Business Travel Dos and Don'ts: A Field Guide

You've booked the flights, blocked the meetings and told yourself the rest will work itself out. It rarely does.

What separates a business trip that runs smoothly from one that leaves you frazzled is almost never the flight itself. It's the policy you didn't read, the bag you checked, and the receipts you didn't photograph.

You're spending someone else's money under someone else's policy. If you're packing right now:

• Carry on when you can. A checked bag that goes missing the morning of a pitch isn't something you can fix before the meeting.
• Keep your laptop, your slides and one full change of clothes with you, so a delayed bag can't leave you without them.
• Read your company's travel and expense policy before you book, so finance has nothing to reject later.
• Treat the client dinner as work. You're still being watched when the drinks come out.
• Photograph every receipt as you go. Rebuilding a report from memory a week later costs you money and goodwill.

What should you check before booking a business trip?

Image: City Leather Laptop Bag

Check all four of these before you book:

• Your company's travel and expense policy.
• A flight with room to spare before your first meeting.
• TSA PreCheck or Global Entry if you don't have them yet.
• An itinerary sent to someone who'd notice if you stopped checking in.

Read the travel and expense policy first

Read your company's travel and expense policy before you book anything. It's what finance will check your claims against later, and reading it takes 5 minutes:

• The per diem.
• Whether you need pre-approval.
• Which booking tool you're supposed to use.

Claims usually get rejected for one of two things: a booking made outside the approved tool, or a charge over a limit nobody read first.

Book a flight with room before your first meeting

Leave slack for traffic, a slow passport line or a delay. Don't schedule anything you can't afford to miss for the hour you touch down, and don't take the cheapest red-eye and then walk into a boardroom at dawn.

If the meeting genuinely matters, fly in the day before and sleep.

Sign up for TSA PreCheck or Global Entry weeks ahead

You can do the whole sign-up from your desk. With TSA PreCheck:

• Your shoes, belt and light jacket stay on, and your laptop and liquids stay in the bag.
• About 99% of members clear security in under 10 minutes.
• Membership lasts 5 years.

If you fly internationally, Global Entry speeds up your re-entry through customs (and it includes PreCheck). Both need a background check and an interview, so start 2 to 3 weeks ahead.

What should you pack for a business trip?

Image: Voyager Leather Carry-on Bag with Wheels

Pack as if your checked bag won't arrive, because the one time it doesn't will be the morning of the meeting that matters most. So keep the things you can't do the job without in your carry-on:

• Your laptop.
• The slides or files you're presenting.
• One full change of clothes.
• Your chargers.
• Any medication you take.

Most airlines let you bring one carry-on and one personal item, which is plenty for two or three days once you're honest about what you'll actually wear.

And if a gate agent still makes you check the bag, pull your laptop, your slides and one full change of clothes out and carry those by hand.

Give the laptop a structured briefcase

Your laptop is the one on that list that can't go in a checked bag, so protect it properly.

A structured briefcase with a padded sleeve protects the laptop far better than a soft tote that lets it knock against everything else, and it slides out flat at security without you unpacking the whole bag.

If you don't have one, it's worth looking at a briefcase built for travel here before you make do with a weekend bag.

Your bag's own weight counts against the carry-on allowance

Carry-on allowances have a weight limit as well as a size limit, and on stricter airlines the weight limit drops as low as 7 kg (about 15 lb).

A heavy leather or hard-shell case uses up much of that allowance while it's still empty, so a carry-on you meant to keep with you gets weighed at the gate and checked anyway.

So weigh the empty bag before you fall for the features. And check your airline's carry-on size and weight limits before you pack, because they vary more than you'd expect.

If you haven't settled on the bag itself, we cover what separates a carry-on you can actually keep with you from one that ends up gate-checked here.

Pack less than feels safe

You'll almost certainly overpack: you'll wear less than you plan and haul more than you need through every terminal. So lay out what you think you'll wear, then put a third of it back.

How do you arrive looking meeting-ready, not slept-in?

• Pack the suit in a bag that hangs it rather than folds it.
• Dress a notch more formally than the meeting needs.
• Give yourself five minutes to reset before you walk in.

A hard fold bends the wool of a suit past the point where it springs back, and once that crease sets, steaming barely lifts it.

Pack the suit in a garment duffel, not folded flat

The best bag for this is a garment duffel: a carry-on sized bag with a hanger built in, so the suit hangs inside and curves gently with the bag instead of being folded flat.

The suit never gets folded hard, so no crease sets in, and it comes out ready to wear.

If you travel with a suit often, we cover how a garment duffel keeps a suit uncreased in a single carry-on here.

Then hang the suit in a bathroom with the shower running for 15 or 20 minutes when you land, and the steam finishes the job.

Dress a notch more formally than you think the meeting needs

You can always take the jacket off, and being slightly overdressed beats being underdressed. Pack these three, too:

• A spare shirt, for the coffee you'll spill or the flight that runs long.
• Shoes you've already broken in, rather than the stiff pair you meant to break in that day.
• A toothbrush, deodorant and a comb somewhere you can reach them, so you can reset in five minutes before you walk in.

How do you beat jet lag on a business trip?

You beat jet lag with light and timing, and how sharp you are in the room the next day depends on getting it right:

• Shift toward your destination's hours before you leave.
• Get daylight once you arrive.
• Go easy on alcohol, because it wrecks the sleep you need.
• If you have to nap, keep it to 15 or 20 minutes so you can still sleep that night.

The dull habits that keep you functional:

• Drink more water than you want to.
• Skip the third coffee.
• Eat something other than what the lounge is serving.

Is airport Wi-Fi safe for work?

No. Treat airport and hotel Wi-Fi as open to anyone sitting near you, and work on a public network as if someone's reading over your shoulder, because they might be.

A lounge or an empty row is good for clearing email and prepping. It's also the easiest place to leak company data without noticing.

• Don't do sensitive work on public Wi-Fi.
• Stick to https sites.
• Lock your devices the moment you set them down.
• Shield your screen from the seat beside you.
• Take confidential calls somewhere other than a crowded gate.

How should you handle client dinners and after-hours?

Image: Elegance Leather Tote Bag

A client dinner or a conference bar is still work, even when it stops feeling like it. Do:

• Follow the host's lead on how formal the evening is and how fast it moves.
• Keep the drinking light, because one drink you nurse beats three you don't remember. And if you don't drink, a club soda with lime does the job.
• Stay genuinely courteous to the waiter and the front desk, because the client is watching how you treat people who can't do anything for you, and that impression sticks.

Don't:

• Brag about the upgrade.
• Treat the crew or hotel staff as your personal assistants.
• Let a good meeting fall apart over dinner.

What to learn before an international dinner

If the trip is international, spend an hour on the basics before you go:

• How people greet each other.
• How punctual you're expected to be.
• Whether and how much to tip.
• How formal the dress code is.

Getting a greeting slightly wrong won't sink the meeting. But showing that you bothered to learn it goes over well with a host who meets a lot of visitors who never bother.

How should you handle business travel expenses?

Handle expenses as you go, because a week later, staring at a blank report, you won't remember what that Tuesday dinner was for or who was there.

Photograph every receipt the moment you get it and drop it in one place, a folder or an app. It takes seconds each time, and it saves you an evening reconstructing the report at home.

Know what the policy allows, and stay inside it. Don't pad the report with extras that finance will question.

A clean report is one nobody has to think twice about, and people remember a padded one long after the trip.

Clear a personal add-on before you book

If you want to add a personal day, extend the trip over a weekend or bring a partner along, clear it with your manager before you book. Don't slip it in and hope nobody asks.

Mixing personal charges onto a company card costs you the benefit of the doubt on everything else you claim. Ask first and most managers say yes. Get caught, and you're less likely to get a yes next time.

What do people forget on a business trip?

You forget the small things, almost every time:

• A charger and the right plug adapter.
• Your ID or travel documents.
• One backup outfit.
• Any medication you take daily.

Check those same four before every trip.

What's the single biggest business travel mistake?

The biggest mistake is running yourself ragged: three cities in two days, back-to-back meetings with no slack and a red-eye the night before your most important meeting.

You show up late, frayed and half a step behind, and you spend the meeting catching up instead of leading it. So give every leg a buffer, and protect the sleep before the meeting that matters.

What changes for international business travel?

The same rules apply internationally, but the stakes go up.

• Your documents and any visa have to be right.
• The etiquette and tipping shift country to country.
• Jet lag is real across several time zones.
• The rules about carrying company data across borders get stricter.

So give yourself an extra day on the front end to land and reset before a meeting you can't afford to walk into foggy.