Yes, airlines have raised fares left and right … but they’re doing it in another way that might have flown under your radar. This week, the guys analyze why the cost to upgrade to avoid those pesky basic economy fares and what you can do about it. They also play “Travel Tinder” – letting Kyle choose whether to swipe right or swipe left on a ton of big travel stories from the past week including Bilt’s latest overhaul, a bevy of Southwest news, some fun new routes, and changes to status. Plus, they get Gunnar’s submissions for the name of the O’Hare boulder.
Yes, airlines have raised fares left and right … but they’re doing it in another way that might have flown under your radar. This week, the guys analyze why the cost to upgrade to avoid those pesky basic economy fares and what you can do about it. They also play “Travel Tinder” – letting Kyle choose whether to swipe right or swipe left on a ton of big travel stories from the past week including Bilt’s latest overhaul, a bevy of Southwest news, some fun new routes, and changes to status. Plus, they get Gunnar’s submissions for the name of the O’Hare boulder.
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00:00 - Recapping our team retreat to Mexico City!
02:30 - A Lucha Libre vibe check
03:30 - Why it costs more than ever to avoid basic economy fares
13:05 - Bilt overhauls its program … again
19:40 - How much will it cost to earn status in 2027?
21:10 - Southwest: Companion Pass, Icon Lounge, & more
26:40 - A word from our sponsor: Kyle’s favorite Thrifty Traveler Premium deals
27:55 - More cool new routes: Hello, Columbus!
30:35 - Amex expands a few Centurion Lounges
31:05 - But Amex FHR hotel credits get harder to use
34:05 - ORD’s rock-naming contest (& Gunnar’s ideas)
36:10 - Air airline employee asks: What should airlines do better?
40:30 - Gunnar revisits his (terrible) O’Hare take
Produced and edited by Sylvia Thomas
Video editing by Kyle Thomas
Show music: “All That” by Benjamin Tissot
Yo, welcome to the show. I'm your host, Gunnar Olson. With me, as always, is Kyle Potter. And Kyle, during our company retreat to Mexico City last week, one of us chose the informative and rich historical walking tour of the Teotihuacan Pyramids, and one of us chose the raucous three-hour booze cruise of Xochimilco. Do you think our listeners could guess which one picked which? Let's put up a poll, you know? Let's find out. Um- We, we contain multitudes. We do. We do. Uh, we had a very, very fun time on our trip. But today on the show we are tracking some big changes in airfare lately. We thought it'd be good to take a step back, give you a primer on what you should be looking for when you're booking flights, especially in light of the, uh, changes to the upgrade price from basic economy to main cabin that you're gonna see in a lot of places. Plus, we've got a bunch of other news to get to. We've got news from Southwest, Amex, Bilt, and some fun new route announcements and more. Uh, but first, Kyle, we did just get back from Mexico City, an awesome time had by all. We did a food tour, had some incredible meals, went to a lucha libre match, and so much more. What will you remember most from this trip? Uh, I, I guess I'll ask a question. Did you weigh in and weigh out? Because I'm glad I did not. I did not weigh in or weigh out, and yeah, I also had tacked on a wedding at the end of the week to that, so I don't wanna weigh out. No, we're good. Ignorance is bliss. Um, I mean, I- it's one of the best food cities on the planet, no question. This is- we've- as a team, we've been talking about going to Mexico City for our annual team retreat for as long as I've been here, which is almost nine years, so this has been a long time coming. I will never forget sitting next to you at lucha libre. I've never seen a person more hyped in my entire life than you wearing your wrestler mask just clapping and cheering and screaming at every flip and body slam. Uh, I also will never forget, uh, our coworker Nick, who, let's remind everybody here, lost the credit card draft earlier this year, and his punishment was to clap when the plane landed in Mexico City, and lo and behold, here he is. Uh, we're gonna put the video on, uh, on here so everybody can see it if you're watching on YouTube. But the best part is that the woman sitting next to him gave him a courtesy clap along with it. She slapped her book a few times just to make sure that- Yeah, like a little golf clap. Yeah. Yeah. Just to make sure Nick didn't feel too alone. That, that was the only other person who clapped- ... let the record show. A beautiful, beautiful moment, uh, as we landed in Mexico City. Okay, today on the show, we are talking new routes, we're talking Southwest, and we're going deep on airfare. All that and more. Live from Lucha Libre, Mexico City. Welcome back to the Thrifty Traveler podcast. Woo! Okay, welcoming us back to the show this week, we're your two favorite podcasters. That lucha libre match was so fun. As you can hear in my voice, I had a lot of fun screaming at the wrestlers. I would go- Almost a full week later. Yeah. I would go as far as to say that that's a can't-miss Ciudad de México activity. That was so awesome. Oh, absolutely. I, I wrote about this in our Extra Mile newsletter earlier this week, and I said that you should go to Teotihuacan, uh, to make your, you smarter, and then you should go to lucha libre to make you dumber. Which I mean as, like, the highest compliment. It was amazing. Yeah. I don't know if I left Mexico City smarter this time around, but man, that is one of my favorite cities in the world. Okay, let's get into the news. Uh, and we're gonna do it in the form of a game, Kyle. It's called Travel Tinder. I'm gonna give you some news items. You can either swipe right if you wanna talk about it or swipe left to pass. Sound good? Well, I agreed to this before without realizing that I need a primer on which means which. Swipe right is ... Swipe right is- Swipe right is yes ... your thumbs up. That's, that's thumbs up. Yeah. You want- It doesn't mean that you approve of the news item. It means that you wanna talk about it. Oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. So this means if, if we're double-clicking on something, you're gi- you're giving me a swipe right and you're giving me some reaction to it. Swipe left is let's just move on. Exactly. Okay. Okay. All right. So, uh, the first one to start our news round up, Kyle, some analysis you did last week about what it now costs travelers to book a main cabin ticket instead of basic economy. Travelers may have noticed by now that it used to only cost, like, $60 or $70 round trip to book a main cabin ticket over the cost of a basic ticket. Now it routinely costs $100 or more on most US carriers. If you wanna go overseas to Europe, Asia, or the rest of the world, it's likely to be more like $240 round trip. What do you think, Kyle, first of all? Swipe right or left on this? We gotta talk about this. Yeah. Swipe right. Yeah. This is, this is big and painful. And not a surprise, but I was shocked at how widespread this premium to avoid basic economy has gotten and how much more expensive it, expensive it's gotten in a relatively short span. Yeah, exactly. So why are they doing this? What is the point here? Well, let's, let's back up. Airlines introduced basic economy more than a decade ago as a way to compete with low-cost carriers like Spirit and Frontier. And the reality is, is that they've never really wanted people to buy these, you know, stingy tickets that don't allow you to pick a seat, can't be changed or canceled. In some cases, you know, notably with United, you can't even bring a carry-on bag, at least flying domestically. The purpose of this is to offer a lower price that can compete or at least come close to the fares that Spirit or Frontier would charge, and then upsell you with all of these restrictions. And, you know, as we look over the course of the last few years, a couple things have happened. One, that upsell has gotten more powerful. Airlines have added additional restrictions to make these fares even more painful or give people even more reason to want to avoid flying them in the first place. You know, a couple years ago, Delta said, "If you wanna visit the Sky Club, you can't do it with a basic economy fare, period, anymore." Both Delta, United, American, all of them have stripped out the ability to earn any miles or credits toward elite status, as have a couple of other airlines. They've become even more ubiquitous. Southwest, an airline that said, you know, not even eight years ago that they would never sell basic economy, has joined the herd, as with everything else that they've done in the last two years, and they are now selling basic economy, too. So that's part one of this. Part two is that there really is no basic economy competition anymore because Spirit is gone. They went out of business earlier this year, and Frontier and the rest of the low-cost airline industry, like Allegiant and Avelo and all the others, are really behaving more like full-service airlines now, or at least closer to it. So the upsell is more powerful, and yet the premium to avoid basic economy to begin with is just getting more and more expensive because it's another way that airlines can raise fares. They're not just raising the basic economy fare, the first price that you see. They're also raising the price that you actually wanna pay if you don't wanna fly basic economy, and increasingly people don't wanna fly it because it's getting more painful to book. Yeah. This is just a fare increase in disguise. It's the way that you put it to me many years ago, and I think it's the, the smartest way to look at this. Uh, as you also say, when airlines give you, quote, "more choice," you're actually just getting a worse deal. It's never a good thing. Yeah. You're paying more for things that used to be included. I mean, now, you know, you're looking at, uh, when you go- try to go to Europe, uh, with a main cabin fare, now you get a free checked bag. So they actually have made that just slightly better, but it's gonna cost you, you know, $240 at least in some cases to get the best rate there, uh, to get the main cabin rate, that is. Um, okay. So is basic economy working for the airlines? Do they like how this is going? They must, right? You have to assume they do because it's still here, and it's growing. And, you know, Delta for the last, I don't know, four or five years has been selling basic economy on award tickets, and JetBlue is doing the same, and Southwest is doing the same since it first introduced basic economy last year. And it's probably only a matter of time before United and American and Alaska and others do the same with their own award tickets. I'm a little bit shocked that they haven't yet. The fact that basic economy has so much staying power, and now that has also extended to, you know, not just basic economy, but basic comfort for Delta and basic business class for both Delta and United, says that this This kind of unbundling as a disguise, as a mirage to say, "Oh, hey, we'll offer you this cheaper price. Oh, that's basic economy. If you actually want the fare that you thought you were getting, you're gonna have to pay $100 more for a domestic round-trip ticket, 250 to $300 more for that 15-hour flight to Tokyo or to Australia," I think says that airlines absolutely like this, and the reasons why airlines like anything is that it drives more revenue. Yeah. The airlines are raising fares. They're raising bag fees right now as the cost of jet fuel goes up. It just seems like this is just the next domino for them, right? Yeah, exactly. I also think, and this is a story that you wr- wrote for us a couple of years ago, that is one of the best things that you've ever done for us, honestly. So- Wow ... give yourself a little pat on the back. Okay. Is you raised the question, okay, so airlines, you know, back during the worst of the, the pandemic in early 2020 said, "We're not gonna charge change fees anymore." But what they really did is they turned basic economy, this price difference, and this price difference that keeps growing, into the new change fee because, you know, for a, a year or so during the worst of the pandemic, any fare, even the stingiest basic economy ticket, you could still change or cancel for free. But over time what we've seen is that every airline has brought those change and cancellation fees back to basic economy tickets. Which means if you want that flexibility that airlines are promising you, you have to pay that $100 more for a domestic ticket, or 240 or more to Europe or Asia. So I look at it this way Before, you know, in the before times, before the pandemic when airlines were still charging change fees, if you needed to change your ticket or cancel it, you would have to fork over 200 bucks, sometimes more, especially for long-haul stuff. How many people were actually doing that? Only the people that needed it, so probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 10% or less. Let's just give a conservative estimate. Today, we know, based upon what airlines say, that somewhere in the neighborhood of 85% or more of their travelers don't book basic economy. They book main cabin or higher, which means that it's not just that 10% of us are paying change fees now. It means that 85% of us are paying it, and that price difference to avoid basic economy for that flexibility just keeps getting bigger. So that means that airlines have found a way to score a marketing win by trumpeting, "We don't charge change fees anymore." At the same time, they're charging all of us more for that flexibility. Yeah, I guess you gotta hand it to 'em if it didn't stink so bad for us. Uh You absolutely do not have to hand it to them. Um, okay. Very quickly at the end here, let's just break out the toolbox. Say somebody is just really not interested in basic economy, like admittedly I am not. I just r- I really don't buy basic economy fares 'cause I need that flexibility. What are some things you do to avoid basic? Well, I, I just wanna say, I, prior to this, I flew basic economy all the time because the restrictions were less painful than they are today. So in some ways you and I are the poster children of the fact that this strategy absolutely works. And I just wanna repeat, you absolutely do not under any circumstances have to hand it to them. We don't have to. We can say that this is pretty crappy of them and also pretty crafty, too. What can you do? I mean, fortunately, uh, within the last year or so, Google Flights has rolled out a basic economy filter where you can exclude these cheaper, stingier fares from your results altogether with a very important caveat: it only currently works on flights within the US as well as between the United States and Canada. So if you're looking over to Europe, that filter does not exist. Uh, a handful of airlines, most notably both Delta and United, allow you to either include or exclude basic economy, which is good. You don't wanna get sucked in by that cheaper fare that you don't actually want. Um, booking, you know, like I mentioned, Delta, JetBlue, Southwest, over time more airlines will offer award tickets in basic economy, but if you're booking with a partner airline workaround like using, for example, Air France to book Delta-operated flights, you won't have that option at all. Those, currently anyway, always book into main cabin economy Okay. Um, man, we swiped all the way right on that story. That was a long one. Yeah, in the parlance of Tinder, what did we do? Was this like a Netflix and chill situation, or is this the Tinder that date that became marriage? Yeah, this was went on a couple dates, met their parents, and are ring shopping. This- that's how far you went with, uh, our basic economy to main cabin upgrade story. Ready for the next one? If we have to. All right, let's- I think we have to. All right. Uh, Bilt is making some changes to its program starting next year. Yes, more Bilt changes. Uh, to kick off 2026, Bilt overhauled the whole program. It took us and many travelers out there a few months to figure out the way things work with a new flexible Bilt Cash currency you can earn as a Bilt cardholder, and how that relates to what is basically Bilt's calling card, which is earning points on your rent and mortgage. Now, the company says it is making things simpler, or as our coworker Nick put it, "In an effort to simplify the program, they are making it a little more confusing once again." A little. Yeah, I would say a little, okay? But we'll see if you swipe right or swipe left on this. Um, okay, we have a full story on this on our website. It has all of the details. We'll make sure to put it into our show notes. We're still digging into it. Um, it kinda feels like Bilt hasn't necessarily fleshed this out. First of all, swipe left or swipe right on this? I think we have to talk about this. This is gonna be big news, and it just came out this week, so swipe right. Okay. Okay, first of all, the best news out of this, I think, is that Bilt Cash, the cash back you earn on your card spend, is no longer gonna expire at the end of every year, so on December 31st. Instead, it'll expire 12 months after you earn it instead. So the Bilt Cash I earned last week in Mexico City is gonna expire next October instead of expiring at the end of the year. How much Bilt Cash did you earn on h- 100 peso tacos- ... and, uh, five peso subway rides? Not much. Not much. Um, Bilt is unfortunately, though, doing away with the option to earn 4% Bilt Ca- 4% back on Bilt Cash, uh, on your everyday spend, and apply that Bilt Cash to earning points on your mortgage. So existing cardholders, like yours truly, will get to keep this method, uh, of earning points on your mortgage. But starting now, all new cardholders will have to spend at least as much as their mortgage costs to earn up to 1.25X points on their mortgage payments. Um, also, Bilt Palladium cardholders are gonna get a $600 Bilt Cash lump sum each year instead of the current $200 plus $400 you use as a hotel credit. Uh, the Bilt Obsidian card, that next level down, will earn $100 Bilt Cash, which they can use towards hotels. Many of these changes are taking effect January 15th. Kyle, did I miss anything? And we're, we're missing a lot- I know ... right now. I, uh, am a little bit shocked that Build is going back to the well and reworking things again. I think it says to me that what they did earlier this year to kick off 2026 was really rushed, and that's why they introduced this option system of do you earn Build cash? Do you earn a secondary currency in order to earn the currency that you actually really want? Or is there a simpler system where you just, you have to spend X amount in order to earn full points on your mortgage? And that in responding to the blowback, they added more complexity to it Another change this soon, the, it isn't promising for two reasons. One, it does say that this system is too complex and people are struggling to figure things out, and two, it sends a signal to Bilt cardholders, "Is this a system that I can really trust?" Where less than a year after unveiling these massive, I would say, broadly viewed as negative changes, they're going back again and reworking really the whole system. Is it truly simpler? I think if they let this stick, maybe it will be. But who's to say we're gonna get to late 2027 and it's gonna stick, and they're not gonna make changes again? So I think Bilt really needs to look at its ecosystem and make sure it got things right, and I think it's too soon for you or I to say whether they got it right because we need some more time to digest this. I think everybody does. I think what we learned from what they did earlier this year is that everybody really needed, like, a full three to six months to figure this system out and really wrap their minds around this Bilt Cash system in order to figure out, "Am I gonna come out ahead with this, or am I gonna come out ahead by just basing the amount of points that I can earn based on my everyday non-housing spend on my Bilt card? And is it worth me spending 2,000, $3,000, whatever, on non-housing spend on my Bilt card at the expense of other credit cards where I could earn other points in order to earn Bilt points on my rent or on my mortgage?" There is a lot to unpack here, and I don't think either of us, I don't think anybody out there is truly qualified to say is this good or bad quite yet. And I also think it's gonna be deeply, deeply personal. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, anything else on Bilt? I think really importantly, legacy Bilt cardholders, as you mentioned, people who not, who not just have the card today but applied before, I think, the first of the year, can still keep this Bilt Cash earning method where you earn as much as 4% on all non-housing spend of Bilt Cash that you can then apply to earning points on your rent or mortgage or other things. But when your card comes due, you know, so if you open your card, you know, in April of this year, come April 2027, you don't have to opt into this new system, you have to opt out of it. So if you love Bilt Cash, and you have figured out how to maximize this system, you have to tell Bilt, "No, I want to keep what I'm doing right now," which I think is, I don't wanna use the word slimy I think it's a choice to say that people who have this existing system have to choose to keep it rather than automatically opting into what they're currently doing. I would say for people who are on the fence, you might as well stick with the Bilt Cash method for now whenever you get that notice, whenever your card comes due because worst case scenario, you do another couple weeks or months of math, and then you can decide, "You know what? I like the simpler version where I just have to spend X amount in order to earn up to 1.25X on my rent or mortgage." You can always switch to that, but you, you really only have this one shot to ke- to stick with the Bilt Cash method. Mm-hmm. Okay. And then of course, the, the new Bilt Daily Rewards, we are pretty unclear on how those are gonna work as of now. It's, it's just being teased as a future benefit, not a whole lot of details. Again, it, it feels a little rushed on Bilt's end. Okay, so we definitely swiped right on the Bilt news. I think, like, we took them to the wedding maybe, but we didn't get married. You know what I'm saying? Like, we, they met our parents, we took them to someone else's wedding, but we didn't really go all the way with Bilt Cash there. It w- it was like a jilting. Okay. All right, next story. United Airlines announced last week that you will have to spend $32,000 with the airline to earn its highest 1K status tier, a full $4,000 more than both Delta and American. For the lowest level of status, Delta will have the s- the lowest spending requirement of just $5,000 compared to United's 6,000 and American's $8,000. Swipe right or swipe left on this story, Kyle? Can we just go on, like, one quick little date with this story? Okay. Yeah. I think really importantly, Delta isn't making changes, period, which to me is maybe the more surprising thing here is that we're now three years past the massive Delta Medallion blowup, Delta Medallion massacre, where they proposed some massive, massive changes and then backtracked on some of it. United apparently looked at this and said, "You know what? Now is the time. We not only have to char- to require more spending to earn top 1K status, but also we're gonna do away with flying requirements altogether," taking a page out of Delta's book, at least in that way I mean, this says it all. You, you don't even have to fly with these airlines in order to earn status. You can do it just through credit card spending or just through spending with the airline, and $32,000 is a lot of money, unless if you're flying United constantly for work once a week or more. Just don't worry about this stuff. It's increasingly less valuable, upgrades are fewer and far between, and they're getting more out of you in order to get less. Okay, let's move on to the next one. Southwest made waves recently when it announced it would be gutting the beloved Companion Pass, taking away the ability to earn an unlimited Companion Pass without earning Southwest's highest level status, a brand-new tier of status that they are calling, wait for it, Platinum status. Very original. When was the last original idea in the airline industry? Was it, like, 1978? It was our idea for the, uh, Southwest Lounge, where they include the smoking room in the back. That was the last original idea. They really messed that up. Yeah, they did. Uh, more on that later. Uh, that- so this, basically this means that there's no more earning a Companion Pass with credit card sign-up bonuses, which used to be the best way to do it. I know a lot of Southwest loyalists for a long time are pretty peeved about this, but swipe right or swipe left on this story? I would just, uh, let's, let's swipe left. Let's move on. It's a bummer. It's been a long time coming. This was really great while it lasted, but again, airlines have figured out ways to get more true loyalty, AKA ongoing spending, out of people, and opening, you know, a couple of Southwest credit cards a year to earn a mass of points that qualify you for a Companion Pass so your, your companion could fly for free for as much as two years is not really true loyalty. So it's a bummer, not a huge surprise. For people who are in major Southwest hubs, this stinks. Yeah. Too good to last. Okay, another Southwest story. Southwest also announced you'd be able to use Rapid Rewards points to book international partners like Icelandair, China Airlines, and Etihad going forward. Swipe right or swipe left on the ability to use your Southwest Rapid Rewards on some foreign partners. Uh, let's swipe left because we just don't know. The devil is gonna be in the details on this, and whether Southwest is gonna offer truly great redemptions or really awful redemptions to fly China Airlines to Taiwan or Etihad to Abu Dhabi is a huge question mark. Yeah, we gotta see what are the taxes and fees gonna be like. Are these gonna be dynamically priced? I mean, if they're dynamically priced and we get some of those $300 Icelandair fares to Iceland, I mean, then all of a sudden you're looking at some really cheap redemptions, but what are the taxes and fees like? Lots of questions still to answer there. All right, let's talk about this lounge, this Southwest lounge. We have a name, Kyle, for the Southwest Airlines lounges. They will be called Icon Lounges, a nod to their legendary CEO Herb Kelleher. Swipe right or swipe left- Quick swipe right. The world needs more whimsy, and if any airline in the world is capable of being whimsical, it's Southwest. And this just feels like a misstep to not have some fun with it or at least do something different with these lounges. These look, for better or worse, like a carbon copy of Chase Sapphire lounges, at least from the renderings that they've shown us for their lounges in, what, Nashville and Austin and Honolulu and the, the, you know, now 10-plus locations that they have on tap. Th- this could've been a lot more fun. Yeah. I wanted, like, some real whimsy, like you said. Like, I want, I want you to have to pick your packet of peanuts out of, like, a claw machine in the lounge or something. Uh, you know, something weird, something strange. A smoking room. Smoking room. Um, okay, another Southwest story. Right or left, Kyle? Southwest says it will have its entire fleet equipped with Starlink by fall 2027. If that is actually the case, if that comes to be true, they would likely be the first US airline to do so. Starlink on Southwest, right or left? Oh, let's swipe left Okay It's just a Starlink arms race out there. Uh, probably primarily a good thing, um, to me, like we've talked about it before on this show. I think overblown. Okay, one more Southwest story. A report from Reuters said Southwest is planning to acquire Boeing 787s to fly long-haul international routes, a massive switch-up for the airline that famously only flies 737 planes and nothing else. Swipe right or swipe left on Southwest flying wide-bodies. Really quick swipe right. Uh, you know, we'll just have a quick chat. W- we'll see where this goes. Really interesting. Again, probably a long time coming. Also very importantly, completely unconfirmed. Southwest did its big investor day and media day, what, two weeks ago now, and didn't confirm whether this was in the cards. I think it's probably only a matter of time. Every airline in the country or even the world is trying to be more premium. To be more premium, you have to fly people where they want to go, and people increasingly want to go to places like Paris and London and Tokyo and not just Nashville and Dallas and Miami. No respect to any of ... Disrespect to any of those cities. We're gonna keep that. Um, Southwest needs this, uh, and it's not enough to offer these partner redemptions to, on Iceland Air or China Airlines. They need people's credit card spend, they need people to earn points, and they need to show people that they can fly them to London and to Rome and wherever in order to convince them to open and spend on those credit cards. So I do really think it's only a matter of time before this comes to fruition. Yeah, I'm very interested to see where they would put these 787s, considering some of their hubs are, uh, airports are actually too small to fly 787s to and from. Midway is too small. Dallas Love, Houston Hobby, so you're looking at, you know, Baltimore, Orlando, and Denver maybe. Baltimore, Orlando, Denver, Nashville- Yeah ... probably. Okay. All right, so we need to get into some more news about these awesome new routes, uh, some Centurion Lounge expansions, some Amex Platinum news, and of course, Chicago O'Hare, but first we're gonna take a quick break. Okay, it's been a huge couple of weeks for our Thrifty Traveler premium members. Their inboxes have been flooded with wildly good flight deals. Kyle, pick two of your favorites I gotta go selfish. I'm gonna do one I booked. Got a little booksy when we sent out a unicorn alert, sent a text and then an email for wide open American Airlines business class to London for as low as 42,000 miles using our beloved JAL miles, and just $5.60 into London from a handful of different gateways across the United States. And then even more recently, another unicorn deal, deeply, deeply discounted another one, Delta one flash sale from all across the US to both, you know, most of continental Europe, but also Morocco and some other cities in West Africa for as low as 97,700 SkyMiles each way. Those fares are typically 300,000 SkyMiles or more each way. Awesome deal through the winter. Um, can't beat it. Excited that you got booksy. That's awesome. If you want deals like this sent to your inbox and you want our team of flight deal analysts searching 24/7 for the best airfare and points and miles deals on Earth, subscribe to Thrifty Traveler Premium today at thriftytraveler.com/premium. Use promo code TTPOD, all one word, for $20 off your first year of deal alerts. Okay, back to the show Okay, we're back, and I wanna start with this bevy of cool new route announcements over the past few days, including Alaska announcing Seattle to both Tahiti and Osaka, and Lufthansa announcing Phoenix to Munich, and most surprisingly, Columbus, Ohio to Frankfurt. Swipe right or swipe left on these funky new routes. Putting, I'm putting the phone in your hands. You're the, the big routes guy. You swipe left or swipe right. I'm swiping right on this, but it's just a couple of dates, all right? Nothing serious. Um, we're not gonna label it, but yeah. You're just trying to get a free dinner. Uh, yeah, exactly. Um, I think this Columbus, Ohio news is fascinating, uh, that they would choose this city. Um, one, selfishly because it almost certainly means that Lufthansa will never come back here to Minneapolis. If they've, if they've chosen Columbus over Minneapolis, uh, we're screwed, we're toast. Uh, but also just the fact that, you know, we've seen a ton of movement on new routes into places like St. Louis and now Columbus, and it's clear that the European carriers in particular are getting more serious about kinda getting into these secondary, tertiary you could even say, markets in the US, and, and just really wanna be the ones to fly Americans abroad and, and vice versa. But, um, these smaller cities getting nonstop routes to Europe opens up so many good possibilities for them, and I'm just really excited for the people of Columbus. The elephant in the room here is that, uh, Columbus, you know, this kinda consortium, let's call it, of business organizations offered up, like, close to $50 million to Lufthansa to start this service. So, you know, that bill for running that 787 to Columbus and back to Frankfurt is pretty much paid. That said, yeah, I mean, increasingly airlines, airlines have to grow in order to, y- you know, meet the demands of investors to grow profitability. They just have to continue growing, which means they have to fly to new places, and there's only so many planes. You can fly into cities like New York and Boston and DC and Chicago. So at some point you have to fly to smaller markets, and that's a lot of what we've seen, I would say, over the course of the last four years, is we keep getting airlines flying into these smaller secondary cities, and we're gonna s- continue to see more of it. Whether we're gonna continue to see more of that into somewhere like our hometown here in Minneapolis is a very big question mark. Yeah. You mentioned the, the subsidies from Ohio there to make that route work. Uh, the last time we saw something like this were all those subsidies that the, the Queensland Government gave to Brisbane and all the airlines to fly there, and look at all the insane deals that came out of those. So, uh, good for the people of Columbus. You might get some really good flight deals and award availability there. All right, next story. Uh, Amex announced some big upgrades to some of its Centurion Lounges last week, including a doubling in size of the Newark and Philadelphia lounges, a tripling in size of the Houston lounge, and a second lounge at London Heathrow. Right or left on this one? Left. I'm, I'm a little bit over Centurion Lounges lately. Uh, this is great news if you live in one of these airports. Um, I don't spend a lot of time in these Centurion Lounges anymore. The Centurion Lounge at Mexico City was a sad place, Kyle. Not my favorite lounge experience there. Wasn't the best. No. Okay, in other Amex news, uh, it made its Fine Hotels and Resorts credits on the Amex Platinum card much harder to use, now requiring a two-night stay to redeem those credits. I believe that starts next year, correct? January 1st. So if you still have a hotel credit, $300 on either the Platinum card or the Business Platinum, you can still use that for a one-night stay, not just in calendar year 2026, but what, as far out as October of 2027 to lock in that stay now. You just have to book it before then. You just have to book it before the end of the year. Okay. Um, the kinda bright side of this news is that you can now use those credits on Airbnb Luxe stays of two nights or more now as well, and you can redeem Amex points for some Airbnbs in the Amex travel portal. Right or left on Amex tinkering with this two-night stay requirement for its credits? Right. I'm not looking for marriage here, but we do need to have a conversation First of all, this stinks. This was Amex's big differentiator. As Chase added hotel credits, as Citi added hotel credits, as every card, premium card on the planet has done something like what Amex has done, Amex was really the only one that allowed you to book one-night stays at least for fine hotels and resorts. There was always the hotel collection, kind of a lesser tier of, of nice properties that always required two-night stays, but being able to book a one-night stay at a fine hotel and resort made it so much easier to put those to use without spending a ton out of pocket t- to cover that second night. That is gonna change next year, and that stinks. It's gonna make those credits much less valuable. The upside, I think, is enormous if you're an Airbnb person, which I am. I really like Airbnb. I've had honestly nothing but great, if not outstanding, experiences. The Air- us- using these credits for Airbnb Luxe, sure, fine. To me, the biggest thing is that in forming this partnership with Airbnb, you can now earn 5X Amex points booking any Airbnb through Amex Travel. You can't just link your accounts and then go to Airbnb. You actually have to log into your Amex account, search for home stays through Amex, and book. But based on all of the research that we've done, which, I mean, I've probably looked at 25, 30 different Airbnb listings, the prices booking through Amex are identical to booking directly through Airbnb. So if you are booking a lot of Airbnbs, being able to use your Amex Platinum card to now earn 5X points per dollar is a pretty big win, to say nothing of the fact that if you book an Airbnb Luxe, you can now, um, earn a $250 Ex- Airbnb Experience credit after booking any eligible, uh, Airbnb Luxe through Amex Travel. So there's another potential $250 win on the table. To me, the biggest one is just being able to earn 5X on any Airbnb, not just these priciest Airbnb Luxes, but any property you can find. Okay, Kyle, one more story for you here, and I'm gonna insist on a swipe right on this one. Chicago O'Hare International Airport says it discovered a 50-ton boulder while doing construction on its new concourse. Now the airport wants help naming it because this airport has its priorities straight. Okay? Instead of improving the flying experience or reliability, we're naming a rock, Kyle. Okay? The finalists for the naming contest are All three of them are terrible, by the way. I d- please don't give me credit for any of these. One is No Ord-inary Rock, the second one is O'Rock, and the third one is Da Rock. Voting runs through November 2nd, but I think I have three better names that should be considered, Kyle. Uh, swipe right to hear them or swipe left to leave me hanging. I'm gonna swipe right only because I also have my own offer. Oh, you do? Okay. Yeah. Um, my first one would be Rock Kirby as a, as a nod to Scott Kirby, United's CEO, who has a particular infatuation with Chicago O'Hare. His, his ego does not need that. The second one is very similar. It's Rockert Eyestone, a nod to Robert Isom, the American Airlines CEO. Do you like that one? For now. For now. Uh, and my third option is The Penalty Rock, because whenever you land early at O'Hare, you have to go sit in the penalty box until your gate opens. Mm. That happened to me the other day flying from MSP down there, and we were still early to our gate, so that was pretty good. But The Penalty Rock, Rockert Eyestone, or Rock Kirby. Do you like any of those or do you have a better one? I was gonna offer, uh, the pillow to rest your head when your flight inevitably gets canceled. How's that? That's perfect. Is this, is this boulder the most impressive thing about O'Hare? Um, yes, now it is. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe, I haven't been to the new Polaris Lounge yet, but- You know, the, the best part about this is that terminals t- two and three are still probably older than this boulder. That's true. This ancient boulder dug up beneath Chicago O'Hare. Okay, we are through all the news. Um, let's get into a listener question, which hearkens back to our discussion about airfare earlier. So we got this question a few months ago now. I was saving it for an episode just like this. It's from Cohen, who works at an airline in dynamic pricing and distribution. So Cohen asks, "I would like to hear what you think airlines have to do better. What are your top wishes airlines would implement to improve the searching and booking experience for both points and miles and cash?" Cohen said they can think of several things themselves. For instance, taking the cash fee into account when you're sorting award flights on the page. Um, more flexible multi-passenger bookings, like everybody on the same booking might not need the same amount of bags or seat choice or changeability. Um, Cohen also recommend maybe easier comparison between the pricing of bundles and just better communication of status benefits. Uh, Cohen said while they do have staff travel benefits, quote, "I still find myself buying revenue tickets quite often because I also love the game of outsmarting the revenue management systems of other and our own airlines." So Kyle, uh, for Cohen's question, what do you wish airlines did differently when they sold us our airfare? Mine is, I guess, a little bit bigger picture than the individual features, which I think all of Colin's ideas here are interesting. How to implement them, I think, is another question. What I think, what I wish airlines would hear is that they need to be more transparent with airfare. That what happened, you know, the story we broke last spring about airlines charging, in some cases, significantly higher fares to solo travelers than groups of two or more, and not saying a word about it. Not just, you know, in advance of saying, "Hey, we're gonna start doing this," which I get, I get that. They, they never would, and we shouldn't expect them to. But not even addressing it when we broke this story that became national news, I-- s- to me, speaks to a total lack of trust between everyday consumers and the airlines, and that is 100% the airline's fault, that these are the games that they play, and these are the positions that they put us in in order to find anything even remotely approaching a good deal, and that if the airlines found a way to be more transparent with consumers and level with people about the things that they do with airfare and how they set their prices, whether we're talking about these solo passenger penalties or how they may now be using AI or what their vision of, w- vision is to use AI in order to set prices and whether that means airfare will be personalized, we don't know. But we don't know because airlines don't talk about it, and that leaves all of us to assume the worst, and I think that that's a pretty good default position to be in. But airlines could build a bridge and have, earn a little bit more trust by just being straightforward with, more straightforward with people about how they set pricing and why. Yeah. I think mine is a little similar in sentiment to yours, which is just quite simply the, the bait and switch of, you know, here's the economy price, and it says main cabin, and then you click to it, and it's actually basic, and the main cabin is $100 more. I mean, I-- just getting rid of that practice altogether. Just you have to display the fare that you're searching for to be able to filter out our basic economies if you don't want that or to at least know exactly what you're looking at when you're searching for main cabin. Now, you can do that with Google Flights for US flights and Canadian flights, but, um, it's just really frustrating when you're kinda on an airline website, and all of a sudden you get to the end page, and that is not the same fare you've been looking at the whole time. American is particularly egregious with that bait and switch. We called them out for this two-plus years ago now, where they explicitly say that the fare that you're looking at is main cabin, and then you click it, and you see that that price is actually for basic, and that main cabin fare is now $100 more round trip and in some cases more. And American is the only one among the big three that doesn't offer its own filter to exclude, at least to date, to exclude basic economy from those results altogether Again, there's a lack of trust and it is nobody's fault but the airlines themselves. Yeah. Cohen, great question. Thank you for sending that to us. I'm sorry it took us so long to get to it, but I wanted to make sure that it fit into this episode in particular. If you want us to answer your questions on the podcast or if you have any feedback for us, hit us up at podcastathriftytraveler.com. We might feature your question on next week's show. And to close the show, as always, we go On the Spot, and it's Kyle's turn to put me on the spot. What do you have? All right, it's a two-parter. Okay. Give me a little rope here. Part one is an easy one. How many times did you fly in and out of O'Hare this year? This year? Wow. Okay, I can get the actual number. Give me one second. Uh, this is an, a relatively unimportant part of the question. Let's just ballpark it. Okay, ballpark, I would say probably 10, I don't know, actually 12 segments is, would be my guess. Okay. Okay. A dozen times. Yes. Do you feel better or worse about O'Hare than you did at the start of the year, as we've gone back and forth, and you had your notorious hot take that O'Hare is, uh, underrated as an airport? Yeah. I think I feel exactly the same about O'Hare. Uh, if I had to lean one way or the other, I would say, I don't know, maybe... I think my- if you looked at, like, my delay and cancellations numbers on Flighty, everything went pretty much according to plan, but that's 'cause it's a short segment- Mm ... in and out of O'Hare. I mean, I'm flying mostly MSP to O'Hare and back because it's easier than the six-hour drive with an infant. So, um, I don't know if I feel better or worse. That penalty box thing always really frustrates me. I know that's a huge sticking point for a lot of travelers. But, like, the on-the-ground experience, flying Delta out of Terminal 5 is a delight. There's just- It is ... no, no issues there. The Sky Club is beautiful. Um, but otherwise, I mean, I think I'm pretty, pretty neutral on O'Hare compared to how I felt about it at the beginning of the year. I was gonna say, that you were singing a different tune than you were at the start of 2026. I just, I, my, my take on O'Hare is that we are lucky to have it as Midwesterners, because we have a gateway to the world that's a less than an hour flight away from us. So, I think that's why I like O'Hare. And I do like the Polaris Lounge, their flagship lounge, and the Sky Club there, so. And I'm a lounge creature, you know that. You are. Yeah. You, you're gonna get painted into the walls one day. I'm not spending time with gen pop at O'Hare, you know? Would you wanna get buried- I'm with the upper crust. Would you wanna get buried in an airport lounge? I thought you asked, "Would you wanna get married at O'Hare?" I was like, "No, uh, I don't love it that much." Um, would I wanna be buried in an airport lounge? No, but I want my ashes sprinkled a little bit- ... you know? At, at a couple of them. I, I hope Megan listens to this episode. And your parents. Like, where? All right, thank you so much for listening to the Thrifty Traveler podcast. Rate us five stars on your platform of choice, and like and subscribe to the show on YouTube. Send this episode to someone you know who needs a vacation. If you have feedback for us, send me a note at podcast@thriftytraveler.com. We would love to hear from you there. Kyle, tell us about the team. This episode was produced by your favorite host, who, let the record show, wants his ashes spread only at the Southwest Airlines Icon Lounge, Gunner Olson. It was produced and edited by Sylvia Thomas, and edited by Kyle Thomas. Our theme music is by Benjamin Tissot. See you next week. See ya.