Travel is a personal passion for Susanne Pacher and also a necessity in her two business ventures, an international translation service and a travel Web site.
Like many small business owners, Ms. Pacher, president of Toronto-based Textronics Communications Inc. and owner of the Web site http://www.travelandtransitions.com, has a limited travel budget. But she has made up for this by becoming an avid and methodical collector of Air Miles, translating every company and personal purchase she makes into travel points that will take her further in realizing her business and personal goals.
For Ms. Pacher and many others of her ilk, an Air Miles card is a powerful business tool that lets her travel across the continent to meet with customers and promote her company at minimal expense.
It is something that casual Air Miles collector can scarcely imagine as they slowly accumulate points by occasionally remembering to produce their cards at grocery stores and set their sights on earning enough for a free television or some other modest consumer item. But savvy business collectors, such as Ms. Pacher,see their travel reward card as a strategic asset and set about maximizing its value with all the proficiency they would apply to executing their business plan.
When Ms. Pacher tells her friends about how she has used Air Miles to travel on free business trips to Chicago, Washington, New York or Vancouver, she says, "They look at me in astonishment and say, 'How is this possible?'"
But her secret is simply to apply sound principles of business to travel point collection and use with a two-pronged strategy. First, she gets as much mileage as possible out of the money she puts out in expenses. Then, she uses the Air Miles she collects as shrewdly as possible.
A key is the ability to "double dip," earning travel points both from her BMO Mosaik Master Card and from merchants who participate in the Loyalty Group's Air Miles program. "I run virtually all my business expenses through my Air Miles Master Card and, sometimes, I will almost go out of my way to purchase at an Air Miles merchant because I find the savings that useful," she says.
"Irun thousands of dollars of expenses through the card every month and I even use Air Miles for paying for my business Yellow Pages listings and my telephone expenses," she adds.
Furthermore, just as other business owners scan the financial pages every day, Ms. Pacher reviews promotional material from BMO Mosaik Master Card, the Air Miles program and participating merchants to see what special offers are available. "It takes a little bit of time, but it's well worth it, "she says, noting that merchants often offer double or triple Air Miles for people who shop at certain times
Loopmedia Inc., a Toronto-based company that designs logos and other marketing material for broadcasters, is another example of a small business that takes travel rewards programs very seriously. Elan Gillespie, the firm's director of communications, says the company has made a conscious effort to take advantage of the travel points that it can earn through the CIBC Aerogold for Business VISA, using the free travel miles to send staff to meetings or conferences that they could not otherwise have been able to attend.
"It has become so important to us that we changed our business practices so we now look for ways to increase the number of points by making purchases with a credit card. It maximizes our ability to send more than one person to various events and meetings," she says.
Ms. Pacher has also analyzed the travel market and rewards program offerings to figure out how to get the most free mileage out of her Air Miles points. She says she has found that the Air Miles program pays off most when you take relatively short flights within North America. Therefore she tends to use her Air Miles for trips to U.S. cities such as Chicago, New York or Washington or within Canada on flights to Vancouver.
Cross Canada flights on WestJet are a great deal for business people and other travellers, according to Mike Kitchen, vice-president of BMO Mosiak Master Card at the Bank of Montreal. Mosiak's Gold Reward option, for example, can earn a small business one Air Mile for every $15 of spending and the small business owner can redeem 1,600 Air Miles for a flight anywhere that WestJet flies. This means that spending just $24,000 on the card will earn you a free flight to any West Jet destination, he says.
Flying on points may not give business travellers the same flexibility that they would have if they paid full fare, but Ms. Pacher says this does not matter to her as she usually plans her trips well in advance. Like many other small business owners, she says she needs to schedule her travel time to fit in with her day-to-day responsibilities in running her company.
As an Air Miles Gold collector, Ms. Pacher says she finds it easy to arrange hertravel because she has preferred booking privileges, which lets her book travel with WestJet and some other airlines, as well as some hotels and a car rental agency, up to two days in advance.
To be on the safe side, Ms. Pacher says, she also purchases Air Miles travel insurance, including trip cancellation insurance. In this way, she says, she minimizes the risk of wasting the Air Miles that she has worked so hard to collect for her business.
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