Travel Like a Pro: 19 Essential Business Travel Hacks

After traveling hundreds of thousands of air miles in the past twelve months to 30 different states, and places like Iceland, Nicaragua, Vietnam, and Australia, the Knack team experienced a lot of business travel. To share what we’ve learned, we put together some of our favorite business travel hacks!

While business travel can offer a break from routine, it’s often coupled with stress and exhaustion. Packing, navigating through the airport, attending work meetings, finding food — all while managing your budget — can be a lot to juggle. Help make your next business trip a stress-free success by following the Knack team's favorite business travel hacks.

Invest in Versatile Luggage

During business work trips, days are usually jam-packed with travel or work, and, hopefully, some leisure. One of the most important business travel hacks we found is to ensure your luggage is versatile enough to do double duty as both your travel bag and your work bag. 

While rolling luggage seems to be great for business travel, it has to be left in the hotel as you go about your work day and requires that you travel with an additional work bag. Rolling luggage also tends to be bulky, which means it’s at risk for checking on crowded flights. Even if you can carry on your rolling bag, you won’t be able to stow it under the seat for easy access during the flight.

A lightweight carry-on backpack with plenty of organization pockets for your work gear and accessories is often the most convenient business travel bag — especially when it has an expandable suitcase compartment like a Knack Pack. 

Pack Your Suit in a Knack Suitcase Compartment

Rather than boarding a plane with an extra suit bag, or wearing an uncomfortable suit during a flight just to avoid wrinkles, we usually pack our suit (when business calls for one) in a Knack Pack expandable suitcase compartment. It’s a simple yet effective business travel packing tip.

Knack Packs open like traditional suitcases, so you can fold up your suit and place it neatly inside. Internal compression straps keep the suit from moving around too much and getting wrinkled. You can also use compression packing cubes for your other clothes to maximize space in your bag and ensure you’re not overpacking — which will also help minimize wrinkles.

Keep Essential Items Easily Accessible

Keeping your essential gear in an easy-to-access location in your carry-on is crucial for a successful trip. We’re not big fans of stowing our carry-on overhead and pulling out our laptop, charger, phone, tablet, and water bottle before we climb over people to get to our seat. It’s so much easier to have everything in its place in a bag under the seat in front of us and then get what we need, when we need it.

We look for carry-on business travel bags with easy-access pockets. We’re particularly fond of travel bags that have organization pockets for our wallet, passport, chargers, dongles, headphones, and more. We love keeping those things front and center so they’re not misplaced or difficult to access when we need them the most. 

Use Packing Cubes

Packing cubes are the key to success for business travel. They may seem trivial, but frequent fliers know how handy they can be: they optimize organization and make access easier. Knack’s packing cubes even compress to maximize your travel space.

You can organize your carry-on bag by separating your clothing based on the article (shirts, pants, socks). Or better yet, pack each cube according to the setting the clothing is worn (business, gym, leisure). One of our favorite methods is to pack each cube with a full outfit. That way you only have to access one packing cube to get going. 

Think of packing cubes as a mobile drawer inside your bag: they make it easy to organize and access your clothes without disorganizing everything else. Once you get to your hotel room, we recommend keeping the cubes full and putting them in the dresser for easy repacking when you leave. Done with your clothes for the day? Keep dirty clothes separate from everything else by throwing them in an empty packing cube.

MORE >> Stress Less: The Ultimate Business Trip Packing List

Streamline Your Toiletry Kit

Be sure to bring travel-sized toiletries so you don’t have to throw out your full-sized bottles and tubes during TSA screening. Save money and reduce waste by buying refillable travel containers and decanting them with your favorite products at home. Once you have travel toiletries prepared, store them in a travel pouch for your next trip. That way you’re always ready to roll. There are even a few people on the Knack team who permanently store basic travel toiletries in the inside, see-through mesh pocket of their Knack Pack for quick departures.

Pack a Snack

We’re big believers in packing our favorite snacks in our carry-on before we leave. Given the uncertainty of travel — delayed or canceled flights, short connection timing, snarled traffic — that snack might be the only thing to hold you over until your next meal. Let’s not forget about water either. Bring a reusable water bottle so you never go thirsty. Keep in mind that you can’t bring more than 3 ounces of water through TSA, so bring your empty bottle and fill it up at an airport water bottle filling station to avoid those $5+ single-use water bottles.

MORE >> Travelers’ Guide to Airplane Snacks

Bring a Universal Power Adapter

When we’re on business trips, we try to stay as connected and responsive on our devices as we can. Common business travel hacks tell you to charge your devices before leaving, and to bring a portable power bank. But when you’re traveling on a business trip abroad, you’ll also need a universal power adapter (or adapter plug set) to plug your devices into outlets that aren’t compatible with your native plug.

Choose a universal power adapter that’s compact and has several plug options to easily stay powered when you’re traveling to multiple countries with different outlet types.

Enhance Your Cybersecurity

We’re bound to use a laptop or phone to access sensitive information at some point during a business trip. That could include signing into a company account, looking at bank statements, or reviewing travel info. There’s only one problem — networks aren’t as secure when we’re traveling. To keep our devices and cherished information safe, we take extra precautions. Check them out below!

Be Careful Using Public Wifi

We know how convenient and seemingly harmless public wifi can be. It’s so easy to add that cafe, restaurant, airport, or city network and to start working. But you really shouldn’t access sensitive information on a public network. Public networks are less likely to be encrypted which means your data could be intercepted or malware could be injected into your device. 

We opt for using cell data or our personal hotspot when accessing sensitive information on business trips. But it’s also a good idea to set up a private VPN on your device for when public wifi is the only option. That way, your information is encrypted. At a minimum, be sure you’re connecting to an authentic wifi network — not a fake one — and only visit https (rather than http) websites as they have extra encryption protection.

Set up Multifactor Authentication (MFA)

When we want to use another layer of security, we sometimes use multifactor authentication. That way, even if a password gets leaked, a hacker can’t access our information. That’s because a one-time pin is also needed, which is conveniently sent to our phone or email address. You’re probably already familiar with MFAs, because banks (and some other accounts) already use them. But having your own MFA is good for accounts that don’t have that extra protection, or for people who want more customization options. Google has a good free MFA that works for iPhones and Androids.

Book Direct Flights When Possible

The cheap price of connecting flights may be enticing, but the risk and hassle associated with them usually isn’t worth it when you’re traveling for business. The more times you stop, the more chances you have of flight delays, or worse, cancellations. Also, you have enough to worry about on a business trip; you don’t want to stress about whether you have enough time to catch your connection. Bottom line: when flying on business go direct if at all possible or, if you have to connect, see if you can take the first flight after work, stay in the connecting city overnight, and travel on the second flight first thing the next morning.

Reserve Airport Parking in Advance

When we’re catching a flight for a business trip, the last thing we want is the added stress of trying to find long-term parking in a packed airport lot. Or even worse, missing our flight because we find out there are no more spots left. That’s why we like to reserve parking in advance. Not only does this guarantee a parking space, but it often gives us extra flexibility in the type of space (like covered, valet, or EV charging) and how close it is to where we need to go. You can even get a better deal on early parking reservations! Most airports make it easy to reserve parking through their website.

Don’t Use Paper Boarding Passes

You’re probably used to tossing your paper boarding pass in the garbage when you’re done using it, right? Well, you could be exposing your private information to hackers. Barcodes and QR codes found on your boarding pass can be scanned to reveal your personal information, flight information, frequent flyer number and even passport or driver’s license number. Instead of using a paper boarding pass, use a digital boarding pass on your phone. If you do happen to use a paper boarding pass — be sure to shred it when you’re done.

Don’t Share Your Boarding Pass on Social Media

On that same note, posting a photo of yourself with your boarding pass on social media makes it easy for a hacker to get your information. All that’s needed is a software or app to scan the code. A hacker might then be able to steal your miles, change or cancel your flight, and use the information to gather even more information about you. Not only can this seriously mess up your business travel plans, but it can lead to identity theft. So, to be on the safe side, don’t include your boarding pass in social media photos!

Download Your Airline’s Mobile App

Keith, Knack’s co-founder, has always downloaded the mobile app for the airline he is flying for business—and he influenced us to do the same. Airline apps make it easy to check in for your flight and access your digital boarding pass.
They even keep you updated on flight information like delays and cancellations before they’re announced at the airport, and sometimes allow you to rebook your flight through the app. On top of that, airline apps often give you a map of the airport, free entertainment, and exclusive deals. If you’re anything like Keith, who looks for low prices and flies many different airlines, you can delete the app when you’re home to save space on your phone.

Do Security Smart

There’s no need to get stuck in long, slow security lines. There are multiple programs that can help fastrack your TSA experience, saving you energy, time (and stress when you’re running late). They do cost money, but there are different price options. And they’re definitely worth it for frequent business fliers.

TSA PreCheck ($85 or Less for 5 Years)

Joining TSA PreCheck involves spending a few minutes applying online, then going in for a quick background check. Once you’re enrolled, you can go into a separate, much shorter airport security line. Since everyone in this line has already been pre-screened, there’s no need to remove shoes, liquids or electronics—making the line move much faster!

Clear ($199/Year)

Clear can be an even faster way through security. It uses eye, face or fingerprint scans to verify your identity—letting you skip to the front of the security line. You can even combine it with TSA PreCheck so you don’t have to remove your shoes, liquids or electronics. But Clear isn’t at every airport, so double that their locations make sense for you. If you are interested, you can start enrolling online then finish at your airport.

Even if you don’t enroll in one of these programs, you can always make security smoother by packing liquids according to TSA’s 3-1-1 liquid guidelines, and not wearing metal belts or jewelry. And, pack electronics so that they’re easily accessible if you need to pull them out.

Keep Track of Expenses

Before you head out, look over your company’s policy for business travel expenses, including company-approved expenses and the daily spending cap. That way you avoid the future headache when filling out your expense report. Plan how you’ll keep track of receipts beforehand. For example, bring an envelope (or Knack’s Zip Cord Pouch) to store paper receipts, then use an app like CamScanner to digitize and organize them.

Schedule Your Ride

Scheduling your ride to the meeting, office or hotel before you get on the plane can make your ride cheaper and faster. When a plane full of people land and start requesting rides through a rideshare app at the same time, it can bottle-neck demand and cause prices and wait times to go up. Schedule ahead instead. But make sure you know where the airport’s rideshare pickup lot is and how long it takes you to walk there. 

Skip the Rental Car Line

Need a set of wheels after you land, but don’t want to rely on a ridesharing app the entire time? Check to see if your company is part of a rental car rewards program, or if your company credit card partners with a rental car company. One of the most common — and convenient — rental car perks is being able to skip the check-in line just by being a member. That comes in handy when you need to get to a work meeting, or even when you just want to make it to the hotel to rest. If your company has no rental car affiliation, sign up yourself to get perks and deals.

Battling Jet Lag

Jet lag is never fun, especially when you have to immediately jump into a work meeting. Show up to your meeting well-rested and in the best possible mental and physical state, by following tips to reduce jet lag. Here are a few of our favorites:

• For major time zone shifts, start adjusting your sleep schedule to the new time zone before your trip.
• Eat small meals while traveling, keeping in mind your new eating schedule once you arrive.
• Choose water rather than alcohol, as high cabin pressure dehydrates you.
  After arriving, stay in well-lit areas or take short naps if you’re sleepy during the day. 

MORE >> Tips for Staying Healthy When Traveling

The list of business travel hacks goes on and on, but these essential tips should help you travel like a pro on your next business trip. We hope they make your journey easier and get you there in the best possible condition. 

Do you have your own business travel hacks? Let us know your favorites by dropping a comment below.