It’s time to ratchet things up on the podcast this week. The guys have been too calm. This week on the pod, Gunnar and Kyle unleash their hottest travel takes and their biggest pet peeves in what turns into a fiery discussion. Why is Gunnar defending a loathed airport? What is Kyle’s case against points and miles? What’s the beef with the NFL? Plus they hate on speakerphone abusers, slow deplaners, and so much more. It’s cheaper than therapy, but it’s clear Gunnar needs both…
It’s time to ratchet things up on the podcast this week. The guys have been too calm. This week on the pod, Gunnar and Kyle unleash their hottest travel takes and their biggest pet peeves in what turns into a fiery discussion. Why is Gunnar defending a loathed airport? What is Kyle’s case against points and miles? What’s the beef with the NFL? Plus they hate on speakerphone abusers, slow deplaners, and so much more. It’s cheaper than therapy, but it’s clear Gunnar needs both…
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 - A half-baked hot take right off the bat
03:00 - Pet Peeves: Getting worked up about casual deplaning, TSA line procrastinators, “free” travel, speakerphones, and more.
15:14 - A word from our sponsor: HotelSlash, the easiest way to book a cheaper hotel stay & rebook when prices drop
16:10 - Hot Takes: Biz class doors, bad Airbnbs, fish on a plane, in defense of CLEAR, and…is award travel even good?
41:00 - Listener Question: When should you cancel a credit card?
45:00 - On the Spot: Airport code pop quiz
Get featured on the podcast! Submit a short video (15 seconds or less) with a travel brag, your name, and where you are, and finish it with “Welcome Back to the Thrifty Traveler Podcast” and upload it to thriftytraveler.com/voicemail. We can’t wait to hear from you!
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 Gunner Olson here, as always. With Kyle Potter and Kyle. Today's show is called Hot Takes and Pet Peeves, which is exactly what it sounds like. And this show was your idea. So I expect that you're gonna come in spicy on a lot of these. You you, when I suggested we do this, this week, you sent me a note asking if I would be ready to do this on Monday.
Have you met me? Do you not know that? I just have a, a running list of hot takes and pet peeves and things to be mad about. No, I, I do know that you do when you're not sleeping at night, you're just thinking of new, uh, topics for this podcast, and I know your hot takes list is long, and I'm glad you called them a little bit so that we can fit it all into one show.
To kick things off, Kyle, I want to hit you with a half baked hot take. That's pretty quick, and I just want you to react right off the jump. Okay? If your flight is delayed by 45 minutes or more, everyone should get a free drink no matter what. I want this in law. I know that a lot of flight attendants will just give out free drinks when, especially when bad delays happen.
But think about this, instead of counting, how long am I gonna be delayed? People are now going to be counting up, being like, oh man, if we can get to 45 minutes, I've got a free red wine on the plane tonight. What do you think about this? Take. Sean Duffy, are you listening? I think gunner's onto something here.
Uh, the, the number of free drinks that airlines would be forced to hand out as a result of being 45 or more minutes late. It would be absurd. Uh, there are shockingly few flights that do not depart at least 45 minutes late. It would be a lot. So, uh, if you're okay with, uh, Debbie and, and Danny Delta getting hammered on your flight to Detroit.
It's not a drink for every 45 minutes, you're delayed. I mean, that's, then you're asking for trouble. Yeah. Okay. Well, I've, I've got hotter takes than that, and I will deploy those later. We're also doing pet peeves. We're airing out our grievances with the travel industry this week on the show, like it's Festivus, we're unlocking the vaults that holds all of our big opinions about the travel world.
It's hot takes and pet peeves, and it's gonna be a really. Fun episode, all that and more. Welcome back to Thrifty Travel Podcast.
Okay. That clip that you just saw, or the voice you heard introducing the show was the person who is gonna replace me on this podcast someday. That would be Ely Sati, the daughter of Thrifty Traveler, co-founder Nick Serrate, her sister Emma. Was in Kyle's chair for that video too. Thank you for the intro this week, Elan.
Um, if you missed it, this is a new weekly tradition for us where we want you, the listener, to send us a video, uh, finishing with welcome back to The Thrifty Traveler Podcast so we can have a little bit of you in our shows every week. A little less us. It's only gonna make things better. A little quick travel, brag, a booking, or trip brag, something like that.
Um, and then upload it to our Dropbox link at thrifty traveler.com/voicemail. Alright, let's get right into pet peeves, Kyle. So the ground rules are, we're going into this blind. We don't know each other's lists so far. Um, I think that, uh, you're gonna have a lot of fun with some of my opinions here, and we're kind of alternating in order of importance.
So we're gonna start with like our mildest takes and get hotter as we go. Does that sound good? Yeah. Okay. I am going to start. With my first pet peeve, uh, casual deplaning. When people don't have urgency to get off of the bird. It makes me absolutely crazy, Kyle. I, I think people for whom it gets to their row and it's time for them to go and it's like they haven't been on the plane for the last three hours, or that they haven't been sitting or even standing up for the last five to 15 minutes as everybody else got in front of.
This is a good one. Yeah, and, and you know what? I'm not, I don't wanna like, I don't wanna be like ableist here. I know some people need help, but you have so much time to come up with a plan, communicate out there. If you can, just talk to the people next to you and be like, Hey, you know what? I'm gonna need a little bit of help with my bag.
And then, you know what I'm gonna say. Absolutely. How can I get us all off this plane faster? I will help in any way I can. Like nobody's gonna deny you help. I think you need to be making a plan and talking to the people around you about how we're gonna get off the plane faster and faster and faster.
And the people up in first class have the least urgency of the mall, which drives me nuts. 'cause they have all this space and all this time. Get off the plane. We gotta get this thing moving. Co-signed you. Okay. You've got a fan in me on that one. All right. I can already feel myself getting, this is the first one and this is the mildest.
Calm down. All right, it's your turn. Some violent hand gestures this morning in the studio. All right. Uh, my first one, my first pet peeve, and honestly, this could be the worst one. I dunno. Uh, people who wait to take things out of their pockets. Or take off their jacket or even take off their belt if they need to, until the moment they get to the end of the machine to stick their bags through and they're like, oh wait, I've got a pocket full of change and I've got a wristwatch on and I gotta take my sweater off.
The time to do these things is the moment that you step in the airport. The moment you're about to walk through security, we've been here before. People, you know how to do this. You know what you need to do. Let's do this a little bit earlier, please. I love this rant. I've heard you do this one before.
This is great. I mean, uh, you, you and I are both like, I'm putting things into the pockets I need them to be in while I'm in the Uber. Yeah. Before I get into the airport, like there's no need to be, yeah, get out of line if you're gonna do this stuff, get outta line. You know, there's this, there's this amazing tweet, which on the one hand is very funny, but on the other hand I think should be pretty instructive of like my one mission in the airport is to impress everybody working at TSA, like I'm a professional traveler.
Just go into it with that mindset. You're gonna help everybody out. That's a really good one. I'm, uh, uh, definitely guilty of the line chug, uh, the water chug. I've got, you know, like, uh, three liters of water in my bottle and I'm sitting there and it's just falling down my front of my shirt and I'm chugging as fast as I can and everyone's shaking their head at me.
Um, I've definitely been guilty of that one before. All right. Can I get my next pet peeve? Yeah. My next pet peeve is when you ask me for help. To find you a cheap flight. I'm talking to all the people out there in my life, and then you just go ahead and book the nonstop on Delta for way, way, way more money in the end.
Anyway, if you are going to ask me for my time to look at flights for you is, Hey Gunner, this flight to, you know, this Delta flight is looking really expensive. Anything you can do for me, what they really want me to do is give them a discount. On the Delta flight, which I don't do, which is not what we do here at Thrifty Traveler, what I do is I go spend a bunch of time looking up what points they have and how to use their points and maybe find some other airlines and maybe you'll take a connection and then after like four days of back and forth, they're like, I just booked the Delta nonstop.
Same thing with credit cards. If you're just gonna open a Sky Miles card, please don't ask me what, what credit card you want. Just. Open whatever you want. Book whatever you want. Stop asking me for help. If you're just gonna book the Delta anyway. You are in prime form today. You've spent a lot of time, did you practice some of these in the mirror?
No. The delivery, the hand gestures, everything I've been, I've been practicing these rants. In the shower for years and years. These are all things that I've been thinking of for a long time. Widen the shower. I don't know. It's just the only time I don't have like a podcast in my ear or screen time in front of my face, so I thought maybe that's where you're most confident.
All right, you're next. All right. Um. The entire idea that travel is free is one of my biggest pet peeves. And I think the biggest defenders of this is the growing amount of influencers who don't just say like, oh, book a business class, flight to Europe for free. It's, it's in some ways better, but also worse than that, like.
You say, oh, I booked this business class flight to Europe for $5 and 60 cents. No, you didn't. You used 60,000 points, which you had to spend $5,000 to earn, and you had to spend 95 or $895 in annual fees on a credit card in order to get those points. Oh, and by the way, you spend four hours finding word availability and time is money.
Like, come on, let's level with people here about like what we're actually trying to. Quote, unquote sell them on is all of this stuff that we talk about. Cool. Yeah, it absolutely is. But it is not free. It costs something. And the purpose of, you know, earning points and redeeming points is to limit what you are spending.
Sure. So that you're not spending $4,000, you don't have, you're spending $4,000 that you do have, and we're. Planning to spend on a home renovation project or whatever, and then go back and pay it off immediately to earn the points to book that business class flight to Europe for 60,000 points and $5 and 60 cents, but it is still not free.
Yeah, I, I think this is really smart and really important. 'cause I catch myself thinking like this sometimes too, where I'll go ahead and book a flight and then think to myself, man, I just made that whole thing free. It's, and, you know, I, I've, I've got a lot of money sunk into this already, so I'm, I'm making all the value back and it's still great value and it's outsized value for sure.
But none of these things are free. And it does, it does frustrate me when you see people in very cliquey ways on the internet, uh, talking about how free everything is for them, it, but I mean, isn't it, isn't just the honest reality reality of it still pretty cool? Like, isn't that attractive to people? But let, let's be honest with people about what it is that we're talking about and what it entails, that what we're trying to tell people is all of these things are worth it.
Credit card, annual fees, if you do the math, earning the points and using them to book a flight that you otherwise could never afford. That is amazing enough. We don't need to pretend like it's free or anything close to it. That's a really good one. That's a smart take, a smart pet peeve. This is a dumb one.
Okay. This, this isn't especially dumb one, Kyle, you're, but it's something that grinds me, man. You're really setting the bar high for yourself here. This grinds me the. The modern US airport as an NFL fashion show is horrendous. I. Hate how much NFL gear you see on men between the ages of 16 and 70 walking around US airports.
The NFL has a stranglehold on the closets of American men. You know, do you know how, you know, can tell if someone's a Chiefs or a Packers fan? It's 'cause they're wearing it on their stupid hat at the airport all the time. Those two fan bases are by far the worst in this. I think that the NFL fashion show needs to end.
I'm tired of it. That is not appropriate. Airport attire. You know, I just, I think everybody looks ridiculous and not everybody needs to know who your favorite NFL team is all the time. You wear more hockey gear than any human being I've ever met, so I don't like What leg do you have to stand on here? Is, is NHL gear acceptable in airports or is it just the volume of NFL gear?
It's just the vol. It's the volume of NFL gear I, I think. Like if, if it was, you know, every now and then you see someone with a jersey on, maybe on game day or whatever, but it's just all year round, no matter what. You run into 300 NFL jerseys on any given travel day, and it's like, why? Why is the NFL have such a stranglehold on airports, an airport attire?
I mean, it's like, for dudes my age, it's you either dressed like a golfer or you're just in an NFL jersey at the airport and there's just almost no in between. That's, that's fair. It's Gary from Chicago is like, you know what? Time to let the world know. Yeah. I'm a Bears fan. Yeah, right. We all know Gary. We all know.
Okay. Back to you. All right. Um, I've, I've done this one before, so I'm gonna keep it short. If you are watching something on your phone without headphones, or God forbid taking a FaceTime call anywhere in public, but especially in airports or. Definitely on an airplane, you should be put on a no-fly list immediately.
Like all flying rights revoked. You cannot get on an airplane again. We're trying to live in a society, people. And headphones cost nine ninety nine, and some airlines still give them out for free. There is no excuse for watching something. Definitely on full blast volume anywhere in the travel experience, but especially on a plane.
I like this. Uh, this was, uh, episode 21 with Jason Matheson when he came on and deployed this take too. This was my take on that show. Oh, that was your take. And he, he has a shirt. That's right. That backs me up on this. Backs you up. Which is the ultimate vote of confidence that this pet peeve is in the right.
I'm sorry I didn't, I didn't mean to miss take you there. Um, ski I, uh. I couldn't agree more. I think that it's totally egregious. John, John Shelbert, our chief flight deal analyst, said he was in the latam lounge in Miami and he said it was nice. Um, the food wasn't great and there was a lot of speakerphone, and I was like, I know exactly what that means.
I was, I felt like I was there with him. That was the perfect way to describe that lounge, but speakerphone. During the travel day. Unacceptable. In every single way. Never again. No fly list. Okay, I have, I have one more pet peeve and then we're gonna go on to hot takes. Um, I think. Airport concourses should just be treated like freeways.
I think the slow walkers, or the even worse, the stoppers in the middle of the airport concourse like this needs to be eradicated somehow because you can be a slow walker, but there has to be a place for that, and that is on the side, along with the people who are stopped and thinking and looking around and looking at their phones.
I honestly think we need to paint. Two lanes in the middle of every airport concourse. Think about we have all the carts, you know, milling about. Two people need to get places. Airports sometimes are high stakes environments. People need to move very quickly. Some people need to move slowly. There has to be rules and we need to institute them right now.
See, but this is why Larry needs this bears jersey, 'cause he's just like a running back with a head full of steam. The, the through line of most of your pet peeves here is basically just that travel is a contest and you're trying to win. No, it's that everyone else is too slow. All right. That's fair. I, I get that.
Keep up. I get that. I do, I do have one more pet peeve. Okay. And I don't know why, but whenever I hear this like the, it's like nails on a chalkboard to me. It's points and miles, not miles and points. I have no idea why, but every single, I mean, there are like some great podcasts that I listen to where every time, you know, the shorthand for us is always points and miles, and whenever I hear somebody say miles and points, I'm like, Ugh.
Oh, it just sounds wrong. Am I, is this a weird one? No, this is right. You're, you're spot on here. I've never thought about it, but every time you hear it, it's like, oh. That's a little, that's incorrect. You're wrong. Yeah. Move on. You're wrong. That's a really good one to end on. All right, we're gonna come back with hot takes, but first we're gonna take a quick break.
You know, it's a major travel pet peeve of mine, Kyle booking a hotel and then finding out the price dropped a week later. It's frankly more than that, it's just flat out the worst and that's why it's no hot take to admit that I'm obsessed with hotel slash Not only do they get you 20 to 40% off hotel stays right outta the gate.
But every booking is automatically tracked. So if the price drops, they let you know and you can rebook and save even more. It's like having price protection for your hotel stays. So for example, I was looking at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Boston and on other sites it came out to about $324 after taxes and fees.
But through hotel slash it was just 3 0 2. All in same hotel, same dates, lower price. Yeah. And it's easy for our listeners to get started too. Go to hotel slash.com. Use code Thrifty Traveler, and you'll unlock a 90 day trial membership. Plus that same code will get you $20 off your first prepaid booking hotel slash we're Thrifty Travelers slash their hotel bills.
Okay, we're back. We're done with our pet peeves. We're moving on. To hot takes. And because this episode was your idea, and I know you've just been, just squirming with hot takes, bubbling up inside of you. Kyle, please lead us off. What's your hot take to start squirming. That is not the right verb for, for what we're talking about here.
Anyway, moving on. Um, my first hot take is that. Doors in business class are overrated. Every single airline right now is rolling out some brand new business class product, and they're all suites with fully closing doors. But what they don't mention is that most of them, not all of them. Are four feet or shorter, which means that door isn't really doing a whole lot and for many airlines, adding that door comes at this at the expense of additional space.
And I would much rather have, you know, another four-ish inches of shoulder, room and room to stretch out in my seat than a door that I use. Two hours, three hours or four hours, whatever I think. It, it's kind of become a bandaid, a a way for airlines to say, look, we've got this brand new business class seat.
Without putting a whole lot of thought into actually making that seat significantly better. There are some that do it really well. Qatar Q Suites, the door doesn't come at the expense of additional privacy. Or of additional space. Um, a and a's the room which we've both flown is incredible, those are still the widest seats, not just for business costs, but in many cases wider than first class seats.
But for a lot of the other airlines, it's just kind of, eh, it doesn't, it doesn't make a big difference to me personally. Yeah, it doesn't really do it for me either. I, I mean. I've never actually flown one with, or besides the room. And even in the room, like the flight attendant can still look over the door.
Also, I, not to get too serious about it, but these doors do have like a little bit of a safety impact. The airlines have to apply for waivers through the FAA to have these doors because, you know, in the event of an emergency, it's not good to have a bunch of passengers in the front of the plane with closed doors mm-hmm.
On their seat. So, I mean. That's obviously not always totally my focus. My focus is more how comfortable can this be for me? But some of my favorite business class flights have come on seats without doors. I think it's just a, they can call it a suite then, right? Yeah. If there's a door that closes. So it's just become table stakes in the entire industry, and I don't think that's the right thing for airlines to focus on.
Yeah. Also, what, what are y'all doing in there? Why do you need a door weirdos? Let's keep this PG 13, huh? Okay. All right. My first hot take. Um. The fact that elite upgrades are getting harder and harder is a good thing. On airlines. I think that the bar to sit upfront, whether it's first class or like long haul business class is lower than ever.
And I think just, uh, it's easier to just buy the seat that you want because first class seats, especially domestically, are getting cheaper. Uh, the airlines have admitted as such, they've changed the way that they're selling these. Instead of holding those seats and just giving them to elites who paid for economy and just upgrading them because of their loyalty, uh, they're selling them at a lower price.
The airlines are making more money because of it, but also those seats are just cheaper. They're more accessible than ever. We've seen more domestic first class flight deals from thrift travel premium than we have in years. Like. To places like DC and Denver and uh, New York City, like these big major hubs where they're flying in a lot of first class seats.
Um, it's just getting easier to book the actual seat that you want. And I don't think that, uh, the Road Warriors should just get all the love all the time because they're super loyal and they get those, you know, special little upgrades. I think that it's better for everybody that the seats are just cheaper to start out with.
I agree with a caveat. I think this is. On it is both undeniable that this is happening and for the most part, good. That said, the entire value proposition around airline status for two plus decades has been built around complementary upgrades. And while I think it behooves everybody who is counting on those upgrades to realize that.
You know that's not really happening anymore. I think it is incumbent on airlines to actually do something to make their elite status programs better and more beneficial for those big spenders. If they aren't going to be doling out these upgrades anymore, they gotta make these things better. Otherwise, what are people chasing this for?
And eventually people are going to wise up to the fact that they're on this useless hamster wheel that isn't providing the value that they're spending to get anymore. That's my point. Exactly. I just don't think airline loyalty is worth it at all anymore as it currently, as it's currently constituted what, but you've had Delta status for years, so Yes.
The lowest level of Delta status that I earn essentially by accident every year. Just by living in Minneapolis. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Alright. Your turn. My, my second hot take is that staying in a bad Airbnb is a user error. If you end up in a bad Airbnb, 999 times out of a hundred, it's your fault because you didn't read the reviews.
Now I get that hotels are much simpler and you just don't have to worry about taking out the trash and cleaning and running the laundry and whatever things that people are so annoyed with, with Airbnb over the last five or so years. But all of these things are in reviews or in the listing itself. And if you wanna get a great deal on a $99 a night Airbnb, instead of $309 for a Hyatt Regency 10 blocks away in the middle of City Center, you have to be willing to put in a little bit of work and all of this stuff here is in front of you.
Are there gonna be situations where some Airbnb owner decides to become. Crappy and you know, spring this stuff on you for the first time. Sure, that might happen, but hundreds if not thousands of people have been through that exact same property that you're staying at and have experiences that can tell you, yes, this is great.
This is gonna be a great experience or no, steer clear. This is exactly what you don't want from Airbnb. It is all right in front of you. If you don't find it, that's on you. Yeah, I, I've actually been doing, over the weekend, I did a ton of VRBO and Airbnb research and it does, it takes like a lot of work and you gotta really dig in.
And, you know, sometimes you just gotta go find the vacation rental elsewhere too. But if you have like, just a bad, like per, like a individual host, I mean, you can usually find those things out. If anybody has ever stayed there before, don't be the first person to stay at an Airbnb unless it looks incredible.
Oh yeah. No. And, and that is part of doing the work is if there's not any reviews, it's like, well, I don't know if I'm really, uh, willing to roll the dice on this one. Yeah. Smart one. I like that. That's a good hot take. All right. You ready for this one? Yeah, I think this one's, this one's pretty hot. Yeah.
People are unfair to Chicago O'Hare. I still love that airport. I think it's better than a lot of the other positioning hubs in the us and I target O'Hare as a place to travel out of more often than not. You are also a Homer being from Chicago. Yeah. Yeah. And near that is your nearest airport from your home, right?
Yes, I'm from, from, okay. So I'm getting thumbs down from the producers. Slightly important caveat here. The producers are chewing me out out there. I could see them. Um, yeah. The important caveat is that I grew up. In northwest suburbs of Chicago. So I grew up like 20 minutes from O'Hare, and I've flown out of O'Hare probably more than any other airport except for now MSP.
But I just think it gets a bad rap because there are no credit card lounges and because the, it's not like a super reliable place. There's a lot of delays in cancellations. But it's an airport in the north. Like it's always gonna happen like that, but it's not because we have an airport here that doesn't melt down at any time.
One inch of snowfalls. I know, but we have an airline and a half here. Like it's not, it's not that complicated of an operation at MSP Chicago Hare has. Some of my favorite lounges that I've ever been the, my favorite Sky Club is at O'Hare, one of my favorite lounges ever. The United Polaris Lounge is there.
I just went to the lot Polish business class lounge in Terminal five. Beautiful space. I loved it there. Uh, I also love the AA flagship lounge there. I mean, if, if you're flying up front, Chicago O'Hare is an awesome experience. I still target it. I'd rather go to Chicago than to the East Coast. Um, same thing with.
Dallas. I even like Chicago a little bit better than Dallas. Even. I, uh, I, I will stand up for O'Hare. I know everybody hates it, but I like Chicago O'Hare. I'm gonna use your hot take to crap on O'Hare briefly. This is not a hot take. It's a right take. Uh, O'Hare is terrible. Um, it is overrated despite the fact that it's so huge.
It is an abomination of an international major international airport that if there are this many international airlines flying in and out, not to mention two major US carriers, it should be so much better than it is, and here are two reasons why. Uh, probably seven years ago I was flying out of O'Hare, I think in terminal too, and I looked up during a minor rainstorm to see water just flooding out of an, an overhead ceiling light, like a crappy Chicago version of Singapore Chei.
It was terrible and it just made me laugh so hard. But two more importantly, uh, in 20 early 2019, my wife and I were flying from Minneapolis to Chicago O'Hare to Madrid, and we had an like a 5:45 AM flight from Minneapolis to Chicago on American Airlines, and woke up at three o'clock in the morning to see your flight has been canceled due to weather in Chicago.
It's like, try to get it, try to figure out how we could get there. There were no other flights available. Basically everything inbound in Chi into Chicago that morning that would get us there early enough to take that flight to Madrid had been canceled. Nothing. So we had to rent a car and drive to Chicago in order to make our flights.
So, you know, six and a half, seven hours on the road. Pull up into O'Hare to drop off the car. It was the most beautiful February day I have ever seen in my life. There is no reason that every single flight, you know, basically until early afternoon had to be canceled that day. That's true. O'Hare things.
Well, hey, I like. Of course the delays in cancellations are gonna hurt this take a lot, but I still think that it gets a bad rap, especially compared to a lot of the airports in this country. Almost all of 'em are bad. Uh, and I think that Chicago gets a really, really bad rap because it's a massive hub for a ton of airlines and.
Crumbling infrastructure that's obviously affecting all, all airports, all over the country too. Your, your thing about you, you know, I, I understand that delays in cancellations has a, uh, well, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how is the play kind of vibe? I just think, I mean. Everybody has their story in the airport that they hate because they were delayed there.
I almost never have been delayed out in or outta Chicago. So I don't know. I haven't had that, like, that really bad day there that has caused me to have that take. But everyone has theirs. Uh, you're next. This is, this is a, a hot take. Okay. Fish is actually good on an airplane. Okay. I have, I can honestly say I have never regretted ordering fish on an airplane, and that includes economy, meals, on long haul, economy flights, and definitely business and first class.
The number of times I have gotten borderline inedible chicken that's too dry or. A steak that resembles a hockey puck is much higher than the amount of bad fish dishes that I've had. Now, if you don't like fish. Don't order fish on an airplane. That probably goes without saying, but if you're steering clear of fish on an airplane because you just feel like there's no way the airlines can do it, I actually think they, most airlines do fish better than most other dishes.
Yeah. Hey, I actually don't hate the steak. I think fish's pretty lean, like it's just like a nice thing to eat on the plane. I don't know. I've, I've had some good, uh, on my latest fin air flight, I had a, a really, really good, uh, perch on the plane. That was perch. Good perch. Um, yeah, I don't know. I don't hate this.
I think it's just, you know, the, the low end, I guess it's, it's a, you know, the margin for air is high. Yeah. Yeah. It depends on the airline. Yeah. Like, uh, the, the ceiling is high for fish. The, the floor is low. Uh, it's, you know, you're in, uh, 12 hours of hell if you have a bad fish dish on a long haul flight.
Yeah. Yeah. You're not wrong about that. I'll give you that one. That's okay. I like that take, that's pretty good. All right. You ready for another one you're gonna hate? Yeah. Give it to me. Clear is still good. Clear is clear is still good. It almost always saves me time and energy at the airport over pre-check.
Uh, I think it's, even if it's a 50 50 proposition between the pre-check line and the clear line, I'll still take the clear line just 'cause the ease of use. The new face scanners are actually helping things. Um, and then most importantly, I don't, I don't think people, they, they see the two lines stacked up against each other, but they don't.
Take into account the fact that at the end you get to cut the line. And I think that that has saved me a lot of time. Um, and you know, just having somebody just buzz you right through. Now, you still have to get your picture taken in most US airports by the TSA agent anyway, but it's still much faster.
You get to cut the line. It's uh. You know, it's covered by one of my credit cards. Um, if I was paying the full, what is it now? 2 92 0 9. 2 0 9 a year. A year instead of $78 for five years of pre-check. Yeah. If I was paying for it out of pocket, I wouldn't have this type, but because it's covered by a card that I'm already paying for and I know I'm al always gonna pay for it.
I think clear is still good and it's still very useful for me. I, I don't disagree. But again, that caveat kind of ruins the take. Like, well, if I was actually paying $209, it wouldn't be worth $209. I, but how many people are paying for Clear? Yeah. I, I, hopefully not that many. Hopefully nobody. Would you tell someone to pay $209 a year for Clear?
Absolutely. No. So I think that kind of says it all. I agree, and I think especially, I also don't think you would've had this take like a year ago before the new facial scanning technology rolled out to clear lanes. At most. Now I think now most US airports that have clear, have this, these new kiosks that work so much faster.
I think prior to that, it was such a crapshoot as to whether it would save you time or hurt you. Yeah. I think, uh, yeah, I, I still believe in the clear line. I. I mean my wife even still sometimes, she's like, do we have to do the clear line? I don't think it's gonna save me time. I'm like, yes, we're doing it.
It almost always does, especially with the, with Emory now too. It does save us a little bit of time. The ease of use, not having to pull your ID out most of the time is still great and free. Free miners in clear. So any children traveling with you who are under 18 can go with you for free. You don't even need to sign them up for clear.
So that's pretty big. Yep. I like it a lot. Uh, your turn. I. Air travel isn't bad. It's good. I think Americans love to complain about air travel and how stressful airports are and how tiny plane seats are. And how much it sucks to be delayed by four hours and how much, it's even worse to get a flight canceled and get stuck somewhere overnight.
And I agree with all of that, and I think especially airlines can do a much better job. But I do want everybody who's getting on a plane and at this point there are 2.8 to 3 million Americans doing this every single day should remind ourselves that this is a miracle. It is a miracle of engineering and science and innovation that we get to get into a metal tube and hurdle across the sky at 500 plus miles per hour and get somewhere in two or three hours that would take seven to 10 hours by.
Car, which is a far, far more dangerous form of transportation than getting in a plane. And even just what, 50 years ago, 60 years ago, whatever, some of these flights would've taken two or three stops in order to get there. And now we get to fly nonstop. And you know, you usually get at least a free drink and a snack depending on which airline you're flying.
And the seats are smaller and getting smaller all the time, but they're fine. This is two or three hours in a plane, you're gonna be okay and you're going somewhere cool. And in many cases, you're paying less for that than you would have decades ago. Yeah, that's really good perspective. I also, besides the just miracle of flight, that miracle.
Any single commercial flight operating is, is stunning. The amount of work that goes into putting one flight in the air is, is head spinning, and then you think about these massive hubs that do it every day. I just finished a TV series called Toronto Airport Uncovered. It's a National Geographic series. I highly recommend it.
It was, it's very cool. Uh, and it just shows you like every little consideration that goes into a plane, every little test, every little mechanical walkthrough. You know, if, if a window is just the tiniest bit off or if anything is wrong, the plane doesn't fly, and the fact that some of these. Planes, especially domestically in the US, are turning like 10 flights a day in some cases is, is stunning.
And flight is, uh, so impressive. And the fact that you get to go get to go where you wanna go for sometimes like 50 bucks is, is pretty amazing. So, good perspective. I like that take. Alright. I have one more hot take. I don't, I mean, this isn't that hot, it's just Correct. Uh, Southwest had the boarding process right?
And I think every airline needs to issue boarding numbers. And I think we, I want the stanchions back. I want the columns back. I want every airline to do this. I think what ha if you, if. You get your seat number and then you get a boarding number. And I know that's going to cause some confusion because reading is hard, but if you have a boarding number that gets rid of the whole Gate L thing, like people with their carry-on bag standing there waiting to get on the plane, like all eager.
And then you've got a line and you've got people. And if you're just saying, Hey, here's your exact number, and you just rank it, you're just. You're ranking people, which is always not a great look, always a tough look, but you're just ranking people based on their status, based on when they booked, based on their fair class, everything.
Everyone knows exactly where they stand. The boarding process goes much faster. You can just tell the people like, Hey, you're in boarding group. See you're not getting this Carry on on, come check it right now, or you're checking it as you get onto the plane. This saves everybody a ton of time. It saves everybody a headache.
You can give people different boarding times. Hey, guess what? You're a one. Here's your boarding time. Guess what? You're C 15. Please don't show up for another 10 minutes. I think this would, this would clarify the boarding process. I think the current boarding process in the us the fact that it takes 45 minutes to board an A three 20 in the United States just still drives me insane and I, you know, especially having gone to Japan and seeing them board in a three 50 in 11 minutes.
This may just be an Americans traveling problem, but I think Southwest had the boarding process right, and every airline should do this. I was, uh, I was ready to shout you down and I, I do think you made the case with one really important exception that I don't know that this works. I don't know that this Southwest assigned boarding process combined with Edna assigned seat, which it sounds like you're not, you're okay with that, but that you need both.
I only think that works. If you continue to give people free checked bags. 'cause I think where the problems really start to come up is when you have to stow carry-ons and because they are taking away, or they have taken away check bags, I think more people standing at those stanchions are gonna have carry-ons than ever, and that's just gonna cause more problems.
So, I don't know. I, I, I do think it, it is. Probably just an American traveler problem, primarily why, you know, Japan Airlines can board a an A three 50 or a triple seven in 10 minutes and it takes us 50 minutes to get onto a narrow body plane. Um, there is also an element of, you know, those airlines overseas, especially in Asia staff, the boarding process a lot better to help people get where they need to go because some people just need a little bit more help and some people can't even help themselves.
Yeah. Okay. Your hottest take. All right. I've been working on this one for a while and I hinted at it, uh, in, in last week's episode. I think that points and miles, not miles and points are the best and worst thing to happen to travel, and the best and worst thing to happen to me personally as a traveler.
And I think it's important to keep that in mind, and I'm thinking about it a lot more now because on the one hand, it's undeniable, like the places that I have been and the flights that I have been on and the hotels that I have stayed at. As a result of earning and redeeming points is incredible. These are things I never would have done in my life.
I cannot imagine that I will hit seven continents by the time I'm 40 without points and miles. It just wouldn't have happened. My wife and I wouldn't have been able to go scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef, if not for. Points. I mean, that is a trip that would've cost 10,000 plus dollars that we just never would've taken.
It would've been absolutely unattainable. Um, you know, flying EVA air business class for our honeymoon to Taipei and then down to Bali, and then doing it again five years later for our five year anniversary. Like, I will never take that for granted. That's so cool. But at the same time, I think too many people take this too far, and that includes me in that.
Ultimately the points that you have, and this overarching emphasis of, I'm gonna get max value and all I care about is cents per mile. It ends up becoming a box that really limits the way that you travel, that you know, you start your travel planning process, not by thinking about where do I want to go?
What do I want to see? What's going to be special, what's going to be the best experience, and more about what points do I have? What hotels can I stay at? Well, well, you know, then that means I can only stay in Johannesburg or Cape Town and not go out further into South Africa or wherever you are. There's some version of this where it really limits what you're able to do, and I think a lot of people take it even further than that, where they really do only think about, oh, well I'm not gonna take this trip because you know, it's only 1.40 cents per point, and I value chase points at 2.10 cents per point.
That's just a really. Travel is not about numbers, it's about experiences. And you should go do cool things that you otherwise couldn't afford. And yes, that includes that awesome business class redemption or that fancy Hilton resort that you can book with a free night certificate. But if that's all you care about, you're missing out on a lot.
Yeah, you, you kind of, I think you teased this last week when we were talking about our, the places that we would recommend that you travel in 2026 and you, your answer was somewhere where your points can't take you. So you've clearly been working on this, you've been mulling on this for a bit, but this is like, this is really smart points and miles are, uh, should be a tool and, and shouldn't be a box.
You know, make sure that that. These are working for you and you're not kind of trapped in, in your points and miles. And I understand like how you could get there. Sometimes you, you've earned a ton in a currency and then all of a sudden you're feeling like, man, I I really need these to work for something.
Exactly. And, um, you know, my recommendation, my advice would be it usually all comes out in the wash, right? Like, you're gonna find a use for those points eventually. But, um, this is really smart and kind of introspective. Take earlier where I talked about people wearing NFL jerseys, just kind of, there's always the next episode.
Gunner, we've come a long way in this episode. Um, that's a really good final hot take. Any more takes to get off. Anything else on your chest before we help a listener? Ask me again next week. I'll have something. We should do this once a month. Just a bonus episode. We'll start a, a Patreon where it's just us, uh, ranting for 30 minutes at a time.
Tune in. There are, there are travel podcasts out there where people just complain about traveling and, uh, they're also fun. Um, are they All right. Let's help Kirk, a listener who wrote in. Kirk says hello there. I've just started the Travel Points Club and I appreciate the website and podcasts. One of the things I'm curious about is tips for closing accounts.
As I look to cycle cards, maybe one or two a year for the enrollment benefits. He says, uh, you mentioned on a recent. Podcast. Each of you had a couple cards you were gonna close once the annual fee is due. A couple of questions on that process. How soon do you close a card if you're not charging to it?
For the regular bonuses? Should I wait until after the first year or the second annual fee? Uh, even before the second annual fee, I may look to move the Chase card to something else. He mentioned all of his cards. I won't read out his full list there. Um, but he's basically asking. What are the considerations that you're making before closing a card?
Anything jump out to you right away? Yeah. Uh, you know, there's a, there's a couple of things. Um, I think the first is you should go into it with, don't cancel the card unless if you absolutely have to, because canceling a card. Typically is going to actually hurt your credit score, especially if it's a card that you've had for a long time.
But regardless, it's much better to keep that credit line open rather than cancel it, which gives you a couple of different options. Um, you know, the best one is rather than canceling, downgrade to a no annual fee or a cheaper. Annual fee option, which is really important because A, it keeps that line of credit open.
It's not gonna reduce the amount of available credit that you have on your credit report, which is what ultimately ends up hurting you pretty bad. In some cases, if you do wind up canceling a card, um, it keeps. As in most situations, it's going to keep your points active and available because you know, if you're dealing with a bank like Chase or American Express or Capital One, if you cancel that card and you don't have another card that earns those points.
Capital One Venture Miles, uh, Amex membership, rewards, chase, ultimate rewards, whatever. Then the, you're done. All of the points that you have are gone and you know, if you downgraded instead to a cheaper, you know, from the Chase Sapphire Reserve to the Chase Sapphire Preferred, for example. If you've got a hundred thousand points, you've still got those a hundred thousand points and you don't have to worry about, oh, well I gotta transfer all of these points out so I don't lose them, or make a huge mistake and just lose them by canceling the card.
And then the last thing is to, to check with the bank, whichever it is to see. Is there a retention offer? Will the bank do something on a one-time basis to say, you know what? We value your loyalty if you keep your card open. And in some cases, if you keep your card open and spend X amount of dollars over the next three to six months, we'll give you 20,000 points or 40,000, 60,000.
I mean, we've heard of all. These for American Express with Chase. You know, chase has made headlines in the last couple of months for giving Chase Sapphire Reserve card holders $400 retention offers, which covers more than half of that card, $795 annual fee going forward. So checking all of your bases here I think is just a really important thing and, and going into it again with the mindset of, I'm not going to cancel this unless if I absolutely have to.
Right. Yeah. I, I think with, especially with the, uh, the co-branded airline cards in the us, I believe all three American, Delta United all have a no annual fee version of their co-branded cards. So instead of dumping that Delta credit card just downgraded to that, I think it's a blue delta, blue card. Um, and then you just keep that average age of credit open as long as you can.
Um, and it also helps you protect your points. Good answer, Kirk. I hope that that helped you. Good luck with some of your canceling or not canceling credit cards. If you'd like us to answer your questions on the podcast or if you have any feedback for us, hit us up at podcast@thriftytraveler.com. We might feature your question on next week's show.
And once again, if you want us to feature your video, introducing the podcast. Thrifty traveler.com/voicemail is where you should send us your video. Keep it short and sweet. Tell us who you are, where you're coming to us from. Give us a good travel brag, and always finish with welcome back to the Thrifty Traveler Podcast.
Okay. On the spot this week. Kyle, you're up. What do you got? Are you ready for this? I'm sure I, I'm sure I'm not. I've been working on this one for a while. Oh, man. All right, so you've got three maybe more titles here, one of which is a flight deal analyst, which means you are supposed to know airport codes like the back of your hand.
So now's the time when we figure out if you're rusty or if you know what you're doing. Okay. I'm gonna rattle off eight airport codes one by one. Eight for domestic, four international. Rapid fire as quick as you can, and I'm gonna cut you off. If you start to hem and haw, you don't gimme an answer and we're gonna move on to the next one.
Okay. You ready? Yeah, I think so. All right. I'll read off the three letter airport code Uhhuh, and you gimme an answer or we're moving on. I'll do my best. SRQ, Sarasota. That's right. SDF. Louisville. Louisville. Louisville. Louisville. Sorry, sorry. Louisville folks. FSD. Sioux Falls. That's right. ITO Hilo. You got it.
Hilo on the big island on the east side of the island. The far less popular of those two airports. I wouldn't have known that unless, uh, because Southwest just announced nonstop from Vegas to Hilo and I saw that the other day. So, all right. That refreshed it. International version. Okay. LGW. Gatwick. London Gatwick.
That's right. MCTM three CT two one. Is it Moscot? Musket, Oman? Is that how you pronounce it? Musket. Musket. I thought that that was way too Anglo. I went with Mu Scott. There's probably some of that. Yeah. Don't ask us how to pronounce. Oh, I know the codes. I dunno the, alright. H, K. T. Uh, Phuket, Pettet, Thailand.
Last one. ZQN oh oh. Oh, oh oh. It's in Mexico. Perfect game. Perfect game is riding on this. It's in Mexico. It's Z one 10 AJO two, seven for eight. That is Queenstown, New Zealand. Oh. Oh. Wrong hemisphere. Oh, I went seven for eight. I, I thought I, I could stump you on at least three or four of these. So seven for eight is pretty good.
Uh, I'm really, really gonna lose sleep about that eighth one. That was a fun on the spot. You're welcome. I like doing airport codes. It's fine. Have you ever done the sparkle quiz of airport codes? That's, those are fun. I love sparkle codes. No, I haven't, haven't done that one. Yeah, I do do the countries of the world quiz and then you just do it repeatedly and then you really know 197 countries.
I got it. Awesome. That was a really fun episode, Kyle. We're gonna have to ReRack this once we have a, a whole new batch of fresh, hot takes and pet peeves. Gimme two weeks. Thank you so much for listening to the show this week. Everybody. Uh, rate us five stars on your podcast platform of choice, like, and subscribe to the show on YouTube and send this episode to someone you know.
Who needs a vacation? If you have feedback for us, send me a note at podcast@thrifttraveler.com. We'd love to hear from you there. Kyle, can you tell us about the team? This episode was produced by your favorite host who does not want to see you in a Chicago Bears or Minnesota, Vikings jersey at the airport Gunner Olson.
It's produced and edited by Sylvia Thomas, and edited by Kyle Thomas. Our theme music is by Benjamin Teso. See you next week. See ya.