Roman's miles

Ranking the ranks

I was about to give my rating to a book I'd just finished to read - "The world is flat" by Thomas L. Friedman - when I looked at its rating at Amazon. It was still relatively high (about 4,3 stars) and the readers have been giving diametrically opposite opinions. It wasn't a surprise for me. Actually the reason I started to read this book was the high attention the book attracted in various sections and in the blogosphere. The book got so many "must read" feedbacks I decided to give it a try.

I didn't like the book. Here I don't want to spend your time explaining why - you can find many reviews at Amazon and  in the net. What I want to talk about here is why my expectations haven't been justified? I saw the book was recommended by many people, it definitely was a bestseller on the bookshelves, and it got a high rank at Amazon. I think the point here is the "reference frame". Who were all those people who liked it and who didn't? Impersonal recommendations don't tell much. They easily confuse. They're like bonds of an unknown government. Unless you know the referee any its reference is just air-backed. And the opposite is true to a certain extent. A good referee (in fact any good brand) can almost enforce you to buy bad goods or to read a bad book. Such an example in my case is my Apple Shuffle, which I bought looking not at its functionality but at its coolness.

I think it's crucial to adjust your expectations before you make a decision to the "reference frame" your referee is. Do you know him? Have you tried his recommendations already? Do you think he's going the same way as you are now? Do you think he's passed the same milestone as you just have? I'm surprised every time when I read a negative recommendation to an amazing book and the reason is simply the reader expected something completely other than the book was about.  She could expect a practical to-do list from a book debating different approaches and systems. Or he could hope to meet practical patterns and read about possible pitfalls in concrete projects in a book barely teaching advanced technics. In every book's review you'll meet a few frustrated readers. Sometimes authors are poor in giving their books right names and it causes readers' confusions. But sometimes the book is absolutely OK and frustrations are caused by wrong expectations.

So set up expectations properly and build you set of "trusted authorities".

Here is my non technical book mine I've been digging:
The 30 Book MBA in Entrepreneurship

"Fly smart!"(C)

This is a repost of my blog on SDN simply to start the Travel category.

To Alon W.,
the smartest lucky flyer I’ve ever met.

This blog talks about what, at least part of us, deals on a daily basis with. Though some of us have gotten various “certifications” in the area we still are learning by our own mistakes. When first time I faced it I thought it would be cool if I could have knew all this before but nobody had told me. Since then I’ve been seeing so many my friends making similar errors again and again. I decided to start sharing best practices and am calling you to help me with your feedback. Did you get what I’m talking about? Thrilled? The topic is how to fly smart with all polices, rules, and instructions we’re confined by.

Rule number one.

Stick to one company. I know a few flyers that didn’t approach this question seriously and made a bad choice. I don’t mean they didn’t know about frequent flier programs. They did pick up one but it was wrong. Today all air companies are grouped in a few alliances and you can fly on one company but collect your mileage on another of the same alliance. Think which of the alliance companies suits you best. Does it have a hub in your city or it bases in the destination city only? Think in long run prospective. Are you planning to relocate to another area? A friend of mine was collecting mileage on Alitalia knowing in half a year he would move to Atlanta (which is Delta’s patrimony). Now he still can spend his mileage on Delta but he started earning his status there from scratch.

Last caveat regarding alliances and mileage is all partners in the alliance are equal but some of them are more equal:-) Check before booking on a partner’s flight if you’ll get expected number of mileage as if you were flying on your company. Sometimes it’s not obvious and not always works as you expect.

A great source of such information, tons of researches and comparisons is Flyertalk site.

Rule number two. Be persistent.

When I titled my blog “Fly smart” I didn’t mean a popular Lufthansa award program. What I meant is whenever collisions occur on your trip don’t give up. You missed connection because of a delay? You baggage is broken? Your baggage is lost? The service was pure? In any case talk to managers and require compensations. My experience says you’ll always get financial compensation for damage. You’ll get free hotel and dinner/breakfast for over-night delay and almost always you’ll get a free one class upgrade (this is unfortunately only experience for international flights). Just don’t be shy and argument your demands clear and calm.

A big caveat. Whenever you have several options for a trip an itinerary with one company should prevail. Don’t fly to a middle destination on one company and then change to the final destination to another. If you miss it nobody will compensate it. If you put the entire itinerary in one company’s ticket your chance to get compensated is much higher than if you buy several independent tickets.

Rule number three. Collect miles – spend miles.

Most of the services on a traveler’s way offer mileage earning. Don’t neglect them. The hotel and car clubs are most obvious. My travel agent told me at the very beginning of my flyer “career” it doesn’t make sense to enroll there. Big mistake! Though you don’t earn thousands of miles as in air mileage it’s still worth of (and it’s free!). So stick to one club as you do with the air alliance. Hilton, Marriot or PriorityClub have quite the same rules but depending on your concrete conditions one may be more appealing than others. Some give air mileage and club points other at the same time give a fixed number of points/miles per staying (so it’s good for short stoppers). Check the conditions and choose anyone, but don’t miss it. One caution. As opposite to enrolling to air alliance hotel clubs don’t do it retroactively. So think in advance and do it ASAP.

Renting car companies respect memberships too. You don’t have to enroll for the sake of mileage collection. Just give your frequent flyer card when you pick a car or return it. By the way, you may decide to collect points on your rental company’s account to spend them for your free rent or upgrade on next vacation. What does make sense anyway is getting the gold membership itself (in every company it may be named differently). It may have its own benefits. For example, in Hertz when you arrive your car is waiting for you and you don’t have to get to a stand and fill any form. Or you can specify in your profile what type of car you prefer in case of free upgrade.

Don’t forget that the points and miles is only to spend them. Don’t regret to spend the earned miles. They won’t grow up.

Rule number four. Invest in your equipment.

Professional equipment is necessary if you take something seriously. My wife buys kitchen knives for 100 bucks a piece – she loves cooking. So I spend some money on traveler’s toys. If you fly a lot you should make it as comfortable as possible.

• a good suitcase and a backpack. If you really want to spend good money for good things then Tumi is your choice. If you’re not ready to spend few hundreds for a case then look at Samsonite – (not everybody can afford BMW, some people are satisfied with Audi). Check that the selected model fits to the carry-on size standards of your air company. For example you won’t be allowed to take a garment bag with you on board unless you fly first class.
• find a spare battery for your laptop. You have to spend time on 30.000 feet altitude efficiently. Convince your boss to buy it if you want to see some colors but black on your screen after 3 hours of flying.
• buy noise reduction head phones. Whether you want to work or to rest you need to do it without additional noise. Bose or Shure are the two to choose from if you want something from the top.
• last but not least are few things for rest. You need a good neck pillow. I love mine from Tempur-Pedic. Yes, it’s much more expensive than its competitors but you’ll feel the difference. Also take an mp3 player and don’t forget to take a book.

Rule number five. Prepare for the flight.

I’ll just give a few useful links on the realm.

• Consult with the community. Flyertalk is definitely number one. You’ll find answers to any your possible questions and it’s very friendly atmosphere there.
• Choose your flight intelligently. I bought a program that in real time shows what seats are available on every route and every class. Once this software brought me home 24 hours earlier I that I planned. I tried to catch an earlier flight than I had a ticket to. But the flight was fully booked and the air company didn’t want to put me even on a waiting list. I was continuously requesting seats availability for that flight with the software and all of a sudden one place appeared! An instant later I called the company and grabbed the seat.
• Most companies allow you to choose a seat on a booked flight. Find what seat to choose you can at SeatGuru.
• Maps. If you can’t afford a car navigator system there are good online route planners. For USA you can try Yahoo! or Google. And for Europe it's map24
• Last one is don’t be surprised by local sockets waiting you in your destination country. Here is a thorough reference for all possible electricity sockets on earth.

Have a nice flight!

My welcome blog or Why do I blog?

Hi all - my old friends,  my new friends, and all strangers of the blogosphere that happened to wander into my page. This is my personal blog and this is my welcome page where I'm trying to explain (probably even to my self) why I'm blogging.

I found (as some of my colleagues did) I like to write. Sometimes I write too much and too long and usually I made some errors in my English.  I decided to kill two birds with one stone. First "bird" is not to pollute anymore our corporate blogs with things not related to my duties  and the second one is to ask my audience to correct my English (I hope this request won't scare you away).

Since these blogs are personal I can't promise they will be about something predefined, but rather  I will post everything of interest to me and, I hope, to some of you. On my about page you can find a list of my current interests. Some of them are very established and others are relatively fresh. I'll categorize my posts on groups as I add them so you'll see whether the group is in your scope of interests and if not just skip it. Technical (and IT-related) posts I'll still publish on the SDN site. Right now I open the Travel category but soon I'll add others. I decided to re-post my "Fly smart"(C) blog here not only to fill the content -  most of you haven't read it yet - but also because I see some symbolism in its title, a connotation between the Travel category and starting a new challenge.

Whatever we do we spend energy. One spends more and another - less. The key is efficiency. And the efficiency is defined by one's target. We are all "in a motion". Hopefully we all know our targets. But we all have different trajectory. And we all learn different things on our path. I start this blog to share my mileage, what I found, what I missed,  what detours it happened I did, and what new horizons I see. It's all about the mileage of my life and hence the blog's name - Roman's miles. And so I welcome all my readers here and I wish you all - "Fly Smart!"