Reported by Donna Fenn

Business Travel;

 

With travel-incentive programs proliferating among airlines, hotels, and carrental companies, it's difficult to keep up with all the special deals. If you're not careful, you and your traveling employees could wind up in the hotel that gives out chain saws to frequent guests, as opposed to the one that offers a Porsche.

To avoid such mistakes, you might want to subscribe to one of the monthly newsletters catering to frequent travelers. The most ambitious is Frequent, which claims 25,000 subscribers at $24 per year. Order it by calling (800) 367-8807; in Colorado, (303) 597-8889. Others include The Business Flyer, for $35 per year, at (800) 343-0664, ext. 935; in Massachusetts, (800) 322-1238, ext. 935. Then there's The Frequent Traveler Newsletter, for $28 per year; order it at (800) 435-0715; in Illinois, (800) 892-0753.

The hard part, of course, is figuring out what to do with the awards once you've earned them. According to Frequent publisher Randy Petersen, a number of companies split the bounty with employees, which probably works well enough for bonus mileage. The question is: who gets the Porsche?