The Best Perks of Business Travel (Beyond the Free Points)

I recently wrote about the hidden costs of frequent work travel – the exhaustion, the missed holidays, constantly being in transit. But I’d like to talk about the other side of that coin.

Though work travel is not as glamorous as it may seem and it comes with sacrifice, if you can push past the jet lag and long days, there are many rewards that are difficult to trade away.

Over the last 3.5 years, I’ve visited 13 countries (and counting) for work. Here are some of the best perks of business travel.

The Hotels

One of the most obvious perks: your company puts you up somewhere nice. I’ve stayed at the Ritz-Carlton in Amman, Le Meridien in Dubai, and the JW Marriott in Doha – properties I wouldn’t have booked on a leisure budget, at least not yet. These stays gave me a real benchmark for what luxury hospitality looks like, which has shaped how I review and evaluate hotels now. The one downside: when you’re there for work, you don’t actually get to spend much time enjoying the property.

Ritz-Carlton Amman

Earning Points on Someone Else’s Dime

This is the one that keeps on giving. When your company is covering the hotel and flight bills, you’re stacking points and status without spending your own money. I fly Air Canada almost exclusively and stay at Marriott properties, so every work trip feeds directly into my Aeroplan balance and Bonvoy status.

The payoff has been big. Personal trips I’ve funded largely or entirely with points in the last two years: Nashville, Victoria, Mexico, Japan, and Calgary. It’s a travel budget you don’t have to build with any of your own money.

Flying over the Rockies on Air Canada

Getting Good at Travel Itself

There’s a skill set that builds quietly over years of frequent travel. You learn to pack light and fast, to move through airports efficiently, to know what to ask for when something goes sideways. You figure out which products actually make travel easier and which ones just take up space. Eventually you become the person your friends text before their first international work trip. All of it builds confidence. Now I genuinely feel like I could pick up at any moment and go anywhere on my own. Well…almost anywhere!

YVR International Departures

Visiting Places You Might Never See Otherwise

I’ll be honest, before work took me abroad, I wasn’t particularly worldly. I didn’t know much about the Middle East or Asia, and I wouldn’t have booked a trip to either region on my own. Not because I wasn’t curious, I just wouldn’t have thought to prioritize them.

The Great Wall of China – November 2023

That turned out to be exactly why work travel surprised me so much. Some of the most memorable experiences of my life have happened in places I never would have chosen for myself. I’ve fallen in love with some of the places I’ve visited for work.

Petra – October 2022

In roughly a one-year window, I saw the Great Wall of China, Petra, and the Pyramids of Giza. None of them were the purpose of any trip but all of them happened simply because I was already there and had a few hours of free time.

The Pyramids of Giza – February 2023

Food & People

When you travel as a tourist, you often end up at the well-reviewed spots near your hotel/in town. When you travel for work, your local colleagues take you somewhere real, like the neighbourhood “hole-in-the-wall” restaurant that doesn’t show up on TripAdvisor. In Lebanon, my driver asked about my favourite foods and what I wanted to eat, then brought me to a place that was almost street food-level; somewhere I never would have found or stopped at on my own. It was the best shawarma and Lebanese food I’ve ever had. No exaggeration.

Egyptian Food in Cairo

But the people themselves are the bigger payoff. Work travel means building friendships and connections with people who live in cities around the world. I have close friends and colleagues in Hong Kong, Dubai, São Paulo, and Tennessee, among other places. When I visit those cities now, I’m not a tourist. I have someone who knows where to go, what to skip, and which neighbourhoods are worth your time. Someone who will meet you for dinner and show you the version of their city that doesn’t exist in a travel guide.

Having an authentic Hong Kong lunch with my friend

There’s also something less tangible but just as real: the world starts to feel smaller and more navigable. Knowing people in other countries makes those places feel less foreign and more like somewhere you belong, at least a little. That’s not something you can manufacture on a two-week vacation. It builds over time, trip by trip, and it’s one of the things I value most about having travelled as much as I have for work.

Peking Duck Lunch with Colleagues in Beijing

Personal Growth

This one is harder to quantify but it might be the most valuable thing on this list. Frequent work travel has made me more cultured, more worldly, and more self-aware than I ever expected. I’ve learned things about myself – how I handle discomfort, unfamiliarity, being far from home – that I wouldn’t have discovered any other way. I’ve learned about places and cultures I never would have sought out on my own.

Some of it is small and measurable, like the fact that I can now say “hello” and “thank you” in ten languages. Some of it is harder to put into words, but all of it has pushed me outside my comfort zone, and that, more than any hotel stay or points balance, is what I’ll carry the longest.

Visiting Petra

Takeaway

These benefits don’t materialize without cost, and I covered that cost in my last post. But for me, the experiences, the skills, the global network, and the points have made it worth it.

If you’re heading into a role with significant travel attached, go in with a strategy. Set your points-earning goals, know which loyalty programs you want to feed, which properties to prioritize, and how to make the most of what your company is spending. The rewards are great but only if you have a strategy.