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(CNN) -- Roger Collis, author of "The survivor's guide to business travel", talks to CNN about how to make the most of your business travel budget, as well as helping you save time and money.
CNN: How do you get the best deal when traveling for business?
Collis: The best price, the cheapest price, is not always the best value. I have this idea that one should aim at what I call "state of the art" travel, which is getting the best value for travel -- not the best price. A bargain can be very expensive if you are not allowed to change your itinerary or change your plans. So that is the first thing.
The second thing is that for the small business traveller, independent business traveller or small to medium size enterprise (SME), the important thing to remember is that you may have more clout, more leverage, more bargaining power than you thought by focussing your spend.
Very often you can get some very good deals -- surprisingly, through some of the major travel agencies like American Express or Carlson Wagonlit, which specialise in business travel. They have developed special products and special services for the SME and for the smaller business traveller -- very often it is card-based or phone-based. But they enable you to phone up or call somebody who knows who you are and knows what you want, even when you do not quite know yourself.
That is quite different from a call center. With the average call center you can waste an awful lot of time and they do not want to take time with you because they only have about five seconds before they get another call so they are not really interested in complicated solutions.
CNN: No-frills carriers -- are they the best way to go?
Collis: No-frills carriers have become a phenomenon in recent years. They started in the U.S. with Southwest Airlines. The model for no-frills carriers, which make them very successful, includes point-to-point routes, quick turnover, simple products, online bookings and telephone bookings, as well as saving distribution costs.
They have developed in Europe over the last few years starting with easyJet and Ryanair. There are now about 40 or 50. I cannot stop counting the no-frills carriers that are emerging in Europe and elsewhere. In the United States, JetBlue has a very big presence now and a very good product it is. I have flown JetBlue, I flew them from New York to Rochester and they are brilliant.
Now, the carriers have developed in the last twelve months in Asia. They are all over Asia. A lot of the conventional carriers are now developing their own no-frills subsidiaries to try and get market share.
The important thing with no-frills carriers is that they have changed the market. They have challenged the conventional carriers on fare structures. It is not so much to do with their low-cost or low fares, but their low one-way fare structure. This has enabled everybody to buy cheaper flexible tickets, instead of the old-fashioned tyranny of having front and back of the plane pricing.
We used to have the old excursion fares for the conventional carriers -- and we still do to some extent. These preclude the business traveler from using them because they insist on Saturday night stays and all sorts of conditions. This forced the business traveler to pay top dollar for so called front cabins. On local regional flights, particularly in Europe and Asia, it is not worth doing this. So the no-frills carriers have made serious inroads.
Now some of the smarter conventional carriers have come back to compete because they have needed to do this on their major routes. They have done this by offering similar types of fares.
CNN: What advice do you give to travelers?
Collis: Do not assume a no-frills carrier is going to be the cheapest, particularly for late booking. If I am flying from London to Nice, I will not necessarily assume that easyJet is the best one for me. I sometimes go to British Airways or Air France.
No-frills carriers are here to stay but I think the edges are being blurred between what is a no-frills, low-cost carrier, and a conventional carrier. This is because all carriers are now trying to cut their distribution costs. And one way they are trying to cut their costs is by adopting Internet booking, which is encouraging people to book online. They are in fact penalizing people who do not book on online. This is one way the airlines have followed the no-frills carriers who pioneered online booking and electronic ticketing.
CNN: Earlier you said the Internet is not always the best resource for securing a good value deal. Please explain.
Collis: I think people can spend hours and days just simply trawling the Internet for the best fares -- but what is the best fare? The best fare, as I have said before, is not necessarily the best value and you just waste an awful lot of time. It is like seeking the Holy Grail. The best fare changes every second because fares are changing all the time. There are many good and useful sites, and I cannot cite too many.
One thing to look at is the airline alliance Web sites. For example in Europe you have Opodo, which is an alliance of airlines. This is a very good site for airline and hotel bookings. In the U.S. you have Orbitz dot com, which is similar. And in Asia now you have this excellent site called Zuji, it is an airline alliance site. Then you have the airline specific sites.
For no-frills carriers you have to go to the individual airline Web sites because the no-frills fares and schedules are not carried on the major travel Web sites. This is because they are not carried on the Global Distributions, or GDMs as we call them in the trade. So you are not getting the spread of fares, or choice of fares, including no-frills carriers on the major travel Web sites. Therefore, travel sites are not necessarily the best way to go.
Another major impediment to consider on the Internet is that Web sites are fine for simple itineraries i.e. one-way point-to-point fares. If you are traveling often, say from London to New York, you do not really necessarily need a travel agent. You can check with a number of Web sites and get the best deal. But if you are looking at complicated itineraries, multi-sector routings, you are not really going to get the best deal from the Internet.
CNN: You said earlier that small and medium-sized enterprises can have more bargaining power by focusing their spend. Could you just explain to me again what you mean by focusing their spend?
Collis: If you have X amount in your travel budget, do not spread it among different suppliers. If you can, look at your travel patterns and examine where you are traveling most often, and how much you are spending with a particular airline or with a particular hotel or hotel group.
Point out how much you are spending to your travel suppliers. If you are going to Paris quite often and you find yourself staying in a particular hotel, point out to them how much you are spending. If you have got other companies in your group or other employees, you could persuade them to focus their spend on that particular hotel, whether it is an individual property or if it is a small hotel or part of a group or chain.
Make these people aware of how many room nights you are spending there and how much it is costing for food and beverage, entertaining and conferences. You might find you have an awful lot of power. You might find you are a big client for a small hotel for example -- so do not ignore that. This is what I mean by focusing your spend.
If you travel with a particular airline, whether you are a company or individual, spend all your money or focus your flying with a particular carrier or two carriers. Then join their frequent flyer program and build up miles and points to become an elite member of their program -- that gives you all sorts of perks.
CNN: How about upgrades? What is the best way for a traveller to secure an upgrade?
Collis: An upgrade is the most sought after prerequisite for any traveller or frequent traveller. Airlines are becoming more difficult with upgrades because it is an enormous saving if you are upgrading from economy class into business class. You are getting the equivalent of about a 70 percent discount -- which is huge.
The best strategy to getting upgrades is to join a frequent flyer program. Build up miles in a particular program and achieve elite status. There are various levels of elite status, gold, silver or platinum. But you probably have to travel about 30,000 actual miles in order to achieve the lowest level of elite status as a rule of thumb. But once you achieve that status you are much more able to get an upgrade.
If you reach gold or platinum levels you get free upgrade certificates, which you can redeem. Apart from that, the best way of getting an upgrade is to target a flight that is likely to be full or over booked in economy class. If you have the right management style; if you are wearing a collar and tie -- although this is not exclusively true; if you approach the gate people in a nice way; if you have a frequent flyer card; if you have the right colour of plastic; if you are a frequent flyer with that airline, then you are more likely to get an upgrade, especially if it is overbooked.
It also depends on how much you paid for the ticket. If you are flying economy and you are a backpacker and you are paying the lowest discounted fare, you are less likely to get an upgrade at the gate.
If you are well dressed, well spoken with the right manner; if you have the right sort of plastic with a frequent flyer card; and if you have paid a reasonable amount on your economy ticket you are more likely to get upgraded.
Then there is what is called "cabin roll." Where airlines overbook because people do not turn up. Sometimes their projections are wrong and there really is an overbooking situation. But it depends on the cabin class, sometimes there is an overbooking in the economy class and if there are a few seats available in the business class they will upgrade one or two people and the same goes for first class.
There is no sure way to get an upgrade. You should make friends with the airline and you should have a relationship with the airline -- whether that is a distant relationship, through being a frequent flyer member, or actually knowing a person at the airline, it all helps.
Sometimes the best thing that can happen to you is to have a problem with the airline, or a hotel. If you have a problem with an airline it gives you the opportunity to meet them and to get things right. Very often you can make friends with local people by having a problem with that particular airline.
One of the most influential people is your local airport station manager. He or she has an enormous amount of discretion in bumping people up into another class if the need arises through overbooking. So make friends with the local station manager and take he or she out to coffee or a drink. Every time you pass through the airport say hello, even if you do not need an upgrade on that particular flight -- prepare the ground. Always ask for favors after having prepared the ground. Do not just go in and ask for favors as a general rule.
CNN: How about the value of around-the-world tickets?
Collis: We have three major airline alliances, oneWorld, Star Alliance and Sky Team. The major alliances have around-the-world products using combinations of their airlines. If you are flying at least half way around the world, say from Paris to Australia, you might as well fly the rest of the way round the world and come back the other way, either east or west.
You will find that the around-the-world world ticket is much cheaper than a round trip ticket. The other great thing about the around-the-world ticket is that you can use it for a year.
Also a ticket form Bangkok which is a good place to buy a tickets, is generally much cheaper than buying your ticket from London, New York or Paris. If you are a frequent traveller, you can fly one way to Bangkok, buy a round trip ticket then pick up an around-the-world ticket in Bangkok. You have to pay for it and start your trip from Bangkok. You cannot buy it in London and then start from London. You have to buy it in Bangkok and start from Bangkok. But then you can fly back around the world from wherever you traveled from -- Paris, New York or London and use the last leg to Bangkok any time within twelve months. If you are doing this regularly then you can mix and match and you can use legs of around-the-world tickets. It is a great way to save money.
CNN: What is cross-border hubbing (CBH)?
Collis: It is a particularly European phenomenon. If you look at the cost, particularly of business class tickets, from say Frankfurt to New York or Los Angeles and from London to New York or Los Angeles. Whatever the cities, you will find a huge variance and huge difference in price for all sorts of reasons.
This is due to bilateral agreements and currency differences, and the market forces on the particular city pairs. For example between Rome and New York you might find that business class fares from London to these destinations is much more expensive.
One way is to make CBH. It means making one stop, an additional stop, on your way to a long haul trip, particularly to New York. It also works from Europe to Asia but the differences are not so great.
You may say 'why take the trouble to stop where you could fly direct?' You usually pay a premium for flying direct and if time is of the essence then fine, do it. But if you can make one stop and possibly do business on the way then why not save money by doing it? Very often national carriers in Europe will give a better deal to British travelers if they travel through Paris with Air France to go to New York.
Airlines always poach business in someone else's market. British airlines will give travelers in France a better deal when travelling through London than travelers flying direct from London. It is something to consider if you are trying to save considerable money. As a general rule you often save a lot of money by flying through another hub.
-- CNN's Rosalind Chin contributed to this report.
