← The Clark Howard Podcast
The Clark Howard Podcast
08.03.26 Air Travel Update / DIY Home Upgrades
00:39:03
Unlocking Last-Minute Flight Bargains & Easy DIY Upgrades To Save on Home Insurance
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. It's great to be here with you on the Clark Howard Show. You know, our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you so you make better financial decisions in your life. If you know anything about me, you know I love to travel. And I've got updates for you in what's been a very expensive year to travel by air. And we're going to talk about that ahead. Also, I want to talk about some home upgrades you can do yourself, even if you think you aren't handy. That could make you safer and save you money, even on things like insurance. We'll talk about that later. But right now I want to talk about what hasn't been saving you money. Airfares around the United States overall are up 20% in a year. Talk about inflation. And in spite of that, the airlines generally are pretty miserable because of the run up in jet fuel price that has really hammered the airlines. Travelers were hammered anyway before even the war in Iran started and pushed up the price of fuel because the airlines were benefiting from very high demand, especially in the front of the airplane, and have used that to their advantage to squeeze passengers. And then Spirit, that used to account for 1 in 20 passengers in the United States. At the end, 1 in 50 passengers in the United States, they're gone. And that relieved a lot of pricing pressure on the nation's airlines, at least for now, although there's already backfilling going on where others are moving into spaces that Spirit served. And the holiday from offering bargains is going to end for the airlines that have taken advantage of the lack of low price competition from Spirit. You're going to see that over time. But speaking of time, here we are at the very beginning of August, and that is significant for airfares because in certain parts of the country, kids have already returned to school or return in the next week. I know other parts of the country kids go back to school around Labor Day or a little after, but there are so many regions of the country where kids go back to school so much earlier that it disrupts the pricing power of the airlines. So there are already a bunch of announced sales going on, plus targeted mailings to members of frequent flyer programs. So here's my rule. Even if you travel infrequently, join every airline frequent flyer program because then you will receive the emails of special deals. I noticed that Delta for passengers only in the back of the plane, no deals to people in the front. But Delta has been doing a series of targeted mailings because although the airlines don't talk about it. With us being in a very clear K economy right now, more intense than it's been even in years where people at the higher end of the income ladder are doing exceptionally well. People at the lower end of the economic ladder are having a really hard time just paying for regular things because of the ravages of inflation that coach seats have been going begging. Now that's where I live in coach. And I, I'm seeing something. I've been flying about every 10 days. I've been flying over the last couple of months and I'm having an experience that I didn't have for a long time that's empty seats around me. I took a flight two weeks ago, three seats on my side of the aisle and I was the only person occupying a seat. The other two had ghosts sitting in them. I had that whole side of the plane, the road myself. It's pretty nice. And yeah, airline load factors are still good, but they're better now in the front of the plane with the big money crowd there than they are in the back of the plane. And we've moved in the time of year that travel is softer. So I'm seeing a lot of deals popping up in an unusual pattern. I'm even seeing last minute deals pop up and right now, in a very unusual phenomenon, last minute deals for travel to Europe, that is very odd points deals to Europe if you're in the back of the plane, not the front. Virgin Atlantic Airways, that has a very generous frequent flyer program. But how many Americans are going to have a Virgin Atlantic membership? But you can sign up for one for free and Virgin Atlantic, you can transfer points from many different of the credit card programs and you might be able to get a steal of a deal in coach. You want to go in the front of the plane, your money is just stolen. Your points just stole it. But in the back of the plane, really, really good deals and particularly best at the last moment in the front of the plane. The airlines are feeling so cocky that United first and now Delta have come up with a basic business class where they strip most of the benefits of flying in business class. You still got the lie flatbed, but pretty much everything else is taken away from you. Plus the tickets non refundable and non changeable. So United and Delta are just using this as a way to make it appear that business class is not as crazy expensive as it actually is. And you get there and then they tell you every reason why you don't want to buy that fare. You just found and sell you up to something that's 25% more expensive. So just know that the split right now is completely not a normal bell curve. It's more a barbell. Unusual economic times that people in the back of the plane finding more and more bargains, especially over the next several months. People in the front of the plane, well, you got to decide that that comfort is worth more to you than your money or your points. And the compromise right now is premium economy, which is like a domestic first class seat but at a fraction of the cost of business class, but quite a bit more than coach. But you want to fly in the front. Wow. I know it seems like they want you to buy the airplane. You're only renting a seat for eight, 10 or 12 hours, but it is crazy expensive.
- [07:35]
B
All right, I snuck in an extra question in this segment just so you know, because so many questions come in about travel ready. Lee in North Carolina says we'll be taking a river cruise of the Christmas markets in Europe this year. We are flying to London first and already have our travel authorization visa for the uk. We will then fly to Vienna. I've read about the new authorization required for European Union countries and delays that have resulted from it being implemented. How can we prepare so we don't have a problem problem? Thank you for being my faithful workout partner over the past years.
- [08:09]
A
Well, thank you. And Lee, I hope you love, love, love your Christmas market river cruise. River cruises are hot. I get so many questions about them. A lot more competitors coming to that market too. So the UK has successfully launched their electronic travel authority thing, the EU one, which is just where you do this online pre registration. You have to use an app usually and it gives you the right to enter the country and you have to have it before you can travel. And the EU was actually supposed to implement theirs before the UK did, but they're still not ready. And they put out on the website for their, I think they call it etsa, not eta, whatever they call it. They now say they don't know the date of implementation which was supposed to be coming up I think October 1st. Now there's no date. And the new thing they say is there will be a multi month warning before it's implemented. So for you going to Christmas markets, the chance that the EU would have its act together by then is very low because the EU has also implemented a new electronic gate system. Did you experience that when you landed in Europe? Do you have to go through electronic gates, have your picture taken? Fingerprints? No, you did not. All right. So most airports in Europe, you're now going to have that and the software isn't working right, it's glitching and people are missing flights and they're having multi hour waits just to enter a country through the system. So I assume that the ETA kind of thing is delayed because they can't get the entry gate thing right right now. And if you want to know more about the eu, I've read so much about why they've messed up this electronic gate thing. It's really hard for dozens of countries to all agree how to do something all at once.
- [10:18]
B
Vinnie in New York says Clark, you talk about reshopping your car and hotel looking for lower prices, but book with points and Miles may not realize that due to dynamic pricing they can also reshop a points stay without changing hotels. My wife and I have reshopped our point stays at IHG and it saved $500 worth of points in less than a year. We sit down every Saturday and check our upcoming reservations together looking for a few thousand points of savings. Since most points programs allow free cancellations, just a few minutes work each week can amount to worthwhile savings for this retirement traveling couple. I love that. That sounds like you would love that kind of date night. Let's reshop our travel bookings.
- [11:02]
A
I absolutely would think that's great. And Vinnie, we are kindred spirits here and for listeners and viewers who don't get the travel thing, it's like its own society. Those of us that are obsessed with travel and I would add as an annex Vinny, one of the other ways people save on points is on airlines that if you've booked an airline ticket, way ahead with points and you reshop that, you may find that the required number of points has lowered. Particularly for airlines that do a direct ratio of dollars paid for a ticket to points. They will do things close to travel where they decouple the dollars from the points because they've got empty seats and they will reduce how many points you have to have. And so you can just rebook and get a redeposit of the difference of points.
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B
Judy in California says, my husband and I are planning a trip to Germany, Austria and Italy to do some skiing. We would likely be skiing together most of the time, but I'd like to know the best way to keep track of each other's location in case we get separated. My friend mentioned Find my for the iPhone, but we have Samsung Android phones. We will have a data plan for the same time period. We're in Europe. We are Also, big fans of cruising and love the way the Princess Medallion lets us track our locations on the cruise ship. FYI.
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A
Isn't that great that Princess does that? So Life360 is the really easy app for Android users or in mixed marriages where one has an iPhone and one has an Android where you each can track location. And the other thing people do is they get tiles and Adam put them
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B
in there like, like an Apple airtag. Tiles is what you usually use for there.
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A
Well, if you look online, that's now a generic term for people having. There are many, many different brands of these, but you can use them, you can put them on yourself, you can put them on your phone, whatever. And so you know where everybody is. And so it's kind of like the things, the chips that are put in dogs right now. You can use the air tags or the tile type things to track each other's locations.
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B
And you know, for dogs and cats or whatever, they make special little holders for collars for air tags or the Apple ones and stuff. So.
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A
Okay, I got to tell you a funny story. So I'm at the dog park with the dogs and a doctor I know finds a phone, a cell phone, and no way of knowing whose it was. And I knew from my family being all iPhone that if you press to try to bring the phone live, but it's not your phone, you see the faint outline of what they have on the screen. You know, it's like their screensaver photo. And I recognized the person in the picture.
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B
Oh.
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A
And I was able to contact his wife and tell him that I had his phone.
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B
You sound like you live in like a two person town. You know, everybody.
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A
There's only 7 million people.
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B
I know.
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A
Yeah. But anyway, it's funny because you never know how electronics get lost. Give you the tools you need to find someone.
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B
Okay, Richard. And also I will mention, you know, aren't there ways to detect if they're. We talked about this a long time ago because unfortunately these can be used in a bad way where people were particularly like stalking or things like that. Putting them in cars.
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A
Right.
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B
And isn't there a way to tell if there's one nearby? I think Apple implemented that with air tag, where you can see if there's one near you. So.
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A
But they are really. They can be used for nefarious purposes too, which we glossed right over, but you had to bring us.
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B
Sorry. Okay, Richard in Arizona is going to give a great tip here. Hello, Clark. Hope this may help those that travel, especially as those that may rent Cars. I just returned from a business trip. I found a 16.99 fuel charge added to my final bill, even though I refueled the car before returning it. I've seen this incorrect charge multiple times in the last couple of years. Now it seem the rental car companies are adding the fuel charge when the mileage is minimal during the rental period without checking if the car was actually full when returned. As you always say, we must check the charges. It may be an innocent error by the workers at the locations, but it happens about 50% of the time. It's a small enough amount that unless people know the expected amount total, it would be easy to miss. I often go on a run after a long flight with the latest episode as my running companion.
- [15:55]
A
Thank you for that. And if I can spur you being physically fit and getting out there and running or walking or whatever, I love that. Okay, so let's talk about the refueling charge. This happens mostly to business travelers on a one day rental. If you travel less than 60 miles on the rental cars, kind of like the threshold with most of the rental car companies, they will automatically charge a refueling charge even if you bought fuel. I had it recently, happened to me in Chicago. And what I do is when I turn the car in, you know, you're not given a paper receipt usually anymore. I get the email and it comes usually within 15 or 20 seconds. And I open it up before I go to the terminal and there it was. My fuel charge was more than 1699, but it was there. And so I turned right around, found the person who just checked me in and said, but I did buy fuel. Here's my fuel receipt. And she said, well, I can't fix it. You have to go into the desk. And I guess they do that at that particular rental car company, hoping that you'll just say, I'm not going to bother because like 18, 19 bucks. Well, for me, I'm not going to walk away from 18 or 19 bucks. I went in the counter and got it corrected. But the person acted to me like I was the worst person in the world, that I was wasting her time getting back my money. But it's my money and they were trying to take it. So be aware that particularly on short rentals, this is very, very common.
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B
I do feel bad for people who work in those jobs. I mean, it's got to be rough. People are always miserable in the rental car line, right, because they're waiting.
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A
I'm going, I'm going on an adventure somewhere.
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B
I know, but sometimes the lines can Be long. It seems like it takes them like an hour for each person to like, whatever they're typing in. You know what I mean? It's so much better if you have the programs where you can, you know, you can breeze by that and like, just get your car.
- [18:08]
A
Thank you for saying that because I'm going to add something to this segment. So if you hate travel, don't worry about it. Coming up ahead, we're not talking about travel. We got something for homebodies straight ahead that could save you money. Okay? So even if you very infrequently rent a car, join every car rental program or at least join the one that your next car rental is with. You don't want to just show up without the membership. The reason is people who have the membership. Car rental companies often don't have cars. They've run out of cars. People with the membership get a car ahead of people who don't have one. Gosh, I remember landing in Maui in January of this year and we get to the car rental plaza and there were at least 200 people waiting for cars. But I had the membership. I went to a different line. We had to wait a little while, but we went in front of all those poor souls who had flown from the mainland or flown from Japan or flown from wherever trying to get their car. It's just one of those things that you join the program and you may be able to expedite your rental. And a number of car rental companies, I have the ability to just check myself in, grab a car, the class that I'm renting, and I just drive up to the booth, they check that I'm not stealing the car, and then off I go. And these are things that are free to sign up for and they just make your life easier. Coming up ahead, now I'm going to put some work on you. Things you can do yourself at your home that are going to save you money. So you have a home and you love it, but you don't really like a lot of the expenses that come with it. And I want to tell you something about your homeowners insurer. They're not your friend anymore. They're your frenemy. They don't really like you much. You don't like them very much. They're not really a warm, fuzzy kind of company to deal with anymore. But if you jump through hoops that benefit them, they will benefit you. And a lot of the things that you can do don't cost a lot other than your time now. So automated equipment that you can install at your house is an example. A self install home security system that has smoke and fire and entry protection. Your insurer will usually cut your premium enough to cover even the cost of a reasonable monitoring. Reasonable monitoring is in the range of 15 to 20amonth, no contract. And when you do the self install security systems, you will usually be able to sign up for monitoring that has no contract. We had a self installed burglar alarm at a property that we sold earlier this year. There was no contract on the monitoring. So instead of being stuck with something after I sold a home or begging the buyers to assume the burgle alarm system that we had, I was able to just. You can't go online and cancel it. I had to call and go through the whole rigmarole with the retention specialist, but I was able to discontinue it. Done with the cost and the cost was reasonable anyway. And the self installed burglar alarms, depending on the complexity of the structure, how big it is, the equipment tends to be from 100 to $400 to install. And then you own the stuff. And then you sign up for the monitoring, you provide information to your insurer, you get the reduction in your insurance rates and people worry about the burglar. The big thing you want is you want the smoke and fire integrated as part of a system. Because the real danger, although we fear the intruder, the real danger is smoke and fire, not to mention carbon monoxide. So putting in that system is great. Some insurers will give you a cut if you go to the next invasive step, which is security cameras that can be monitored. And that's your choice. Some people are just freaked out about having the cameras, but the cameras that you install, you can just install them exterior because it's weird having cameras inside a property, right? And lighting. You know, if you come home regularly after dark, a lot of people come home to very, very dark houses. A perpetrator could be hiding in the bushes or whatever. Now you can go to, to the warehouse clubs and you can buy these incredibly cheap lights that you can install that can either be wired or not wired. That you install strategic places around your house that are motion sensitive that you drive up. They're all led, they light things up very well. And you don't have to worry about somebody lurking in the shadows. That's just a straight safety thing. These are the kind of things you can do. I mean, I don't even want to get into the ring doorbell stuff. There's so many videos online of things that people captured from their ring or other brand doorbell. But these things are all things you can self install. I want to tell you something that your insurer may offer you. So if you have a house that has some age on it, your insurer may offer you a device that you plug in that will monitor the health of the electrical system in your house. Because one of the big fire risks is electrical fires. And before that would happen, the devices will warn you your insurer so wants to prevent these fires that many of them provide you these devices for free. You just have to ask for them. Some states require that insurers make these available to you. It's a great safety thing and potentially a big money saver as well.
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B
Krista okay. Audrey in North Carolina has a question for you. It's sort of a. It's a big one, but I think it's important. She says, my boyfriend, who's 22 and I 23, are about to move into our first apartment together and we're trying to set ourselves up the right way financially from the start. We're very open about our finances and plan to split rent, groceries and other shared expenses. I don't really want to pay rent with a credit card because of the processing fees, so I was thinking about opening a joint checking account for our shared expenses. We could open one at my credit union or at his, which is Navy Federal Credit Union, and then pay rent via ACH to avoid the fees. Do you think one option is better than the other? Since they're both credit unions, does it not make much difference? We would also love to travel. And another idea is to just accept the credit card fee and put all of our shared expenses on his American Airlines credit card so we can earn miles. I could simply reimburse him each month by writing him a check. Yes, I have checks and no, I'm not sure how to use them, but I'll ask my mom. Do you think that's. I know.
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A
Right there. My kids. I have three kids. The oldest one knows how to write a check. The younger two checks are like an
- [26:16]
B
alien creature in their 20s, too. Yeah, same. Do you think that's a smarter strategy or is there another option we're overlooking? You'll also be excited to hear we're taking another major relationship milestone together. We're getting a Costco Costco membership.
- [26:31]
A
The first card Lane had in her married name was her Costco membership card. Lane's my wife, if you're not aware.
- [26:41]
B
Oh God. Okay, that's so funny. I'm a relatively new listener as I have Been a minor without bills for most of my life, but my mom has been drinking your Kool Aid for years and now she's got me hooked, too. Also, if you could please do an episode dedicated to people in their 20s. A lot of the topics you cover are interesting, but many of them either go over my head or, or don't apply to me quite yet. I think an episode focused on building good financial habits in your 20s would be incredibly helpful. Thanks for all you do. I love that idea. I think we should do it.
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A
All right, so, Audrey, just for you, I'm going to deal with that last part first and then we'll go to the other questions. So what's the most important thing that your boyfriend who's 22, you at 23, should be doing? That's living on less than what you make. The easiest way to do that is if either or both of you have access to a retirement plan at work. I want you saving. You ready, Audrey? 10 cents of every dollar you make. Bam. Straight into that employer plan. Because you don't have expenses of kids at this point or stuff like that. I want you to develop a habit in your early 20s where you're saving, saving, saving, saving for the future. That's number one. Number two, if you don't have a plan at work, you open something called a Roth IRA, go to clark.com will explain to you what it is, how you open one, and how you fund it. The most important advice I can give to someone in their twenties is that right there. But there's a lot more things I could talk about, but that's the most important. Now let's go to the payment of common household expenses. Yes, you open a joint checking account that you each agree how much funding you'll put into it each month. I don't care which of your credit unions it's at, you just fund that to pay the common expenses, the rent, other things like that. So paying for it with the American Airlines credit card. American Airlines credit card used to pay rent, will earn more 1% back in miles not worth it, versus the merchant fees you'll have to pay to pay rent by credit card, which will usually be around 2.5%. So you'll be digging yourself a hole. The miles seem great, but not when it's costing you more than the intrinsic value of the miles to do so.
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B
I would make a little suggestion that. Take two and a half or 3%, whatever the credit card fee is each month and put that into a separate savings account. You guys also open at the credit union for travel.
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A
So you have a pre funded travel account. So the alternative I was going to mention was the Capital One Venture X which instead of earning points that are only usable on American, you got 2% cash back on everything. If the merchant processing fee is two, even two and a half, it would be worth it because the, the fee off puts people, it's 395 bucks. But you get that back in free travel from Capital One every year. And that would be an alternative if your goal is to do as much travel together as you can. Okay.
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B
And I think that's all of her questions. All right. But good luck with everything. I think you're going to come up.
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A
We're going to come up with a content for people in their 20s.
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B
Yeah, just starting. I'd love it. I love the whole episode dedicated to that. Jennifer in Wisconsin says, my husband and I want to convince our eight nieces and nephews to start saving for retirement early. They are ages 6 to 16 right now. In order to do this, we are thinking of offering to fund the first $10,000 into Roth accounts for each of them in their names once they're able to show taxable income.
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A
Jennifer, Jennifer, you and your husband, I love this. How generous are you? These eight nieces and nephews may not appreciate it now. They will later that you would do this.
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B
Incredibly generous. We Understand there's a $7,500 a year max for Roth contributions. So this would have to be over the course of at least two years. Where would you advise them and us to have them open the Roth account so they can get this started early in life?
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A
Just any of the low cost companies. I've got three favorite children. Vanguard is awesome. The advantage with Fidelity, if you've got one of these kids who starts nieces or nephews, it starts working pretty early. Fidelity gives teenagers more control over the accounts that they have than they get at Vanguard or they get at Schwab or other companies. The Fidelity product for that reason I like if you have a responsible niece or nephew, if you got, I mean they're all eight are going to be different. If you got one who you're worried about that they would raid their money or whatever, do theirs at Vanguard where you can kind of lock it down more easily.
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B
And Carl in North Carolina says, I have a graded comic book now worth about $20,000.
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A
What's a graded comic book?
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B
I think it just means that it's like, you know how diamond is graded, like it's been verified, it's legitimate. It's like a very valuable.
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A
Yeah, I know nothing about collectibles, so let's hope I can answer the question.
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B
Okay. It's worth about $20,000. Based on recent sales. The value has increased dramatically over five years. I have no plans to sell it and plan to pass it to my kids when I'm gone. What's the best way to protect this collectible and my options? As I see it, insurance is $20 per month in perpetuity. Buy a large theft and fire safe, a safe deposit box. Any other ideas? Most experts recommend buying insurance. Even if I choose one of the other options. What would Clark do?
- [32:33]
A
I think absolutely the. The fire safe is very important and you can use it for other things, key personal papers, things like that. Make sure it's a heavy enough one that you'd have to have a really determined criminal to try to carry that safe out of your home.
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B
Wouldn't you insure it too though? Like if you had a $20,000 ring, you would insure it, right?
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A
Depends. So this is 240 bucks a year in insurance. You're going to pay it year after year after year? Yeah. So you got to make sure that the insurer that you do use is one that upfronts acting in good faith. How do they validate the item you have that if it is stolen that they're going to pay the claim. You want to see what procedure they have. You want to look online with an insure, you're thinking buying a policy from and see what other people of collectibles have had to say about them and how difficult or not it was to pay a claim. I'm just absolutely amazed. And this happens with every area collectibles because I don't have. That's not a skill area mine. How certain things end up being so crazy valuable. And I think about the stories that pop up about half a dozen times a year where somebody will donate something to a Goodwill or something like that. And then later they read a story about how somebody bought it for like 20 bucks and it turns out it's worth so many tens of thousands of dollars. Most of us don't have the knowledge to know when something's really valuable. You obviously do, Carl. And that this is worth that kind of money, isn't that phenomenal?
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B
That's awesome.
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A
And I don't even know. Do they just keep going up over the years?
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B
Probably depends on the item. Yeah.
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A
So insuring it, you're going to have that cost obviously, year after year after year. 10 years. You're talking about a couple thousand bucks to insure it. And so you don't want to lose 20 grand, but it is a real expense.
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B
And would you also do. Would this be a rider on your homeowner's insurance, like a separate. I wonder if that would make it any cheaper.
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A
With collectibles, often you're better off with a specialty policy from a company that does insures those.
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B
Okay.
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A
And people who collect in a particular area, they got a lot of buddies who do this and probably it shows. There are companies that have booths that they rent that specialize in ensuring the particular kind of collectibles that he's interested in. So Carl probably already knows which insurers would be best. Okay. Gosh, we got such unusual different questions every single day, don't we?
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B
I love it.
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A
That is just so fun. And I hope that you've enjoyed today's podcast and we'll be back serving you on Wednesday and no, all week long. We are here to serve you so many different ways. I'm surprised how many people I'll talk to who listen to the podcast or watch us on YouTube and don't even know that we have clark.com as a massive information website, clarkdeals.com with deals that are constantly updated and don't waste your time. We have our newsletters, all the different ways on social media that we make information available. The idea is to reach you wherever and however you wish to be reached. So thank you so much for joining us. More empowerment comes your way on Wednesday. But remember our mantra, always save more, spend less, and avoid getting ripped off.