6. Find Hotels that Cater to Business Travelers Hotels that cater to business travelers will have Internet capabilities and offer access to business machines such as faxes and photocopiers.

7. Remember Adaptors and Converters If you're traveling to a foreign country, remember that you might need special voltage adaptors for electricity. You might also need plug adapters to accommodate both electrical plugs and telephone jacks. A good travel store will be able to help you decide what's needed.

8. Use Calling Cards When you're staying at a hotel, phone bill can be a major expense. The cost of calling your family, checking your voice mail and checking your email is best handled by using a telephone calling card or a corporate credit card.

9. Check your Cellular Service Cellular phone companies regularly offer new rates. Check to be sure you're getting best deal -- some now include long distance charges in monthly fee. If your business travel will take you to small, out-of-the way towns, your digital phone might not work. You will need an analog or dual digital/anlog phone for such trips.

10. Protect Yourself Against Theft Before leaving home, make copies of your travel documents (passport, airline tickets, travel insurance, credit cards and itinerary).

Take copies with you and leave a copy with a contact at home. Take special precautions for your electronics. See what your local travel store has to offer in terms of protective luggage. You can purchase laptop cases that disguise fact that they're used for laptops, or laptop cases that look old and battered. And of course, you already know how fast and savvy a pickpocket can be. Avoid carrying important documents in your purse or hip pocket.

Let's face it. no matter how we crunch numbers, there are simply no guarantees that flight you take won't be late, that your baggage won't be lost or mashed like a leather potato. The facts and figures you turn up on web can serve as a general guide, but they can't provide you with a hard and fast answer. You can easily go a little nuts trying to juggle all those statistics. After all, perfection is hard to come by - especially in airline business! The information you turn up on web can improve your chances of having an easier and more comfortable flight, but there are absolutely no guarantees. So no matter what numbers may show, real choice of which airline you pick probably comes down to just one question: how much is that ticket going to cost me?