Capital One Backs a New Kind of Road Warrior Who Stays Longer

For many executives and entrepreneurs, the traditional business trip once followed a predictable pattern. Travelers arrived for meetings, completed their obligations, and returned home.

Increasingly, that script is being rewritten. Many businesspeople now extend work travel by a day or two, turning conferences, supplier visits or client meetings into trips that incorporate personal time. The result is a hybrid approach in which the same journey serves both professional commitments and personal renewal.

David Arons, senior director of travel product strategy at Capital One Business, told PYMNTS in a recent roundtable discussion that the change reflects a broader reassessment of how business owners approach travel and work-life balance.

“We’re definitely seeing a shift away from the typical pure road warrior mindset where personal and business travel used to be separate,” he said. “Business owners have shown a [growing] interest in integrating personal and business travel for more work-life balance.”

That shift extends beyond founders. Travel can place heavy demands on employees, and allowing workers to remain in a destination for a short period after a meeting can soften the strain that frequent travel imposes.

The trend is also reflected in how businesses think about their financial tools. Corporate spending, particularly through business credit cards, increasingly supports travel that carries both professional and personal value. For many entrepreneurs and small business operators, the rewards generated by operational spending become a mechanism for financing trips that blend work responsibilities with personal time.

Changing View of Road Warrior

Arons said many companies now encourage employees to extend trips when circumstances allow. “If you’re already sending [your employees] to the sunny beaches of Miami or California, allowing them to extend that trip” becomes a great perk, he said.

For employers, such flexibility can serve as a benefit that helps offset the disruption associated with frequent travel while also improving morale.

The shift also reflects the realities faced by small business owners, who frequently combine professional obligations with personal schedules. Unlike larger corporations with specialized travel departments, entrepreneurs often manage travel arrangements themselves, and the ability to derive both professional and personal value from a single trip carries strong appeal.

Simplicity and Flexibility in Business Cards

The evolution of business travel has influenced what entrepreneurs seek from the financial tools they use to manage expenses. Business owners often operate with limited time and resources, making simplicity a central consideration when choosing payment products.

Rewards programs that require careful monitoring or constant optimization can become an unwelcome distraction from the demands of running a company.

Arons said that concern is one of the many pain points the Venture X Business card is built to alleviate for business owners. “Business owners shouldn’t need to spend hours researching how to redeem their rewards,” he said. “They shouldn’t need an Excel spreadsheet to track all the benefits they have.”

Rewards earned from business purchases can be applied in several ways, including offsetting travel costs, upgrading flights or hotels, or covering expenses for employees attending events and meetings. In many cases, those benefits extend naturally into personal travel that occurs in conjunction with business trips.

Travel, Growth and Entrepreneurial Reality

Lindsay Silberman, founder of fragrance brand Hotel Lobby Candle, joined the discussion to offer up examples of how business travel and personal travel can intersect for entrepreneurs. Silberman previously spent a decade as a magazine editor writing about luxury hotels before launching the company during the pandemic. The brand emerged from her fascination with how scent captures the memory of travel experiences.

“When we first started the business, it was very scrappy,” she said. “But the spend that we have on business expenses has gotten exponentially more, the more that we’ve grown.” That spending spans a wide range of activities, from advertising purchases and inventory orders to travel associated with product development and marketing.

She noted during the interview that embracing Capital One’s premium Venture X Business card, which offers rewards including 2X miles on all purchases, 10X on hotels/rental cars, and 5X on flights, in addition to travel credits, has underpinned that spending.

“We put everything from Meta and Google ad spend to flights to hotel stays, locations for photo shoots and inventory,” Silberman told PYMNTS. “It really runs the gamut.”

Lounges as a Business Tool

Frequent travel also highlights how certain card benefits serve practical purposes for entrepreneurs rather than simple luxury. Airport lounge access illustrates the point. Silberman said the ability to retreat to a lounge during delays can make the difference between frustration and productivity.

“I can be a very relaxed traveler as long as I know I have a good lounge,” she said, noting that recent trips involved numerous flight delays. “Knowing there’s a Capital One lounge where I can get good food, strong Wi-Fi and relax gives me peace of mind.”

From the perspective of business owners, Arons said these amenities often carry operational value. “The premium comfort is not just a luxury,” he said. “It’s actually a must-have” to enable better business results.

When Travel Fuels New Ideas

For Silberman, the overlap between work and leisure extends even further because the company’s products draw inspiration from hospitality experiences. Time spent in hotels or travel destinations can provide ideas for future products or marketing campaigns.

“If I’m at a hotel and I smell something or experience something, it can spark an idea for the brand,” she said.

In that sense, the boundary between business travel and personal travel often dissolves entirely. A trip that begins with a professional obligation may generate creative insights that influence the direction of the company itself.

Continued Rise of Hybrid Travel

As travel patterns stabilize following pandemic disruptions, many observers expect the blending of work and leisure travel to remain a lasting feature of the modern business environment. Entrepreneurs, freelancers and executives increasingly operate within flexible schedules that allow professional obligations and personal priorities to coexist.

Arons indicated that reality is reflected in how customers use rewards generated through business spending. He suggests flexibility will continue to shape how travel products are designed for business owners.

“It’s very common for business owners to use their rewards for a mixture of personal use and business use,” he said, adding that the goal is to give entrepreneurs tools that support both sides of that equation. “Ultimately it comes down to how each business owner wants to empower themselves.”