Kyle Potter (2:44)

Yeah. Always happy to talk travel.

Joel (2:46)

I know you are, man. That's like, that's your life. It's like when someone's like, hey, do you want to talk about personal finance? I'm like, yeah, let's go. Exactly.

Kyle Potter (2:54)

That's what we're here for.

Joel (2:55)

A passion and a job. First question I ask everyone who comes on the show, Kyle, is what they like to splurge on. What's their craft beer equivalent? So, yeah, for you, I know you're being smart and intelligent and you're saving for your future, but what are you splurging on in the here and now while you're simultaneously doing that?

Kyle Potter (3:11)

I mean, sometimes it literally is craft beer. Love a good hazy IPA or a fresh Italian pilsner. We have so many good breweries here in Minneapolis that in some ways, it sets the bar a little bit too high. It feels like places I go, it's really hard to find breweries that can really measure up. So when it's not that it's a nice bottle of champagne, that's one of the few things where I'm really willing to spend a little, at least a little bit more money. And then the final answer is, it sounds like a cop out, but I'm going to explain. It is travel. That is what I set aside so much of my, you know, expendable income for. But in ways that it's not like I'm blowing tons of money on every trip, that's the antithesis of what we do. Right? So my wife and I have this, like, informal rule where on every trip we take, we have one splurge. There's one thing that just goes beyond, you know, booking hotels, often with points or with credit card benefits, or booking the cheapest flight that we can. And then there's one item that we take on every trip that we take where we're like, you know what? We're going to do something that's really special, that's going to be worth the money. So there's always that one thing on every trip we take, even though the entire trip itself may seem to others to be like a splurge.

Joel (4:22)

I have so many questions based on literally just what you said, but I think that is exactly the right take on travel. It stay at cheaper accommodations, like, what? But have one moment that's a highlight reel moment for the trip. Like, I still, I can remember that from every trip I've taken. Like, and, like, I remember a motorized hang gliding tour I took in Hawaii and everything else was super cheap. Like, went to Costco, got most of my food, was eaten, you know, at the place we were staying instead of going out to nice meals. But that motorized hang glider tour, which felt like so much money at the time, I'll remember for the rest of my life. And it was worth the splurge. Like, what's one of those for you?

Kyle Potter (4:58)

You know, my wife and I are getting ready to go to Thailand and Hong Kong in just a couple of days as we're talking right now. And, you know, we do typically tend to skew towards either booking hotels with points. So there's. It's little to nothing actually out of pocket besides. Besides accruing the points that we have, or truly budget travel, you know, especially in Southeast Asia, where you can get a really nice place for $80 a night, if that. But in this case, we decided our one splurge was going to be to rent a pool villa at the island in Thailand that we're going to called Koh Kood, where it wasn't $80 a night. There were base rooms available at that level, but this was more in the neighborhood of, you know, probably $200 a night or so now in the United States or in Europe, something like that would probably cost closer to $1,000. So it doesn't feel like quite a splurge. It feels like a very reasonable thing to do. But there always is that one thing, and on this upcoming trip, it's that one. I love it.

Joel (5:54)

So give me a quick overview. We're 2026. Things are changing. Like, for the first time in a while, I feel like travel. There's actually a lot of, like, newsy stuff about what's going on with travel and travel prices, the volatile jet fuel market. Right. Increasing bag fees. What's happening? Can you just kind of give us a lay of the land?

Kyle Potter (6:16)

Everything, everywhere, all at once. But it's all seemingly awful. It's kind of what it feels like looking at the headlines right now. There are three primary factors that go into the prices that we pay for travel, at least when it comes to flights, which is really what we at Thrifty Traveler specialize in, trying to find good deals for people and send them to our members. And there is no question that that has gotten quite a bit harder to do, you know, as February turned into March with the start of the war in Iran, and then onward into the spring. And so those three factors that drive flight prices up or down are cost. What are the airlines paying for things like their fuel Obviously, that price has, as we're talking right now, more than doubled. But in many ways, cost isn't the biggest one. The bigger ones are supply and demand. Are there more seats than airlines can fill? That's going to bring prices down. Is there more demand to fill seats than airlines have in the market? Your prices are going to go up because airlines know they can afford to charge that. And the third final and easily the most important one, is competition between the airlines. The number one source of finding great deals on flights, no matter where you're trying to go, is when one airline tries to undercut another competitive airline by offering passengers a lower fare. And I say all that because I think the reason why things seem so painful right now when it comes to finding cheaper travel is that all three of those are trending against the everyday consumer right now.

Joel (7:50)

You could dig a little bit deeper into the competition angle. Is that like Spirit going bust? And what do you think about it? Like, I've never flown Spirit, but Spirit's mere presence in the market impacts pricing, right? At least on a number of legs across the country.

Kyle Potter (8:08)

Oh, exactly. That. That really is it. And it is, it goes beyond Spirit. But Spirit is, is the number one name when it comes to cheap travel. And look, I have flown Spirit before. It is totally fine. Would I go out of my way to fly Spirit? Probably not. But I am eternally grateful for their presence this last decade and a half or so, enforcing other major airline, the ones that I would prefer to fly, like American, Delta, Southwest or United, because the fact that Spirit is there selling those $49, $89 oneway fares, forces the likes of Delta and American and Southwest to United to compete on price. And not just within the last, you know, couple of months, but within the last multiple years. Spirit has really been shrinking other budget airlines, like, namely Frontier here in the United States, but maybe more importantly and troublingly, budget airlines that fly from the United States to Europe, for example, like Norse, Atlantic, all of these airlines are struggling. And as they struggle, they shrink. That hurts competition, that hurts supply and demand. So it's. I hate to be all doom and gloom because there are still deals out there, but it is absolutely getting harder to find them because of everything that we're talking about.

Joel (9:27)

So harder to find deals. But is, is flexibility still like the number one key that allows someone that puts them in kind of the position to save money in an era maybe

Kyle Potter (9:39)

where it's harder, oh, 100%. There is no other silver bullet for finding a better deal on flights that comes Anywhere close to flexibility, not even credit card points and airline miles. You could have more airline miles and credit card points than you could ever hope to redeem in the entirety of your life. And if you aren't flexible, you will never find a good deal, because flexibility is everything. Now, flexibility can be as simple as well. I would prefer to depart on a Monday and return home on a Sunday for my big domestic trip this year. But if I'm willing to leave on a Tuesday and come home maybe the next Tuesday, that can save you. I mean, even on flights to Washington, D.C. or Las Vegas or New York City or wherever, that can save you hundreds of dollars per ticket. But flexibility is also increasingly traveling not during the peak summer, but instead maybe mid to late August, kind of at the tail end of summer instead, where the weather's still going to be great, but the prices tend to come down, especially if you're looking overseas at somewhere in Europe, because that is the sweet spot increasingly for finding those better fares, especially as things get harder. And then finally, if flexibility can go as far as going somewhere where it is truly cheaper, that is everything. If you're willing to kind of follow the deal rather than deciding on your destination, deciding on your travel dates, and only then looking at flights, that is a recipe for traveling so much more for less. And that's really what we've built. Everything that we do around is trying to teach people how to start with the flight first, maybe even start with a deal, coming to them and deciding, you know what, I will go to Colombia because it costs $218 round trip when I can't even fly an hour and a half to Chicago for that price.

Joel (11:22)

I remember I would always wanted to go to Norway because that's where my family's from. And I was like, I'm just, I'm waiting for a deal. And for years I was like, I don't think I'm ever going to go to Norway. And then boom, a deal drops. And I was like, I get to go to Norway now, but if I'd forced it, I would have spent twice as much on that on that trip. So when it comes to that flexibility, like you talked about the shoulder season, late August, like, it might also help you avoid the crowds, which could help you save in other ways as well. Right. I'm thinking just some of those super touristy spots in Europe at peak travel times. Like, it's kind of frustrating to be a traveler in that top, you know, peak, peak window as well.

Kyle Potter (12:02)

Yeah. I vividly remember the first and so far Only time I've been in Rome, which is in, I want to say, either September or October of 2021, which was before kind of the big revenge travel boom where everybody was going to Europe. And even then it felt like a little, there's a lot of people here for, you know, at a time when it doesn't seem like that many people are traveling again. And everything that I've heard since just confirms the idea of going to somewhere like Rome or really anywhere in Italy in July or August, just does not sound like it's for me because of the crowds, because of the prices, because it's just an entirely different experience.

Joel (12:41)

Talk about fees for just a second. Because bag fees, like, you know, recently many of the airlines are saying we're bumping those up and, and you're talking about just less competition, more pricing power from the airlines. But I think the fees tend to annoy people and it feels like there's a fee for everything now. I, I mean, I think 20 years ago none of these fees really existed and now we live in a fee laden kind of existence when we're trying to book travel. What do we need to know about like maybe avoiding the bear trap of different fees or just we need to be okay paying it?

Kyle Potter (13:18)

I think the first thing to know is why airlines do this, because unfortunately it does just signal that this is not going to go away. It's only going to get worse. So you're right. Going back not even two decades, something like checked luggage was included in the price of your ticket. And then in 2008, that all changed because guess what? Fuel prices shot up to levels of roughly where they're at right now, prior to that, we didn't have to worry about paying separately for bags. And unfortunately for everyday consumers and people who love a bargain and people who don't want to be nickeled and dimed, who it sounds like is the both of us and probably everybody listening to this, airlines realized how effective charging for fees are for two reasons. One, the most obvious one is that if they can use the increase in the price of fuel, for example, as justification to charge more for fees, which is why we saw every major US airline in the country raise bag fees from $35 to $45 or more each way, those fees are never going down. They have never gone down in the history of the United States airline industry since they started introducing these fees more than a decade ago, and they never will. And two, the reason why airlines turn to fees in addition to charging higher fares is that in many ways Fees are a more effective way of offsetting their costs because when you and I pay $250 for a flight, for example, the airlines are required to withhold and pay federal excise taxes on that fare. They don't have to withhold a dime of additional ancillary fees like bag fees, seat assignments, change in cancellations, or at least for the airlines that still charge those fees. So it's more tempting way for airlines to A, get more money in the short run and B, continue to collect more of that in the long run because again, they are never bringing those bag fees back down.

Joel (15:19)

Yeah. So is the ticket to have the right credit card or is it just to be less picky? And it seems like the airlines are far less interested in the cheapskates like me or a lot of how to money listeners. It's like they're doing away with some of the basic economy. They're adding in more space for premium, premium cabin space. Right. They want to court the highfalutin customer who's got extra money to burn and they're happy to stick people like me with additional fees if we can't avoid them.

Kyle Potter (15:57)

Yeah, I want to come back to that because everything in the, in the US Travel industry, not just airlines, but increasingly hotels and lodging and tour operators, everything is all about premium travel at the expense of everybody else. But I don't want to lose sight of the question on bags. I think there are two key things within your control that you can do. In some cases, the easier one is having a co branded credit card with your airline as long as it has some kind of annual fee attached to it, typically starts at $99 a year. Some cases it's $150 a year, though many major airlines like American, Delta and United waive that fee for the first year. So that's a good entry point to get free bags because, you know, in a world where now a simple domestic round trip flight costs $90 to check a bag, you can come out ahead pretty darn quickly. Especially, you know, you have that first year to try it out. Did you check, you know, bags on two round trip domestic flights that year? Great. You can come out ahead every single year on that card as long as you keep traveling like that. And you know, the other one is not checking a bag at all, which you know, at least if you're traveling on most of the major US Carriers, they allow you to bring a carry on bag for free on most flights, if not all of them, which that is a huge challenge for people. I Get that. And that's one of the hardest things that we've tried to at least try to get people to open up about is when you, when you go on that big trip or even you go on that short trip and you're sure you need to check a bag, do some mental inventory when you come back about all of the things that you put in that bag that you didn't actually use, eliminate them. And then ask yourself again, could you fit all of these things into a carry on bag instead? Do you really need four pairs of shoes or could you get a get away with one pair of shoes that you have on your feet and one extra in your bag? All of these things. I mean, the problem is, is that no matter how much space you have, you're going to fill it with your stuff. So if you limit yourself to a carry on in order to save $90 and save yourself time at the airport checking in your bag and time at the carousel trying to get it once it comes down, and also the stress of is the airline going to lose my bag 100%? There's, there's a, this is the time to start thinking about that stuff. There are certainly people who just cannot, especially, you know, families with young children who have more stuff than they could possibly fit in a carry on and a backpack. But a lot of people, I think it's time to start thinking about it

Joel (18:31)

even then maybe and what we've done. When we travel with our whole family, can we do one checked bag, right? Just, just to have. I mean, it's less. You're already kind of trying to shovel your kids to the airport. You don't want, you know, five oversized bags to handle at the same time. But when I'm traveling lighter or it's just my wife and I, the. I preach the gospel of the Kotopaxi 28 liter backpack because you're in and out, man. It's just the way to travel. And I think just from a simplicity standpoint, much less a money saving perspective, I think it's a good way to go. Some people, when they stumble upon a deal, they don't book immediately, they're not sure about their travel dates, or they have to consult their travel partner. And I've seen that happen. It's happened to me before and I'm like, prices are up 50 bucks, like two hours later. So when someone finds a deal or sometimes thrifty traveler sends out those alerts, right? And it's like, hey, mistake fair. We don't think this thing's gonna Last very long. What should a person do when they find a great deal that seems too good to be true?

Kyle Potter (19:33)

We have a mantra here. Book now, ask questions later. And that includes, in many cases, asking questions of your spouse or your partner or your travel companion of, hey, do you want to come with me on this trip? Hey, can you make these dates work? It also includes, hey, boss, can I get these days off of work so that I can hop on this $410 business class flight to Europe? Because Turkish Airlines clearly screwed up. All of the above fits under the banner of this, because especially when a deal is truly gobsmackingly good, that can disappear in a matter of not just hours, but minutes, which means you just can't afford to wait. So I'll put it this way. Years ago, we found this incredible deal to fly round trip in business class to Vietnam and Thailand for $660 round trip instead of what should have been $6,600 round trip. So I sent my wife a text and said, do you want to go back to Vietnam in business class for $600? You have 10 minutes to respond. My wife did not see that text within 10 minutes. So when that 10 minutes was up, I texted my friend and asked, do you want to go to Vietnam? You have 10 minutes to respond. He responded right away. We booked that we had an amazing trip way back in 2019, and then

Joel (20:52)

your wife left you. So, yeah, it's all good.

Kyle Potter (20:54)

And now, no, I'm not back on the market. I'm still happily married. But this is, you know, and my wife knows that this is the way that it works, that we have to be willing to pull the trigger because you can't afford to wait. That's an extreme example. There are many cases where you've got hours, in some cases days to decide, but you can afford to be impulsive because the United States has a federal law that requires every airline, with a few exceptions, based upon how close in you book, to allow you to cancel for a full refund to get your money back. So long as you cancel within 24 hours of booking, which means you book that amazing deal. And then you do the legwork of, can I get these days off of work? Can this person who I booked this crazy deal with come with me? Or is it not going to work? And if it's not going to work, you cancel for a full refund within 24 hours and you get your money back.

Joel (21:47)

So book it and then start hitting up your friend like, and just, hey, if your wife, if you had booked for your wife because your friend hadn't responded. We're just give it a shot. And then she texts back, she says, we can't do those dates or I'm just not interested. You still can cancel. Right. Because it's that 24 hour grace period. So take advantage of it.

Kyle Potter (22:04)

Exactly. And you know, there are some cases where in the past I've booked two versions of that trip where, you know, I booked dates that I think would work and then another set of backup dates. And then you've got two options to try to put the pieces together, knowing that if one of them works and the other doesn't, Again, you've got 24 hours to cancel it and get the money back for the second backup trip.

Joel (22:24)

But then make sure you cancel.

Kyle Potter (22:26)

Yeah. Set those calendar reminders. You're going to pay.

Joel (22:30)

So crucial. Okay. And is Google Flights, would you say, is that the best tool for the average person to use when searching for their trip and when setting fare reminders, fare alerts.

Kyle Potter (22:41)

Google Flights is far and away the number one place to start for searching for any trip period. It has the most features to help you, you know, in that situation that I talked about before, where departing on a Tuesday instead of a Monday will save you $100, $200. It'll kind of have a pop up notification that lets you know, hey, if you leave on the 23rd instead of the 24th, you're going to save a boatload of money. It's got the ability to search for up to seven different departure airports and destination airports in a single search, which means if you want to get to Europe, but you're not really picky about, you know, where you fly into, knowing that you could take a train or take a cheap flight on Ryanair to get to your final destination in Spain or in Italy, you can type in Amsterdam and London and Paris and Frankfurt and on and on seven different airports. And that's going to allow you to cast a much wider net to find the best deal possible. We could do hours of podcasts about how good Google Flights is.

Joel (23:43)

Well, and you bring up a great point that a lot of people are thinking, man, I really want to go to Amsterdam. And so they're searching from their home city to Amsterdam and that's all they're looking at. And so they're missing out on a potential treasure trove of incredibly cheap fares to places that are close to Amsterdam or from home. Airports that are not too far away from where they live, where the hour long drive might be worth saving 300 bucks a ticket.

Kyle Potter (24:12)

Absolutely. It is so invaluable to kind of broaden your horizons that way in terms of finding a better deal and being willing to put those puzzle pieces together. So, you know, there's, there's a principle called positioning flights, which is exactly what you talked about. Do you search from your home airport, in my case Minneapolis, exactly to that airport you want to fly to? Well, you might find a good deal, but odds are, and I know that I can probably get a much cheaper flight by flying separately to Chicago or taking the train to Chicago even, and then flying from Chicago, maybe to Amsterdam. But I'm also going to check Rome too, or I'm going to check Paris too, because I know I can get between one and the other other so quickly. And as long as you're willing to do a little bit of the math in the name of potentially pretty enormous savings, you can come out so far ahead using that kind of mentality.

Joel (25:03)

All right, there's more I want to get to. I specifically want to get into some of the nitty gritty questions about saving money on travel. Let's talk about that and more with Kyle right after this.

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Joel (26:12)

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Kyle Potter (26:36)

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Kyle Potter (28:07)

Usually it depends. I think if you're really flexible with your dates and your destination even we do in fact see some nonstop routes go on sale, you know, especially over to Europe and to Asia on those longer haul flights. If you're willing to wait for the deal to come to you and you really want that nonstop flight, yeah, you can, you can make that happen. But the cheapest fares are almost always going to involve a connection. And so then it's, it's, what is that convenience worth to you? Is it worth, you know, $500? Then you know it's probably not taking that connection through or o' Hare or through London en route to Paris because it just saves you 50 bucks. But again, if you're willing to wait for it, you can get better deals on those non stop flights. At least from the biggest hubs where there is the most competition.

Joel (28:57)

Would you say, like right now, you mentioned just a drop in competition everywhere, domestically and internationally? So would you say you're generally seeing better deals domestically to travel inside the United States, or are you seeing just as many good deals to go abroad?

Kyle Potter (29:15)

I would say, if anything, the prices domestically are as bad as they've been in about as long as I can remember. There are still good deals. Just over the weekend, we found some nonstop flights up to anchorage for under $400, in some cases closer to $300 roundtrip. That's a really good deal. Those fares are typically $800 or $900 roundtrip, but it is generally speaking, tough sledding out there domestically. I think in large part because the budget airlines are shrinking. They're struggling so much. They're just not competing with the likes of Delta and American and United as much as they were even a couple of years ago. That's not to say that everything is smooth sailing abroad either. There certainly are fewer deals than we tend to see this time of year. But tomorrow's going to be another day. I know not to make broad statements about, you know, the era of cheap flights to Europe is over. Another door is going to open at some point. And if you're flexible in terms of when you go, in terms of where you're flying, I know that there are still going to be good deals out there for people.

Joel (30:27)

So how big of a help or hindrance is loyalty? Some people are, hey, I got a lot of miles racked up with this one airline. I fly for work typically. So, I mean, that's just, that's just who I'm going to prioritize. That's, that's the airline I want to fly. Is, is it possible to, to save a lot of money when you're kind of like pigeonholed into a particular, particular airline that you like to fly? Or how, like, how detrimental is that going to be to saving money?

Kyle Potter (30:57)

It depends on how far you take it. So in your example, if you're flying on your employer's dime and you're racking up miles that you can then turn around and use for not quite free travel, but, you know, redeem a bunch of miles and some taxes and fees, it's $11.20 on a domestic round trip. You might as well do that. You might as well, especially now, use those miles that you've accrued through flying for work in order to travel more for less on your personal time. The problem is that most People take it to an incredible extreme that becomes completely harmful to traveling more for less in that they're loyal to Delta or United because that's who their employer pays them to fly on all of the nonstops from their home airport. And then they get used to it. They get used to the dedicated check in desk, they get used to somebody at customer service picking up within 20 minutes instead of 45. And then they keep flying that airline even on their personal time, at the expense of not even bothering to check out what American would sell you, maybe even for a nonstop flight from your home airport or United if you're a loyal Delta Flyer. These airlines have built incredibly effective, not just ecosystems, but in many cases hamster wheels to keep people trapped and not even consider the alternatives. And people wind up making some pretty poor choices because they've stopped doing the math about what is my loyalty to this airline actually getting me. You know, if you are again flying to Denver twice a month on your employer's dime for work, keep flying United, have at it, rack up the miles, get the status, but then ask yourself when it comes time to book your own trip to Europe or to Florida or Arizona or wherever, what is that money actually getting me? And I think if most people did some honest calculations about what they're getting for all of that loyalty, most people would come to see, you know what, it's not worth it being blindly loyal to this airline all of the time.

Joel (33:03)

And we hinted on this earlier, we kind of started talking about bag fees, but that kind of the K shaped economy, which is something that has been written about more we've talked about on the show that the it seems like wealthier folks are doing better than people on the the bottom end of the socio economic spectrum. How is that playing out inside of the travel game? It sure seems, seems like many of the airlines in particular, but you mentioned hotels as well. They are keen on serving the richest customers, right? The upper middle class people who have extra money to spend and maybe caring less about the normies who just want to like fly home to see their family and not pay an arm and a leg.

Kyle Potter (33:49)

This is everything in travel right now, like it or not. And I think it's really important for people to understand where airlines and hotels and other travel companies are spending their time and resources because it is almost solely if not exclusively on the upper end of that K. This is the reason why American Express and Chase can feel like they can push up annual fees on their premium credit cards up as high as almost $900 a year. It is why every airline in the country is introducing brand new business class cabins that look fancier than anything they've flown before, why they're adding new lounges in all of their airports and introducing new champagnes on board. All the while, these same airlines are looking at the planes that they have in the sky, ripping out economy seats in order to install more extra legroom seats and especially more business class seats on board. And it's also why airlines like Spirit and Frontier are struggling so much because that is not their DNA. They are never going to get those customers. The customers who on the one hand have more money than ever and maybe more importantly, are more willing to spend more of their money on travel than they ever have before. So it is kind of this perfect storm where if you're on the upper end of that K, life is good in travel right now. If you're on the lower end of the spectrum, it's getting a lot harder to have nearly as many options as you did before because again, that kind of competition from airlines that really do compete on the lower end of the spectrum and force even the big quote, unquote premium airlines to do the same. It's just not where it was even two years ago.

Joel (35:33)

Yes. And if there's fewer basic economy seats and if there are fewer routes that the budget airlines are flying, it just, it just means prices on the bottom end of the spectrum are going to go up.

Kyle Potter (35:45)

Exactly. And you know, in some cases, we've, we've started to see that already. I think that is at least a piece of what we're seeing right now. But a lot of what we're seeing, at least as we're talking right now in terms of both airfare prices and baggage fees going up, is, has been dictated largely by the increase of fuel costs.

Joel (36:03)

Yeah.

Kyle Potter (36:03)

Long term, though, I do worry about what happens to, you know, you and I and fellow budget travel lovers when airlines like Delta and United have, you know, decreased the footprint of their economy cabins. And you know, what happens if the economy does in fact hit a downturn, if we're not already there already and all of a sudden, you know, the appetite for those super fancy business class cabins isn't where it was today. I don't know. That's troubling.

Joel (36:32)

Yeah. Credit cards are such a big part of the travel game. You just mentioned super high fees. And we're seeing even that sort of stratified approach to finding customers in the credit card game as well. But how, how crucial are credit cards in the cheap flights game? We're not anti credit card by any stretch of the imagination on, on this podcast. But I think over time I've like been I, I found that simplification is best for me. I don't want 82 credit cards and, and I'm traveling enough, I don't think to maximize the benefits. And I don't know if the average how to money listener fits in to that. Where they like to travel like I do, a couple, two, three times a year maybe, but they're not going to far flung places, you know, twice a quarter. So when it comes to credit cards and how the average traveler should use them to save money, what advice would you have?

Kyle Potter (37:22)

I think the only overarching advice that I can give about credit cards, about redeeming airline miles and hotel points is that you can get a lot out of it, but you have to be willing to put in a lot too. And that includes, you know, certainly annual fees. That includes the amount of money that you need to spend in order to earn those points, of course. But most importantly, it involves a lot of time to study the programs of, you know, how different Hilton Honors is as compared to Marriott Bonvoy and which one is going to work best for your travel plans, not just as a whole, but your travel plans for 2026 as opposed to 2027. Because which program is going to be best is going to depend on where you're going. And you start to multiply that out across all of the different banks and all of the different airline ecosystems. And there is so much to keep track of. I mean this has been my job trying to learn how to maximize this and more importantly help people maximize some of this stuff for almost a decade. And I still have to reference our website on all of the guides that we have about. Okay, so which, which airlines can I transfer my capital one miles to again? Because is Finnair on that list or is that only with American Express or is that Citibank? I don't know. And I still have to ask myself those questions all of the time. So I think if for people who are looking at what's happening with flight prices right now and wondering, you know, what is now the time to go full bore into credit cards? Because I hear everybody about it and flouting their credit cards on social media, the answer is it's not time to go full bore. It might be time to start slow and see if you're interested in it. See if you can get your money's worth and get your money back and then some in the time and the money that you spend in order to do this. And if the answer is yes, then move on to the next one and try something new. And if the answer is no, it's just not worth the time.

Joel (39:24)

It seems like some of the hoops you have to jump through have gotten more significant in recent years as well. And to get the perks that the credit card issuers offer, you have to like, for instance, a hotel benefit could be broken up. It might sound like the headline reward is killer, but it's broken up into quarters or something like that. And so you, you have to really know all those rules in order to be able to use the credit card as effectively as you possibly can. And you're right, it's just more attention to detail than ever before, I think, to be able to maximize the benefit of those cards. And if you don't, you're talking about a massive annual fee potentially going to waste or a lot of effort that doesn't actually pay off because you didn't do it the whole way. I guess when it comes to which credit cards people should maybe start with, are you more of a fan of like airline specific cards or airline agnostic cards?

Kyle Potter (40:17)

You know, I would actually say a little bit of both because the good thing about airline specific cards is especially if you live in an airport where there really is one big game in town. So I'm in Minneapolis. Delta operates something like 75% of the flights departing from here, so they are functionally the only game in town.

Joel (40:37)

Sounds like my city of Atlanta.

Kyle Potter (40:39)

Yes, we have that in common. We are Delta hub captives. But you know, the same is true in, you know, if you're close to Newark in New York or Dallas at Dallas Fort Worth for American, having a co branded airline credit card that comes with meaningful benefits that are actually quite easy to use like free baggage or priority boarding so you can check a bag for free or if you're packing in a carry on, you know, or at least be reasonably certain you can get on board early enough to actually have overhead bin space to store that carry on. Those things do add up quick and I, I think it's a, it's an important part of the mental game of how you justify this is you need some easy wins and then I think from there branching out into the airline agnostic systems like Capital One. And the Capital One Venture card is just about the single simplest reward system where you get good benefits right off the bat. Like being able to sign up for either TSA PreCheck or Global Entry and have a credit kick in to cover the entire cost of either of those incredibly valuable programs. And then the miles where, you know, if you have 75,000 capital one miles that can cover $750 in flights or in hotels or Airbnb reservations, and no other bank makes it quite so easy to redeem your miles in that way. So I think a dual approach, at least, if not right at the start, then as you're dipping your toe into this, I think is a really good starting point to try to decide, again, can I do this? Do I have the time, the organization, the resources in order to make this worth my while? And if the answer, again is no, I think that's just fine. It is not for everybody. You do have to realize that you do have to put a significant amount of time in order to come out ahead. Time of with this stuff.

Joel (42:26)

How do you think about spending the points you accrue? Because I feel like I've heard a lot of people who are travel nerds and love the travel point system brag about how many points they've racked up, how many they've got essentially in reserve to be able to shell out for awesome trips one of these days. I'm not saying they're not using any of their points, but, man, they've got so many points, so many rewards that could be used on travel. And then you. You see kind of the inflation reality hitting, hitting redemption for. For rewards for travel, too. And so, I mean, at some point, the more points you're sitting on, the more they're being devalued. You're. You're losing at the game that way, too.

Kyle Potter (43:10)

That is such a good point. The only capital T true thing I can tell anybody that applies to absolutely every person, no matter what miles you have or how many of them you have, is use your miles for a trip you otherwise wouldn't take or use your miles for a trip you otherwise couldn't afford. Those are good uses of miles, period. Are there ways to do a little bit better than that? Of course there are, but the problem is, is that the expectation of only flying business class to Japan using your points becomes such a box that limits how you redeem your points and limits whether you redeem them at all. And what ends up happening is people get in this kind of form of paralysis where they wind up waiting for that perfect deal. And if that perfect deal never comes in a month or two months or certainly a year, the points that you have are going to be less valuable than they were a year ago. It happens all the Time. Every single month, if not more frequently, some airline or some hotel chain is making changes to their rewards program that mean that the miles or points that you have today are going to go less far tomorrow. So the best thing that you can do is get something on the books, make it happen, take an awesome trip, and then go back and study it later and be like, did I do the best job with this? What can I do the next time with the miles that I have in order to, you know, get a little bit more bang for my buck or get a more comfortable experience out of them? Those are all good things. But I just hate the mentality of hoarding points for that perfect deal because if you do that, it's just never going to come.

Joel (44:47)

Yeah. You guys recently talked on, on your podcast about what to do after booking a flight and how much money it can save you if you make a few moves right after you book. Can you, can you kind of fill us in on what you're like post booking, hey, I just booked a sweet deal, a sweet flight to somewhere cool. What do you do right afterwards to ensure that you're. Your whole trip is reasonably priced?

Kyle Potter (45:12)

So the first thing is actually as you're booking, which is at least if you're either hoping for a better deal or uncertain if you're going to take that trip, period, you don't want to book the cheapest basic economy fare because that, again, boxes you in. You are stuck with that. Airlines don't allow you to cancel or change those, at least not without a fee. So if you can pay a little bit more, you know, in the case of a domestic trip, it's typically 70 to $80 more roundtrip to book a standard main cabin economy fare instead of the cheaper basic economy ticket. Because then what you do is you set a price alert with Google flights. As long as you have a Google account, you can toggle on price alerts for any flight that you want to look at and then Google will email you if that price drops. And so long as you book the main cabin fare that allows free change and cancellation, what you can do is you wait for that price alert to come in and says, hey, maybe the price of your flight dropped by 50 bucks. Maybe it dropped by 150 bucks or even more, you can then go back and rebook that flight and pocket that $50 to $150 difference as a voucher that you put towards the next trip. So one of our many, many mantras is the booking process is never over. Which I understand sounds like absolute torture to most normal people. But to people who either just love the logistics of booking travel like I do, or maybe more importantly to people who just want to do whatever they can to get the best deal, this is such a great way to take your travel booking to the next level because there is always going to be the opportunity to come out ahead even after you actually hit purchase on that flight.

Joel (46:57)

What's the most number of times you've rebooked a single flight?

Kyle Potter (47:00)

Probably four. It's. It's been a while.

Joel (47:03)

Saved money each time.

Kyle Potter (47:04)

Yep. You know, and it might have been $9 here and 21 there. I'll be honest, within the last two months, not a whole lot of price drops are allowing me to come out ahead by rebooking. But the thing is, is, you know, if I let's say I have to book a flight in, you know, sometime in November and I'm looking at prices right now and things are a little ugly and they might get uglier. I'm going to book that now, but I'm not going to book the cheapest basic economy rate. I'm going to book a standard economy rate again for 70, $80 more. Going over to Europe, for example, it's quite a bit more. But then I know if prices do in fact come down in the next month, two months, three months, even more, then I can rebook that and, you know, not wind up paying a small fortune like I would be today.

Joel (47:52)

There's actually a lot you can do after you book your airfare to save money on your trip. Kyle's got so much good info on that. We'll get to it right after this.

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Joel (49:19)

spontaneously doing something extra for a loved one? Matt. So use Empower and get good at money so you can be a little bad. Join their 19 million customers today@empower.com not an Empower client, paid or sponsored. Talking with Kyle Potter of Thrifty Traveler. We're talking about saving money on travel in a time where it feels more arduous to do so. I want to talk about travel insurance for just a second. And that can be kind of complex, complicated. There are third party websites where you can buy travel insurance. You can buy it when you're booking your travel, right? Man, I feel like there's insurance for everything. Now you're buying your concentrate. Well, what if you get sick and you know you can't make it to that show you were so excited about? You should buy this insurance just in case. And we're being sold this stuff at every turn. I think maybe it feels more significant for travel than it does for a concert. But when does it make sense to buy travel insurance? And what do people need to know before buying? Because a lot of people assume it covers things that it doesn't.

Kyle Potter (50:20)

I mean, if the pandemic showed us anything, it's this, that people assumed, hey, I don't want to go on this trip, or I can't go on this trip because the country's not going to let me in, I can get my money back. Right? And the answer was an almost universal no. So it really does depend what you want to be covered for. I think travel insurance is an absolute essential for people who have medical concerns. Whether they're traveling with a medical condition or they're doing something, they're planning to go somewhere where they know they might potentially be in harm's way. Having travel insurance with a good medical insurance coverage is really great. Beyond that, though, it's hard not to paint with too broad of a brush when it comes to travel insurance. So again, I'm going to go with a maxim of you have to read the fine print because every travel insurance policy is drastically different. If you're going on a big trip to Italy but you're also going to go through Spain and then eventually pop up to the UK before flying home. Is that 2499 Allianz policy really going to cover absolutely every curve that that trip could throw at you? Honestly, probably not, but you got to read the fine print.

Joel (51:40)

So is there a best place to shop for travel insurance and how much, let's say you are taking one of those big extended trips, how much is that going to add to the cost of your trip? Is it like 10% of the cost of the trip to have good insurance coverage?

Kyle Potter (51:54)

You know, it really does depend on the provider and the strength of the policy that you're buying and what you need in order to be covered for what you think you are. I mean, you know, I look at it this way. A couple of years ago, my wife did basically exactly what I just talked about. We went to Italy, but we were in Spain. And then we eventually flew home and we were over there for probably two weeks and change. And you know, it was at a time when international travel especially felt much more tenuous than it does today. And I think we paid $180 for a good travel insurance policy that would cover, you know, if we got stuck abroad and couldn't fly home because we were sick for, you know, another week or more, we were going to be in a good spot. But a lot of people at that time were buying again, those 2499 add on policies direct through the airline that would not have even covered a sliver of what we wound up buying. All of which is to say using a marketplace, there are a handful of them. The one that I go to when I do in fact need travel insurance is typically squaremouth.com, which is just a good starting point to enter in the parameters of your trip and then kind of weed through all of the different policy options from a handful of different providers.

Joel (53:07)

How should travelers respond to like delays or cancellations? You know, when you're traveling internationally? I've coached a few people through this, my sister included, that Europe has these amazing regulations, right? If there's two or four hours, I forget of a delay. It's like the, the amount of money you get back is sweet, sometimes exceeding the price that you paid for the ticket and you're like, free trip to Europe, all right. But the US just doesn't have similar protections. So is what do we have the right for when there is like a delay or cancellation? If you're a squeakier wheel, can you get something that maybe others can't?

Kyle Potter (53:46)

I mean, it truly is the Wild west here. And I don't get it. I don't understand how Europe can have such incredibly strong consumer protections for when airlines fail to live up to their end of the bargain and that Canada has done the same and both countries still have great, robust, low cost travel, especially over in Europe. And here, airlines will leave you high and dry when they cancel the flight for their own reasons. There isn't a lot which, you know, I guess comes to is it worth buying travel insurance or booking your flight on a good travel credit card that comes with that built in if you do in fact need it and you can submit a claim for getting stuck somewhere overnight? I think it really can be. It's definitely a consideration because the really the one right that we have as travelers here in the United States is that if an airline cancels or significantly delays your flight, you are entitled to cancel your reservation altogether and get a full refund, not just a voucher, but to actually get your money back. So if you're trying to fly somewhere and it's a long weekend and you know, because either because of a mechanical issue or a labor dispute or the crew doesn't show up or even because of bad weather, if the airline cancels that or pushes it to depart at 8:00am in the morning instead of, you know, 7:00pm that night, you can just say, you know what, it's clearly not going to work. This is going to cost me more money than I want it to. So I'm just going to cancel this. I'm going to get my money back and I'm going to start over again and rebook this trip for another time. But that's kind of it. And that's sad.

Joel (55:29)

I feel like airfare prices have become more reasonable over the years. And actually I think when you look at the we're talking about like this specific moment in time as airfare prices are rising. But when you look at a longer trajectory compared to inflation and a lot of other things that we pay for, we're paying less for travel than we ever have before, at least for the airfare portion. But then there are other parts of travel that have gotten a lot more expensive. I'm thinking of lodging in particular. It seems like that's something I should be more worried about when I'm booking than maybe even the airfare itself. That's what I found. I'm like, oh, I got this sweet deal, $500 to this awesome destination and then I start looking up hotels or airbnbs or something like that. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I did not realize it was going to cost that much when I got there. Do you have any tips for saving on that or for thinking ahead about that at least knowing that, that it feels like it's a bigger part of the travel budget than ever before?

Kyle Potter (56:29)

Oh, it certainly is. And I do want to stress that, yes, in fact, let's, let's throw out what's happened in the last two months, let's call it, and just say let's hope we all get through this. Airfare is adjusted for inflation, an incredible bargain. And that is in large part because of the competition of budget airlines that have forced airlines to compete and offer better deals on flights. Which again goes back to why I'm more concerned looking ahead. But that's not what we're talking about when it comes to all of the other stuff. It does add up really quick. In some cases, it can definitely exceed the cost of a flight. All of which goes to. I still think you should book your flight first. I think that's a good starting point because that's where you do truly have the most flexibility in order to save. And especially if you're talking about flying with a family of four. If you can depart on a Tuesday instead of a Monday and save $150 a ticket, that's going to cover a lot of money for, you know, the one hotel room that you may need to book or even two hotel rooms that you need to book. But then it gets back to, there's that 24 hour rule, right? That is your window. Not just to figure out the logistics of can we take this trip, can I get the time off of work, but really start to scope out the hotel options or the airbnbs or the VRBOs or oh, I just remember I have this big stash of World of Hyatt points from traveling for work and can I use those to book something for the family on this trip? And then again, you've got that 24 hour period. That's your time to figure out, can I put the puzzle pieces together to save on lodging or on the rental car that we're going to need because we're going to do a road trip through Utah, all of those different pieces and there's a lot to do in that 24 hour period, but at the very least you can suss out, yes, this is going to work. I can make the math work on this. Or you know what, this is really ugly. I'm going to cancel these flights and we're Going to start over with a different option just as soon as it comes through.

Joel (58:21)

You mentioned rental cars. That's another one of those things that can be costly and you can save a lot of money by reshopping. I love rental cars, man, because it's one of those things where you just book it and then you keep looking. Do you have a favorite way to monitor? Because most people don't do that, Kyle. Most people don't think like that. They book the rental car, they're done, and they don't realize that the closer you get to the trip, you might see, you might, you might not, but you might see significant savings on that rental car and you can rebook. No harm, no foul.

Kyle Potter (58:51)

There are exactly two ways that I have booked every single rental car in the last decade. One is using a website called Auto Slash, which automates that entire process that you're talking about where you don't have to go back to Expedia or Priceline or national or Alamo or wherever in order to check, oh, did the car I just booked, did that rate drop? They're going to do it for you. It is the single best tool, period, for saving on rental cars. A very close second, though, to me is Turo, which is basically the Airbnb of cars. So instead of renting from one of the big box agencies, you're renting from a local owner who will be willing to drive their car to the airport. They send you the check in instructions so you can just walk out into the parking garage, hop in, take your car, bring it back. And in every case that we've used it, it has saved us, I mean, at least $200 for even as short as a three day rental in some cases. We're talking about hundreds, hundreds, maybe even close to thousands of dollars for a trip to Hawaii. Those two, those are the only tools that I use now to book rental cars because they save me every single time.

Joel (60:04)

Okay, all right, last question. I mean, it seems like you hinted at this earlier about are we in a downturn, economic downturn? It seems like we've been able to avoid significant economic turmoil despite a lot of stuff happening, a lot of headlines, a lot of fear. We haven't hit a recession. Even though there have been so many predictions of a recession, like, will we enter one later this year? Maybe, I don't know. But let's say that changes. And the airlines, they've been catering to this rich crowd. But how would did an economic downturn change the travel space?

Kyle Potter (60:43)

Oh, that's a big multibillion dollar question that I don't know that I'm smart enough to answer, it would certainly result in what we've already started to see and hear even more whispers about, which is more consolidation within the industry. Every time there's been an economic downturn, we have seen in the echoes of that airlines merging or acquiring one another. We have seen hotel chains merging and acquiring one another. And with very few exceptions, it is never good for consumers in the long run because again, the number one thing that drives flight prices down is competition. And when two airlines become one, it means those airlines are no longer fighting for your dollar and they can charge higher fares. So whatever happens, it's not going to be good for travel. Again, I want to stress there are still going to be deals out there. No matter what happens, no matter whether, you know, airlines continue catering to the top 1% of income earners or we do in fact enter a full blown recession, there are still going to be deals. Because airfare is not just the flight that you look at from Minneapolis to Phoenix on April 29th. It's millions upon millions of fares and some go up and some go down and some just remain the same. And we're still seeing that today. But competition truly is everything and the prospect that there's going to be less of it is never a good thing for you and I.

Joel (62:20)

But if one of the best ways to save is finding a deal, ThriftyTraveler.com is the site. Tell us what the value proposition is and how people can be helped by signing up and going over to Thrifty Traveler.

Kyle Potter (62:33)

Yeah, so we do two things primarily. First, there's the world that I live in, which is just writing about all of this stuff, talking about it on our podcast, trying to help people understand how this world works and how to find the bargains and how to redeem their miles, all of which can really get you started. The main thing that we do though is we actually have a team of flight deal experts who look literally 24, 7, 365 for all of the bargains, doing all of the legwork that apparently no one really wants to do. And rightfully so. But that's why we pay our team to do it. So that every time we find a great deal, whether it's flying down to Phoenix or flying all the way to Fiji or to London, that's departing from your home airport or an airport that you're willing to get to in the name of a better deal, we're going to send you an email straight to your inbox and if it's a really good deal, we'll send you a text to for like, you know those mistake fares where a couple of years ago we found flights from Chicago and Minneapolis for $134 all the way to Dublin and back when those tickets should cost something close to $900, especially over the summer.

Joel (63:34)

Sign me up. That's impressive. Kyle, this has been enlightening and a lot of fun. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Kyle Potter (63:41)

Of course. Anytime. And like I said, always happy to talk travel. We could do this for another hour for sure.

Joel (63:46)

We'll do it again soon. Oh, man, such a great convo. Kyle is like a master ninja when it comes to saving money on travel. And gosh, it feels like his information, those tips are even more necessary right now in an era of rising costs. He's right. And at the end, we talked about this, that when you look back over decades, we've all benefited from competition in the space, from technology, and we've, we've just been able to travel more, travel for less. The world has shrunk in so many ways. And it's beautiful. Like, we can take more trips because of price reductions in travel than we've ever been able to. And it's so cool. And then even think about the advent of Airbnb and how that changes where you can stay, how many people you can have in your party. Like, the specific parts of town you might be able to hang out in that you. Otherwise there's no hotel there. So. But you're, but there is a single family home that you can rent out. And so that has changed travel in a big way. But when it comes down to it, one of the things we talked about early on in the episode, and I think this is my big takeaway because I still think it's the most important part of saving money on travel is be flexible, because the more flexible you can be, you the more able you are to save significant amounts of money. And that means dates, right? That means even potentially the time of year. That means the airline you're willing to travel. That means where you're willing to go. Like all of these things, the destination, right? And you'll get to travel more if you're more flexible about where you're down to travel. And so there's even. We didn't talk about this, but on Google Flights there's an explore feature. And so if you're keen to travel this way and just go wherever the deal is, Google, Google flights/explorer. Google.com is it fly, explore but like, that is. That is the place to go because you can just see the best deals from where you are for months to come in one fell swoop. It's like a map of the world. So google.com travel explore is what it is. I'm looking it up right now. And you can zoom out, you can look domestic and then you can look international and you're like, oh, wait a. And there's a sweet deal to Montreal right now. Or wait, I can get to New York City for $56 a round trip. Tell me that when is that? And granted, especially the kids in school, it's not easy to be flexible all the time for everyone, but this is one of those ways you're going to save. And I love what he said when we talked about credit cards as well. You got to play the game all the way. That has become potentially more rewarding for some people who spend bukus of dollars and they spend the way the credit card companies want them to and less rewarding for the average person who is trying to play the credit card travel rewards points game. So he talked about how loyalty could be like a hamster wheel, right? Like forcing you into one system. So just make sure you know the pros and cons. Make sure you know if you're going to jump into there. There are ways to save without taking advantage of credit card rewards. And there's ways to dabble. Like he talked about kind of putting one foot in at a toe dipping or one foot in at a time, dipping your toes in and then like seeing how that goes. And this is kind of the approach I've taken because it was like, oh, well, let me start with the Southwest card. Okay, how many free flights can I get from that if I hit the spending correctly? And we've been able to take some awesome trips for a lot less money because of a couple of different Southwest credit cards over the years. And maybe I'll keep going right in that direction with a different card, whether it's an airline card or an airline agnostic card. But just make sure, because of the annual fees, the higher annual fees, now the stakes have gotten higher. So you have to be paying attention even more to maximize the potential of those cards. So you're not just paying an annual fee when you're not getting enough in return for it. But I hope this episode has been helpful for you. We'll put links in the show notes to Thrifty Traveler to some of the content that Kyle writes. They've got a great podcast as well. If you're looking to save money on travel. Alright. Until next time. Best friend out.

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Joel (68:38)

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Kyle Potter (69:38)

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.