Smart Money Podcast - Book Smarter: Holiday Travel Tips to Avoid the Hassles (NerdWallet).

Welcome to NerdWallet’s Smart Money podcast! In this episode we provide answers to real-life financial questions from you – such as stress-free holiday travel tips such as booking strategies or capitalizing on credit card points maximizing. What’s the best way for me to travel during holiday times without feeling anxious? Are points better when booking travel for the holidays? Hosts Sean Pyles and Meghan Coyle explore the challenges associated with holiday travel as they share effective booking strategies to help navigate those busier travel days with ease and efficiency. Travel Expert Sally French joins them to address common holiday travel hurdles, including early morning flights and extending holiday trips in order to avoid peak travel days, as well as strategies for using travel points and rewards effectively throughout the holidays. They explore lounge access and TSA PreCheck benefits as well as ways to use travel points during peak seasons, along with clever techniques for using them effectively. You can listen to this episode on any podcast platform of your choosing and hear more of NerdWallet stories related to it here:Episode transcriptThis transcript was automatically created from podcast audio using AI tool technology; tell me if anything sounds familiar here? Welcome to holiday travel, where Murphy seems to reign supreme! There may be long lines at security checks and check in, plus longer lines once through security – and then there could be snowstorms hitting airports at just the wrong moment, forcing flights out the air! Murphy may still rule, though! Well, friends! Here is one law we want to break for you: book that first flight out if possible as the primary cause of delays can often be an airplane coming late! Welcome to NerdWallet’s Smart Money Podcast. Assuming you booked that first flight out, chances are it already landed from its flight the night before, it may already have arrived and be waiting. Sean Pyles: Welcome back! In today’s Nerdy Deep Dive into holiday travel we explore all its joys and sorrows; happy Thanksgiving Meghan in September (never too soon!). Pumpkin spice lattes have arrived and that can only mean one thing – Thanksgiving is next week! Sean, just think about all the fun times you will share with friends and family at this festive celebration – whether or not that means traveling 22 hours from Portland to Seattle may take. But who cares?! Just enjoy every second! At this point, I try to avoid traveling during the holiday season at all costs if possible. Although I love seeing my families during this season, they aren’t my sole means of communicating throughout the year and there are stores selling turkeys and cranberries even outside November! Since Christmas has grown too overwhelming for our family to handle anymore, we now look for alternative ways and times to celebrate instead of flying from state to state every year. I understand what Sean means but would miss spending Christmas Day with them nonetheless! At Holiday Travel Guide we understand many people travel for once-a-year gatherings, so our aim is to ensure your experience goes as smoothly and easily as possible despite any setbacks that might occur along the way. Meghan: What inspired this series for us? All year I cover travel stories; but during holidays this advice becomes especially relevant: many more people than usual travel unexpectedly during this season than they ever would otherwise. Stress levels will likely be sky high this holiday travel season for both frequent flyers who might find it frustrating interacting with inexperienced passengers and less-than-avid travellers who might be startled at changes like increased bag fees – I imagine there must be many listeners out there seeking guidance during such an expensive and trying season! Well Meghan, I can’t wait to hear all of the advice that you and our other travel Nerds offer in making holiday travel less daunting and perhaps even enjoyable! Yes, we are here to assist all the individuals out there dreading making travel plans for this season’s holidays! Over the course of this series, we’ll offer plenty of helpful travel-related tips and techniques – such as finding affordable airfares, finding ways to reduce luggage fees efficiently, using credit card points effectively and much more – with plenty of space for listener feedback as well. So let us hear it: listeners. Stay in the know by leaving us your holiday travel thoughts – good, bad and silly alike – by leaving a voicemail or texting the Nerd Hotline 901-730-6373; alternatively send an email voice memo directly to [email protected]. Where should we begin today, Meghan? Well, today our fellow Nerd, Sally French is joining us to talk about this year’s holiday travel season – how bad or good could it get; plus tips and advice along the way. That will all follow shortly. Welcome back, Sally! Thank you so much for having me back here – it is always such an honour and privilege! Are you travelling anywhere for the holidays? My perfect tradition involves not traveling at all – staying home instead and creating my own staycation experience! Holiday travel often results in much confusion; so my family decided to do something unique this year by coming together in February – well after any possible holiday stress has subsided. My mom tried flying into visit me but got caught in Southwest’s meltdown; now it seems best for us all if she does not travel at all. Oh no! How tragic! Just when your plans for Thanksgiving came into fruition were foiled. Sorry Sally.I know this was difficult to see but most people do travel during the holiday season and that is what this conversation will focus on. Before diving in further, though, can I ask Meghan what is she up to today – as I myself often travel for my holidays myself! I actually live near Philadelphia so a flight wouldn’t bother me this year either way! I hail from a town outside Washington, DC on the East Coast. Since childhood I’ve visited every year as part of family traditions I would rather observe; such as running our annual turkey trot race on Thanksgiving. We’ve done it now for 20 years so no way am I missing it now. Are the airport crowds worth it when it comes to doing the Turkey Trot? Absolutely – never had any major mishap or incident occur during my holiday travels so far, thank goodness. And I try my best to plan it in such a way as to allow plenty of time and avoid crowds; so far so good. Now let’s hope the rain stays away, because every time I travel for holidays I end up stuck in chaos! What are your secrets of planning holiday travel successfully? So how are you managing to avoid it? My best tip for doing that would be extending my holiday as long as possible – that way it becomes slightly easier because spending time with my sisters makes life so much simpler! My ideal Thanksgiving vacation usually lasts seven or ten days and then adds on an extension trip after Christmas, taking advantage of that period when many travelers don’t travel as much before flying off for Christmas festivities. Traveling during the first week in December can be amazing; that is an outstanding tip from NerdWallet where I conducted extensive research into which days are the best/worst to fly. And I love that you say you extended the holiday, as in essence this seems like traveling after rather than during. Which I think was such an ingenious idea! By many measures, the Sunday after Thanksgiving has proven itself the busiest flying day of not just the holiday season or year overall. And while 2020 may have proven different due to unexpected developments therein, typically speaking this Sunday following Thanksgiving was considered to be one of the worst days for flying of 2018. Well, as per TSA passenger data, busiest days also tend to be most costly and most stressful – this trend being especially evident around Christmastime. Your suggestion to travel as far from holiday as possible is certainly sound; another key to doing this effectively may be flying out or in on that holiday day itself. Can you describe what NerdWallet found regarding how many passengers visit airports around Thanksgiving and Christmas? Yes – they analyzed seven days leading up to and following both holidays for insights. Christmas and Thanksgiving Days were some of the least expensive travel days during that period, making these ideal opportunities to reach Thanksgiving dinner early morning by air. So it is recommended that anyone planning on flying early that morning get out their flights at first light! But morning flights, though they might seem unpleasant at times, tend to have lower cancellation rates compared with their evening counterparts – meaning you will arrive for Thanksgiving dinner without delay!Sally has looked through this data. How hectic do you anticipate this holiday season to be? Expect it to be hectic; record-setting crowds have already shown this. That indicates many will travel for both summer vacation and Christmas travel plans, thus emphasizing their importance as planning tools. Signs that people are ready and raring to travel are everywhere: US airports have set all sorts of new passenger records this summer; one particularly notable example was on July 7, which marked a record setting day when over 94,000 travelers passed through security screening in one day – this all time record has yet to be broken! Not only did we set a record, we passed an historic milestone: more than 3 Million travelers passed through TSA checkpoints that day alone! And this wasn’t even all! There have already been various records broken this year – we saw over 12 other days surpass any others that set records prior to 2024 – so expect something big when 2024 rolls around! Reason two for my belief that holiday travel will be particularly high is simply its increased volume over summer travel – much of it concentrated into one single day. Thanksgiving occurs annually on November 23rd whereas your summer vacation could fall any week between July and August. Prior to 2024, November 26th of 2023 marked US airports’ busiest day ever, seeing over 3 Million travelers pass through security checkpoints that day alone! I can tell that we will exceed 3 million on Thanksgiving Sunday in 2024 – this gives me some cause of anxiety! Perhaps I need to reevaluate my plans? Just so long as Meghan travels for her turkey trot before November 26th, I remain optimistic for you! That being said, when should other travelers like myself start looking into booking tickets and hotels? How urgently must holiday flights be booked early?That is such an excellent point – booking early means not waiting until Sunday after Thanksgiving to do it, and making sure flights arrive when needed. Booking early may result in you paying a higher cost; airlines take advantage of those willing to book ahead by increasing their prices accordingly. But take note: more airlines have recently become accommodating regarding change and cancellation policies. It usually costs more for fully refundable flights; however, more airlines have started providing fully refundable options at lower costs. When prices drop after purchasing tickets online or you discover alternative flight offers elsewhere there will no longer be change fees; you simply switch your flight at no additional expense! They will usually offer to pay any fare differences with flight credits that have an expiration date within one or two years, so pay attention. However, if you know you will be traveling home for the holidays with an airline on which you typically fly during the year, booking now and then rebooking later should prices decline could be smart. Just ensure your airline allows this practice. Make sure that you can access travel credits – Southwest is an excellent example, offering flexible booking and providing travel credit in case ticket prices decrease during travel. Southwest’s fare credits do not expire and I wanted everyone to understand that you won’t automatically get one when your flight price decreases. Your reservation needs to be cancelled first and then the fare credit applied back before rebooking it – is this correct? Yes, great point. Unfortunately it’s not automatic so we do require continuous monitoring from you as an Air Freight passenger. At Google Flights I use it as part of my holiday travel or anytime travel monitoring routine, making life much simpler! Assuming my flight is with Southwest–now available via Google Flights–I will book one that suits both my budget and needs, entering in its route details in Google Flights before signing up for alerts on that specific route. Google Flights actually alerts me if my flight fare drops; from there I can visit Southwest’s site and rebook with them and receive fare credit – something I do regularly. What I am hearing is that when searching for holiday flights, the exact cheapest price may not always be immediately accessible; but by giving yourself some flexibility by purchasing non-refundable fares you might be able to both lock in a flight you like as well as possibly rebook it if it becomes cheaper in future months if necessary – I really believe this strategy works best! What can we anticipate this year regarding airline reliability? Have there been any major meltdowns and should people avoid flying or consider trying to do so during the holidays? Oh no! Have we experienced any major meltdowns? Well, most of us probably remember the recent Delta major meltdown linked to CrowdStrike outage which affected businesses of all kinds – not only airlines. Yet surprisingly, Delta actually ranks highly when it comes to reliability ratings for airlines. At the top of our show, we discussed my mom getting caught in Southwest’s meltdown; yet they are actually one of this year’s three most reliable airlines. On 4th of July I myself became caught up in United’s meltdown. United is consistently one of the three most reliable airlines. Unfortunately, no airline seems immune from suffering an outright meltdown at some point or another – although 78.86% of flights arriving on time in 2024 was evidence that progress has been made towards improving airline reliability overall. That represents about a 2% rise from 2023; that means you should expect your flight to land within three quarters of its scheduled arrival window. No doubt it can be frustrating being affected by such major disruption. When discussing airline reliability we must mention Boeing. Their 737 MAX 8 planes have experienced numerous issues. So I am curious: should people who only fly occasionally (like for holidays) still worry about this airplane, and are there ways they can identify which plane it is?? To start this off rightly I want to note that air travel remains among the safest ways of travel. Air travel can be safer than driving; but I know, especially for first-time or occasional travelers alike, that anxiety about flying may arise even among regular flyers. If you don’t wish to ride in on a 737 MAX 8 aircraft, an easy way of discovering its identity can be found through Google Flights; not only is this tool excellent at tracking flight prices and aircraft types but can even show them! Google Flights, as with most travel search engines, displays an airplane model list alongside each flight segment in their results page. If a MAX 8 flight doesn’t appeal to you, don’t book it. Aside from checking plane types, what other steps can people take to reduce risks related to meltdown or spiral of delays and cancellations? What steps can be taken at the booking stage that could assist? Although we discussed many of them already, I feel it’s really worthwhile emphasizing their significance since smart booking can eliminate many flight issues altogether. My top tip would be booking that initial flight. As much as it might not seem relaxing, booking the early flight out may actually reduce delay due to delayed aircraft. When booking that first flight out, chances are the incoming aircraft has already arrived as it probably landed the night before and has simply been left on standby until your scheduled time of departure. I recently experienced one flight where they said it had been delayed because there weren’t enough cleaners available to clean it properly! So if your first early morning flight is already going smoothly, and we discussed avoiding layovers to reduce delays at first flight if one delays further, this approach should help eliminate that domino effect of delays further on down. Even if your second flight arrives on schedule, missing your initial one due to delays may lead to missing both. One effective strategy to help avoid that scenario is by simply minimizing layover time as much as possible; I understand layovers may occur though so always leave enough time between layovers. As much as it’s frustrating, spending half your trip waiting in an airport for your flight can actually be better than missing it altogether – lounge access comes in very handy at these moments! Recently I traveled through Europe and I made a stopover at London Heathrow airport while flying back home to America from Paris. Unfortunately London Heathrow airport can be extremely frustrating as its security lines can take time and you must use buses between terminals – this takes an eternity! My seven-hour layover felt excruciating. In total, it consisted of about four hours in the lounge which may have been too much; nonetheless it was truly relaxing being able to take shower and eat in peace! So go for it; lounge access will make those long layovers much less painful. Lounges provide an invaluable service at airports; they help alleviate crowding problems as you take off or even before take-off! What else can be done to speed up my time at an airport?If you travel often, TSA PreCheck should definitely be considered; its fee applies but can be spread among your trips if applicable. Not only can you typically enter faster lines, but this method requires no laptop to be taken out or shoes to be removed – something which happens every time I take out my laptop – not only that, but as soon as my bag exploded with cords and everything, leaving nothing behind but chaos! So I appreciate how seamless it is to send my bag through without taking out anything first. Next week I will discuss with Sam ways you can save on flights and hotels without using points such as your credit card points or airline miles, but let’s talk for a second about travel rewards as an avenue of saving. Are points a suitable way of paying for flights or hotel stays? Yes. So many of us have built up impressive point balances, yet many still brag about how many points they own – touting their point balance like “Oh I have one million points! Don’t you find this amazing?!” – and my response would always be, no, spend down your points! Holiday travel can be one of the best opportunities to use points wisely, particularly with programs offering fixed award charts. All points programs operate differently; some even tie their points rates directly to cash prices! So if cash prices are high, points rates increase proportionately. But some hotels keep things straightforward with an award chart where “This room always costs X points. “Or they may divide into off-peak, standard, and peak categories for additional flexibility. As with holiday travel in general, holiday season often marks a peak season – making for almost an unparalleled price experience! Booking on points can help you secure one of the most expensive days, like New Year’s Eve in Times Square; that day is almost certainly more costly than any other. Even peak price awards charts often offer attractive deals for travel during this holiday period; I was lucky enough to score one myself! Yes! One of these fantastic peak and peak holiday offers has actually made its way my way! I am super thrilled about that. I am flying from Washington, DC, to Wilmington, North Carolina, so that I may visit my dad. The flight should only last an hour but was sold around Thanksgiving at $250 to $300 per one-way one-hour flight ticket – why such high costs for such short distance flights? However, I found a fantastic points deal that cost less than 10,000 points; specifically 6,000 points for a $250 flight! So this deal really made my day. Wow. What an impressive find Meghan; it shows why NerdWallet exists! That is absolutely correct. Sally French, our travel expert, thanks for being such an integral part of today and wishes everyone happy holidays early! Sean: it seems this year will be another record-setting travel season; at this time of year I always recall that final scene from Love Actually as inspiration! Hugh Grant offers us this beautiful reminder that love really can be found anywhere and everyone. In his words: if we look, love is all around. So I always keep it in my mind that everyone traveling for the holidays does so for love – even if that means taking my time! That is truly lovely. As this time comes around, I must confess I have yet to watch Love Actually; maybe during this holiday season is when I will finally watch it? However, I must express my sincerest wishes for successful holiday travels while being grateful that mine are limited this season. My mom recently relocated from Florida to Portland area, making our holidays together easier – something for which I am truly thankful. However, should I need to travel during the holiday period I will take a page out of your book and extend my trip so as to avoid crowds as much as possible – that sounds like good advice! There are definitely ways to make travel planning less painful and more exciting, which we will discuss further in this series. All right then. Well Meghan, what can we expect in episode two? Next week we are meeting up with Sam Kemmis who will teach us all about saving money when traveling for holidays without using points, such as finding airfare and hotel deals or planning around holiday events like special days like Independence Day. Because rebooking flights has become easier with less change/cancellation fees available now is actually quite an effective strategy; and for now that is all we have for this episode! Do you need answers about money matters of your own? Turn to The Nerds! Call, text or email us now on 901-730-6373 (that’s 901-730-N-E-R-D!). Alternatively you may email [email protected]. Stay informed by following us on any podcast app, such as Spotify, Apple Podcasts or iHeartRadio to automatically get new episodes delivered directly.This episode was produced by Tess Vigeland with assistance from myself as editor and Claire Tsosie as fact checker. And we wish to express our immense appreciation to NerdWallet editors for all their assistance in making this information available to us. Please be aware, though, that we should not be taken as financial or investment advisers and this nerdy information provided is intended solely for general education and entertainment. Until next time… Turn to us.