5 Travel Hacks to Save You Time, Money and Hassle
Are you struggling to juggle your priorities? You’re always racing towards deadlines, drowning in admin, and as a consequence you’re missing out on opportunities to increase your revenue and find the time to work strategically to scale your business further. When you’re already overworked and overwhelmed, arranging travel can be a time-consuming headache: you might end up rushing into hurried decisions that you later regret, or paying a premium for last-minute decisions; or planned trips might end up not happening at all! But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Tip: When you travel, pack an envelope or plastic wallet to store all your receipts for safekeeping. Snap a group picture of your receipts on your smartphone whilst on your return flight and email them over to your Virtual Assistant. Your Assistant can then enter these onto an expense report ready for submission before you’ve even landed!
Virtual Assistants are experts in finding the most suitable travel and accommodation for you, whatever your requirements, whether that’s comfort, cost, facilities, location, reputation, flexibility or any other criteria you have. Take these tips from an experienced Virtual Assistant to save you time, money and hassle, and make your travel a little more comfortable:
Booking two one-way flights often ends up with better deals than booking a return flight.
Beat price hikes by going undercover. If you turn on 'private browsing' when booking flights, airlines and travel companies won’t be able to track your browsing activity. If you don’t turn on private browsing, they will record how many times you have visited their site and hike the prices of your flight to entice you to impulse buy.
Before your flight, email yourself all your key travel documents (flights, ground transportation, hotel). Even better, is to create a PDF that you can download to your phone so you have all the key details without having to access Wi-Fi.
Download a series of your favourite podcasts for your flight. A personal favourite of mine are TED Talks Daily.
Buy a portable phone charger before you fly. Let’s face it, there’s nothing worse than your battery running low on fuel, especially when you’re trying to make contact with a client and navigate to a meeting in new surroundings – nightmare!
So how can you go about reclaiming your productivity?
Virtual Assistants are highly experienced and skilled travel management experts. They’re adept at listening closely to your preferences and requirements and not only delivering on quality and cost but also guaranteeing a stress-free travel experience. By taking on this time-consuming aspect of your workload, Virtual Assistants can shave hours off your workweek, freeing you up to focus on the tasks that you and only you can do. So whether they’re sourcing the very best travel deals for your business trips, arranging your ground transportation or managing your visa process – to name but a few tasks – you can rest assured that your travel plans are in a safe pair of hands. Your Assistant can also provide you with an itinerary before you leave so that you can see at a glance the exact details of your travel, transfers, meetings and accommodation. Virtual Assistants also deliver great value by having your back whilst you’re away; even with careful planning the unexpected can come up, so whatever it may be – whether it’s delays to your flights, changes to a meeting or a personal emergency – all it takes is one quick call to let your Assistant know and they can get to work. So, while you’re busy preparing for your next meeting they’ll be well under way making all the arrangements for your trip to continue without a hitch.
As well as business trips, Virtual Assistants can also arrange your breaks away from work. So whatever’s on your ultimate list of must-haves for a getaway, be it sourcing the perfect villa, apartment or hotel to keep every member of the family happy, researching toddler-friendly destinations, or help planning the perfect city break or ski trip – we’ve got you covered.
It’s often surprising the breadth of travel management tasks that a Virtual Assistant can undertake. Tasks include, but are in no way limited to:
-Compare prices for hotel and flights to find the very best deals based on your preferences
-Arrange pick-up services for your travel
-Manage visa process
-Arrange travel insurance
-Online check-in for flights and baggage
-Produce detailed itineraries for upcoming travel
-Research and book restaurants or meeting venues in your destination
-Research and book personal or family holidays including day trips, sightseeing ideas and more
Imagine the difference that delegating these tasks to a Virtual Assistant could make to your business. What could you achieve with all your newly regained time?
Share in the comments which one of these areas of assistance would make the most difference to you.
My name is Selina Johnson and I'm an elite Virtual Assistant providing Virtual Business Support to Executives. We help SME's with administrative, technical and creative support so you are free to grow your business and increase your profits.
Contact us today to discuss how we can add value to your business.
01234 602596
hello@selinajohnson.com
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