Travelers often use loyalty program numbers to earn airline miles or hotel points when booking personal travel. However, if you travel for work and someone else books your reservation, it’s easy to overlook or simply forget this step — potentially leaving thousands of points on the table.
And those points could be worth quite a bit. Total spending on global business travel reached $697 billion in 2021, according to the Global Business Travel Association, and that’s expected to grow as the industry recovers from COVID-19 pandemic lows.
So, if you’ve got a work trip coming up and your company is paying for your travel expenses, don’t sleep on all the potential ways to earn points. Here are some tips to consider to ensure that you’re not missing out on any extra rewards.
1. Add the reservation code to your airline and hotel loyalty program accounts
When booking your own travel, including your frequent flyer number or loyalty program number on your reservation is a relatively straightforward process. But if someone else is arranging your travel or if you book your trip on your employer’s travel portal, you may not have the option to add those loyalty programs.
To get around this, once your flight and hotel are booked, gather your airline and hotel reservation confirmations and look for the reservation code that corresponds to your flight and hotel. Then, log into your airline and hotel loyalty programs and manually add those reservations to your accounts.
Sometimes, the reservation code from your company’s travel portal won’t match the type of reservation code that the airline or hotel accepts online. In this case, you may need to call the airline or hotel and ask them to manually add your reservation to your account.
And while you’re at it, make sure your Known Traveler Number also appears on your flight reservation if you have TSA PreCheck. If the TSA PreCheck indicator doesn’t show on your boarding pass, you won’t be allowed to enter the…
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