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Holidays can be a shock to the business traveller's system, especially those insidious ones that fall midweek. For most of the year, there's an agreement between leisure and business travellers: Fridays and Sundays belong to them; the rest is ours. But then something like American Thanksgiving comes up, and all deals fall before the screaming, whining, harried hordes. What's a road warrior to do?

Today, most analysts agree, is the busiest travel day of the year in the United States, with the American Automobile Association estimating 38.4 million Americans will be clogging airports, hotels, rental counters and highways, most of them today, and Sunday too.

So, what to do if you've got a meeting in D.C.?

Jamie Taylor, a travel agent at Executive Worldwide Travel Management in Ottawa, says business travellers tend to forget basic principles: Arrive at the airport at the suggested time, and check in online.

"I realize they have meetings and deadlines to meet," she says, "but something as easy as arriving for domestic flights 90 minutes in advance and U.S. flights two hours ahead makes it so much simpler."

With elite and superelite statuses and Nexus cards, business travellers tend to arrive just in time. David Banks, a manager at a marketing firm, describes the Mad Men-ish ethos this way: "If you don't miss at least one flight a year, you're probably spending too much time at the airport."

But front-of-the-line perks can be close to meaningless in the face of thousands of sullen sun-seekers surging toward overbooked, delayed and cancelled flights.

Murray Milthorpe, a frequent traveller for Life Experiences (a travel and gift company), says that at times like this, all those rules business travellers say they live by - but only occasionally do - become much more important.

"Expect the unexpected," he says. Like those $30 surcharges all the major U.S. airlines are tacking on to their each-way peak-day fares. Or an influx of American tourists in Canadian airports. Or unusually large crowds at your increasingly common U.S. stopovers on international flights.

"Anticipate delays," he says - this is the time when people who take out their passports once every other year discover they have expired, or that their baggage is 20 kilos overweight, that their three-year-old does need a separate ticket after all, or that they're not allowed to take their bassinet, their book bag, their cosmetics case and their purse dogs as carry-on.

The relative peace of (mostly child-free) lounges is increasingly important during trying times, and may even be worth that extra $35 that Air Canada charges for economy customers. And as Diane Dafoe of the Dafoe Travel Group in Dartmouth, N.S., points out, the bulkhead and exit-seat charges Air Canada instituted last week are tailor-made for corporate travellers caught in a holiday maelstrom: "Kids aren't allowed to be in an exit row."

Hotels are going to be more expensive too, so an early-out, late-back, same-day trip may be worth a shot, both to save on accommodation and to avoid the mostly daytime holiday travel crowds. And speaking of expense, although it's often easier for unmanaged travellers to book their own trips online these days, American Thanksgiving may be the very best time to use an agent. By using wholesalers and consolidators, Executive Worldwide's Taylor was able to find a return flight from Ottawa to D.C. for today less than a week in advance for about $150 less than any of the half-dozen most popular travel sites.

But no matter how early you get to the airport, or how far in advance you book, there will still be crowds and the problems, anxieties, frustrations and delays that come with them. There is a way around all of this if you are travelling in a team. Fractional jet ownership companies around the country are monetizing their downtime by chartering their eight- or nine-seat private jets to non-members. Rates at Business Aviation, one of several Calgary-based operations, are $4,000 per hour. It sounds expensive, but divide it by eight, add perks such as skipping the terminals by driving up to the plane five minutes before take-off, being picked up by a car on the other end, and having customs agents come onboard to ask you a few questions while you're sipping one of a dozen single malts available at the bar, and suddenly the cost looks attractive. Especially during holidays such as American Thanksgiving, the numbers make sense.

Do you have feedback or business travel questions? E-mail roadwork@globeandmail.com.

Follow Road Work on Twitter @BertArcher.