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As someone who has been working on the road for the better part of the last nine months, I’ve grown accustomed to living out of a hotel during the week. Nothing beats the comfort and familiar filth of your own home. But when you’re on the road, follow these tips and hotel life can be pretty sweet.
You’re always on the clock
This is rule #1. When you are working on the road, you are always on the clock. I hate answering emails after hours but there is no after hours in the road life. There is an upside and a downside to this. If some hard-on out on the West Coast stays late and is firing off emails at the end of the day, you could be crafting snarky responses past 9:00 p.m. But that doesn’t matter because you aren’t doing anything better with your life. You’ve already beat off twice and are sitting there watching a game featuring two teams of which you have no vested interest in. If you hit reply, you’ve basically put in a 12 hour day. Boom. Pad that time sheet.
Maximize your per diem
Maximizing depends on how your company structures your per diem. If they give you a budget of “X” dollars a day, no questions asked, then eat like dog shit. You will hate yourself, but you’ll have an extra few bucks at the end of the week. If you just expense everything? Spend every last cent. Eat steak for every single meal, and yes, you do want dessert.
Eat the complimentary food
Continental breakfasts are a huge positive to living out of a hotel. If your company puts you up in flea bag motels or establishments that do not offer a free, hot breakfast, you need to seek out other employment opportunities. I don’t care that it is the same exact spread every single morning, there is hot coffee and food ready for me when I wake up. And there are smiling employees to greet me with a “good morning” while they refill the scrambled eggs serving tray that I just cleaned out.
And after you get back from a day of deal closing, grab as many cookies as they will allow. Unless you’re in a domestic relationship straight out of the 50s, you will never have cookies waiting for you every day when you come home from work back home. Girl Scout cookies excluded, of course.
Take the stairs
Take the stairs, you fat ass. You’ve eaten terribly all week and you just inhaled 4 chocolate chip cookies and we both know that you’re not going to want to work out in the closet-sized exercise room with two treadmills and one adjustable bench. What happens if someone else wants to work out while you’re in there? It is such close proximity that you are basically breathing in their sweat. That’s fucking disgusting. Take the stairs and tell yourself you’ll get back in shape when life isn’t so hectic, like the rest of us do.
Take long showers
Listen, you’re not paying to heat this water. So take advantage of it. I for one, never take long showers back home because all I see is dollar bills falling down the drain pipe. But after walking up four flights of stairs, one deserves a nice long shower. Bask in the glory of a 20 minute steam treatment and think nothing of it. Trim the hedges without guilt because the plumbing bill isn’t coming to you, and you’re not the one who has to clean the shower either!
Use all of the towels
Just like the hot water you just wasted, laundry is not something you have to pay for either. So take advantage of the clean, soft towels. You don’t have to subject yourself to the same dirty, damp towel you’ve used the past 3 days in a row back at your apartment. There are usually 9 or 10 towels of various sizes provided in the room. That’s enough to shower twice a day, wash your hands 3 times, masturbate twice (one for sweat one, one for cleanup), and one for the outside of a shower. If there is one clean towel on the rack and not in a sticky pile on the bathroom floor for the maid to cleanup, then you aren’t living your best life.
All of the toiletries and consumables are free for the taking
Make like Chandler and Ross and take everything that isn’t anchored down or plugged in. Every day you stay, you should be forcing the hotel to restock the shampoo, conditioner, soap, coffee, and tea, at a minimum. Stretch those dollars folks, you won’t have to buy that shit for another couple of weeks!
Tip the Maid
Your hotel room looks like a war zone. Tip the poor person. Unless all they do is make your bed. In that case, fuck them..
Image via Shutterstock
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@207Cush
I forgot to mention one key one – pick a major chain and stick to it if you have any authority over where you stay. Rack up those rewards points. Marriott for this guy.
Team Marriott checking in. Better vacation spots and with the new merger with SPG they’ll have over 1.5 million rooms worldwide. Drop points on some baller vacations.
I have a shitload of points as well, #TeamMarriott. My wedding reception in September is at a Marriott, so the room block is set up to give me points per guest that stays there. Plus I have the Marriott credit card, points on points from that. All that equals an essentially free honeymoon in an awesome resort.
The “meeting planner” perks are awesome. I plan some corporate events from time to time, and usually can get some other perks (food, free booze, etc) thrown in the contract for the meeting planner. Hell of a job gaming the system on your part.
Legit getting a week’s stay for free by using all my points in April. I feel so baller.
Yup. Also check if your employer has contracts with any companies. I got automatic status with Hilton and Hertz when I enrolled just because of my company. All this info is on your company travel page and in addition to racking up points, you can also start out with a shitload just by being with your company.
IHG for this girl due to limited hotel options for work projects. It’s hard trailblazing out in the wild!
1) Do your research. Stay in hotels in the happening parts of town.
2) Do your research on the hotel. Make sure it has a nice bar that you can pre-game/end-game at.
3) Always dress the part. “Act as if” you’re on a business trip. No hoodies or leisure wear.
4) Go for a run around the city you’re visiting (unless it’s cold AF). Gives you a chance to see elements of it you might not have known were there. Get cultured and shit.
5) Max out the per diem on booze. $5 footlongs and concierge lounge snacks all day so you can slam $15 whiskeys at night.
If you travel a lot, getting access to airport lounges one way or another is a subtle luxury that y’all should take advantage of
Always, always, always take the welcome points over the gift bag. 500 points > a bottle of water and a bag of trail mix.
Agreed! I’ve been completing an informal survey every time I check in, and basically have heard 9/10 times from the front desk people that experienced travelers pick the points over the gift bags.
I got the IHG credit card and rack up the points like a MoFo. Company gives us a flat rate per diem, so every now and then when I need a cash infusion, I book on points, claim 4 nights of per diem, and boom: an extra $500. Turning points directly into cash. Tax free.
Check for bedbugs. Even the nicest of hotels get them. Don’t put your suitcase or clothes on the bed. You don’t want to bring these little assholes back home with you on your suitcase and have to throw out all your furniture.
2 other things I’d add
1) I look for hotels without free breakfast because if I’m on a work trip and can expense it, that’s more points
2) If you’re an SPG person and on a relatively short trip, do the Green Choice. Works out to 10 bucks a day in points and there are plenty of towels anyway
You ever encountered bed bugs man?
Any tips on how to expense the “adult entertainment” charges to the room?
What is this, 1995? Watch the ‘hub on your (personal) phone, tablet or computer.
I still like to go retro from time to time. Nothing better than revisiting your roots man.