 trips to Singapore

2 - Brollie is UK speak for Umbrella, as least from a former colleague