One MSC I shop for has a project that's coming up on deadline; and has a lot of rural bonused shops. I can pack that in with some other shops and make a very profitable route.

Has anyone ever done a long distance route where you're on the road for a couple of days? Any advice?

Thanks!

I've done everything from overnight to 33 days. A few things I've learned. Do not overschedule. I try to plan on working 9am to 4pm and remember you have reports to do when you get to the hotel. Also do not stay with people to save the money. If you pick up hotel shops, remember to include all that reporting time in your hours per day working. Stay away from FF type shops with tight time frames, they'll screw things up always. You will be tempted to pick up dinner shops and such. Usually if you are making enough money to pay for an out of town trip, you are better off getting home a little earlier or adding another of whatever well paying shop you're doing than you are adding a food shop. The three exceptions to this (for me) are Five Guys, Moe's, and Sonic. I'll do those because they have generous time frames, the reports are so simple it's almost sad, and I like the food.


edited because I apparently don't know the difference between two and three



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/2015 11:30PM by bgriffin.

Thanks! I didn't even think about adding fast food shops for the free meals en route

33 days... were you driving coast to coast or something? I'm planning 7 and I even think that's a little crazy.

Big circle around the eastern half of the US. Also apparently you missed the part about NOT doing FF shops. They screw up timings when you only have a 2 hour window. Plus that's ANOTHER report you have to do at night when you get to the hotel. Had you rather do another report (when you're already doing a ton) or spend the $8 out of pocket?

I do Sonics sometimes on routes, but only if I can get huge bonuses on them, and only the ones that listed as 11am-8pm.

Oh I got it I wouldn't want any Arches unless they were crazily bonused. But I might grab a Sonic or Five Guys.

I haven't done any long routes (nothing over 2 days), but I have several days each month where I drive a couple hundred miles in a day, and I've recently discovered that you can borrow and download audiobooks from the library to play on my phone/ipod. I don't even notice the miles flying by when I'm listening to a great book! I'm really wanting to branch out into a route of a week or more and I'm building my "wish list" of books for that occasion!

When you drive the speed limit they will follow you too close.

That's so true, locally. Especially here in Chicago, and I *do* stick to the furthest right lane I possibly can.

Failure to signal? Really?? Must have been a *very* bored cop. Hope he no shows.

And @BillBryan, good for you learning Spanish. Soon you'll be able to perform the $4 Spanish phone shops!

One more question -- would you call your bigger MSCs and inform them of your route to see if there's anything they can stick into the run?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/20/2015 04:06AM by AlexG.

Contact all your MSCs to see if they have anything they can add to the route for you.

If you have video shops on the route, I would recommend AirBNB instead of a hotel. You'll likely have faster upload speeds and most of the hosts will give you as much company or privacy as you wish.

Last August, Mystery Shopper Magazine ran a special issue on route shopping.

When planning a multi-day route I get in touch with schedulers at about 5-10 MSCs to look for jobs. In Feb I will do a route fron DC to central FL and back. That's about 2200 miles, but there will be lots of little side trips for shops off the main route that will really add up. I have done the same trip, with different shops each time, twice before and pretty much know what to expect. If you do a search ou "route shopping" for the past year, you will find additional great tips from the road warriors here.

Yesterday was the first day that I started actively contacting specific video schedulers about the route. A lot of video assignments are not released by the clients before the first week of the month, but I locked down enough shops for the first two days of the route to net $300, with room to add more shops to those days. And, I got promises of priority for shops that come into "inventory" between now and early February from those same scheduler.

BUT, video is a small world, where we know our schedulers and they know us very well. Schedulers from mammouth MSCs may not be as cooperative. And, if they have plenty of "local" reliable shoppers for your destinations, you won't see many bonuses.

Don't forget to negotiate extensions of all report deadline when on a multi-day route. Everything takes twice as long as you expect when on the road.

Finally, I strongly advise against booking any lunch shops on a long route. Delays will almost always screw up any route schedule to the point where the time windows for lunches will not be met.

Man what a great idea, I've never done multiple day trips. Does anyone live in a big city and do road trips for bonuses?

I just listen to whatever the local sports talk radio station is.

A couple of suggestions for a more comfortable trip....
Take your favorite pillow from home. Some otherwise nice hotels have horrible pillows. You will need good sleep to maintain your good humor and stamina!
Carry some nonperisable foods, mini-packs of condiments (from ff places), water and snacks.
Take a cooler with freezer packs (many hotels will re-freeze then overnight for you!). Left-overs from meals on the road and be saved and used at night when you are doing reports! Carry your own cold soft drinks!
Don't pay hotel prices for that night-cap. Take a supply of your adult beverage of choice.
For long routes, take a few of those little pods of laundry detergent and plan hotel stays where there is a guest laundry. (Some are even free!)

I co-sign to everything that Walesmaven mentioned. I also wanted to note that it is advisable that on long routes, prepare yourself for any type of weather fluctuation. You may want to bring 2 to 3 different types of coats, from heavy to light (like a windbreaker). I've been in states where the weather would go from 75 degrees to 35 degrees in several hours, and then back.

Also, take heed to the little things such as batteries, a flashlight, an iron + drinking water. Particularly with water, you can go to your local supermarket and purchase a 24-pack for $3 and keep in your trunk, as opposed to purchasing a $1.49 bottle of water at each gas station stop. Water goes a long way when it comes to making long trips.

Lastly, keep plenty of change within your car for those unexpected toll roads.

If you don't have the freezer packs and are only going to be gone a day or two, you can make your own by freezing water in Tupperware containers. I've had those last 2 days in a 20 gallon ice chest in the heat of a southern summer [bringing it into the hotel room at night]. After the first night, I did drain the melted water and filled it with ice from the hotel ice machine. I did have three of them last 4 days but that was in the winter.

ETA:

@BillBryaninCarthage wrote:

@Eric in Tampa wrote:

Particularly with water, you can go to your local supermarket and purchase a 24-pack for $3 and keep in your trunk, as opposed to purchasing a $1.49 bottle of water at each gas station stop. Water goes a long way when it comes to making long trips.

Check out the prices at Walmart for a gallon of water. Gerber goes for $0.84 and Ozarka for $1. Lasts a long time.

The only problem there is trying to drink from a gallon bottle while driving. My weakness is Arizona Sweet Tea. I'll buy the gallon bottles in the grocery store and then carefully pour it into 20 ounce soda bottles so it's easier to drink while driving.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/22/2015 04:15PM by James Bond 007.5.

Great advice from the veterans! Hubby is planning to retire at the end of this year and join me on mystery shopping trips. I'll be a "pro" before I begin long routes with all this advice! THANKS MUCH!

Also, as an ongoing subscriber to SirusXM, I keep it on the comedy stations.

Last fall I did a cross-country route of about 14,000 miles (some zig-zagging was involved). It was for one company with 157 shops, but I added a few shops as time/opportunity permitted. I agree that you should avoid fast food or other shops that have a limited window. You are setting yourself up for failure if you do that. Schedule yourself a little downtime on the longer routes. My locations were not shopped on Sunday and most weren't shopped on Saturday, either, so I had weekends for myself. Look at the different hotel loyalty programs to determine who has the best promotion during the time you'll be away and be loyal if at all possible. For efficiency, I only paid for one restaurant meal per day (dinner). Breakfast at the hotel and I kept things like fruit and granola bars in the car for mid-day.

Wow very impressive! When you do trips like this are they vacations? Or do you travel 14,000 miles for mystery shopping? I'm just curious. I get so comfortable with city work I've never thought about the perks of long trips.

Vacations and mystery shopping do not mix. Do one or the other but not both.

nunya,
If I want a vacation on a road trip, that is a seperate set of days when I am not working and not writing reports. Since most of my shops cannot be done on weekends, I may use those days to do some sightseeing or just sit by the pool while my laundry is in the hotel guest laundry. Alternatively, I will shop all the way to and from a vacation destination, take a few dasy there without shops, and then shop my way back. bgriffin is right.

I have never done a road trip/vacation and shopped. I've actually never done shops outside my NY area. I do see tons of shops on the outskirts that have great bonuses. Thanks for such great info!

Nunya, there was one holiday weekend where I had one Saturday morning stop (my western-most stop of the route) in St. George, Utah. My next shop on Tuesday was in New Mexico. You'll notice on a map that St. George is awfully close to Las Vegas, which is exactly where I went for those three days. However, I never would have taken days off for vacation. I had three days where I wasn't going to be able to shop, so why not!?! I left Vegas late Monday morning and spent the night in the New Mexico town where my Tuesday AM shop was located.

I don't mix the two because I feel guilty if I take a vacation when I could be earning money, but I have booked shops along my way if I am driving somewhere for vacation to help offset the cost of travel.

most i drove non-stop was from Connecticut straight through to Florida without stopping for
any extended periiod. Just food, gas and shops along the way.

Any tips on negotiating shop fees for long distance shops? Should it be __ per km/mile or just one flat fee? What it is reasonable and unreasonable?

Thanks for your advice all! It started as a few heavily bonused jobs for one MSC, but now it's more like jobs for four MSCs over three days. Will let ya know how it goes when it's done

Man this has me thinking! I have been eager to take a few days for a road trip. I may try to find some hotel stops along the way and add a few extra days on for some traveling shops. Afterwords may spend a few days down in North Carolina relaxing. I'll just have to learn about finding out of state shops and hope the locations are near each other

nunya,
Don't count on hotel shops for a shopping route. First, you will need a significant, almost spotless, track record with several MSCs that do hotels to even see most of the hotel shops. Second, unless you are sitting at your computer and hear the email announcing the few hotel shops that send emails, you will not get to the site in time to apply for the shop. Third, the date range for the hotel shop that you want may be a 3-4 day span that does not match when you need a hotel and/or there may be no hotels posted for the area that you need. Fourth, a fair number of hotel shops will never see any job board. Many MSCs develop a corps of highly rated shoppers who will have first chance at their hotel shops.

Yesterday, I set my phone alarm for every 15 minutes so that I could check 3 different job boards that were rolling out the few hotel shops that would get posted for February. I one 15 minute period, the XYZ job board (for all shops) in FL went from 7 to 177 shops posted. I was too late for four hotel shops and the rest were no where near I needed to be. You don't even want to contemplate how much faster than that the ABC company shops in all 6 of the states where I need hotels were cleared off the boards as "taken." And, as a seasoned hotel shopper, I know that I actually see more hotels on those boards than most. It took a long time and dozens of shops for each of those MSCs before I even began to see the higher end hotels.

ETA
You will do better to start by taking the hotel shops that you can get in your local area and joining the rewards programs for those hotels. Stack up those rewards points and start funding short routes by using your rewards points to "buy" free nights at the moderate range of each hotel chain's hotels.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2015 01:58PM by walesmaven.

I've only done two hotel shops in my couple of years of mystery shopping. I did a Days Inn in my home town early on. The report was tedious and somewhat redundant.

The second hotel was a Hampton Inn. The report went a lot easier and the MSC got me a restaurant shop for dinner in the town where I was shopping the Hampton.

While I like hotel shops, I've made the decision to avoid them on routes because there's usually enough to do at night with completing the shop reports from the day.