We’re going back to basics this week by showcasing all the strategies, tips and tricks that we use to book the cheapest flight - every single time we fly. That requires some mythbusting about the dumbest tips out there (here’s looking at you, incognito searchers and Tuesday-only bookers) and shed some light on the actual best tips (i.e. Google Flights Explore and price alerts). Never get fleeced on flights again with these tips. Special shoutout to the sponsor of this week’s episode, Abundo Wealth!
We’re going back to basics this week by showcasing all the strategies, tips and tricks that we use to book the cheapest flight - every single time we fly. That requires some mythbusting about the dumbest tips out there (here’s looking at you, incognito searchers and Tuesday-only bookers) and shed some light on the actual best tips (i.e. Google Flights Explore and price alerts). Never get fleeced on flights again with these tips.
Special shoutout to the sponsor of this week’s episode, Abundo Wealth!
00:00 - The 2 most important rules to booking cheap flight: The Flight First Rule and the 24-hour rule
06:50 - Something Hot: Rethinking your departure and destination cities - use positioning flights and the best tip for booking cheap flights to Europe
13:30 - Something Cold: Clearing your cookies and why there’s no best day to book flights
18:40 - A word about the founding sponsor of the show: Abundo Wealth!
19:32 - The Extra Mile: Why flexibility is everything for finding cheap flights
21:50 - Google Flights primer: Google Flights Explore, Price Alerts and more!
30:00 - Why it pays to take the connection and why it doesn’t pay to be loyal to an airline
34:19 - Watch for pricing shenanigans: One-way flights and the solo passenger penalty
38:00 - How long before my flight should I book?
42:10 - What are the cheapest times of year to fly? Enter: Shoulder Season
46:00 - When to use points and miles instead
48:30 - Get some help from Thrifty Traveler Premium or other award search tools
51:00 - Use your credits, companion certificates and more - and how to stay organized
53:45 - Why you should never stop booking (& booking again) to make your trip cheaper (or better)
57:00 - Listener Question: Using points/miles + cash and when to mix and match
1:00:00 - Gunnar’s BRUTAL confession about his most expensive flight
Produced by Gunnar Olson
Edited by David Strutt
Show music: “All That” by Benjamin Tissot
Yo. Welcome to the show. I am Gunnar Olson here with my charming cohost, the smartest person in points and miles. He puts the some in handsome. It's Thrifty Traveler executive editor, Kyle Potter.
Kyle, what's up? I'm at a loss for words. So I say everything that you just said was wrong. That's okay. That's what I'm known for here on this here show.
Today, Kyle, we wanted to go back to basics a little bit. So, like, whether you've been neck deep in points and miles and business class awards and consider yourself an expert in this kind of thing, or you're just getting into budget travel, we wanted to kinda build a primer to help people travel a little bit better. We have a master guide on our website to finding cheap flights. Every time I read it, it reminds me of something that I've forgotten. And it's always good to kinda stay sharp and and keep working on these things.
Exercise that that thrifty travel muscle. So if you like this episode, send it to a young person that's just getting started in this, a retiree that's looking to stretch their dollar, really anybody out there who loves travel because I bet you there are a few tips in here that you've forgotten because I have certainly forgotten a few of them. Well, Well, I think there's just a lot of things that we take for granted that we forget to talk about when we talk about this thing. So we try to really start from ground zero here and share all of the best tips, tricks, the mindset you need to be in to make sure you're finding the cheapest flight possible every time. I think that's the goal here.
Yeah. Alright. So let's let's start really big. What is, like, the number one tip? What what's one of the tips that's kinda best of than the rest?
What, you know, what's your number one tip for finding cheap flights? You know, there are very few things in all things travel that are truly a silver bullet, one size fits all solution. We're gonna share a lot of different tips and tools later in this episode, but the single biggest thing that you can do in order to travel more for less is to be flexible. And the easiest way to be flexible and add flexibility to your travel planning process is by following what we call the flight first rule, which is exactly what it sounds like. I mean, we've been talking about this for years, and we're never gonna stop because it's so important.
Most people when they plan travel, they request their work dates off first. They might book a hotel or a cruise or start booking their excursions and only then start looking into flights, which in many cases ends up being the most expensive piece of any trip is those flights, especially for a big long haul international trip. But by planning travel in that way, you have put yourself at the whim of the airline and whatever they want to charge you. And so the flight first rule means you flip that on its head before you request your dates off work, before you book hotels or your cruise or whatever you're going to be doing on your trip. You start by looking for your flights because that gives you the flexibility to shift things by as little as a day, as much as an entire season, anywhere in that spectrum, and to capitalize on the cheapest price that you can find.
Because without that level of flexibility that you get by searching for your flights first, you don't have the opportunity to to kinda hop on the days when it ends up being cheaper to travel, which, you know, can save you as little as $25.50 bucks per person, can save you thousands of dollars on airfare, but it all starts with the flight first rule. Yeah. It's it's really everything. There are so few exceptions to this rule. And it really, you're you're really putting yourself behind the eight ball if you lock yourself into a nonrefundable hotel room or a cruise or something.
And then all of a sudden you're going for the flights and you're saying, well, I have to fly out Thursday night and I have to fly back Sunday morning. That's how you get fleeced on a flight. You know, that's how you end up paying $800. I I know I've I heard from a friend one time, and he says, yeah. I see all your cheap flights out there, but every time I search for a flight, it's $800.
And I was like, are you flying out Thursday night and flying back Sunday night? Because that's always the key. You know? The flexibility is the key. Book those flights first and then plan the rest of the trip around that.
It's it's really the smartest way to travel. If I had to pick one rule, Kyle, it's it's a rule that actually ties very directly to the flight's first rule, and that's making sure that you utilize the twenty four hour cancellation rule that you get with all flights that touch US soil. So when you book a flight, you have twenty four hours to get a full refund. If you wanna cancel, you can get a full refund back no matter what, whether it's a points and miles flight or a cash flight. What this means is that when you see a a cheap flight, go ahead and book it and then start figuring out the rest later.
This is my order of operations when I do things. When I see a good deal, I book it, then I go to my wife, then I go to you to ask for the time off, and then I can try and figure out the rest over the next days, weeks, months, what have you. But so few people utilize this rule. They don't understand it. They don't know about it, I think.
Yeah. You know, for even though it is truly enshrined in federal law, very few people know that this is an option. It is an excuse to be impulsive. It gives you that critical window to go through the rest of the steps that you typically go through before you book that flight to check with your spouse, to check with your employer, to make sure you can get that time off. And as long as you do that within twenty four hours and in some cases more, which we'll get into in in later in the episode, you can come to the answer is no.
Cancel that flight if you're not gonna be able to make that trip work and get a full refund back to your credit card, not just a travel credit or a voucher that might expire in a year or less. It's huge. Yeah. And I I think this rule also kinda reinforces another kinda, I guess, smaller tip I would give to people is that speed really does matter a lot in booking airfare. Fares move a lot.
Fares move quickly. Fare buckets, as we've described in a previous episode when we were talking about how flights are priced, they fill up and empty very quickly when when people are booking. So the that flight you're looking at and you're, you know, looking at and you're checking it over the course of a few days, and then you're emailing your employer and you're emailing your friends and, hey. Can we make this work? That flight's gonna change quite a bit, probably for the worse as time goes on.
So it's just really important to book quickly when you see something that you like, and then as we said, figure out the rest later. But speed is of the utmost importance when you're booking flights as well. Today on the show, we're going over all the best tips and tricks to book the cheapest flight possible, including a little myth busting and telling you our personal favorite ways to save when we book our travel every year. All that and more. Welcome back to the Thrifty Traveler podcast.
Alright. Let's start with something hot and something cold where we look into the good and the bad news out there for travelers, and we're gonna start with something hot. And this week, our something hot segment is brought to you by us. Thrifty Traveler Premium is the best way to get instant alerts for cheap flights and points and miles award availability so you can travel for less this year. In the last week alone, we found Croatia flights for $361 round trip this fall and round trip flights to Dublin for just 19,000 Delta Sky miles.
Both are near record lows. Sign up at thriftytraveler.com/premium today and use promo code t t pod, all one word, for $20 off your first year of flight deal alerts. Okay, Kyle. For something hot, one of the hottest flight booking methods in order to get the best price, I think, comes with flexibility. But what kind of flexibility are we talking about?
Everything. As much as you can give it. So, you know, dates is is the easiest way to to think about being flexible, whether you depart on a Wednesday instead of a Thursday or, you know, you go in mid January instead of early January. All of those things can can save you money. But I think it's it's also important for people to start thinking about being flexible about where they're flying to.
And that doesn't mean you need to rethink and go to a different destination. It means you need to rethink which airport you're departing from and which airport you're actually flying into. Because if you have that level of flexibility, even when your travel dates are set in stone, it cannot be moved. You have to depart on January 17, and you have to come back on the thirty first. Any amount of flexibility you can introduce into the equation is gonna end up saving you money.
And if you start thinking about both your origin and your destination as being flexible, that's a win win. Yeah. I think, people need to just rethink how they book these flights because the airlines are setting their prices based on an origin and a destination city. Right? So if you take let's take our example that I just read in the, the Thrifty Traveler Premium ad above.
Flights to Croatia from $361 round trip. Those were departing Boston and JFK. If you are based, let's say, you know, somewhere in the Midwest, if you're gonna look at a flight to Croatia in the fall, you're probably looking at something that's closer to 800 or $900. Yeah. Or more.
So so if you can book that $361 round trip from Boston and JFK, it's gonna lead to big cost savings even if you need to tack on another leg to your trip that you booked by yourself. And that is a strategy that we call positioning flights. Tell me about positioning flights, Kyle. Yeah. It sounds counterintuitive, but it's one of the best ways to save, especially on international travel.
It's also an essential ingredient if you end up, you know, booking award flights using your miles because in many cases, you're only gonna be able to book that nonstop flight from, you know, let's say, the East Coast into Europe. And it's not gonna be available when you search for your miles when you're searching from Minneapolis or Des Moines or Sioux Falls or wherever. So a positioning flight just means you're booking separately a flight from your hometown to that departure airport in order to hop on the cheapest flight possible. So it adds a layer of complication. It also adds a little bit, and I wanna stress a little bit of risk because when you have two separate tickets like this, if you miss the connection, you're often on your own.
So that means you just need to build in as long of a connection time, I would say, you know, four to five plus hours. It can be so so worth it for the savings in the end of booking a cheap flight from a city like Minneapolis to Boston or New York. Booking that cheapest fare you can to a place like Croatia for $361 round trip and still coming out far, far ahead of the 900, a thousand, $1,200 fare that you would find searching from, you know, Minneapolis to, Zagreb or Dubrovnik or wherever you're heading in Croatia. Yeah. I think it's it's a really important thing to just if you type in the city that you're starting in and you type in the city that you hope to end in and then you end your search there or you slam your laptop shut because you're afraid of what you saw, that you shouldn't end your your flight search journey there.
Take a look around at some airports that you know that you can get to easily and cheaply, and it doesn't necessarily have to be something exceptionally close. You know, I I position a lot to Chicago for Minneapolis, which is pretty close. Like, we could even drive that if we needed to. I also position wouldn't recommend it, but you can. Yeah.
I've also positioned many times to, like, Dallas and JFK and places where it does require a bit of a flight. It's still a nonstop flight for us, luckily, but positioning doesn't necessarily have to be regional either. You should just kinda think about think about things, a little bit bigger. Cast a bit of a wider net when you're booking these things. And in terms of a wider net, I can't think of a arguably, even more important way to cast a wide net, not just where you're departing from, but where you're flying into.
So I think on the other side of the pond about whatever the opposite of position flights is, about getting to the region that you are going to go to in order to reach your final destination because not only can there be even more substantial savings on the other side of the pond if you pick the right city to fly into, But, you know, especially in places like Europe, which has a great, rail system in Southeast Asia, where there are flights for, like, $30 or less each way from, you know, cities big and small, it's huge to, you know, not say, alright. I need to fly into Phuket, Thailand. But say, what if I fly into Bangkok or Taiwan or South Korea or Singapore? You cast as wide of a net as possible in order to find the cheapest fare, and then you do the math. Okay.
If I book this flight into Singapore, but the and then I can fly, you know, for $45 to Phuket from there, is that gonna end up saving me more than that original flight that's just going straight into Phuket right from the get go? Again, you need to build in some good connection time to make sure that you're not missing these flights. But, again, I just need to stress, this might even be more important than those positioning flights when it comes to saving, whether you're going to Europe, Asia, honestly, wherever. Yeah. This is especially, advice we give people who are looking to fly to Europe because, I just tell them aim for Europe, anywhere in Europe, and you can get around Europe very quickly, very easily, and very cheaply, whether it's a flight or a train, like you said.
I just did this for some friends who were booking flights to Oktoberfest. The flights into Munich were looking like $1,300, and they were getting a little scared that the trip was in jeopardy. And I said, just look up the road to Frankfurt. Things were way, way cheaper. They were able to book some awesome flights there.
So those are all really good advice. Just be flexible with your destination and your origin airports, and it's gonna save you a lot of money even if you have to get a little creative to do so. Alright. Let's pivot to something cold, Kyle. Until we have to.
This one hurts me. This one really hurts. Okay. There are a lot of myths out there for booking cheap flights. I'm sure you've heard them all.
One of them, Kyle, this is especially terrible one in my eyes. Clearing the cookies in your browser. Tell me about why someone would clear the cookies in their browser. Well, because this has been going around forever. This is, like, the number one travel hack that gets shared on TikTok and Instagram reels, and it's just it's not happening, people, currently.
Now we've talked in previous episodes about the prospect of personalized pricing and airlines tracking your search history or your purchase history and setting your prices accordingly. That is not happening today. The distribution systems that airlines use and how they set prices is not advanced enough to do this. So as long as you're searching through a site like Google Flights, which we're gonna talk about ad nauseam on the show, or directly with the airline, you are not being your searches are not being tracked. Your prices are not changing accordingly.
Go ahead and clear your cookies if you want to or search incognito if you want to, but do not view that as the be all end all of making sure that you're getting the lowest price because I'm telling you right now, it is doing nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Yeah. It's, that's a that's a really tough one.
This this next travel myth, is another one that really grinds me, and it's when people assume that flight prices are cheapest if they book on Tuesdays. People, for the record, once and for all. Okay? There is no best day to book flights. There is a best day to fly.
Tuesday is a very cheap day to fly. So is Wednesday and so is Saturday. Those are the three best days typically that you're going to get the best fares. I would always tell people if you wanna get the best fare to look for those three days, but the day you book does not matter. The flight prices are constantly moving.
The airlines, you know, it's not the, the nineteen nineties anymore. They're not setting a fare on Tuesday night for the week. Right? The fares are constantly changing based on how many people have booked in that fare bucket. This one grinds me, and, I still hear this one a lot too.
I get it. Both of these myths, I think, have become undefeatable because airfare is a black box. It's so confusing. It's so frustrating to the average person, and I totally understand that with how often prices change. And you can't help but turn to the simplest answer answers, which is airlines are tracking my searches, and there's an easy solution for that.
Or, hey. You know, I know if I search on a Tuesday night, I'm gonna get the best price. And if I wait until Wednesday, I won't. I get it. They're just wrong.
You just need to you need to put them behind you. You need to free yourself from these myths and move on to what honestly are some easier answers of using the best tools. Google Flights, which, again, we're gonna talk keep talking about again and again. I'm sorry. I'm not sorry about it.
And flexibility and a handful of other things we're gonna get to in the extra mile, but those things are so, so much more important than these things that are just flat out false that are not helping you. Let them go. Free yourself. I promise you are gonna start traveling more for less. Yeah.
One more thing on the, the days to book. Just avoid Sunday as best you can. I know the the instinct is to try and get back on Sunday night so you're ready for the work week, the school week, whatever. Sun the airlines know this. Alright?
Sundays are always crushingly expensive unless you're gonna fly it, you know, 05:30 in the morning. Just avoid Sundays if you can. Come back Monday evening. Extend your trip by one day. Even if you're doing weekends, I just my my goal is to never ever fly on a Sunday again.
I just despise it. The airports are also I've talked about this on the show before. Everyone's full of anxiety on Sunday. Everyone's running around. Everyone's trying to go home.
So they're just you know, there's just a lot of sadness and angst in the airport on Sunday. Don't be a part of it. Come back late Saturday night. Come back Monday. Make yourself a lot easier.
I think we need to become evangelists for the Saturday return for a couple of reasons. Like you said, the airport is almost always so much better. The the last few times I've traveled on Saturdays, it's it's felt like I've had the whole place to myself, which I can't remember the last time I felt like that. But, also, you know, especially from a long international trip, the last thing I wanna do is come home on Sunday, racked with jet lag, and then go back to work the following day. Give yourself an extra day buffer.
You're gonna spend less. You're gonna have a better experience at the airport and probably on the airplane, and you're gonna have a little bit more time to get back to the grind. It's Saturdays. Come back on Saturdays, people. Yeah.
Saturdays at the airport are downright pleasant. Like, I and I don't know if I could say that for any other day. Avoid Sundays. That's what's costing you money. Yeah, Kyle.
We have many more tips and tricks to give our listeners here, but first, we're gonna take a quick break. Alright. This is very exciting, Kyle. Today's episode is brought to you by our very first podcast sponsor that isn't also signing our paychecks. It's a bundle of wealth.
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Alright. Welcome back to the extra mile where we dig a little deeper on a topic. And this week, we're talking about how to book the cheapest flight every single time. And I think the number one rule, Kyle, that you said for yourself and for all travelers out there is flexibility. So you are you are our yoga instructor today.
Teach us how to be flexible. I I am not flexible physically. I am, however, flexible when it comes to travel in terms of travel dates, in terms of destination and departure airports, but I wanna be clear, you know, especially to anyone out there listening who has to get the kids in school or is a teacher or, you know, just doesn't have as much wiggle room in their day to day work life in order to get up and go somewhere. That is not what flexibility means. Flexibility is not black and white.
It's a spectrum. And so any ounce of flexibility you can introduce into your travel planning process, That is where you start to save. There is only one true silver bullet when it comes to booking flights for less, and it is flexibility. Everything else we're gonna talk about here really doesn't move the needle much if at all if you don't have the option to be flexible. So in some cases, flexibility is traveling in the spring instead of the summer.
That's a great way to save on on flights to destinations like Europe because, you know, when you when you get into July and August, flights to Europe tend to get pricier. But for those people out there who can't travel in April or in March, flexibility is also departing on a Tuesday instead of a Monday or, you know, returning on a Saturday instead of a Sunday, just moving things by one day from what your ideal travel dates would be can save you, in some cases, hundreds, in some cases, thousands of dollars, especially when you're talking about traveling with, like, a family of four. Flexibility really is everything. As much flexibility as you can give yourself, the more you're going to save. Yeah.
It is it is really good advice. I know it's gonna sound sound like there's an echo in here, but we're gonna keep harping on on the flexibility. And, you know, flexibility, like you said, comes in all different sizes and shapes. It doesn't just mean that, you know, you have to travel Tuesday to Tuesday in mid April in order to get a cheap flight to Europe. I think no product, no tool in travel emphasizes how important flexibility is like Google Flights.
And we always point people to start their search for their flights no matter what with Google Flights. And that's because of some of the tools within it. It's not just, you're not just looking between two city pairs, and it's not just one airline website. Right? It's giving you every single option that you have, which just breeds in itself a little bit of flexibility.
There are a million. We could do a Google Flights tool draft if we wanted to. But what are some maybe one of the top aspects of Google Flights that you think makes it so valuable to travelers looking for the cheapest flight possible? Yeah. I'll give you three quick.
You know, the first is it really does, as you said, build in when flexibility can save you. So, for example, if you're searching for a flight from Chicago to Denver, you know, on September 7, coming back on the fourteenth, and it ends up being significantly cheaper to instead depart on September 8 instead, Google Flights will give you a little pop up, and it says, hey. Flights on September 8 are a $184 instead of $250. Now if you can be flexible and take advantage of that, that's gonna save you a lot of money. So that's huge.
It also just has this really handy two month calendar. At any time you're trying to enter your dates, you can click either the, departure date or the arrival date or return date. Open it up, and it will open a full two month calendar that you can scroll through. And then in green, it will show you the lowest prices for any length of trip. So, you know, leaving on the fourteenth, it's $500, but if you depart on the fifteenth instead and come back on the twenty first, it's $350.
I mean, again and again, we see just how important it it that calendar is in order to pinpoint what are the cheapest days to travel where, again, if you have that level of flexibility to take advantage and you book your flight first, Google Flights really makes that process really seamless. Second, we talked about just how important it is to be flexible with not just which airport you're departing from, if you're open to booking a positioning flight to the East Coast in order to get to Europe, but also if you're open to flying into Frankfurt instead of straight into Munich. Google Flights allows you to search from seven departure airports and seven destination airports all at once, and then it pulls in all of the fares for any combination of departure airport a to, destination airport z and shows you exactly what the cheapest flights are, that just really supercharges the ability to be flexible both with your travel dates and your destinations. That's just huge. And then kind of the putting that on steroids is Google Flights Explore, where you're not just searching from city a to city b.
You're searching from your home airport on basically any travel date, and then you can see a map and scroll through it. So especially for those times when, oh, I just need to get away. I need to find a cheap flight. I will go anywhere I can get for cheap. Google Flights Explorer is great.
It's also great for exactly that scenario where you just wanna get to Europe. You're open to going different places or you're open to taking the train to your final destination in Germany or Portugal or wherever. Google Flights Explorer is Explorer is truly a superpower. Yeah. I think Google Flights Explorer is probably the most powerful tool that Google Flights has.
It's the most powerful tool for booking cheap flights. It just think about it this way. If you have if you have four days off or five days off and you know that you wanna go somewhere, you know, it doesn't have to be a big trip. It doesn't have to be a small trip. If if you're just a you have an idea of when you wanna go.
You throw those two dates into a Google Flights explore or into a Google Flights search. You put your home airport and some other airports if you want to into the origin tab. And then in the destination tab, you just put something, that's not a specific airport. So you can just write United States and press enter. And what it'll do is it'll pull up the full map, and you'll see exactly what the the price would be to fly from your home airport to all of those places on the exact days that you've put in.
So now instead of saying, you know, I have to cater, you know, what trip is gonna work for me, and then I'm gonna have to figure out the dates. If you just know that you have the dates, just throw the dates in there and then let Google Flights Explore tell you where you wanna go. I I let Google Flights Explore run my imagination for the most part. I I know which places I like to go and where I wanna go, but using Google Flights Explorer to just poke around, you can start small and be like, you know, here are the one to two hour nonstop flights that'll make for a super convenient trip. And then it's like, actually, it's not that expensive to head up to Iceland for five days, which would be really cool.
It's not that expensive to cross the pond even if I wanted to. What about this little town in Mexico? I've never heard of this. Google Flights Explorer is, even if you're not booking something, just a really fun tool to play with and gives you a really good perspective as to what is cheap for you to book at a certain time. So thank you for, for for passing me the puck there and letting me score with Google Flights Explorer.
It's my favorite tool out there. Well, it's coming right back to you because I think you are perhaps the foremost superuser of Google Flights price alerts, which is the solution for anyone to make sure that they keep tabs on when prices drop, but I think especially powerful for people who can't be flexible with their travel dates. So walk us through a little bit of just how important Google Flights price alerts are and and how to really maximize them. Yeah. Well, first, just simply when you to use them, there's just a very easy little toggle.
When you are searching for a flight, it just says track prices. You can click on it for tracking a full, you know, day's worth of flights or specific flights when you go when you click all the way through to the specific flights you want. There are two ways to use price alerts. I use them before I book and after I book, and both are equally important. If if there's a date where I know, I wanna fly and I haven't booked anything yet, I'll just set a few price alerts for that day and the day before and the day after, and just see kinda what prices are doing.
It also once you set an alert, it starts tracking that every second. So it's giving you a graph of, you know, here's where the price has gone. So if you just see it going up and up and up, you know, oh my gosh. It's time to book. It's probably not gonna get cheaper than this.
If you see it kinda bottoming out and going back up again, bottoming and out, going back up again, then you know it's a little more volatile. That's an important way to use it. I think the best way to use it is after you've booked something, especially if you've booked a flexible fare, a main cabin fare or better where, you know, you can get a voucher or a refund even. The second I book a flight, the first thing I do is I go set an alert on that flight that I booked because chances are a month or two later, I'm gonna get an email from Google straight into my Gmail account saying the price of your flight has dropped. And then you go back, you rebook for a voucher, and you save all of that money.
It also helps you pick a better flight. You know? Say say I have a one stop itinerary, because it was the cheapest flight I could find out to Lake Tahoe during ski season. And then all of a sudden, you know, I look and the nonstop flight has dropped in price to something that's a lot closer to what I had booked previously, then I could rebook onto a better option. And then, you know, my trip is that much better because of it.
So Google Flights lets you set 100 price alerts. I have maxed that out many times. I have to delete some to keep under my 100 threshold, but I I just set a lot of alerts because they're always useful, and more information is never bad, especially when you're booking travel. You're my hero, Gunner. A 100 flight price alerts.
That's that's extreme in a good way. I was pretty embarrassed the first time I hit it, and, now I think it it's a badge of honor. It's a badge of honor. It is. So okay.
I I mentioned briefly that, you know, you could save when you book a connection versus the nonstop. I know of too many travelers who their, flight booking journey starts at delta.com. They look at the nonstop. If it's too expensive, then they quit. Tell me why you would wanna take a connection.
Because it's almost always cheaper. And and look. There's a trade off here of convenience versus cost. But I think for too many people, they stop and start and never look beyond the airline that they're they're loyal to. And if you're flying on your employer's dime and you're swiping your corporate credit card for every trip that you're booking, that's great.
Charge them more money in order to fly Delta or United or whichever airline you're loyal to. But if you're just trying to find the cheapest flight for your own personal travels, your loyalty is costing you money. Again, there's always gonna be that trade off of convenience versus cost of what kind of time it takes. But, you know, especially once you start to look further field of getting to Europe or Asia or Australia or South America, the best way to save is by flying an airline that isn't gonna get you there nonstop or and with an airline that isn't the primary airline at your home airport. Because, you know, the number one driver of of decreases in flight prices and cheap fares is competition between the airlines.
And the way that we see that is when American comes into Minneapolis and says, you know what? We're gonna fly people to Rome for $386 round trip. Delta isn't gonna offer those prices to to flyers in Minneapolis, and American isn't going to offer those prices to American hub captives in Charlotte. They're gonna charge a whole lot more to people in Charlotte and Philadelphia. So, you know, for folks in Charlotte and Philadelphia, look beyond American Airlines.
Start looking into Delta fares and use Google flights, and don't restrict your search to just one carrier flying nonstop or just one carrier because I promise you, you're gonna end up flying some finding some cheaper prices if you broaden your horizon and you give up this idea that you should be chasing airline loyalty because I promise you, the airlines are not going to reward that loyalty as much as you are going to make back in the form of cheaper fares. Yeah. Kyle, I regret to inform you that Delta does not care about you. They do not. Even though you care about them and you're being loyal to them and flying nonstop for, you know, $1,200, they still don't care about you.
Alright? Your loyalty is costing you money. Look for the connection. And then like I said just previously, book that connection for a cheap rate, make sure it's flexible, and then set a price alert on the nonstop. Nonstop drops, then boom, you're back on the flight you wanted anyway.
But don't just give in to the airline that's gonna fly you there without a connection. Book a connection. Make sure it's a reasonable one. Don't book that twenty five minute connection. That's never gonna work.
But, I think this is a a really good way to, make sure that that you're, covered and just looking at all the options before you book a flight. Yeah. And as we talked about earlier, I mean, the prospect of building in your own connection with a positioning flight in order to find a cheaper fare by booking two flights separately instead of just one ticket. Again, it's a little bit counterintuitive, but, you know, especially for those really long trips to Europe and to Asia and Australia, this is the way to save. So if you're going to Europe, think about the airports that you can fly to cheaply and nonstop from your home airport.
So, you know, if you can get to somewhere in New York City or Boston or Washington DC, even Miami, Philadelphia, Charlotte, even Chicago, those are the big ones to look for, I would say. If you're going to Asia or Australia, LA, San Francisco, definitely Seattle, those three, I think, are the ones to look for in positioning flights. And if you can find, you know, a a fare to get somewhere that's $500 cheaper than starting your search from your home airport and then book a cheap flight from your home airport to one of those bigger hubs for 200 round trip, you're coming out way, way far ahead. And in some cases, the savings can be even more substantial. You just gotta make sure again to give yourself a big enough buffer, especially for that outbound flight.
Because if you miss that outbound flight from Boston to Rome or from Seattle to, Tokyo, game's over. Gotta make sure you've got a good long connection to get back. Yeah. Definitely. Okay.
Let's shift gears a little bit here. Just some things to be, I guess, aware of when you're booking cheap flights. In the last few months, Kyle, you have specifically been on the forefront of doing some important reporting about what the airlines are doing to flight prices, in and around The US. Tell me a little bit about some of the pitfalls you should watch for when you're searching and booking. You You know, I think I think the biggest one is for people who have defaulted over the years for booking domestic flights separately as one way's.
Increasingly, you're paying for that. So it's time to revert or at least compare and do the math between booking round trip in one reservation or booking it separately is two. You know, booking one way separately is great because it gives you some flexibility to fly different carriers if one is cheaper on one day than the other, to cancel your, you know, return flight and bump it back another day without unwinding your entire reservation. But increasingly, you know, it's clear that the the major US airlines are charging us more for that flexibility, so you need to be mindful of that. You know, the the the solo passenger penalties that we've talked about a lot on the show, you know, still as we're talking right now, we're only seeing American and to a far lesser extent United do this.
Delta hasn't resumed doing this, and we haven't seen it on any of the of the other major US carriers. But, you know, especially in those situations where you're planning a group trip, do the math. Compare two flights versus one, two passengers versus one, and see if it is gonna be cheaper for you and your friend to book your flights together and then Venmo each other to come out ahead because and especially on American Airlines, you may wind up paying dearly for that. Yeah. This one is a a frustrating development in the world of airfare and, unfortunately, just a sign of of the way that the airlines are getting a little more aggressive in the ways that they're trying to boost some revenue.
A question for you about VPNs. Do you use one? Do you recommend people use one to search for flights? Almost never, but not never. I think VPNs, like the Tuesday thing, like clearing your, cleaning your cookies or searching incognito have become this go to travel hacking method, a thing that people tell themselves is gonna get the get them a better deal, but it rarely works.
I would say the exception is for traveling to or within South America in particular. Because why VPNs may work is if carriers offer what's called a point of sale discount, which means they will sell tickets at a different price based upon the place that you're purchasing your tickets from. So if I search from Minnesota or New York for a flight, you know, within Columbia, for example, and this is a way that I've saved on my own flights within South America in the past. And the airlines down there will charge me more than if the browser that I'm using, the web page that I'm on for that airline believes that I am in Colombia or that I am in Brazil. So just being mindful of that, you you do see this crop up elsewhere, but South America is where, you know, at least as we're talking right now, this is most prevalent.
So consider using a VPN if you're booking a trip to South America. If you're trying to get to Machu Picchu or you're trying to get to the beaches of Brazil, consider using a VPN. Or in many cases, the airlines make it pretty easy to just change your browser location, you know, in the upper right hand corner of each airline website. So just change your location. You're not doing anything wrong or nefarious.
It's just an easy way to do some cost comparisons and potentially save, you know, in some cases, some pretty significant money. Yeah. Alright. That's really good advice. I want to, switch gears now to a question that we get all the time, Kyle.
How long before my flight should I book my flight? When it's cheapest. Podcast over. Yeah. This is this is, obviously, a tricky one because people ask, based on, different trips that they have in mind.
Right? So someone will say, you know, I'm flying from, from Minneapolis to Saint Louis. How far before my flight should I book my flight? That's gonna be a very different answer than, how long before my flight should I fly from, you know, Saint Louis to Tokyo. There are some ways to track this stuff via data.
Google Flights does this, and we have a story on our website that we'll link to that kinda shows you the based on all of the data of all flights, the sweetest spot for a few different things like summer break, Christmas break, domestic flights, international flights, things like that. You shouldn't have to worry about this. The key is just to book a fare that's flexible, a main cabin fare, set yourself a price alert, and then that's then you don't have to think about it anymore. Then if the flight price goes down, then you can rebook it at a better rate. Sometimes you can just rebook it for a voucher.
So I would just tell people, you know, sometimes you're gonna wanna book the flight the second it becomes available, ten months out, eleven months out. Sometimes you're gonna wanna book the flight three weeks out and get the best rate. It varies so much flight to flight that there is no blanket answer for this. But if you book flexibly and set yourself a Google Flights price alert, you're never gonna get dinged here. Yeah.
I mean, I think that's the best overall advice. I think there is bigger picture, and it varies a lot based upon where you're going. And I would say probably most importantly, if you're trying to get somewhere for Thanksgiving or for Christmas or over the winter holidays, that you know, in those cases, it can be the differences in when you book can be a little bit more severe. But there really is kind of a Goldilocks zone of when the best time to book is. It's not too early.
You know, most airlines start selling their flights eleven months out. And in rare cases, do we ever see that's when flights are the cheapest. But it's definitely not too late either. I mean, once you get two, three, four, even six weeks, especially for longer international trips before departure, that's when we start to see prices really start to climb. So, you know, for domestic flights, that Goldilocks zone tends to be somewhere between, I would say, one and four months for bigger international trips.
I would say it's probably more like two to six, sometimes two to eight months in advance. But again, you know, if you're trying to get somewhere for the holidays, it's it's further out than that for both of those. So, you know, like Gunnar said, keep an eye on prices. Book a price that you like and then keep tracking it because, you know, the airlines might surprise you. They might cut prices.
And as long as you don't book the cheapest basic economy ticket, you'll be able to take advantage of that price drop if and when you get that Google Flights price alert that tells you, oh, you know, that $400 domestic flight that I booked is suddenly 280. You can easily come out ahead that way. Yeah. That's that's also really good advice. I I would say if you wanna think about it just seasonally, I think the when you're booking flights, the next two seasons are the ones that are most likely to be cheap.
So right now, we're at the end of summer. Fall flights and winter flights are the where you're gonna see kind of the lowest fares, those greenest fares on Google flights, and then you're seeing some kind of spring start to to creep in. If you wanna look for next summer right now, the airlines don't really know where the demand is yet, so they've just kinda set a high bar of where they hope that you'll book, and then they're just kinda waiting to see what people are doing. So I would say, you know, the next two seasons are where you're gonna find the cheapest flights. The exception here is when you're using points and miles, almost exclusively, the further out you book, the better.
I think that that's a, obviously, a different podcast. But, if you're losing points and miles, you should try and be ready almost a year out if you wanna book. Alright. So about you know, we're we're talking about when you should book. When should you book for, Kyle?
When in the times of year, I guess, are you going to find the cheapest flights? Well, I'll tell you when you're not gonna find cheap flights, which is, you know, Thanksgiving week, typically. Again, if you can be flexible with your departure and arrival and return dates, you can change that a little bit. You're not gonna find cheap plates. Flights basically from mid December, you know, December 14 or so somewhere in that window, all the way through early January.
So get past Christmas and New Year's Eve. You're not gonna find cheap flights in that window. And then, generally, you're not gonna find many cheap flights during the peak summer, which, you know, it the definition changes a lot of exactly what's peak summer. But, you know, I would say at this point, we tend to see prices at their highest for peak summer flights in June and July into early August. I gotta stress early August because increasingly, the sweet spot for cheaper fares in the summer is mid August and onward, which is great for those, you know, those families out there that don't send their kids back to school until after Labor Day because that gives you a really great three to four week window to take advantage of when prices do start to bottom out.
You're still in peak summer. You're still gonna be able to take a good big family trip before you have to get the kids back to school or go back to school yourself. And it's still summer. Yeah. I, actually, the past few years, On Purpose have booked August trips just because it's always a little bit cheaper.
It is kinda past peak. You know, especially in the South right now, people are going back to school very quickly already. So it's, that this kinda August time of year is still summer weather wise. It is not still summer school wise, and that means that there's a little less demand and some better prices. But, yeah, just looking looking at the shoulder seasons in general, I just I really like to travel.
I mean, I've gone to Northern Europe a few times over the last few years in the dead of winter. And, you know, I'm willing to pack a coat where I go. I'm I'm hardy enough to go travel somewhere where the weather is not perfect. But what you do when you get there is you get an experience that's a lot more what life is actually like there. A lot more locals milling about, a lot less kinda tourism, tourist stuff.
So you get a pretty pretty raw authentic experience in these places where you're avoiding the peak summer crowds. If, you know, if you're gonna go to Rome in June, it's gonna be a bit of a bleep show. You're gonna be messing with crowds. What was that word? It's a bleep show.
This is a family program trying to keep it clean. But I I just love kinda getting off the beaten path a little bit and just, you know, getting moving around the calendar in a way that makes me less of a tourist and more of a traveler. You know? I think that's most people's goal. But, again, you know, if you don't have that flexibility to go to Northern Europe in February or March, there's still the option again, you know, mid early to mid to late August.
That that three to four week window leading into Labor Day, that's a great window to do some of the travel. Avoid the worst of the peak summer travel season and definitely the worst of the peak summer travel prices. Okay. Our next tip, I would say, for booking the cheapest flight possible is to, leave your credit card in the drawer and try and use your points and miles instead. Right?
When when do you think that this makes the most sense for people, and how should they go about starting to do it? I mean, like you said, I think, you know, maybe the most important thing is to plan even further ahead than you would for finding that Goldilocks zone of not too soon, not too late in in order to book. Because generally speaking, you know, when it comes to redeeming points and miles, we tend to see the better award availability at the lowest prices, you know, somewhere in the neighborhood of six to eleven, in some cases, twelve, depending on which airline mileage program you're using months in advance. So planning even more ahead and coming up with a plan even before those flights are bookable is probably the best thing. Make sure you have the points you need in order to book the trip you wanna book before those flights are even available.
So that right when that window opens, when you can book those flights for August 2026 or September 2026, you are ready to book just when you find something that works for you. And, you know, maybe most importantly, we we talk a lot about using Delta Sky miles or American advantage miles, and all of that is great. But, you know, for a lot of people, that's either, a, not really approachable. They don't wanna spend the time learning about how to transfer, you know, credit card points to, you know, airline program a in order to book a flight with airline b, at the lowest rate. And that's totally fine.
In many cases, especially when we're talking about combining the things that we do using points and finding the cheapest flight possible. The cheapest way to book anything, period, using points is to combine those two things, to find a cheap flight and then cover the cost of that using your points. So there are a few different ways that you can go about that. The easiest one is using Capital One Venture Miles where you just charge that flight with any airline that you want, any airline in the world to your Capital One card, wait a couple of days, go back and cover the entire cost with your miles. And in many cases, as long as you're finding the cheapest flight that you can, that's going to be significantly cheaper than the cheapest award rates using an airline's mileage program in order to book that flight.
Yeah. Very good advice. Points and miles are, the key to getting cheap flights. I think, you know, my mix of booking flights, long ago, is probably fifty fifty points and miles in cash, and now I think it's definitely a little more points and miles just because the flexibility is there. And then, you know, obviously, I'm always tracking.
I I maxed out my Google Flights price alerts. So that's Just clear bragging about it. But I'm always, always making sure that I'm keeping tabs on the cheapest cash flights too because when the value's there, the value's there. So use those points and miles if you've got them. Kyle, if there is somebody out there whose head is spinning, they've run out of ink in their pen and their notebook is full of all the things that we've told them to do and they can't possibly consider using all of these tips and tricks to book flights.
Is is there a way to outsource it? Can someone find cheap flights for them? Wouldn't you know it? We can. No.
I mean, this is what we do. Right? We find cheap flights, and we are not the only ones. There are plenty of other services and tools out there that can help you, but it is important to enlist some help. You know?
So our team is searching for cheap flights every single day, cheap domestic flights, cheap international flights, points and miles deals with dedicated walk throughs to show you exactly how to book something, whether it's, you know, a Delta Sky Mile sale to Dublin for under 19,000 Sky Miles or, you know, business class awards that you'd see to Spain with, you know, dedicated instructions of exactly which credit card points to transfer to the right airline program in order to book that for as low as 40,000 points each way. There are there are a lot of tools out there. We're gonna link some of our say our favorite award search tools if you're trying to find, you know, the best ways to redeem your points. We'll, include some of our other favorite services out there in the show notes of of, services that also scrape and find cheap flights to make sure that you're on top of the cheapest flights you can. But, you know, having something where you're either getting it in your inbox or seeing it on social media, a cheap flight deal that you may not find on your own can be the trigger to book something for a cheaper price than you ever really could have imagined.
Yeah. The I think the the one, the one way I'd advocate for getting some help in this is that a lot of this stuff takes time, especially to find the cheapest flight. Unless you are a Google Flights goblin spending three hours after your workday grinding Google Flights to find the best You're talking about John Schall better. Should we bring him in? Yeah.
We were I actually, I should reach out to John for comment on that, calling him a Google Flights goblin. But if, you know, if you're spending hours after work doing this for fun, then you're probably in good shape and you might not need a tool like this. If you want to, outsource it to someone who's putting it or, you know, a series of people, a big group of people now on our team who are putting in twenty four hours a day into this stuff, that's the surefire way to find the cheapest flights on Google Flights. So flight deal alerts can be very helpful depending on the person. Alright.
What are some other ways to nibble around the edges of finding cheap flights, Kyle? What should people use from their drawers? I think you just gotta keep a good inventory of whatever kind of additional travel benefits you have. So, you know, I think both you and I have a running goo running kinda notes file on our phones of, well, I've got, you know, this travel credit from canceling and rebooking a previous Delta flight, and it's so easy to forget about this stuff. So having that inventory that you can reference of of things that you can use in order to continually chip away at the cost of what you're booking because, hey, even a $50 Delta e credit to reduce the cost of a $250 flight to Denver to 200, that moves the needle quite a bit.
You know, I in addition to any outstanding credits that I have in my phone, I always keep track of, credit card statement credits. So things like a $200 annual fee credit on the Amex platinum card, making sure that I'm using that to book my flights on the first or second or third day each year to make sure I use that benefit. Several of the Hilton credit cards have, 50 or more dollars each quarter that covers the cost of basically any airfare purchase. That's another one to make sure annoyingly and make sure I'm booking a flight that I need to book and that I use up that quarterly credit. And then maybe the last one is, you know, a handful of different airlines.
Delta most notably has a once a year companion certificate on some of their top travel, you know, Delta, American Express, SkyMiles cards. So just not letting that stuff go to waste. As Jason touched on in our hilarious episode a few weeks ago, it can be a bit of a pain. But for those Delta companion certificates, we have an awesome, awesome guide to make sure you find the flights that are actually eligible to do that. Book a trip with, you know, your spouse or your favorite travel companion for two for basically the price of one and a little bit more because tell Delta tax on some taxes and fees for that second passenger.
But, you know, if you instead of paying $500 a piece for, you know, that domestic getaway, you're paying 500 for yourself and $45 for your spouse or your travel companion, you gotta put that stuff to use. Yeah. If you're, if you've gotten started in in travel rewards, credit cards and things like that, and you have these credits and everything, it's getting organized is maybe the most important thing that you could do. Our producer on this episode and one of our cofounders, Nick Serrati, wrote a really good story recently about how he's using ChatGPT to track all of his credit card credits and certificates and and all those things that, you know, make those cards valuable. Some of those cards come with annual fees, so you need to recoup some of that value.
Right? And he's he wrote a really smart way to, you know, talk to to your AI agent of choice, to make sure that you're getting exactly the right amount of value out of these things and booking cheaper flights while you do it. Alright, Kyle. Last last tip here in this section, and this is a big one for me. This is something that I'm obsessed with, and it's my number one travel tip that I give to everybody.
And that's you should never stop booking your trip. I think too many people buy flights. They leave it in their inbox. They move it into an inbox folder called booked travel or whatever you wanna call it, and then they leave it until the day before they fly, and they go pull up their confirmation code and head to the airport. I just think a lot of people miss out on, one, making their flights cheaper by rebooking flights, and two, maybe most importantly, making your flights better.
A lot of people will book book something that they can afford, that they don't really want, and they'll settle. And you don't have to be a sicko like me. I check all the flights I book every single week. This is also my full time job. I don't think most people should do that.
But I do recommend to my friends, like, just make a monthly reminder to go through the flights that you have booked for the next year and just take a look again because you might be surprised. Maybe, business class just opened up on that same flight for just a little bit extra, and maybe that's worth it to you if it's gonna be a long one. Maybe the nonstop opened up. Maybe the the price dropped a lot on a different airline, and you can rebook and save a ton. Don't miss out on an opportunity to make your flight cheaper or better.
I would just keep tabs on these things and set yourself a reminder once a month to check on all your flights. Yeah. Or better yet, as you said at the top of the show, like, Google Flights do this for you. Set those price alerts even if it's a trip that you've already booked. Set a price alert for the flight that you booked that day, a day before, a day after.
If you have some flexibility in the price on that flight drops below what you already have booked, set a price alert for the, you know, the Delta or the American nonstop if you're booked on a United or Southwest flight with one stop. If you can book something when the price goes down on that nonstop flight, that's an option. I think a lot of people maybe don't wanna hear never stop booking, because for many people, booking the flight is stressful, and they want it to be done. But at the same time, you're listening to the Thrifty Traveler podcast people. This is what we're about, and this is maybe the most important thing that you can do is just to keep tabs on this stuff.
Use the help with Google Flights in order to do so to make this really easy, and and you can rebook a flight within, in some cases, just a couple of clicks in, like, two minutes. But if there's one thing that's more important than getting this over and done with, it's getting the best deal possible, and this is a very, very critical part of that equation. Yeah. All the best flights in my life have come after, you know, rebooking and rebooking and rebooking, and, it's something I I recommend people do. Again, you don't have to be a mongrel about it like me and look at this stuff every day or every week.
Are you you are officially declaring yourself a Google Flights goblin now alongside John Schallbatter, the head of Thrifty Traveler Premium. That's what I'm hearing. I'm a Google Flights goblin. I'm a a rebooking mongrel. I have lots and lots of of titles here.
But just once a month once a month, take a look at all of your stuff. If it's not, you know, much better, you also don't have to do anything. Right? But at least you have the peace of mind of knowing that you checked, save a little money in the process. That's a lot of good flight booking advice.
People are gonna get the cheapest flight every time now. Right, Kyle? I hope so. Alright. Let's help one listener in particular, and it is listener Kyle.
It's not you. It's not me. Okay. Good to know. When using points and miles to purchase a flight, is it okay to pay for some of the flight with points and miles and cover the rest with cash if you don't have enough points and miles to cover all of it?
Or is that usually not a good value for your points? Is it best if possible to pay for the entirety of the flights with points and miles? Kyle, what say you to Kyle? I would tell Kyle, which again is not myself, that it depends. But in most cases, it is not a good use of your points or miles to do kind of a mix of of redeeming those miles and cash.
Delta is really the poster child of when this gets ugly because when you do this, when you do that points and cash option, what they're doing is they're just taking whatever amount of miles you have at a set amount. If you have 18,000 miles, they'll take 15,000 sky miles that you have. And they're just turning that into a $150 off the cost of the flight, and then you're paying the rest in cash, which 999 times out of a thousand is a less than ideal way to redeem those sky miles. You're gonna get more by booking an award ticket outright with the full amount of miles that you have, and you're gonna be cashing that in at a less than, you know, stellar redemption, a pretty bad one in many cases. So there are exceptions.
You know, there are airlines that when you do this, they basically treat it like you're buying the rest of the miles. That's when this can work out. But even in those cases and British Airways, Iberia, those are the two that come to mind automatically to me of where it can work out ahead. But even in those cases where they're basically treating it like you're buying the rest of the miles that you need in order to make that redemption, you gotta do the math. You gotta do the math of what it would cost you to instead buy those miles separately outside of kind of the normal flight checkout process, and then go back and book that flight and see exactly, you know, what that apples to apples comparison is.
But as a general rule of thumb, I would say, try to try to avoid it, but investigate it if it seems like it might be working out in your favor. Yep. If you've done all the math and you know that you can't do better and it's the difference between you taking the trip and not taking the trip, I'd say you can go ahead and do it, but it is definitely not the best value for whatever mile you've got out there. There aren't a lot of programs where they're gonna give you a good rate on those because they're counting on the fact that you're not gonna do them half. So a really good question.
Hopefully, an adequate answer from one Kyle to another. If you want us to answer your question, email us at podcast@thrifttraveler.com, and your question might be featured in next week's show final segment. It's on the spot, and it's your turn to put me on the spot. What do you got? This episode is all about finding cheap flights, but it's time to shame you.
What is the most expensive flight that you've ever booked, and what did you learn as a result of the mistakes that led you to that exorbitant fare? Wow. Alright. This is a this is a brutal confession because Yes. This this happened this year.
I booked last year. I, for this January, I booked flights back from Saint Kitts to Minneapolis, on American Airlines, the only airline who was even gonna offer me an itinerary on the day that we on the days that we needed. And it was gonna be, like, in the main cabin, $450 per person one way. Just heinous. We both my wife and I both have VentureX cards, so we decided to use our $300 travel credits to knock those down.
But we booked them through Capital One. In the intervening time, I came into some American Airlines miles by signing up for a card and decided to just rebook using the AA miles instead. It was super cheap. So I had this funky Capital One AA airline credit sitting there. In the intervening months, we had a pregnancy and a baby, and I turned to that credit again to use it, and it had expired in May.
So I lost out on, a little over actually, right about $900 worth of American Airlines. So not only did you book not only did you book $900 in airfare, but then you lost that money because you didn't read the fine print. Yeah. Yeah. It's, Gunnar, you're fired.
I was wondering if I was actually gonna say this on the podcast at some I did not know what Kyle's on the spot was gonna be, but I was wondering if it came up if I would even tell this story. I think we'll leave it in because it's just a good lesson to you all. Get organized. I just told you that about five minutes ago and didn't do it myself. Even when things get crazy in your world, make sure that you know when your credits expire.
I, played it fast and loose and lost out on lots of money. At least there is, you know, a Capital One credit in there to shave off $600 of that $900, but still burns. That burns. Yeah. That's a tough one.
I think the lesson here for for everybody else is no matter which kind of credit you're dealing with, whether it's an airline credit or a credit card benefit, when it involves flights, in most cases, the expiration date is not based upon the day that you're supposed to travel. It is based upon the day that you actually booked that flight. So if I book a flight today for a trip in November, that doesn't mean that that airline credit is going to, you know, die sometime in November 2026 if the normal expiration window is a full twelve months as it typically is. It means it's going to, you know, die off sometime in August. So one year from the date of booking is the general rule of thumb for all of these types of credits.
I think Gunnar learned that the hard way. Yeah. I booked it so far out in advance that that I let it burn me, but this is what happens. Just finding new ways to disappoint my wife, and, hopefully, we'll bounce back with some cool trips someday. I don't know.
We'll see. Got anything else? Any other ways to make me feel shame today? No. That's enough for one episode.
Okay. Enough shame for one day. Thank you so much for listening to the Thrifty Traveler podcast. I'd really appreciate it if you'd rate us five stars in your podcast platform of choice. Like and subscribe to Thrifty Traveler on YouTube as well.
The show's a lot of fun over there. Send this episode to someone that you know who needs a vacation and needs to know how to book the cheapest flight possible every time. If you have feedback for us, not just your questions, send us a note at podcast@thriftytraveler.com. I'd love to hear from you. Constructive criticism is allowed.
Please don't dunk on me further about this American Airlines credit thing. Kyle said enough. Kyle, tell us about the rest of the Thrifty Traveler podcast team. This episode was produced by our cofounder, Nick Sarati. And your favorite host, who you all need to Venmo because he is out $900, Gunnar Olsen.
It was edited by David Strutt, and our theme music is by Benjamin Tiso. You're fired. See you next week, maybe. See you next week, maybe.