Now that we better understand the concept for the Monolab|Workspace, let’s take a closer look at its benefit for the frequent traveler, defined as someone accumulating over 100,000 qualifying miles per year (1K on United Airlines for example). In fact, let’s go through the main steps of a travel abroad, and identify simple ways to significantly improve the traveler’s overall experience, with a single goal in mind: reducing stress, by eliminating uncertainties.

Planning

Before you step into the plane that will take you to some far away corner of the Earth, you want to plan your trip. Once you get your plane ticket booked, all you have to do is connect to the Monolab|Workspace portal (powered by Salesforce.com), and tell us about your trip, selecting destination, arrival date, departure date, and services requested on location. This should take no more than a couple minutes.

Chauffeur

Once you landed and cleared immigration and customs, you’re on your way to the workspace. You could take a taxicab, but a limousine will take you there with a bit more comfort, for not much more than a regular taxi fare. And you won’t have to wait in line in the cold — ever experienced the line at United’s terminal at JFK in the winter? Granted, you could have booked the limousine service yourself, but doing so in a country speaking a foreign language might prove to be a bit of a challenge. And who can you really trust? Being a member of Monolab|Workspace, we will do it for you with a reliable company, at no extra cost. Also, the fare will be automatically added to your monthly bill, therefore you won’t have to worry about getting cash (difficult in places like Japan for example), or guessing what the tip should be.

Mobile Phone and Broadband Wireless Modem

You just arrived at the workspace, and now you’d like to get some work done. Our wireless network is configured in such a way that all locations use the same network ID, therefore all you have to do is remember your login and password. But comes a time when you have to step out of the office, and if you find yourself in a country for which your mobile phone does not support roaming, you would be essentially offline, which is not good in an Office 2.0 world. Nothing to worry about though, for you can borrow a mobile phone and broadband wireless modem that won’t add any roaming charges. For $50 a month, we essentially give you unlimited access to a phone and a broadband wireless modem, in every country where we have a workspace. And because you did let us know when you’ll be out of the country when you planned for your trip, we already configured call forwarding to your local mobile phone.

Cash without Transaction Fee

The ride from the airport did not require cash, but some expenses will, and you would like to get some. In some countries like Japan, it’s actually quite a challenge, for most ATMs only support local debit and credit cards. Also, most ATMs will charge exorbitant transaction fees, which most travelers never bother to expense back home. Again, nothing to worry about here, for we’ll give you all the cash you need (within reason), and will just add the converted amount to your next bill.

Personal Locker

You find yourself traveling to the same place many times a year, and you wish you could leave some personal belongings behind, and get them back when you return. You could try to negotiate something with a local hotel, but most won’t let you do it, mostly for security reasons. In our case, we know you, and we trust you. So for $25 a month, we will give you access to your own personal locker, large enough to store a suit, a few dress shirts, some clean underwear, a pair of shoes, and your favorite bottle of fine liquor. And you can get your own personal lockers in as many locations as you want, without having to carry a whole bunch of keys, for you’ll use the same RFID card you would use to get into any of our workspaces and for using our multifunction printers. This card is barely thicker than a credit card, so you can keep it in your wallet, so you don’t have to worry about packing it before you leave. And if you were to lose it, all you would have to do is call us, and we would make sure to meet you at the workspace, with a brand new one. Since we get our cards in batches of 100 that cost about $450 before taxes, we will just add $5 to your next bill, so there is not much to worry about, really.

Dry Cleaning

While we cannot offer overnight dry cleaning services like a regular hotel would, we can take care of your dry cleaning for the clothes you would leave behind in your locker. What this means is that next time your return to the workspace, you will find a clean set of suit, tie, shirts, and underwear. As a result, you might find yourself traveling overseas with nothing more than a laptop, which is quite nice in these days of shrinking luggage allowances. Also, our rates for dry cleaning are the same as the one offered by local dry cleaning stores, which are usually 50% to 75% lower than the ones practiced in hotels ($10 to $15 for a dress shirt for example).

Free Massage

After a long flight and shower, you might want a quick rejuvenating massage. We can’t give you the services of a professional masseuse (our staff is rather limited, and not always on premises), but we’re investing in the very best massage chair money can buy. It’s called the OSIM uSpace, and you really have to try it.

Better Bathroom Hygiene

One of the best amenities offered by Japanese hotels are these famous TOTO Washlet toilet seats that clean your rear end without having to use paper. Like the uSpace massage chair, you have to try them to understand why we like them so much. Google employees now get to enjoy them as well, which is really unfair, until you realize that we have them too, and not just in Japan.

Remote Access to Personal Media Library

If you decided to stay in one of our bedrooms, you might want to watch a movie. Unfortunately, we cannot give you access to movies you don’t own, and we’re not big fans of the $15 fee hotels usually charge for movies on demand. But we have a better solution: you will find a DVD ripping robot in every of our locations, and someone ready to show you how they work. One day, just bring your favorite DVDs from home, rip them, convert them into MP4 format, and store them on the 1TB of space we include in your membership. This should be enough for about 250 movies. Then, simply watch the movie you want on demand, from anywhere around the world. It’s totally legal, and quite more enjoyable than being limited to some sub-standard hotel selection. Also, we recommend that you pre-load a dozen movies on your laptop before you leave, so that you have something decent to watch in the plane.

Friends

Now that you have a place to crash in the cities you travel the most to, it’s time to make some friends. As you return to some of our workspaces, you will get to know the local tenants, and hopefully make friends with some of them. You will also be able to invite some of your local friends at the workspace, for a coffee or a drink (provided by you if it contains alcohol). All our locations will feature comfortable meeting places, like outdoor patios in Palo Alto, CA, or a lounge area in New York, NY.

Good Coffee

One of the worst amenities offered by pretty much any hotel room in the world is coffee. Granted, you could go down the stairs and head to the bar or the local Starbucks joint, but it’s early in the morning, you’re not totally awake yet, and you’d like to read through your emails before doing anything else. Well, worry not, for all our locations will have a Jura Capresso Z5 machine, which will brew some of the best coffee in the world, at the touch of a button.

Free Drinking Water

Also, our most basic needs as human beings are breathing air, quickly followed by drinking water. Most hotels do a decent job at providing the former, but the later is usually outrageously expensive, as in up to $10 for a $750ml bottle. We think this does not make any sense, which is why each of our location is equipped with the best water cooler we could find. It’s using a six stage reverse osmosis process, which turns tap water into ultra pure drinking water, therefore being gentler on the environment than water bottles (our goal is to have a zero carbon footprint).

Easy Check Out

Finally, because everything is pretty much included in your standard membership (complemented by the phone/modem option and the local lockers), the check out process has a single step: returning your local phone and modem, by placing them in a secure locker that can be opened with your magic RFID card. And in the event you would forget it, just send them back to us over FedEx or UPS. We hope you enjoyed your stay, and we wish you a safe trip back home.