Airport lounges aren’t just for the rich, the elite, and the bougie – we think they’re a crucial money-saving strategy for (nearly) all everyday travelers. Gunnar and Kyle argue that lounges are actually a thrifty way to travel, not to mention a fun way to start your trip! They talk about the best, cheapest ways to get into the lounge, some expert tips to maximize your lounge access, and run through some of their absolute favorite lounges around the world. Plus, they talk about using AI chatbots in trip planning, a new welcome offer on their favorite premium credit card, and finally answer the question: Did Gunnar get overserved at the company retreat last month?
Airport lounges aren’t just for the rich, the elite, and the bougie – we think they’re a crucial money-saving strategy for (nearly) all everyday travelers. Gunnar and Kyle argue that lounges are actually a thrifty way to travel, not to mention a fun way to start your trip! They talk about the best, cheapest ways to get into the lounge, some expert tips to maximize your lounge access, and run through some of their absolute favorite lounges around the world. Plus, they talk about using AI chatbots in trip planning, a new welcome offer on their favorite premium credit card, and finally answer the question: Did Gunnar get overserved at the company retreat last month?
Thanks to HotelSlash for sponsoring this episode of the show! Try it out today: Use promo code THRIFTYTRAVELER for a free 90-day trial – plus, get $20 off your first prepaid booking!
00:00 - Our airport lounge order of operations: where to sit, what to do, and Gunnar’s (possibly illegal?) signature move
02:40 - Send us a voicemail! Have a trip to brag about? A question for us? Leave us a voicemail at thriftytraveler.com/voicemail
03:15 - What AI chatbots are helpful for trip planning (Gunnar ranks his top 5) and tips for using AI
08:15 - Something Hot: The Capital One Venture X Card big new bonus offer
13:00 - Something Cold: Federal plan to compensate travelers for delays and cancellations is officially dead
17:10 - Something Colder: United walks back award rate decreases … except for cardholders
18:30 - A word from our sponsor: HotelSlash, the easiest way to book a cheaper hotel stay - & rebook when prices drop
19:30 - The Extra Mile: Airport Lounges ARE Thrifty
29:00 - How to get lounge access – the tickets, status, or credit cards you need to get in, and our favorite airport lounges around the world
58:25 - Listener Question: Xander needs business class flights to his wedding, but prices are crazy right now. What would we do?
01:02:15 - On the spot: Did Gunnar get too drunk at the company retreat last month? His official statement
Produced and edited by Sylvia Thomas
Video editing by Kyle Thomas
Show music: “All That” by Benjamin Tissot
Yo, welcome to the show. I am Gunnar Olson, a travel reporter at Thrifty Traveler and a flight deal analyst for Thrifty Traveler Premium. And Kyle, when I go to an airport lounge, first thing I like to do is as I'm walking in to find a seat, I'm making eye contact with the bartender. Alright. I just need them to know, I need them to know what's coming and that I'm coming.
Okay. Just to let them know just to set the tone. And then I'd go, I'd go and try and find a seat with a tarmac view, or at least a TV view, something along those lines. And then I'd get up right away and go find like a lemonade or a juice because I undoubtedly sweat through my shirt, walking to the lounge from where I got through security.
And yeah, I think, and then, you know, obviously a trip over to the bartender who's been dreading my arrival since I, I walked in and stared them down. And then of course, right before I leave my signature move a to-go champagne in a coffee cup for the walk to the gate.
An airport lounge, bartender, hates to see hurricane gunner coming.
What about you?
All right. I'm Kyle Potter, executive editor of Thrifty Traveler, which means I write dumb words on the internet. I get to be a little bit of a dick on social media sometimes, and increasingly say dumb words into this here microphone. My, my lounge plan of attack is if there's an outdoor space or something like it.
Beeline straight for it because I'm gonna get as much fresh air or manufactured fresh air as I possibly can before getting into a metal tube. And also those outdoor areas, if they exist, are typically like at the back of the lounge, which means fewer people get there. So that's my little safe haven. And then it's, you know, drop off bags, find a spot, get, get something to eat, get a drink.
I'm not trying to strike fear into the heart of airport lounge. Bartenders, their lives are hard enough as is. Gunnar, what are you doing?
The airport lounge, bartenders is part of the family. You know, it's like, it's tough love like you get with at the Thanksgiving table, you know. Lounge bartenders are really important.
It, it is an important part of the ecosystem. I will grant you that.
Alright, I like your order of operations, your plan of attack. Today on the show, we're talking all about airport lounges and why we think it's the thriftiest thing you can do at the airport. Plus, we're gonna dig into the new massive bonus on the Capital One Venture X Card.
We're gonna ask if AI can help you plan your trip. We're gonna hear from a listener who's better at traveling than us. By a long shot, and if we have time, Kyle's gonna reveal the secret ingredient that really makes this famous espresso tonic recipe shine. All that and more. Welcome back to the Thrifted Traveler Podcast.
Okay. Before we get started, I wanted to announce something that we are really excited about later this year. We're going to do holiday episode starring you, the listener. So we love hearing from you at podcast@thriftytraveler.com, but we wanted to get some of you on the show. So if you booked an awesome trip this year that you wanna brag about, or you have something coming up in the new year that you wanna brag about, or you have a question for us, or some sharp, sharp criticism of the show, I want you to go to thrifty traveler.com/voicemail or find the link in our show notes and leave us a voicemail message under one minute.
You can send that to thrifty traveler.com/voicemail to leave us a message there. We really can't wait to hear from you. Okay, Kyle, to start the show, I need to find something out. Have you ever used AI to help you plan a trip?
No, back in like 2022. So if a lifetime ago, it feels like now as AI tools built around travel first started to crop up, I tried it out by just kind of taking it for a test run to see what it would recommend for our hometown here in Minneapolis.
And it recommended a walk across the Stone Arch Bridge in February, which I would not recommend. And it also recommended dinner at Bachelor Farmer, which at that point had been closed for years. So I am I am safe to say a little bit skeptical of using AI for trip planning. I think there, there are some serious risks if you don't vet seriously, vet everything.
Yeah, obviously vetting it is the most important thing. I also had not used it at all to. Travel plan until this week. So I, I decided to put some of them to the test. Obviously I'm a little bit skeptical of AI in some ways, including what it means for the environment, but I know that we hear from a lot of people all the time who are using these chat bots to help their travels, including some members of our team.
So I looked at chat, bt, Microsoft Co-pilot, Claude, Google Gemini, and Deep Seek, and I ran the exact same prompt through all five of them for a trip I have coming up to Finland. And you know what, I, I was pretty impressed with most of them. I thought deep seek was pretty uninspired and basic, and I, I wouldn't go back there.
Gemini I had high hopes for, because they integrate Google flights and Google Hotels right in there. But I found it pretty lacking. You kind of had to just keep asking and asking for the same things. Co-pilot and chat GPT were both great. Really helpful. Offered lots of options. They were good with dining, which is a big, kind of blind spot of mine when I'm traveling.
And very detailed. I thought copilot had a better format, but I thought the best by far was clawed. It had a really nice, easy to use layout. Not only dining and activity recommendations, but also an explanation as to why it would work for my group, which is for adults and an infant, which is kind of a tricky, you know, travel problem to fix.
I thought that was really good. And then most importantly. Claude also line item budgeted every single thing in the trip without prompting. So basically it just listed out what it thought the estimated cost of every single aspect of the trip was going to be. Totaled it up at the bottom per person and total.
It was really impressive and I thought it kind of got the ballpark of the flights and hotels a lot better than some of the other ones did as far as their guesses. So Claude, I would recommend Claude if you want to go try and plan a trip. I use the free version of all of these, so this is something that anybody out there
could do.
You wrote this great story for us last week, and we'll link it in the show notes kind of comparing each of these five five of some of the most popular tools. Right. And so I think it's super helpful for steering people in the right direction because there isn't gonna be a one size fits all answer here and all of these tools are gonna change over time.
I'm curious though, was there anything that Claude or any of the others recommended that wasn't already on your radar to your, for your trip to Finland that you're now making a piece of your trip?
One of the things. One of the thing, there's actually a reindeer farm that I did not see. Usually I can do most of my travel planning on Google Maps, just poking around and finding things.
But there was a reindeer farm that we might have to go to. But I think mostly it was helpful for restaurants, helping us find places where an infant would be welcome was also helpful. And then most of these also said, you know, which restaurants were gonna require reservations and how far in advance you needed those reservations.
So I think, you know, Claude Copilot and Chat, GBT all were like, you know, here's this restaurant in RO and Yemi, you need to get on this now if you're, if you're traveling in December. So that stuff I found really helpful. It's kind of, you know. They're scraping lots and lots of internet comments and finding people's data points that I maybe otherwise wouldn't have found.
So that was pretty helpful. Ultimately, we're all the best planners of our own trips, and I wouldn't use this to plan an entire trip and follow it beat by beat, but to fill in a gap or some, or to give yourself kinda a baseline of what, what a trip might look like. I think these are really helpful.
Yeah.
To, to revisit that happy hour that we talked about last on last week's show in New York City. You know, podcast listener Carla had a great comment about how she uses AI for planning trips, less so on researching what to do, but more on feeding it all of the things that they want to do. For example, in a four or five day trip in London and, you know, you want to go to X, Y, Z, A, B, and C, and then they use.
And Carla said she uses AI to help plan a logical itinerary to make sure you're not doing a ton of backtracking and kind of plot things out on a map for you to make sure you're structuring your trip wisely. I think that maybe is, at least as we're talking right now, maybe the best way to use AI and travel planning is just making sure you're figuring out the best, most logical way to attack a trip.
I love it. We're attacking this episode of the podcast. Okay. Let's get into something hot and something cold. It's the good and Bad in travel news from the last week. And we'll start as always, with something Hot, which is brought to you by Thrifty Traveler Premium. This week our team has been on a bit of a roll that's, that's nothing new, but yeah, it's, the role continues.
We've been on a roll, finding the cheapest flights around the world, some of the best ways to use your points and miles, and most importantly, alerting you to business class award availability as soon as it pops open. We're searching for more than 200 US and Canadian airports, including probably yours.
Check us out today@thriftytraveler.com slash premium and use code TT POD for $20 off your first year of premium flight deal alerts. Okay, Kyle, something hot this week is a new signup bonus offer on the Capital One Venture X Card. So new applicants for the card can earn a hundred thousand Capital One Venture Miles after spending $10,000 in the first six months of card membership.
That's a lot, but they're giving you a full six months to hit that spend. So if you can spend $1,667 a month, 120,000 miles are yours, 120,000. 'cause the two x points you earn on that first 10,000 to get there. That's up from the standard welcome bonus of 75,000 miles after spending four grand in three months.
It's the biggest bonus we've seen on the card since it launched a few years ago. That 120,000 capital one miles is worth a minimum of $1,200, but probably way more on a card that is $395 annually. Where does this card rank for you? In the pantheon of travel rewards cards. And what does this bonus do for that?
It's, it's at or near the top. And, and this bigger bonus would only put it higher if I didn't already have it. You know, capital One and the Venture X card stand out to me for three reasons. One is the versatility of these miles and that you can transfer them to Turkish Airlines or Air France or British Airways, and a long, an increasingly longer list of transfer partners to get more bang for your buck.
But you also have something to fall back on. Something that I increasingly fall back on, not to book flights or hotels, but to book all of the other things in travel that make travel special. So, you know, I talked in the episode before about, you know, booking that small boat, cruising around the bays of Bora Bora and booking that through Viader so that we could then go back and use Capital One miles because it's a travel purchase to race the purchase altogether.
Every cent is worth, or every point is worth 1 cent. So if it's a, you know, a hundred dollars expense, that's 10,000 venture miles. This is one of the most flexible ways to use. Capital one miles, miles period. And to be able to do really special things like that, that you otherwise can't cover with points is really, really cool.
And I think sets Capital One apart. Having another 120,000 of those venture miles, I would, I would jump at that chance, but my wife and I already have this card primarily because it's just so dang easy to use and to come out ahead. I mean, how many hours have we now spent talking about? In some ways railing about the new Amex Platinum card at almost $900 a year and all of the credits that are monthly or quarterly or biannual or annual and the same increasingly goes for the now $800 a year.
Chase Sapphire Reserve. And then, you know, there's the Capital One Venture X Card, which clocks in at under $400 a year. Comes with. A $300 annual travel credit, which is very easy to use. So automatically that's $95 a year. You get 10,000 miles each time you renew that card each year. So then, you know, if you value each of those at roughly a cent or more, you're already coming out ahead on this card.
No card makes it so easy. And you know, to the topic of this show, capital One lounges to me are, have set the bar higher than any of the other bank operated lounges. They are growing popular to a fault as all airport lounges are, but Capital One does a better job of controlling how many people they let in so that once you do get in, even if there is a 20, 30 minute wait, capital One lounges are just really special places in the United States and the few airports where they've got 'em.
So yeah, this, this is a, this is a no would be a no brainer for me if I didn't already have the card.
Yep. This is the best card in my wallet. I love this card very much. It's also just the perfect, player two card for my wife, who really doesn't wanna have to do all the mental math of where should I put all the spend?
I just tell her, put it on the Venture X 'cause you're earning two x points. It's,
it's invaluable. Even, even not just, you know, for somebody who doesn't want to juggle a bunch of cards, there are al is always going to be those situations where you don't have the right card for that expense and then the Capital One Venture X just becomes the go-to in those situations.
Yep. It's a great one. Okay. Should we pivot to something cold if we have to? All right. We knew this was coming, but it still hurts. So, way back in 2023 then DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg and the Biden administration announced they'd propose a new federal rule that would require airlines to compensate passengers for delays and cancellations much like they already do in Europe, Canada, and elsewhere.
The proposal called for compensation of 200 to $300 for domestic delays of three hours or more, and up to $775 for lengthy international disruptions. But it never took effect. This summer, we heard rumblings that the Trump administration was gonna scrap this effort altogether. What happened late last week, Kyle, and why?
What happened late last week is that the Trump administration made it official that this is not going to happen. They're not going to pursue this. They, you know, really bought the airlines argument that this was going to result in higher costs that airlines would then pass on to you and I and everybody listening to, listening to this in the form of, of higher fares, which.
May or may not be true. You know, I would just note that when this was first proposed back in you know, spring of 2023, the airlines Chief lobbying organization, airlines for America, said that it would destroy cheap fares. I mean, they were, they went like full shock campaign against this, that it would destroy the cheap fares that people love to, which I would say how, how are cheap Faires looking over in Europe where this system has been in place for more than two decades now.
I mean, like, there are a lot of cheap fares flying in and out of Europe and especially around Europe. It's. It's disappointing for a couple of reasons, but I do wanna say it is, again, not a surprise, not just because, you know, the Trump administration hinted that this would be coming a couple of months ago, but because this was always a bit of a Hail Mary, even when it was introduced or first unveiled by the Biden administration in 2023, I mean, case in point, while they announced that they were going to do this in, I think May of 2023, they didn't actually start the federal rulemaking process until after the 2024 election in December, which means there's no way for that to actually make its way through the federal rulemaking process, which typically takes years, not months.
So it's, it's not a surprise, but I think the spirit of this was. In two things. One, to do right by consumers when things go wrong in air travel and make sure that airlines are held accountable for that when it is a delay or a cancellation that's in their control. So sta low staffing a computer system meltdown, a mechanical issue on the flight.
These are the things where this kind of compensation would've been triggered. And make sure that, you know, Americans who are traveling, who have shockingly few rights to begin with, aren't left holding the bag and paying for, you know, a, a, a surprise night at a hotel, additional meals, whatever, whatever that may be.
But more importantly, I think this would've really forced airlines to get their acts together and that that was really what they were trying to do. Because if you think back a couple of years ago, I mean, we couldn't go more than a couple of months at a time without a major airline meltdown. We're now coming on the heels of a.
Nationwide Aviation meltdown, which was caused by the government shutdown and shortages of FAA and air traffic controllers, which wouldn't have been subject to these kind of compensation rules. But still, this is so present for Americans. There is really no recourse when things go wrong beyond hoping that the airline is going to do the right thing.
And sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. But it's up to them.
Yeah, this, this could have been the thing. That would make airlines start selling schedules that they can actually operate. And unfortunately airlines don't have to. They, they're not required to sell a schedule that they can actually operate it.
It looks like that they can operate them, right. That's why they're allowed to run these like really aggressive schedules out of the New York area when, you know, things always just cascade and get messy there, especially in the evenings. And, okay, we need to add one more on, we're gonna do something colder, Kyle, 'cause this one deserves it.
Two weeks ago we talked about how United lowered some points and miles rates. It was charging to book some of its partners like Swiss or Tap Air Portugal or Lufthansa or a NA and more. It was really good news. We were really excited to pass it along. But in that discussion I asked you, Kyle, is this gonna hold?
Did it hold Kyle,
don't go, don't go back and listen to that tape. That take also did not age very well because no, unfortunately it didn't hold. I was hopeful that this was a sign that United was just gonna lower the award rates to match what they charge for their own flights because they didn't need an additional incentive to get people to have their credit cards and get a discount.
And lo and behold, what they've done is they've taken these lower award rates paying 80,000 miles for a Lufthansa business class, one-way flight to Frankfurt instead of 88,000. And they're now making that, again, a perk of holding a United Mileage Plus card. So you only benefit from these lower rates. If you have one of those, you know, United Explorer, United Quest, United Club Cards in your wallet, which, you know what, shame on me for not seeing the fact that United was definitely going to do this.
It should have been obvious. Lesson learned.
Shame on you. Shame on United. That's a tough one. That's why it's something colder this week. Alright, we'll be right back. Alright. You guys know we love a good travel hack and hotel slash might be one of the best. It was built by the same team behind auto slash, which has saved travelers millions on rental cars over the past 15 years, and that's just the savings they've saved for me.
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Okay, we're back and it's time for the extra mile where we dig a little deeper on an important travel topic. And this week we're talking lounges, which I think kind of unfairly have a reputation for being for the elites. But I think. I would argue that they're at least worth it and that they're actually kind of thrifty, Kyle.
So let's talk about why we think that's true. We're gonna talk through how to get lounge access if you're interested, and some of our best kind of lounge tips, how to get guests into the lounge, et cetera. And then at the end of the segment, hopefully we're going to reveal a few of our favorite lounges around the world.
That sound good to you? Just, just to be clear, are you or are you
not a
bougie boy? I ha I am capable of bougie boy. I'm fluent in bougie boy, but yeah, you've seen my W twos. I act, I act like a no comment. I act like a bougie boy, perhaps outside my means. Okay. Let's talk about why lounges are worth it and why we think this is actually thrifty.
Anything come to mind, right, right away for you, Kyle? Like what, like what is, I guess, what is the money saving proposition here on going into an airport lounge besides the fact that they're nice and fun?
You know, I, I just wanna point out that we have spent a fair amount of time on this show, 30 some episodes in ripping on airport lounges and how crowded they've become.
And I stand by that. I do think people should go into the lounge experience with the expectation that it's gonna be pretty full, but even at its worst, an airport lounge is an area that can save you money. And then the question becomes, are you saving more than you spent in order to get that lounge exit access, be it from, you know, a premium travel credit card that gets you in, or a business class ticket that you hopefully booked with miles.
So, you know. Airports are just obscenely expensive. And I will admit, because I have airport lounge access, I can't remember the last time I spent money on something in the airport, whether it's a meal an adult beverage before a trip or just a coffee. You know, airport lounges solve that for me and that does have monetary value in the end.
Yeah, and I think especially a lot of the tips we give about travel are things like, you know, get to the airport early to protect yourself when things are messy. Or book a longer layover if you're booking a positioning flight or just booking a longer layover anyway, just also to protect yourself. Both of those things lend themselves very well to sitting in the airport for three, four, maybe five hours. And if you don't have a place to sit and eat and drink for free or for whatever it costs you to get into the lounge, then all of a sudden you're you're leaving the, the Mexican cantina with a $175 bill just for your three hour layover.
I've had some obscenely expensive airport concourse margaritas before. Never again, Kyle. How expensive. I mean like the high teens for a margarita that was clearly just whipped up by someone who had never whipped up a margarita before. Just brutal.
Just a Jose Cuervo premix. Yeah. Let's with like a 90% of the sugar content that you need in a day.
Yeah, great. Just a,
a sugar bomb to help get you through an afternoon on the concourse. So I think just eating and drinking alone, like, just having a, even if the, you know, people rip on the airport lounge buffet, and oftentimes they're not the most inspired meals that you're going to find, but at the cost, it's really good and you can have as much as you want.
And if, especially if you're there for three or four or five hours, you might need to eat more than once in some cases. So I just use them basically as a, a food and drink source for my travels, and I'm traveling enough that I know that I'm making my money back on the airport lounges despite having several annual fee cards that get me into these lounges.
Yeah, and I mean, for, for anyone out there listening to this, and I, there are definitely, are, are many of you who say, I would rather pay. Good money for a better meal at an airport restaurant than choke down whatever they're serving in the lounge. Good on you. But, but that is a choice. And, and what, what we're talking about here is like making the financial choice of yes, of course it costs money to get into airport lounges, but are you going to make that back in the long run over the course of a year of however often you're traveling to make sure that you're actually coming out ahead on whatever method you're getting airport lounge access through.
Yeah.
I think that's important. I also I use Delta Sky Clubs on arrival almost all the time, especially if I've already burned a Sky Club visit that day. And you know when you land at home and you need a quick meal before you go home, 'cause you know the fridge is bare after a long trip, it's really nice to be able to just pop in for a quick meal and let your bags come out.
Or if you don't have bags, then just take your time and have a nice little lounge visit upon arrival. You can do those at. Admirals Clubs, Alaska lounges as well. And then there are also like arrivals lounges around the world that can help you get through customs and things like that too. So,
yeah, I think Im importantly to spell that out a bit.
Delta in the course of the last year and change implemented limits on how, how many times a year you can visit a Delta Sky Club if you get access through either an Amex Platinum card or the Delta Reserve card 10 or 15 times a year respectively, but two visits or even three visits in the same 24 hour period counts as just a single visit of that 10 or 15.
So if you're flying from Minneapolis and you're landing in Chicago, you can use the Minneapolis Delta Sky Club before departure visit that O'Hare Sky Club upon arrival, and that's still only one of your 10 or 15 visits.
Cool. Okay. Two other reasons why I think the lounge is worth it. One, I actually mentioned last week when we were talking about the delays in cancellations and everything that was going on, and I talked about my connection in Detroit, where the, the, the Delta app tried to rebook me through Cleveland on the way back to Minneapolis.
And I used a Sky Club visit. I went in there and talked to a premium services agent who was able to not only get me on the standby list, but immediately confirm me onto a nonstop delta flight back to Minneapolis. Instead, the customer service agents in the lounges are some of the best in the airport, some of the best in the system, and those are the people that you need to lean on when things get tough when delays and cancellations pop up.
So the service you're gonna get in the lounges is exceptional to channel a
YouTube commenter. Commenter. What is your beef with Cleveland Gunner?
I have no beef with Cleveland, but it was snowing just as hard in Cleveland as it was in Detroit, and they wanted to reroute me through an airport further away from home.
I also didn't wanna fly on the the seven 17, which was both legs of that flight. We're gonna be on a seven 17. Yeah, that's my favorite Delta plane. That's a pass. And fi Sorry, go ahead.
The, the other nice thing is, you know, when things do go wrong in air travel, you have overhead announcements. You know, if you're flying Delta, if you're flying American Delta agents or American agents, if you're, you know, in the middle of a two hour long delay, you're gonna get overhead announcements, Hey, you know, we're starting to board in 10 minutes, head to your gate.
It's a constant in a way that you just don't get those kind of easy reminders out in the terminal. So that, that part is really nice as well.
Yeah. And finally the last reason why I think that they're worth it. It is fun, like going to the lounges, I do find very fun. If you're flying several times a year, even just for vacations, having a place to go for a few cocktails or refreshment or to kick your feet up is nice.
It sometimes feels luxurious. You know, you get there's a sometimes a good energy. Go find the back bar. The back bar is usually where all the fun people are at. But I, I do like going and it's just makes the travel experience feel a little extra special when almost nothing feels special in the sky anymore.
Yeah, I mean, I've shared before my, my go-to anytime I'm flying Delta for like a personal vacation is to go to the bar, buy a bottle of champagne using delta sky miles. 'cause it's honestly one of, if not the best way to redeem sky miles these days on a regular basis. And that's just like a fun way to start off a trip.
I'm curious like. What, what is your X amount of trips per year? Like what is the break even point where you think, yes, this person should get lounge access or No, it's probably not worth it.
Yeah, obviously it depends on what airport you're starting out. If you're, if you're home base is an airport that doesn't have a lounge, maybe that changes the calculus for me, but I would say like if you're taking anything more than four or five trips a year, I think having some lounge access would probably be worth it. If you're taking way more, then you could probably add more cards to make sure that you're covered at all these different airports and things like that.
But, you know, the way that we fly, I'm, I'm totally comfortable. Having several annual fee cards that give me lounge access because I know I'm gonna need lounges in a lot of the places I go because I book extremely long layovers and I get to the airport early and I'm flying at weird times and I I need a free meal at the airport when I get there.
I think four or five times is in the, in the right neighborhood. I do think that starting with the, what airports are you either flying out of most frequently or into, and then back home from most frequently is probably the better starting point because if there is a really good lounge and you know you can get in, that makes it a lot easier to stomach.
You know, the high annual fee that many of these cards that will get you in the door charge if you don't. A lounge at your airport. It's, it's really hard. That's a really tough starting point to justify it from. Right.
Okay. Let's talk about how to get in. If you're, if you're sold and you want to access the lounge or you're thinking about changing the lounges you get access to let's talk about the best ways to get in.
Okay. Kyle, is there a one stop shop that you have for figuring out what airports have, what lounges like it? You know, sometimes it's, it's hard to figure it out, but we had, we used to have lounge buddy. And that is now gone. So what do you use now?
I'm looking to see if there's anything I can easily pour out on our bookshelf behind us.
If you're watching on YouTube for Lounge Buddy. 'cause that's, that's still tough. American Express acquired that company and then just. Killed that app, which is a real bummer. There is a decent app replacement called Lounge Review, all one word, which is not perfect. I would say it's far inferior to what we had from Lounge Buddy, but that's a decent starting point where you can type in, you know, your airport that you're departing from and see all of the lounges there, see what will get you access into those lounges.
I tend to use just searching Amex Global Lounge Collection because. As we'll get into the American Express Platinum Card opens more lounge doors than any other credit card. And that's a good starting point for, you know, if you believe that your Amex platinum card is gonna be what gets you into a lounge, that's gonna pull up an easy list of all of the different airport lounges that are available to you at that airport, which terminal they're from.
Because you know, if you're departing from international versus domestic, the lounge options might be different. So between those two, that covers a lot of my bases.
Yeah. And the access rules tab and, and lounge review is really useful. It gives you a full breakdown of the, all the ways that you can get into the lounge and including if you can buy your way into the lounge, which is, you know, sometimes between like 40 and $60 per visit, which can be worth it, especially if you're facing terminal prices on a food and drink like we mentioned earlier.
So, okay. The main three ways, correct me if I'm wrong, Kyle, to get into the lounge, are to find the right fare. Have the right status or get the right credit card. So first we'll talk about the fair. That's pretty much the easiest one. It's business class fairs and up, right?
Yeah. I mean very, very rarely, if ever, that I can think of will just a standard domestic first class ticket get you into a lounge.
You really need a long haul international business or first class fair in order to get lounge access with that ticket. And I'll say. Even then it, it really depends on where you're departing from, of if that lounge access is gonna be great. You know, if you are flying from a major Delta hub that has a Delta one lounge, you know, the Delta One lounge at JFK while still very busy is pretty spectacular.
So if you're departing from JFK on a Delta one ticket or a Virgin Atlantic upper class ticket to London that's gonna get you into those lounges. But, you know, like if you're flying from some of the, some of the international carriers that depart from Terminal five in O'Hare getting access to the Swissport Lounge, which might be the world's saddest airport lounge, it is a dark windowless room.
With a couple of things of food slapped on a counter and a cooler full of lukewarm drinks and not much else. That's not a whole lot to celebrate. So you do, you do still need to do some research to, to figure out whether that pricey ticket, whether you booked with miles or with cash, is gonna get you something special.
Yep. Worth heading to Lounge review to see what you're going to be able to access before you book that flight. It might be worth finding a different airport. I do wanna note that there are some premium economy tickets worldwide. Particularly I'm looking at you Japan Airlines. I know for a fact that Japan Airlines Premium economy does include lounge access when you're departing from Japan which is a pretty awesome, a really good perk for a premium economy that's also extremely rare, but business class fairs and up will almost always include some sort. There's one more to
add to that list. Oh yeah. SAS plus their version of premium economy. That's right. We'll get you access to sa s lounges where they have them, and I know they have one in Chicago, O'Hare and Terminal five.
They have one in Newark for sure. They certainly have 'em in Copenhagen, in Stockholm, but I'm not sure where else but. That's, that's amazing because not only is it, again, a premium economy ticket, getting you lounge access, but their premium economy is dirt cheap. It, it is priced like most standard economy faires flying to and from Europe.
So, you know, if you want a, a, a lot more leg room, better service, a wider seed and lounge access and SAS plus ticket is a good option.
Yeah. Well we always tell people before you book just a regular main cabin flight over to Europe, go check and see what it would be to take a connection on SAS through Copenhagen, because it's probably priced around the same.
You have to fly through Copenhagen, but you get lounge access when you get there and then the short flight down into Europe, it might just be worth it for you. The next one that we said, the next best way to get into the lounges is having the right status. This is. Usually a very expensive way to get into the airport lounges.
If you have status, you're probably paying one airline a lot of money over the course of a year. The highest level of status always gets you into lounges. With obviously all the major US airlines I think one world Americans Partnership, I think they have probably the best kinda lounge access rules worldwide.
If you have any level of any high level of one world status like sapphire or emerald the one world Emerald gets you into like every single one World lounge in the world, no matter what fair you're flying on. So it's a pretty, pretty unbelievable way to get into lounges. There. So anything else on having the right status?
I mean the the key is really. You know, that reciprocal status with the worldwide airline alliances for two reasons. One is that, you know even top Delta status is not gonna get you into a Delta Sky Club. Not even Top American status isn't necessarily gonna get you into, you know, American Admirals clubs.
But having one World Emerald status that you can either get through that top status with your airline, or more importantly, match from your existing status. Say you have Delta Diamond status. All of the times we see you know, global Airlines offer a status match to say. I don't know, cafe Pacific, one of Cafe Pacific's top tiers of status, just as an example.
You can get that and then that gets you that top tier of one world status, which unlocks lounge access throughout the United States to Admirals clubs, to some amazing business and even first class lounges around the world. This is an expensive avenue, but it might be the single best avenue on this list if you are very specific about which airports you're flying to and from.
Yep. Good tip.
Okay. The easiest, the best way, the way that we all do it to access the lounge is to get the right credit card. This is where the value is. This is where airport lounges become available to people like me, who otherwise should never be allowed into an airport lounge. You mentioned the Amex Platinum card.
What are some, what is, tell me about that one, and what are some of the other best credit cards for lounge access?
I mean, the Amex Platinum card is, and probably always will be the top dog of this because it gets you into their centurion lounges, of which there are now more than a dozen in the United States and abroad, I think more than, more than 30.
More than 30. So there's a lot to pick from there. Are they the best? Certainly not. They're, they tend to be more overcrowded than even anything else on this list. But they're there. Escape lounges, which I would say are an underrated alternative, especially at smaller airports like our home airport here in Minneapolis, but they also have lounges in Oakland and like Greensboro and other.
Cities that I don't even know if I can properly pronounce them. So that's, that's a great option. You also get two free guests at Escape lounges no matter how you get in, which is great. Delta Sky Clubs, as we've touched on again with the Amex Platinum card, there is a 10 visit per year limit. You can mess with those 10 visits.
We will get into that a little bit more later. And then you also get a Priority Pass membership, which is, at this point, I think 1500 plus lounges around the world. Some far, far, far better than others. Some priority pass lounges are pretty basic, but again, even a basic lounge can save you some, some money, at the very least, on coffee and water.
In the best case, a full meal.
Yeah, definitely. You we talked about the Capital One venture accent or something hot segment, and you said that the Capital One lounges have really impressed you. Tell me about the access you get with that card. Well, today
you get you can bring, get yourself into any Capital One Lounge and get two free guests.
And maybe more importantly, your authorized users, which are free to add to the Capital One card get their own free access and their own free guests to all Capital One lounges, which at this point are off the top of my head. Okay, let's do this. Dallas, Fort Worth, DC Dulles, Denver, Las Vegas, and JFK plus, they have like a, they call it a Capital One landing in DC Reagan which is like a hybrid lounge airport.
Airport restaurant you can dine for free. How'd I do? Did I get
it? Yeah, I think you got it. All right. I didn't double check you. Not not a fact. Checker email, email gunner at
gunner@thriftytraveler.com, if I got that wrong. But the, as of February 1st, that is all changing because they're gut cutting.
The free guest access, as well as free lounge access for authorized users. If you have an authorized user on a Venture X Card, that will continue to be free. But as of February 1st, 2026, you're gonna have to pay $125 a year to extend lounge access to that authorized user, which is a big bummer, but it's gonna solve what's an increasing problem.
For Capital One, which is like everybody else on this list, these lounges are getting too busy and they need to make some, some cutbacks. But again, to my mind, capital One lounges are some of the best in the business, at least from the big banks in large part because they do, they're much more proactive at limiting how many people get into those lounges than the likes of like Chase or American Express.
Speaking of Chase, let's round out the big three of premium credit cards. The Chase Sapphire Reserve, where can you go with that one?
Chase is, is building out its own network of Chase Sapphire lounges, which I will say are also pretty excellent. They've got, at this point, I think close to 10 in the United States, plus one in Hong Kong, and they're working on more, so there are more to pick from than, than Capital One, which is a big plus.
Importantly, you're, you, it's not your Chase Sapphire Reserve card that's getting you into these lounges. It's the Priority Pass membership that comes specifically from that card, which means you have to activate that and use that to get in. But you can get in yourself and two guests for free at any chase Sapphire Lounge.
Plus it comes with, you know, that same access to 1500 plus priority pass lounges as well.
Yeah. Okay, this is an unexpected one as one of the premium credit cards that gets you lounge access the Ritz Carlton card. So I would say
if you live in Philadelphia or you know, you use either JFK or LaGuardia as your main airport in and out of New York or any of the other, you know, at this point, 10 ish US airports that have a Chase Sapphire lounge that you know you want to visit.
The best card is not the Chase Sapphire Reserve, it's the Ritz Carlton card, which comes with an important caveat. You cannot today apply for a Ritz Carlton card. It is not open to applicants. You can however, product change and existing Chase Marriott card to the Ritz Carlton card, and that's important.
For two reasons. One, the annual fee is lower than the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. And two, not only can you get into Chase Sapphire lounges for free, but you can also bring unlimited guests. So again, if you live in you know, the New York area or Philadelphia or Boston, one of these airports, and especially if you are traveling with a family, the Ritz Carlton card is by far the better option here.
How
long until
they close that loophole next week, next week's show? It depends on, it depends on it depends on how much they wanna look us. Look like a bunch of jackasses
doesn't take much. Alright, let's talk about some of the airline cards. We'll go through these rather quickly, but the major US carriers all offer some version of a lounge access card.
What's Delta got?
Delta has the, the Delta Reserve card, which of course gets you Delta Sky Club access, like the Amex Platinum that's capped. So you only get 15 visits per year. That's, that's five more than the Amex Platinum card. So that goes a little bit further. The annual fee is lower, so that's worth considering if you're only flying in and out of Delta Hubs.
But importantly you get four free annual guest passes a year. So if you're traveling, you know, fairly often say for work, but you take a couple of family trips or a couple of trips a year with a spouse, this becomes a great way to bring guests in for free. After that, you pay $50 a pop after you use up those guest passes.
So that is, it's, it becomes pretty restrictive pretty quickly. Importantly, you can also get into both centurion lounges and escape lounges. If you booked your ticket with your Delta Reserve card. And you're flying Delta that day, you can get into those lounges as well. So there, there is a little bit more there.
And so that one is worth consider considering. I would say only for really heavy Delta flyers. I think anybody else who is consider this themself more of a free agent is probably gonna be better served by NEX Platinum Card.
Yeah, I would agree. I'll lump these two into the same category because both of 'em offer.
Pretty much unlimited access to the club. So the United Club Card gets you just a full United Club Lounge membership. You just get access as much as you want. And then hold if you need to go take a bathroom break while I read the name of this card, you can. The Amer or the American Airlines Executive Platinum World Elite MasterCard also gives you unlimited Admirals Club access.
So both of those clubs are PR or cards are very simple. You just open the card and you get the full access. This new American Airlines card, this Globe card, kinda, their mid-tier product gets you four 24 hour Admirals Club passes annually. So it's not a full on membership, it's just a, you know, like the Delta cards or the Amex, you get a couple of passes per year.
And same thing with the Atmos Rewards Summit, visa, infinite Card, also a mouthful for Alaska Airlines. That would be eight Alaska Lounge passes per year. With that one,
can we stage an intervention for airlines and hotel chains and marketing firms like guys, knock it off. This is getting ridiculous.
Yes. You should only get two words to describe your card. Tell me what the airline is and tell me what the, whatever color or rock stone or whatever you need to name it. But you get just your name and then the stone and that's it. All right.
We have spoken
Infinite Executive World Elite, like, come on,
please.
No, we don't need that. The City Strata Elite card, which just launched this summer, I think also has a priority pass membership like many others on this list. So 1500 plus priority pass lounges plus just four. American Admirals Club passes. So if you have like a go-to a priority pass lounge in your home airport or an airport you're frequently flying to, but you're also doing a fair enough travel at American Hubs to justify having lounge access at their clubs, that's another option as well.
And two weeks ago, episode 35, we talked about how Southwest is opening lounges and they've ex basically explicitly said they're going to open a new kind of highest level credit card that will give you access to those lounges. It's all part of their big plan. You can go back to that episode and listen to that discussion, but I wanted to mention it here because.
They don't have any of these new products yet. They don't have a lounge open yet, but we know it's coming. So I wanted to include them in this list that eventually you're going to be able to get into a Southwest Lounge with a Southwest credit card
of sorts. And again, if you name that card, the Southwest Rapid Rewards Infinity Sterling Plus card, you will be hearing from us and you will be something cold.
Oh man. I cannot wait for that segment down the line. Okay, let's I want to get into a segment here that I just wanna call how to Lounge, just some of our favorite tips for using lounges. If you've never done it before or if you've been using lounges for a while, things may have changed. The first one.
Tell me about digital cues
really important because the last thing you want is to spend, you know, 10 minutes walking to the lounge, or God forbid, 20 transferring terminals only to find there's a line out the door. So, fortunately Es, especially American Express and Capital One, I would say Chase to a lesser extent, has rolled out digital cues that allow you to join the wait list from your phone and then get a text when it's your time to when you're clear to go into the lounge.
So this is something, you know, every time I fly to or through Denver I join that digital wait list for the Capital One Lounge in Denver. Basically just as soon as the plane pulls up to the gate, because I know at the most I am 15 to 20 minutes away from that lounge. So this is just a great way to, to skip standing around, waiting in line.
American Express has made their digital wait list much better within the last couple of months as well. It's a, it's a great option to get yourself in line without actually having to physically be there. This isn't something you want to do hours in advance though, because typically you're gonna get that text within 20 to 30 minutes or so.
Yeah, really good tip. There's another one that you put in here about. Specifically when you're trying to access Sky Clubs, what's, what's your favorite tip there?
Yeah. Whether you have the American Express Platinum Card or the Delta Reserve card, make sure that is added to your delta.com Sky Miles wallet saved as a payment method, because that means when you go to scan into the Sky Club and you scan your boarding pass, you don't also have to whip out your Delta Reserve card or your American Express Platinum Card.
It's attached to your account. So the Delta agent at the door sees, oh, they've got an Amex platinum card, they're free to walk in.
Yep. That makes it very, very easy as well. Also, if you have the Amex Platinum card, that $200 airline credit can be used towards more lounge access. So you those that $50 per time after you've already expended all of your 10.
Sky Club visits lots to four more visits. So you can actually get 14 visits if you don't use that airline credit elsewhere.
And American Express and, or excuse me, American Airlines and United still sell day passes to everyday travelers. So if you're stuck at a United Hub somewhere and you know you want to get into the lounge and you haven't used your $200 a year airline credit yet, you could in theory use that credit to trigger the price of a day pass.
You would need to make sure that you've selected United or American as your airline. So this isn't something that you can do spur of the moment. It's probably something you'd need to plan ahead for smart.
Okay. Tell me about authorized users.
Yeah, I mean, fortunately, unfortunately, based upon your perspective of whether lounge crowding is a good or a bad thing you know, the big banks have really cracked down on extending.
Lounge access to authorized users, which means you now need to pay for it. But the pluses is that it could be worth it, especially, you know, in, in my household. For example, my wife travels a lot for work and we travel a lot together, so it is worth it for us to have lounge access on the same card, in this case, the American Express Platinum Card.
So I pay. $195 a year to have her as an authorized user on, on my Amex Platinum card, which means she gets her own 10 visits a year to Delta Sky Clubs. She gets her own separate access to centurion lounges and Priority Pass and escape lounges. It's just a way to kind of double the lounge access within your household.
I mean, even for something like a a Delta Reserve card, it could well be worth paying the authorized user fee on that card if, you know the two of you are flying Delta all of the time together and want Delta Sky Club access. It's just, it's, it's a great way to make your lounge visits go a lot further.
You, you know, even with the Delta Reserve card, those four free guest passes you could burn through pretty quickly, especially if you're traveling with family.
Okay. I would, my next tip I would say is for grab and go. Options for airport lounges. Some of the lounges are now, like American Express is launching these sidecar concepts where it's essentially a little a grab and go where you can come in, get the food and drink you want, and then get outta there so you can make more space for the rest of the lounge.
But if you're not. If you're not into the idea of battling crowds or looking for a seat at the lounge, just go in, get what you need, and then you can leave. You know, the grab and go options are really good, especially Capital One has an explicit like grab and go section. When you get into those lounges, you can grab what you need and get outta there if you want to.
Especially if you're traveling with people who don't have lounge access and you do wanna save a few bucks, go in, grab a backpack full of subs and, and sodas and whatever you need and, and then get out of there. You really are that guy. I am, I am. This is a free food proposition for me. Lounge access.
And then my final tip is about tipping. Don't forget to tip. Bartenders at lounges are slinging drinks for free, but especially if you're in the US where we do have a tipping culture, make sure you're still tipping those folks based on what you think the price of the drinks would cost because they're working hard back there and they're slinging free drinks.
That's tough, tough gig, honestly, as a bartender. Anything else about how to lounge?
Very Minneapolis focused tip here. Most of the premium travel credit cards have done away with priority pass restaurant access. So there is a network of, I dunno, a couple hundred, let's say priority pass restaurants at which you could previously get credits to dine Porsche free or close to it.
But basically all of them have done away with that priority pass restaurant access. The weird exception here is at the Minneapolis airport, there is one priority pass lounge called the PGA lounge at which you can go and put and use a golf simulator, or you can instead get a $15 credit to use at the attached restaurant, which means you can get, you know, I would say one of the better airport.
At least airport lounge ish meals that you can get. Is $15 gonna cover everything? Probably not. But it goes a long way. And that is not a priority pass restaurant, it is just a built-in perk of visiting that lounge. So that's, if you're flying to or through or from Minneapolis, that's a, that's a great way to get a better meal.
And not rely on that priority pass restaurant.
That's an awesome tip. Okay. We've sold you on why we love lounges and we've told you how to get in. Let's go through some of our favorites worldwide. I got a couple of categories. I think we should pick an airline lounge, a business class, or first class lounge, a credit card lounge, and then a wild card you get to use on whatever you want.
Does that sound good? Yeah. What are you for
airline lounge, I am going. The Delta Sky Club at O'Hare? No, I, I take it I stole yours. Yeah, you did. Yeah. Well, you got time to come up with a backup. There are a lot of, a lot of the newer Delta Sky clubs are really nice. This one was open, I think in 2022, so it's got the newer design.
It's pretty big. But most importantly, O'Hara is not a Delta hub, so this lounge is typically pretty empty. Almost every time I've been there, it's been close to empty. It feels very, very different from virtually every other Delta Sky Club that I've visited. It's my favorite one in the country for that reason.
Yep. Business or first class? Qatar Airways. All software, first class lounge in Doha. I have spent. So much time in this lounge. Arguably too much. Did I spend an overnight there and change? I sure did. Should I have? Probably not. But it was worth it. It is a jaw dropping space. It's unbelievable that a place that really looks like it was pulled out of a museum can exist within an airport.
It's amazing. There are sleeping rooms, so if you have a layover of six hours or more, you can get what's basically a small hotel room in the back of the lounge that has its own, own en suite bathroom and shower. It's, it, there's no other place to my mind in the world like it. Credit card lounge. I'm going the Capital One lounge at JFK.
I had a chance to check this out before it opened. And then again ahead of the trip that we've talked about a couple of times on the show to London this past summer. The, the drinks are great. The food is great. The decor is amazing. It's a, it's a beautiful space, but my favorite thing is the ESSA bagel station where they'll make you a bagel sandwich on site that you can bring with you.
Their bagels are very, very good. It's probably better than anything you can get out in the terminal at Terminal four and JFK and Wild Card. I'm going. The newest Delta Sky Club in the G Gates in Minneapolis on Saturdays getting real niche. It is a great lounge. It is by far the best. It's not even close.
The, the other Sky two sky clubs in Minneapolis are pretty outdated. This lounge is beautiful, but it gets really, really busy. It's a little bit of a hike to get to if you're not departing either from the G gates or the sea gates in Minneapolis, which are kind of connected by a walking bridge. But on Saturdays, every, the last couple of times I've flown Delta out of Minneapolis, I've flown on Saturdays, and that place is, is borderline empty on all of the Saturdays.
I've used it recently. It's a real treat.
Yep. Well, you stole my backup. So that was gonna be my my number one airline lounge is that G Gates Sky Club a tip. Don't take the long walk all the way down that side of the concourse. Take the tram on the sea gates, and then you just take the short walk across the bridge, kind of over where the light rail is.
That's how you get there faster.
If you, if you know the Minneapolis airport, you know this well, if you don't, I'm really sorry.
Hyper regional content for your listening pleasure. My favorite business or first class lounge. The Cafe Pacific First Class Lounge in Hong Kong. I've talked about it. They gave, I got a massage there and a sit down dining experience and they were bringing me beers and that they brew there.
This one, the Betsy right here over Kyle's right shoulder. The beer, they brew specifically for their first in business class passengers just at that airport. Pretty cool. I'd say my favorite credit card lounge, just to mix it. 'cause we did already, you already did Capital one. JFK. I loved the Chase JFK Lounge, but I've also heard that I hit that at a pretty good time.
That that one's a little bit tough when it gets busy. So I'll say the Centurion Lounge in Seattle. I really liked Big Airy on the second floor and kind of open air into the terminals. But it's they had some really good coffee drinks there and they have a ridiculous espresso martini at the bar there as well that I'm not usually a big espresso martini guy, but I really liked that one.
Did you pour it into a coffee cup to go?
No, I did not. I should have. I'm, I, I, I'm pretty sure I took something to go from there, but I think I like to keep it simple with the to-go drink unless in case I have to ditch it. And then my wild card is the Saga Lounge in Revic. The Iceland Air Lounge there is really cool if you have if you're flying.
Delta one or any business class, it's the only lounge at the airport. So if you're flying any business class outta there, you get saga lounge access. And if you're flying Iceland Air Saga, they're kind of business class that are basically just big domestic recliners with crazy good service. You get saga lounge access, very fun, very Icelandic.
They've just got like big rocks all over the place and they've got a big hearth fireplace, which we've talked about is a, a, a big winner for me. And the seating is very cool. The views are awesome. And I liked the food and drink there as well. So those are my four. Do you like my list? You didn't give four, you gave three.
Well, you took my MSPG Club as my favorite airline lounge and you took the Chicago Sky Club. Okay, so
let the record show Gunner failed the assignment.
The Admirals Club Lounge in Boston is also pretty good.
Pretty
good.
Yeah. To high praise.
Okay, let's move on to some listener feedback and question. We're gonna start this listener segment with something we got from premium member Diane, who wrote in our premium members only Facebook group about a ridiculous deal.
She pulled off recently. She wrote, I just returned from a week in Ireland. Thanks to Thrifty Traveler and the great flight deal, we booked at $330 each round trip and we're able to upgrade the overnight flight to Dublin in business class for just $350 each. We booked our hotel in the heart of Temple Bar with Chase points.
I bring this forth for no other reason than to say Diane is our traveler of the week.
That's, that's pretty good. Do you agree? Air, air Lingus is a sweet spot for cheap business class upgrades. We've seen them get as low as $199 per person each way. It does not get better than that. Diane, well done.
Yeah,
an extremely good booking that made us all smarter as well. Runner up for Traveler of the Week, Annika, who wrote us with the subject line. Quote, not enough Canada. Three exclamation points. I just wanted to get that one in for the record. Kyle, to let you know that there are dozens of us out there who love Canada content.
Are you Annika? I'm not Annika. No. Are you Matthew Johnson? I'm not Matthew Johnson who wrote it last week. These are actual people in the wild who love and appreciate my Canada content. Just wanted to let you know. Okay. The real question of the week is from Xandr. Xandr says, gents, I'm getting married in Italy next October.
That's sweet. And I'm looking to book the first leg of that trip from New York City to Rome on a direct flight in business class. These flights have just become available and as of right now, they're an egregious 250 K points per traveler on Delta American and United ITA is not yet bookable. He said he's run the same search on Air France, flying blue British Airways, air Canada, which is a tricky, he learned from us, but the redemptions on these partners do not seem to be available.
His question. Do you think I should wait for a deal to come up later on or should I be making alternative plans through other European cities? 250 K is a hard pill to swallow and I know I can get to other airports in Europe for about 60 k. I was also wondering if you think these business class redemptions will eventually show up on the partner airlines I mentioned above.
Kyle, what is your strategy if you were Xander here?
To quote my favorite GIF of all time, poque Nolo dose. Why not do both? Why not do something now and then wait for something better? So the strategy we've come back to all of the time when the pieces aren't lining up perfectly is book something that's going to work.
Whether it's a more expensive than you'd like, business class redemption, straight into Rome, or probably better yet. Just to continental Europe, as close as you can get for something around that 60,000 point redemption you're really hoping for. And then keep looking book with a program that's gonna allow you to cancel for free or close to it with reasonable fees.
Because then if something does, you know, on one of these amazing partner redemptions like booking ITA airways through United using their mileage plus miles, then you can cancel that award you've already booked. Use those miles for a different trip down the road and rebook something that you really want that's going to get you to Rome in a straight shot.
But I wouldn't wait around. I mean I do think the likelihood that for next October, the sweet spot for booking those flights is probably gonna be somewhere in the neighborhood of, between February and June, somewhere in there, you know, three to six months in advance. But I wouldn't wait around and just put, pin your hat only on that redemption.
I think you gotta do some of both.
Yeah. If you have the points, secure something. This is your wedding. Let's not play around here. You gotta make sure that you get there. Also, Kyle and I accept your invitation to attend your wedding in Italy. It sounds like a lot of fun. We'll see you there. If you'd like to answer us, if you want us to answer your question on the podcast or if you have any feedback, hit us up at podcast@thriftytraveler.com and we might feature your question on next week's show.
Alright, to close the show as always, it's on the spot and it's Kyle's turn. Put me on the spot. What do you got?
So, last week's show you, you mentioned that you may or may not have been over served at our company retreat in Palm Springs, and then we never got to that question as the episode went on. So to put you on the spot, not just did you get Overserved, but if you did, who overserved you?
Who overserved me. So I get to put some blame on some people. You know, Kyle, I think I walked up to the line, but I don't think I crossed it All right. That's what you think? I do. I do think that did it get a little loose? Yeah, it got a little loose, but, you know, it was, it was a level of drinking that I like to call business drunk.
Just no lines were crossed. And my, my nap, my 5:00 PM nap was timed just perfectly. I think as, as our coworker Jackson said, gunner needed some time on the charging pad. And I got that time. So no lines were crossed. We had a good time. I think you know, everyone enjoyed seeing me slip slowly into oblivion and then just immediately rescue my day with a perfectly timed hammock nap.
So I did nothing wrong. I would change nothing, and I have zero regrets.
For the record, we will put in on YouTube in the video version of this show, a photo of Gunner on the so-called charging pad. And then I think I want to hear from you podcast@thriftytraveler.com. Was Gunner taking a nap or did Gunner pass out?
Oh, you be the judge. Oh,
well, with that, I wanna thank you all so much for listening to the Thrifty Traveler podcast. Please rate us five stars in your podcast platform of choice, and be nice to me when you consider if it was a nap or a pass out like, and subscribe to Thrifty Traveler on YouTube and send this episode to somebody you know who needs a vacation.
If you have any feedback, send us a note at podcast@thriftytraveler.com, and I'd love to hear from you there. Kyle, tell us about the team.
This episode was produced by your favorite host who does in fact need to spend some time on the charging pad after this podcast, Gunnar Olson. It was produced and edited by Sylvia Thomas and edited for video by Kyle Thomas.
Our theme music is by Benjamin Tissot. See you next week. See ya.