What does Orbitz mean by "business traveler"?

October 25, 2007 8:25 PM

What does Orbitz mean by "business traveler"? I booked a room at a Best Western in RI through Orbitz and my emailed confirmation says "Rate description: BUSINESS TRAVELERS ONLY." I'm not actually traveling on business, but I'm only staying there one night, and I'm wondering: how will they know?
posted by tractorfeed to Travel & Transportation (4 answers total)

Best answer: They'll only know as much as you tell them. In my days as a Best Western Front desk clerk, we would always ask the guest checking in if they were there for business or pleasure. Pleasure guests would pay the full published "rack" rate, unless they could cough up a AAA or AARP card. If someone answered business, we'd offer them the business rate, but we'd also usually ask which company they were with, because many local companies also had lower contracted rates with us.

Based on that experience, you should be prepared to confidently say you're there on business, and don't get tripped up if they ask for a company name. Giving the name of the company you actually work for in a far off town will probably be all the info the clerk would want. He or she just needs to fill in all the boxes in the computer.
posted by saffry at 8:45 PM on October 25, 2007

"I work for MetaFilter, and I'd like the business rate."
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 8:58 PM on October 25, 2007 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: AskMetafilter is great. Now I just have to decide whether I'll say Globex or Initech when I check in...
posted by tractorfeed at 9:15 PM on October 25, 2007

I haven't traveled on pleasure since college :).

You can go with the name of whoever you work for in some far-off town, and likely get the biz rate, but be aware that if you're willing to claim you work for a bigger, more well-known company that likely has lower negotiated rates with big hotel chains, you might be privy to those rates.

Considering your location when doing this can be helpful in who you decide you might work for at the moment - St. Louis is a big beer town, Detroit has cars, NYC has Wall Street, etc..
posted by allkindsoftime at 2:33 AM on October 26, 2007