Six of the best... Business travel hacks

GET FREE CO-WORKING SPACE

Airbnb has teamed up with co-working giant Wework to offer people who book an apartment through the Airbnb for Business portal a free day at any nearby Wework space in cities such as London, LA, Chicago and New York. Facilities include free wifi, coffee, tea, beer and hot desks.

STAY FOR A DAY

Book hotel rooms for short blocks during the day, either for meetings, a power nap or a quick shower. They cost up to 75% less than an overnight stay and, so far, dayuse.com features 4,000 hotels across 20 countries.

FIND EMPTY SEATS

Locate empty seats on crowded trains by clicking on the Journey Tracker tab in the Busy Bot service launched by Trainline last year. The app uses real-time feedback from passengers to identify less crowded coaches.

NO FRILLS LUXURY

A new breed of ‘affordable luxury’ hotels offer stylish interior design, trendy communal spaces and great dining, but no swimming pools, gyms or room service that bumps up the price. Examples include Marriott’s Moxy, Motel 1, Citizen M and Ace Hotels’ forthcoming Sister City.

COMPARE TRANSPORT

Fleetondemand’s Mobilleo helps users compare the best ways of completing end-to-end journeys using multiple modes of transport (taxi and train versus taxi plus plane, for example). You can book and pay in line with your travel policy, and even add hotels, parking and restaurants.

PREPAID CARDS

There are a number of new prepaid cards and mobile-only banks out there that don’t charge foreign transactions, ATM withdrawals or exchange fees when you travel abroad. Try Monzo (current accounts only from April 2018), Revolut, Curve or Glint, which also allows you to buy gold.