International Travel

Hi:
I am just wondering if some companies offer international travel to India. Please advise if you know of any assignments so I can try to look those up accordingly.

I am not looking for any hotel accomodations, just flight travel to save me some money and also be mystery shopping on my way.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

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What I have seen are, "If you are going to ______ we have some shops you can do on your way or while you are there." These of course won't help you with travel costs. There are some domestic hotel evaluations that will pay your transportation or share in it, but these won't help you either. There are some international hotel evaluations that pay the transportation, but these generally are assigned to shoppers with an excellent track record with the company because the company does not want to be put in a position where a whole lot of money has been spent and the report is such that they cannot pay or reimburse you.

As for transportation only, I have neither seen nor heard of international flight only shops, nor have I seen or heard of international flights for any purpose other than hotel/resort evaluation.

One of the companies known for long and tedious hotel shops has a ton listed in India right now....

ShopperShel

MSPA Gold Certified
Undercover Essentials Video Certified

Have video equipment, will travel!

ShopperShel Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One of the companies known for long and tedious
> hotel shops has a ton listed in India right
> now....

Yeah, but those shops have a limit on the travel reimbursement and how many you can accept these days.

When they fist got the client, there was no limit tot he number a shops you could take and I got a completely reimbursed trip to India, but now you just get a few hundred $$ off your travel and a big report to write....

I have a lengthy business trip to India next month - different locations - and was thinking of requesting a hotel shop from them that I could tag to the end of my trip. That way I could work on the report on the flight home maybe. But flying wears me out so much that all I want to do is sleep while I'm headed home. So I'm still on the fence. But if I do it this way, I don't have to request much, if any, travel reimbursement.

To the OP, have you tried SQM? I haven't seen India as a destination but they have flight evals on a particular airline.

Thanks guys, I appreciate all your ideas. I was reading up the forum discussions for more information and saw some posts regarding Bare international - I am not sure if they have international travel. Does anyone have any experience with them and have any suggestions for me? I only ask as I dont want to sign up and later realize if anything different.

Also, hi Flippiti : what is SQM?

Candycrush,
Out of curiosity, how long have you been shopping?

That client they have in India has several properties in the US. I hope they all get shopped, too.

SteveSoCal Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ShopperShel Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > One of the companies known for long and tedious
> > hotel shops has a ton listed in India right
> > now....
>
>
> Yeah, but those shops have a limit on the travel
> reimbursement and how many you can accept these
> days.
>
> When they fist got the client, there was no limit
> tot he number a shops you could take and I got a
> completely reimbursed trip to India, but now you
> just get a few hundred $$ off your travel and a
> big report to write....

LindaM Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That client they have in India has several
> properties in the US. I hope they all get shopped,
> too.

That's another thing I haven't seen since the first round of shops for that client, Linda. They have a number of properties that don't get shopped, and not just the US ones. When I first saw them, they shopped a few in the USA and one in South Africa that I have never seen since. They also have 2 different hotels in the Maldives, but only shop one.

The back-to-back hotels were a bit hard on the digestion. That's a lot of curry to take in without a break. Both my travel partner and I had moments of gastronomic distress....

How did you handle all the names?? Especially on the phone. I think it would have to ask them to repeat their names several times. Lol

The phone was a bit easier because at least they pronounce their names.

The in-person interactions were really difficult because all of the staff wear nametags. I would try to grab one syllable from the nametag each time we interacted. You don't realize how much you really on names being memorable in the course of this job until you go somewhere where almost all of the names are foreign to you..and LONG!

I also had to turn off auto-correct in my phone. It was butchering the names.; Trying to turn Zinha in zebra and Ravikuhmar into revelation, etc.

Yikes. That sounds like a nightmare, not considering the possibility of getting names wrong and having the shop questioned. I used to dream about going to India but actually with all the problems going on there it is no longer on my must travel list... Maybe one day.

Hi Kate: I have been a shopper for about 8 months now, new to the field but love trying different aspects ...Any ideas?

Steve: I loved your comments on the auto-correct feature- I have gone through that and it made me recall a few things to laugh about....

@Candycrush, you might want to take it slow and get many long report writing assignments with gazillion observations under your belt before you think of traveling, particularly internationally, and supporting yourself with MS. Even travelling to neighboring states things can happen and well planned routes and plans fall apart, especially for someone who does not have a lot of experience or has built relationships with companies and schedulers.

I am traveling to India with a MSC for two major hotels. They pay $200 per shop, full reimbursement, and will pay $1750 of our travel costs. They still have several available.

Yum, back to back curry. I can eat curry every day. Perhaps back to back long hotel reports would be hard to digest tho.

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