Delta Archive

I’d like to share seven of my simple business travel and expense tips for startups that I’ve picked up over the years. The title of this post shows 200 tips — I have provided 7 to get started and I’d love CN readers to add 193 more! It’s critical in the current economic times that we maximize every dollar/euro/yen/etc that we spend on goods and services. 

Tip #1 – Use business credit cards

This is probably the most overlooked business item I’ve seen with startups. Even if you are one person in a basement, you can get a business credit card using your own personal name. Each card provides a different set of benefits but here are some ideas to consider:

• JetBlue – gives a direct 5% discount
• PriorityClub – provides additional points per stay over the personal card
• Delta – 5% off on all flights, plus miles for usage

You need to find the card that works best for you as x airline might not fly from your homebase. But you need a business credit card. Another side benefit, business cards don’t show up on your personal credit report so it can help you "hide" any company debt.

Tip #2 – Get a business AMEX card

American Express has a program called Open which offers a variety of discounts at many national chains for car rentals, Kinkos, FedEx, etc. There is even a 5% discount now for Yahoo Search Marketing. Again, if you purchase anything at any of these chains, you need an Open card.

Tip #3 – Use the same hotel chain or airline where possible

Being able to maximize a hotel or airline program means staying within the same chain whenever possible. I like Priority Club and Starwood the best but almost every chain has a program. It’s not just enough to use the card when you check-in, you need to maximize the bonuses to hit the big freebies and top program levels. The more loyal you are to a chain, the more offers they will send you. Make sure you check FlyerTalk for your hotel and flight programs to check bonuses. Many bonuses aren’t sent to everyone but most times you can still grab them.

Tip #4 - Mobile Plan Discounts 

Talk to your mobile provider – many times if you can link up multiple numbers from your staff, you will be eligible for good company discounts. I’ve seen discounts as high as 15% on AT&T and T-Mobile.

Tip #5 – Shopping with Fatwallet rewards

If you shop online, check out Fatwallet rewards. They offer cash back when you shop through their merchant gallery. It’s easy and you shop through the normal merchant’s site but you just click from Fatwallet. For example, NewEgg pays 1% back, CircuitCity 2%, Staples, Office Depot, etc. About 200 stores are listed.

Tip #6 – Put your butt in a better seat

SeatGuru should be your first stop once you have picked a flight. The site displays every seat on almost every plane and which seats are best. Sure this won’t save you any money, but it will save your ass some pain when you are flying cross-country or international. If you fly a lot, ExperFlyer can help you find the best fares by showing you fare buckets versus the traditional pricing on airline Web sites. And FlightStats tells you a lot about the flights you are considered — on-time is a good thing.

Tip #7 – Using Priceline or Hotwire

While I don’t use these services too often as they conflict with the usage of rewards cards, if you do use either, BetterBidding should be your first stop. They will tell you what others have bid and won so you know what to bid. Never bid before doing your research!

I’d like to share seven of my simple business travel and expense tips that I’ve picked up over the years. Using these tips, I’ve saved many thousands of dollars, a variety of flights and top hotel stays free. In fact, a three-week trip to Europe was completely free thanks to effective usage of points and miles. Any company of any size could benefit from better planning and trip maximization.

Tip #1 – Use business credit cards

This is probably the most overlooked business item I’ve seen with startups. Even if you are one person in a basement, you can get a business credit card using your own personal name. Each card provides a different set of benefits but here are some ideas to consider:

• JetBlue – gives a direct 5% discount
• PriorityClub – provides additional points per stay over the personal card
• Delta – 5% off on all flights, plus miles for usage

You need to find the card that works best for you as x airline might not fly from your homebase. But you need a business credit card. Another side benefit, business cards don’t show up on your personal credit report so it can help you "hide" any company debt.

Tip #2 – Get a business AMEX card

American Express has a program called Open which offers a variety of discounts at many national chains for car rentals, Kinkos, FedEx, etc. There is even a 5% discount now for Yahoo Search Marketing. Again, if you purchase anything at any of these chains, you need an Open card.

Tip #3 – Use the same hotel chain or airline where possible

Being able to maximize a hotel or airline program means staying within the same chain whenever possible. I like Priority Club and Starwood the best but almost every chain has a program. It’s not just enough to use the card when you check-in, you need to maximize the bonuses to hit the big freebies and top program levels. The more loyal you are to a chain, the more offers they will send you. Make sure you check FlyerTalk for your hotel and flight programs to check bonuses. Many bonuses aren’t sent to everyone but most times you can still grab them.

Tip #4 – Sprint SERO

Ok, sure you can’t use an iPhone on Sprint but if you are using a Blackberry, Treo or Windows Mobile device, Sprint SERO is the plan for you. The basic plan is just plain mad. $30/month with 500 minutes talk plus unlimited nights and weekends, unlimited data and internet, unlimited sms and text messages and included roaming. Check FatWallet for all of the details and use the code URANG (all caps) for $50 off your first bill(s).

Tip #5 – Shopping with Fatwallet rewards

If you shop online, check out Fatwallet rewards. They offer cash back when you shop through their merchant gallery. It’s easy and you shop through the normal merchant’s site but you just click from Fatwallet. For example, NewEgg pays 1% back, CircuitCity 2%, Staples, Office Depot, etc. About 200 stores are listed.

Tip #6 – Put your butt in a better seat

SeatGuru should be your first stop once you have picked a flight. The site displays every seat on almost every plane and which seats are best. Sure this won’t save you any money, but it will save your ass some pain when you are flying cross-country or international. If you fly a lot, ExperFlyer can help you find the best fares by showing you fare buckets versus the traditional pricing on airline Web sites. And FlightStats tells you a lot about the flights you are considered — on-time is a good thing.

Tip #7 – Using Priceline or Hotwire

While I don’t use these services too often as they conflict with the usage of rewards cards, if you do use either, BetterBidding should be your first stop. They will tell you what others have bid and won so you know what to bid. Never bid before doing your research!

Please add your tips on how you save money in your business.

Before I discuss the topic of this post, I want to share something that I experienced about a month ago. I have been struggling with getting my mail forwarded. It's been an absolute nightmare frankly. Finally I get the number for "consumer affairs district office" and I am excited that I am going to speak to someone who can help me. Yahoo! My first call I am hung up on because "sir you appear annoyed, I don't talk to people who are annoyed" click. I call back and get a second woman who I start explaining my situation to and I hear in the background, "just hang up on that asshole" and click again. I wait about thirty minutes and call back, get a third woman, a woman who immediately made me believe she could help me. I explained my situation and told her about the previous two people who hung up on me and she said she would look into it. Will she really? I doubt it. Had I recorded the call, maybe then the Postal Service would have looked into it. Of course everyone knows (and clearly these 2 know) you can't get fired, so do whatever you want. Well ladies and gents, online rich media, that is audio and video are changing things and I for one am excited.

Why is rich media changing the world? It's stories like the one about Delta Air Lines where a passenger shows real video (embedded at the end of this post) of the unfolding events on a plane that was stuck on the ground for hours and hours. He or she demonstrates what happened, step-by-step. It's a disaster. Frankly if I was on that plane, I would probably be on rikers island by now.

Let's step away from this story for a second. Jeremiah at Web Strategist (who is clearly one of the best bloggers in the biz) writes about this event and how it has "nothing to do with Web Strategy." Sorry Jeremiah, but I completely disagree. When corporations screwed up in the past, it was easy to just forget about it because it was the customer's word vs. ours. Today, videos like the Delta one are changing that. When you or I or any strategist work with a company of any size, working on an issue management strategy and an online resolution manual are critical. Overlooking this means the company won't be able to handle the issue when it arises. And it will arise. The typical press release post is so Web 1.0 and makes the company look unhuman.

So back to Delta. First, Delta just completed a "Change" campaign. They want you to believe they have changed. But did they? Here was a great place to show the change. They screwed up. Fine, everyone does. Now, take CEO Gerald Grinstein and create a quick video without makeup and a six-figure movie theater. 2-3 minutes in length explaining what happened, what is being done to make sure this does not happen again and what's being done for the passengers stranded on that flight (and any other affected flights). Instead, Delta has a press release blaming the FAA for the issue.

So what should companies do (and this includes your startup!). Figure out a plan early on should the need arise. Perhaps have a level rating chart that allows you to rate the issue and what steps to take to ease the public's concern. Talk to the customer as soon as possible with rich media. The longer you take to answer the call, the longer the blogosphere will expand the issue. Your web strategist should be able to help with this chart.

Remember that for Delta, this is a passing issue. In a week, there will be another issue to deal with. For your startup, you screw up with issue handling once, and there might not be another chance.

If you want a perfect example of why this is needed, just look at the mess from the FM/Microsoft ads deal from last week. Had Federated Media had such a chart, crisis averted. Instead, it was another Delta example.

Delta is just one example of poor Internet crisis handling. This happens daily, often cataloged by Consumerist.

The companies who will win business from consumers in the future are those who properly handle rich media crisis' online. So yes Jeremiah, rich media crisis handling has everything to do with Web strategy.

The longer I have been in marketing, both product and interactive, the more I see how important it is to think about your marketing messages critically before launching anything. Whether it's poor word selection, changing the voice to suit your needs, or just lying, it keeps happening. And it seems like it mostly happens with the bigger companies (who I guess can afford to screw up). Here are some recent examples.

Yesterday we learned that Comcast cuts off customers with too much usage though they won't post an actual amount and have told me numerous times there is no limit and that my plan is "unlimited".

This comes on the heels of Verizon and their "unlimited" but limited wireless data plan. I don't get this because they suck every possible cent out of us anyway, but again, users are being turned off for exceeding the limits of their unlimited plan.

Last week, Yahoo announced that their Mail app will now offer "unlimited" storage of email. I immediately questioned whether this unlimited is more unlimited than the previous two examples.

Here is another example from a radio ad that Monster ran last year. I wish I had a recorded in my car :) — anyway here was the ad… "People who post a resume on Monster are xx% (i think it was 57%) more likely to get a job." Sounds amazing. At the end of the commercial in mouse type they say, "The numbers quoted are compared with people who did not submit a resume and those who did." Now this was a line of horse crap in my eyes. Naturally if you submit a resume you have a better chance of getting a job. DUH.

Now, let's look at another example from the airline industry. For as long as I have been alive, carriers always quoted their pricing as "round-trip" pricing. So for example, a fare from NYC to Paris might be quoted at $500 round trip excluding taxes. Then about 18 months ago, one of the domestic (US) carriers decided that there must be a better way. And so now what do we have? We have "O/W fares". So the example would be NYC to Paris for $250 O/W. Sounds great, certainly makes the customer see a lower price and that's eye catching. Oh but wait, there is a catch. The fare is only valid if you purchase a round-trip ticket. So why not show the round-trip price? Because I am guessing many people don't realize it is one-way until they are already in the booking process. This is disappointing to me because it is somewhat misleading.

My last example might not be perfect but it is a good example of picking your message. Dave Sifry published his report on the State of Technorati yesterday. In it he shows how much bigger (and better) Technorati blog search is over Google blog search. I posted my thoughts on this yesterday where I explain that his comparison is not accurate. I can only guess that someone at Technorati must have thought the same thing as I. What Dave could have included was a note that basically said what I did yesterday. In fact, last night, my post about the opening of a CSS job at Apple brought 200 visitors from Google finance and the AAPL stock quote page. I don't think he lied or said something grossly incorrect, just did a direct comparison. I guess I can't fault him for that. 

Let me make an example up to show you how I can craft a message to do whatever I want. CenterNetworks is bigger than TechCrunch.*

So here is my mesasge to you and your startup. Think about your marketing messages. The best sounding messages might not be the best overall messages. And try to stay away from terms such as: Unlimited, Infinity, forever, never-expires, etc. Please be careful as these slipups can hurt and sometimes take a long time and lots of effort if they are to be overcome.

*CenterNetworks is bigger than TechCrunch with the male rabbit demographic when the rabbits are between 12-12.5 years old, live in northern canada, and eat only grasshoppers. See what I mean?

Since my first web site in 1995, error messages have always been a frustration for me. Working with hundreds of developers over the years, the error messages can really put egg on your face when you go live. Many times there are swear words in them, they are not properly formatted, the non-english speaking coders show through. I have debated several times as to whose responsibility it is to make sure that they are verified before a launch.

And I completely understand that web sites have errors. We can't always test everything, sometimes in the real world, issues arise that we couldn't plan for. But the key is to get them fixed as soon as possible so that others are not frustrated. What's interesting to me is that small sub-10 people startups get issues fixed quickly while large mega corporations tend to take longer to get problems resolved.

Over the past six months or so, there are reports on Flyertalk that using the Delta web site produces "null" errors. I had my first run-in with a null error about 3 months ago when booking a ticket. Since we know Delta checks the Flyertalk board, you would think someone would get information to the developers to get this fixed and create something that makes more sense. What's worse is that when you call support for help (either in Lithuania or India), they don't understand the word "null" – at least that was what happened the last two times for me.

Today, I am trying to confirm an award ticket. I click "confirm award" and it goes to the page below. A page that is completely blank that says NOTHING but "null". I have tried 3 computers, 6 browsers, same thing.

So off to call Delta support I go. Hold for 27 minutes (phone has a timer) and I get India support who seems to not understand how to get it confirmed. She fixes the "issue" and tells me to try again. I do and now it tells me I must call support "immediately" or the ticket will be cancelled. But she can't help me she says and I now wait on hold another 12 minutes for technical web site support. And now it is fixed. 40 minutes and a lot of frustration later.

Had the error message been clearer about what I need to do, I could have saved time and frustration.  And Delta – I will help you – the errors appear to come (most times from my research) when there is a schedule change.

Here is an image of the error message I received: