Travel Network
By Joe Jacobson

In this article, we will explain how anyone can travel at a fraction of the regular price, enjoy perks, benefits and upgrades like you’ve never experienced before, travel tax-deductible anywhere in the world, and even get paid when you travel.

What does it mean to travel as an “insider?” Well, for decades, the travel industry has depended on travel agents to book all travel. Then, in the mid-1990s, two things happened that forever changed the way people book travel. Number one, the airlines stopped paying commissions to agencies. This impacted them greatly since airline commissions were very important to their income stream. At about the same time, the first Internet booking engines like Travelocity came into existence. Over the years as the Internet sites got more user-friendly and offered better prices, less people went to the full service agency, instead booking their own travel online. In a way, the online booking websites trained millions of people to be their own travel agent. Of course, you don't make a commission, but you do get a great Internet rate.

It’s important to keep in mind that for decades, the travel vendors (cruises, hotels, resorts, etc.) have depended upon the word-of-mouth advertising of travel industry professionals. It’s called free advertising. The travel properties routinely invite travel agents at a deeply reduced rate in exchange for the agents going home to promote their hotel or cruise line. The properties are not going to kick someone out of a hotel room so you can stay there cheaper, but if the room is going to go unused anyway in an off-season or shoulder season, then they will still benefit by having you stay there at a reduced rate and then help to promote their facility. It’s a win-win situation. If the hotel doesn’t rent that room tonight, it’s loss revenue forever.

Tax Benefits

It's very important to understand the difference between traveling with after-tax dollars as opposed to traveling with pre-tax dollars as a business owner. Let's look at taxes for a minute: if you are not a business owner, you are missing out on one of the advantages of tax-deductibility. Let's take a simple example of the difference between an employee and a business owner. Let's say the average American spends about $3,000 per year on travel and vacations. You may spend more. If you are an employee, you will have to earn about $4,500 down at the job and then net out $3,000 after taxes. You then spend the $3,000 on the vacations. At the end of the vacation, you have great memories, but no money in your pocket.

Contrast this with the travel business owner who also makes $4,500 (maybe even at the same job), but then buys the travel as a business expense. As a business owner, you don't pay taxes until all business expenses are deducted. In addition, because you are a travel professional, you will probably get the same vacation at a reduced rate, say $1,500. Subtract this from $4,500 and you are left with $3,000. Now you must pay the same rate of taxes (let's say about 33% or $1,000). You are left with $2,000 in your pocket and the good memories. Which way would you rather travel, as an employee or a travel business owner?

In addition to the travel being tax deductible (consult with your tax advisor), you may have other business expenses such as cell phones, internet connection, car expenses, cameras, etc. As long as you treat your travel business as a real business by documenting your business activities and expenses, you may have additional tax benefits (check with your tax advisor).

Once you learn how to become an insider in the travel insider and travel like the pros, you will not want to travel any other way.

Joe Jacobson is a travel professional who helps the budget-conscious traveler, as well as helps nonprofits use travel as a fundraising tool. He has created www.ytbhomebasedbusiness.com, a bilingual website, to help you learn to travel as an insider.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joe_Jacobson
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We arrived in our leather windjammers and silk scarves as a joke really, but we soon felt complete idiots and took off the white silk scarves. The drive to the airport was tricky as the fog was quite dense; our fears were calmed when we saw that the airstrip was quite clear as we drove into the car park. The planes were lined up near the wired fence and we looked along them, a beautiful white Cessna with two engines was being polished my a man in a boiler suit and a white silk scarf , we all agreed that this was the one and hat a great machine it looked. The last one in the row was an old single engine Orange plane with dents in the end of the wings, bird droppings over the canopy and a flat tyre. No it couldn’t be that wreck, it can’t be safe. We entered the terminal and were sent out again because the private planes go from the hut next door. Not a hut really, more a large converted chicken shed, with a separate lounge area at the end and a shared toilet at the other near the notice board.

A man let us in, wearing a leather jacket and a white silk scarf, he sent us over to the lounge area, “Too foggy at the moment gents, go read some mag's I’ll be back in thirty minutes when I’ve seen the weather reports.” He said as he walked away, “I’d rather be down here wishing I was up there, than up there wishing I was down here” he laughed as he left the hut. We looked at each other, shrugged our shoulder in harmony and sat down to look at the pile of magazines on the coffee table. “UK Flying Accident Reports” That’s all that were there and it was horrific reading. John being the flight virgin amongst us thought it was funny, he even read out the types of planes that crashed the most and that the most common cause of death in an air crash was Hang Gliding into stone walls. He rattled off statistics, small aircraft have more killed than the total of airliners crashes, and Helicopter crashes are most prominent as full passenger killers. We asked him to stop. John found it highly amusing that the plane we would be taking off in soon may soon end up as a statistic in the magazine on the coffee table. We didn’t.

The pilot came back, “Fog’s lifting so I’ve got the technician to pump up the tyre and clean the windscreen, let’s go.” He shouted down the hut. Even John shut up with that remark. The orange plane had been pushed out into the open, a wooden stool had been put next to the wing so we cold step on it and walk along a foot printed way to the cockpit which had two door open. The passengers got in fist and started to search for the seatbelts. I had to walk got in next in the right seat at the front. We were looking up into the air and the strange bonnet seemed the wrong shape especially with the big thing stuck up at the end. It occurred to me that we had not even had a training course, a briefing or even an instruction sheet, was that the norm? The pilot climbed in next to me, announcing that he would know straight ways if I was capable of being a trainee pilot, he would sit there and instruct me right through the operation, even the taxiing to the runway. Steering the plane with your feet on two brakes is not easy, the plane would swerve to the left and right from the back swivelling wheel and pivot on the front wheel that had been broken. After about 50 yards I had mastered it, and even managed to miss any other planes parked nearby. We got to the end of the runway, aiming to the sea but with the pleasure beach between the sand and us. I must say that the runway did not look that long and how can passenger planes take off from here was the thought in my head. The pilot said he would take over now and hand it to me as soon as we get underway. He took the control, revved up the engine with the body vibrating and the noise nearly unbearable, he let her go. “Okay, you take the control” he announce only after a couple of seconds. “But we’re not in the air yet” I asked. “Its okay lad, just pull it back when I tell you to” he replied.

Not a single “what if” entered my focussed mind now, the stick was duly pulled back and we took off, more throttle and up we went over the pleasure beach and over the sand toward the sea. I always amazes me how quickly planes get up and things down there look smaller, it’s the same in a small pane too except the door feels rattley and thin and the outside seems closer than in a 747. The pilot winked at me and whispered to push the stick forward and wait to see the reaction of the passengers. I pushed the stick forward and heard a groaning from the back, we had produce a bit of negative G and they were the ones to feel it. Now turn t the right until you see the coastline then turn straight. At this juncture I must explain that a plane is not a car. In a car you turn the wheel and it turns the corner in the circle the wheel is aiming. In a plane if you turn the stick it will continue turning like a corkscrew so you have to correct it at the end of the manoeuvre, this took me by surprise but I soon started to enjoy it. We flew over Blackpool, Cleveleys, Fleetwood and over to the M6 motorway. We then flew along the M6 northerly and planned to turn round over the sea near the Cumbrian town of Grange. However the quiet up to now Malcolm had the strangest notion to ask the pilot how slow could the plane fly and still be safe. What a stupid thing to say to a man in a plane wearing a leather jacket and a white silk scarf. He told me to lift the front up and throttle back, bring the speed down to 45 knots and see how it handled. This was the scariest thing I have ever done on purpose, why I don’t know. The controls went bland, and the noise level increased dramatically. “Any slower than this and we’ll crash” was the pilots first remarks. “Now increase the throttle and level off. Let’s go back for a cup of coffee”

The flight back was fun; we flew over the Preston football stadium for see the name spelt out by the coloured seats. Tom Finney. We headed back to Blackpool. “Now line up with that gasometer and the runway’s just behind it.” The pilot muttered. It seems I was expected to land the plane too. Now the runway seemed too small to skateboard on but we were committed and the coloured lines were soon in view, I kept waiting for him to say he would take over but no, we felt the wheel hit the floor before he took the stick back. I had to taxi it back to the hut, this time as an expert and was quite disappointed to switch the engine off. Sitting back in our seats the pilot told me I would make an excellent pilot and after about 200 hours of training would get my light aircraft licence at a cost of about £6,000 all in. £6,000 from a teacher who couldn’t afford a plane at the end of it and who would have to keep the licence fresh by hiring the plane. What a con. Con Air, the title of a movie.

I hope you have enjoyed reading issue 24 and If you have any suggestions or comments about any part of the newsletter then please feel free to contact me.

As always, if you have a story,photos or questions you wish to ask or share with our readers then please email me and I will be happy to include them in our next edition.

All submissions should reach me by no later than the 20th of February