This week, we round up all the recent travel news that’s fit to podcast! That includes Kyle’s experience with CLEAR’s (honestly amazing) new e-gates, what United’s up to with its credit card moves, a shocking-but-welcome move to require headphones onboard, Southwest’s carry-on bag problems literally everyone should have seen coming, hot and cold news from Avios, and much more! Plus, we help a listener get a refund and Gunnar declares whether he’ll ever fly Southwest again.
This week, we round up all the recent travel news that’s fit to podcast! That includes Kyle’s experience with CLEAR’s (honestly amazing) new e-gates, what United’s up to with its credit card moves, a shocking-but-welcome move to require headphones onboard, Southwest’s carry-on bag problems literally everyone should have seen coming, hot and cold news from Avios, and much more! Plus, we help a listener get a refund and Gunnar declares whether he’ll ever fly Southwest again.
Thank you to our sponsor Bilt Rewards! Earn points on rent and make your entire neighborhood more rewarding with Bilt. Sign-up at joinbilt.com/thrifty.
00:00 - Kyle’s weekend in Phoenix & using CLEAR’s new e-gates
03:35 - Richard from Florida welcomes us back to the show!
04:00 - United’s credit card changes make them essential
09:55 - Hallelujah: United mandates headphones onboard
12:45 - Hot and Cold in the Avios program: A new transfer bonus & new rules
18:42 - Another way to earn JAL miles
23:45 - A word from our sponsor Bilt Rewards
24:55 - Southwest makes seating, boarding, and baggage adjustments
29:45 - A new Southwest lounge at AUS?
31:38 - Updates from the Middle East and Puerto Vallarta
38:05 - Combined Resy & Tock restaurant list turns heads
41:10 - A sweet new Capital One Shopping promo
43:25 - Can you get refunded for a seat upgrade bought with cash?
46:55 - On the Spot: Would Gunnar ever fly Southwest again?
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, that's Kyle. Today we've got a dozen topics to touch on from some United news, uh, some updates to some points, transfers the latest on some tricky travel situations around the world. And a section, I'm just gonna straight up call, not travel, uh, but first I wanted to get to two big topics right outta the gate, Kyle.
And, uh, the first one's a tough one. I wanna get right into it. How was your weekend?
I, you didn't prepare me for this? No. Good weekend. I spent the weekend down in Phoenix at our friend's Travel on Points meetup, um, hanging out with a lot of, uh, surprisingly, a lot of Thrifty Traveler podcast listeners. So I want to shout out, um, Maggie and Gus, Tony, Maxine, and Arthur.
A lovely couple from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, whose names I didn't catch, uh, who said that they listened to every new podcast every Thursday morning together. And last but not least, our guy Rustin from the hot air balloon in Mexico City, who was, who was there. And it was so funny. I actually heard his voice before I saw him.
I was like, why do I know that voice? And I turned around and there's Rustin. And then we were both schooled on the proper pronunciation of Teti Waan. Which none of us got. And Rustin said he was scared to read aloud, so we all got schooled a little bit.
Tet Walkon.
Tet Walkon.
Tet Walkon. Okay.
And I may be butchering it again.
Who knows?
Hey, but you're trying your best and if you were schooled, whoever did it, maybe perhaps just didn't school you enough. Um, I wanna ask you about your way down there because you got to try out the new Clear Plus eGates. Tell me about these eGates. What was the experience like?
I've been down on clear as everybody who's listened to this podcast and just me in my personal life knows.
I think it's just, it's been such a coin flip as to whether it saves you time or hurts you compared to just going through pre-check. And so now at, I think close to 40 US airports, they've rolled out these, this new eGate procedure, which you know, really allows you to skip the process of checking in with a concierge and maybe getting an.
Additional ID check, and then you have to be escorted to the front of the TSA pre-check line. They now just scan your boarding pass, point you to this electronic gate where you tap the screen, get a selfie, and then it opens and walks through without any human intervention. So I went through the Minneapolis airport on a very busy Friday morning.
I got through security in less than four minutes. Start to finish in Phoenix on the way back. Same eGate setup. It took about two. I basically didn't break stride. It was I if, if this continues, and I think if, and especially if. Clear has eGates at your home airport. This could make it much easier to justify the will it work, will it not?
That I think has really dogg clear for years.
That's awesome. So this is instead of that last checkpoint with the officer. Right.
Exactly.
Nice. So that should in theory help. The pre-check line go faster too, because you don't have the clear people cutting and then it should help the general line if you don't have pre-check as well.
Exactly, and so far as I know, they are planning at least eventually to roll these out at every single of the, you know, at this point, dozens of us airports that has clear service. So I, it, it is, I think finally a sign that clear is going to hopefully, knock on wood, live up to the promise of speeding up the, the security process for everyone.
That's great news. We've got a lot more news too. Today on the show we're talking about some really good united news, some bad news abroad, and some good and bad British Airways. News, all that and more.
Welcome back to the Thrifty Traveler from beautiful Hollywood, Florida. I.
All right. Welcoming us to the show this week was Richard Boone in Hollywood, Florida, who was wearing the hell out of that shirt. Kyle, he looked awesome. Thanks for sending us your video, Richard. Uh, let's get right into it. Um, United hit us with a handful of headlines lately. They have new bonus offers on their portfolio of Chase credit cards, but more importantly, some of the changes make having those cards a must if you want even a halfway decent deal flying United.
Can you tell me about these changes, Kyle?
United is, I think, to your point, making these credit cards a must, which I think shows their hand and shows the hand that airlines have been playing again and again for the last four or five years, which is that they don't really actually make money flying planes.
They make money on these credit cards. And so United is trying to give you a better carrot to lure you into the system and then also. Still hit you with a stick if you don't. So you know, one of the biggest most telling changes is that they are ramping up how many miles you earn when you book a united flight with your United credit card if you have one.
But at the same time, they're reducing how many miles you earn, booking and Flying United. If you don't have one of their co-branded Chase credit cards to the point where if you don't have a co-branded Chase credit card from United and you book a basic economy ticket, you're not gonna earn miles. Period.
That gets as high as 11 points per dollar if you have the top tier United Club card. And then it goes even higher still if you also have United status. But I think the message of this alone is very clear. If you don't have a United credit card. United really doesn't care about you. And so while I think that this makes logical sense, I think there is a risk that United could really alienate some people that otherwise might want to be loyal to that airline.
But this is really just the tip of the iceberg and some of the other changes that United is making effective in early April. So we're just about a month away from when these changes actually take place.
Yeah, I think the thing that. Is most intriguing to me and is the carrot that might just get me in the door here if, uh, the 5 24 rule allows if the 5 24 Gods shine down upon me.
Um, but it, it's this, this discount on award tickets. Um, it's a 10% automatic discount on all award tickets. From what we've seen though, it's some of these discounts are bigger than that. If. You know, in the front cabins even. Um, and then a 15% discount if you have a card and elite status. But yeah, like you said, they're, they're, you know.
Creating this, this incentive structure that makes a United Credit card more or less essential now and I, it's something I have to consider.
Yeah. There are two really importantly, distinct elements of these discounts that card holders can get. What's really new is that United is adding an automatic 10% discount if you have a united card and you're trying to redeem.
United Miles to fly United itself that goes as high as 15%. If you also have status, in addition to having one of those cards and then separately from that, they have had for years and have clearly expanded within the last year, but have now actually confirmed that. If you have one of these cards, you will get expanded access to the Cheapest Saver Award availability.
I mean, the most telling example of this is, you know, if you're not a United Card holder, you might see an 85 or even 90,000 point redemption flying from Newark. To San Francisco and United Polaris business class, the discounts that we've seen for cardholders brings that as low as 25 or 30,000 miles instead.
So the savings here can be absolutely enormous. And you know, it it, this is, I think. What gets back to what we talked about in, in our bonus episode last month about the Points party maybe ending. This is the game that airlines are now trying to play. They are trying to force you to engage with United to spend on a co-branded credit card to open a card if you don't already have one in order to get the best deals because they're reserving these absolute best deals.
Deals that years ago you could save a ton by not booking through United, but booking through. Turkish Airlines to fly, uh, you know, one way from anywhere in the US to Hawaii for 10,000 miles. Instead of, you know, the 20, 30, 40 or even 50,000 miles that United was charging for those exact same flights, or not paying, you know, 80 or 90,000 United Miles to fly Polaris business class from Chicago to London, but booking that for 60,000 Air Canada Aeroplan points instead, those days are over.
United is hoarding all of that too. Make its, uh, reward program more alluring to force you to spend more on your credit card in order to get that benefit and redeem those points for the best deal that you can now get. And in doing so, again, the entire motivation here is just how do we get more people to open our credit cards and spend more on them, because that is where airlines truly make their money.
Is it gonna work?
I, I, again, I, I think there is a risk that they go too far that said it's absolutely, absolutely gonna work. Yeah. There's no question, right? I mean, this is the name of the game. United is not the first airline to do something like this. They're just taking it to another extreme. So for what, three years now?
Delta has been offering it's. Sky miles, Amex card holders, a 15% discount. As a way to, to tell people if you want the best deal that we can offer you, whether that deal is really good or not, you need a Delta card. This is taking that and amping it up. And honestly it would surprise me if both Delta and American and other US carriers don't copy this or you know, take their own spin on it.
I think it's probably only a matter of time.
Yeah. Well said. Okay. Um. This is the United News. I'm actually dying to talk about Kyle. Uh, Ben Schlopi of one Mile at a Time. Dug up a new United rule in its contract of carriage that added the following as a reason someone may be removed from a flight for their behavior.
Quote, passengers who fail to use headphones while listening to audio or video content. Kyle, you used to, uh, cover the Capitol as a journalist back in your Associated Press days. How can we enshrine this in law? People listening to content on their phones without headphones can be removed from the plane.
Hallelujah.
I think everybody on the plane should be empowered like an air marshal to personally remove passengers. Now, I, you know what? I don't know. I, on the one hand. I think this is really just putting the onus on flight attendants to enforce this and you know, potentially get into verbal arguments with passengers about, sir, I've told you five times, put in some headphones or stop if you don't have them.
I think requiring airlines or incentivizing airlines or just encouraging airlines or airlines who are listening to this, just give out headphones for free. Onboard, make it easy. You know, your passengers are paying $89 at the least, and 1080 $9 at the most on these flights. I think a $4 pair of, uh, earbuds would go a long way for improving the situation for everyone.
But most importantly, I. I just feel like we spoke this into existence. This has come up twice now on the pod in our Hot Takes episode and in our, uh, amazingly fun interview with Jason Matheson over the summer and we have sounded off on this again and again and United. Thank you for listening.
Yeah.
Amazing rule. So smart. Uh, universal adoption, please. From all the airlines. This takes absolutely no work from you. My question is, what is the grace period for? You accidentally pulled up Instagram reels and it starts playing outta your phone, and then you gotta click, click, click, click, click, click your, your sound all the way down.
What's, is it like a four second grace period, a three second grace period? I mean, you gotta be quick on the trigger when your phone accidentally plays out loud, but everyone should get. You know?
Yeah.
A little grace there,
I think. I think the three or four.
Okay.
Second grace period is, is well within. We've all been there, right?
We've, we've all been there. The, the worst one though, is when you're trying to take a photo of something and you have either the shutter sound, but more importantly the flash on, and then all of a sudden you're like tipping it down and trying to muffle the sound. E everybody should. Get a little bit of grace, but the people who egregiously are listening to something on YouTube without headphones in during boarding or you know, God forbid during the actual flight.
No, we don't do that.
Nice job United. We're very proud of you. Everyone should adopt this rule. Okay. Um. Let's get into something hot and something cold this week, which is a look at the good and the bad in travel. Um, this week they're both gonna be in the Obvio program, so it's the mileage program shared by British Airways, air Lingus, Iberia, thin Air Qatar, and other airlines.
Uh, it's gonna be featured both in something hot and something cold. And we'll start as always, with something hot. A new transfer bonus, Kyle, 20% more British Airways obvious when you transfer from Chase. Ultimate Rewards. We love a good transfer bonus. Any, uh, redemptions jump out at you as, as some good ways to take advantage of this bonus?
This, we're supposed to keep these pods under an hour, and I don't want this to be four. There's just so many, I think in large part because. The Avios program is so massive. This transfer bonus from Chase technically only goes to British Airways, Iberia, and Air Lingus, because those are the transfer partners that Chase has.
But you could transfer to British Airways for a 20% bonus and then kick those avios over to Qatar Airways and fly. Guitar Q Suites for as low as 59,000 points total or transfer them to Fin Air Avios and book, you know, your favorite fin air business class seed from the US to Helsinki for that normally costs 62,500.
I don't, don't make me do the math on air about what that means with that 20% bonus, it's less. And that's a great deal. I mean, there are just so, so many great ways to put this bonus to use.
Definitely, uh, go check out our posts on our website about the bonus to get some other inspo on how to send your points further.
Um, but let's pivot to something cold because when those points do hit your BA account, they might not be as easy to move anymore, which, uh, is, are something cold for this week. It's, there are two new annoying restrictions you need to know about when transferring aos between accounts and I wanna back up last year, AO.
Updated its website to allow you to move avios between accounts. They brought that page into the 21st century beforehand. It was really annoying to use, if not frustratingly, to, to the point, to the point where maybe you don't even wanna transfer the points at all. Um, this. It, it's now a lot easier to get done because of the tech on this website.
But in the past two weeks, we noticed two new restrictions that I think are, are really just awful to use. One, there's new language on the site that says you have to have both accounts, the point the account you're transferring from, and two open for 30 days. In order to do transfers between them. We think this is brand new as of 2026.
There's still another section in their FAQs that says that you can move avios immediately after joining. So they're clearly, uh, cleaning some things up on the website there. But that 30 day rule is something you definitely need to be aware of. Sign up for those accounts yesterday if you can.
Yeah, that's the biggest takeaway here is even it, it's unclear right now, and we haven't.
Gotten any response from British Airways or you know, the crew that manages this broader AVIOS program as to whether this is actually in effect, that there's a 30 day requirement that your, all of your accounts, no matter what you're transferring to or from within this ecosystem of Avios, airlines have to be at least 30 days old.
Just sign up now for all of 'em. If you have a British Airways and a Qatar Airways account, but you don't have Liberia or Air Lingus or Fin Air, sign up for all three of 'em right now. Start that clock sooner rather than later. 'cause the worst thing would be for you to be in a situation where you see an amazing Fin Air deal.
You get it in your inbox from us here at Thrifty Traveler Premium, or you find it on your own. You transfer points from British Air, from Chase to British Airways for that 20% bonus, and then you try to kick them over to Fin Air. Book before somebody else can beat you to it, and you run into a roadblock like this.
So just start it right now.
Yeah, exactly. And so in addition to. Setting up accounts with all the programs. You have to set up a two factor authentication for all the programs on each and every one, and then you have to wait the 30 days. If you wanna transfer to Qatar, you now have to go through this new identity verification step.
Which one of our coworkers got stuck in a few days ago. You have to upload a photo of your ID for Qatar to approve your connections between accounts, a driver's license, an ID card, or a passport we'll do here. And it's only on Qatar, but it's really picky about the photo you upload too. Our, our coworker Katie had to upload a few in order for them to choose one that they actually liked, they thought was good enough, but uh, it's just another.
Annoying step, a step that while annoying, you should definitely take and you should definitely do it today if possible, link all these accounts, go through all these motions because if you're into points and miles, you're gonna use this program.
Yeah, I mean, just to step even further back, the entire, this entire AO ecosystem is unique in that.
It breaks the cardinal rule of airline miles, which once airline miles live in your account, once you have Delta sky miles or United miles or American miles, they're there forever until you use them. Or in some, in the cases of some airlines, they expire. You can't transfer them even to the closest of close partners.
You cannot turn delta sky miles into Virgin Atlantic miles or Air France miles and. British Airways and Iberia and Air Lingus and Qatar and Finn Air Break this rule. It is amazing. It is amazing that even if you have City Points and British Airways is not technically a city transfer partner, you can still turn City Points into British Airways avios by transferring them first to Qatar Airways, for example, and then over to British Airways.
Adding more hurdles is a bummer. But like you said, get the clock started now, do all of these things. So you're set up and in place to take advantage of this because it, it's only a matter of time before you need to take advantage of this feature.
Yeah, definitely. Okay, let's move on to, uh, two quick updates on some Japanese mileage programs.
Um, in this section we're gonna talk about Japan Airlines, mileage bank and a NA Mileage Club. So our first story. Japan Airlines has officially given Rove miles enough credibility that I'm gonna have to join. I think Kyle, uh, Rove Miles, if you're not familiar, is a startup pitching itself as a quote, universal airline mile that allows travelers to earn these miles and transfer them.
But up until now, their partner list has been. Pretty niche I would say. Uh, last week though, they added Japan Airlines mileage bank at a one-to-one transfer ratio, and most interestingly, tacked down a 50% transfer bonus to jaw through the end of this month. Kyle, is this enough for you to be in on Rove miles too?
I'm definitely getting there.
Yeah.
Rove Miles is, is a strange one. This, this program has made a lot of noise within the last six months or so. It's, it's, this is not a credit card program. It's really a shopping portal, um, that also applies to flights and hotels as well as on some online shopping. And, you know, really what they do is they've really made a name for themselves with.
Booking hotels through Rove and earning points that you can then transfer to a handful of airlines, including now Japan Airlines. And the way that they do that is they charge a margin. So the prices that you're gonna pay for a hotel are probably going to be north in some cases far north of what you would pay by booking that same stay directly through Hyatt or Hilton or wherever.
But in paying more. You're getting these miles that you can then transfer to Japan Airlines or Air India. The list goes on. So you're basically just paying more in order to buy miles. And then you have to do the math and figure out the amount that I'm paying in addition to what it would, what this same hotel would charge for booking direct.
Is it worth it? Is it worth that price point? Am I going to get that value or more when then I turn around, send these points to Japan Airlines and book a flight. The math is always gonna be different for everybody and it's going to differ from flight to flight, but it, this one is worth looking at, especially now with this addition.
Yeah, take a look, see if you think you can make it work for you. And if you wanna jump into Rove Miles, earn a bunch of miles really fast and take advantage of that 50% transfer bonus to Jaw, you should do it. Um, I wanna touch on this one, this story really quickly, Kyle. Uh. A NA transfers from American Express went offline last week and they stayed offline for about a week and we feared the worst.
Is this a new transfer ratio? Is this, uh, the end of the Amex to a NA transfer? Um. Tuesday morning, they went back online with apparently no changes, and maybe we got a little hopeful that, uh, instant transfers would be back. We haven't seen that so far. We're still in the process of testing it, but what, what first went through your mind when you saw that the transfers were down?
Here we go again.
Yeah.
Uh, and, and unfortunately the past has shown that this, this is a sign that bad changes are coming. So, you know, we're now a handful of months removed from Emirates changing its transfer ratios from all of the major banks, and then just flat out dropping Chase as a transfer partner period.
And what happened before that was that transfers from bro, both Chase and American Express to Emirates just went offline. For about a week, in some cases, a little bit longer. So as soon as this popped up, it's like, oh no, what's happening? We reached out to American Express directly and they assured us repeatedly that this was just routine online maintenance, which happens, but I still.
I can't help, I can't ignore the, the feeling in the pit of my stomach that there may be another shoe to drop, whether that happens in weeks or months, we don't know. And yeah, the, the ups, the potential upside was always that, you know, currently, first of all, Amex's a a's only transfer partner and a, a mileage club is an amazing program.
The hitch there is that it takes 48 hours and in some cases more to transfer points from American Express to a NA, which is a really rough window to deal with. If you see a great deal that you can book through a NA and then you have to wait 48 hours or more to actually get those points in your account.
So we hoped the potential upside was that. This would speed up that transfer process, that that was the purpose of this maintenance. Still a possibility, but right now it's, it's not looking like there's any real change here for the positive or for the negative, yet.
You can't blame us for dwelling on the negative.
You know, we, we just got out of a few bad relationships. We've been hurt before. Okay. So we bought, we brought some baggage into this bit of news and, uh. You know, I, I'm glad that everything stayed the same, but I'm sorry if we overreacted.
If you're 52 episodes into this show and you now are realizing that we're negative, that's on you.
Like, that's the, the listener has some responsibility here to decide who's, who's positive and who's negative and, and when to turn off.
All right. We've got more news. We've got Southwest, we've got some international news. We've got a segment called Not Travel. Uh, but first we're gonna take a quick break.
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All right, we're back. And I wanna start with some Southwest Airlines news. They rolled out their newest assigned seating policy last month and immediately got hit with all the same things that regular airlines face, uh, which is when you have a plane stuffed full of carry-on bags, the boarding process gets unruly.
Uh, a few weeks ago I touched on my experience flying the new Southwest and how. Just sadly regular. It was just everything that made Southwest unique is gone, and the boarding process is now awful, just like every other airline. Uh, in response to this Southwest Chief brand Officer Tony Roach, awesome name announced, the airline would be refining the boarding process to improve overhead bin availability near your seat.
While maintaining the fast boarding and deplaning process you expect from Southwest End quote. Um, they also said they're gonna install larger overhead bins and label the bins near extra legroom seats to reserve those areas for passengers. There, uh, two things that don't help other airlines, uh, but they're gonna give 'em a try anyway.
Kyle, is this gonna help?
Who could have seen this coming, right? You know, who, who could have been so wise and so brilliant to see that in removing free checked bags for the first time in the company's history, for millions of loyal customers, that would result in people bringing more carry-ons on board, because those are free and checked bags are not what a what a development.
You know,
please put me in one of these boardrooms. There are too many bags in the cabin. What should we do about it? Uh, I don't know. Let's make everyone gets one free bag. That's honestly, the solution is everybody gets one free bag. It can be either a carry-on or a check bag. That's my, if, if I'm travels are, if I'm king for a day.
That's my first rule. Everyone gets one free bag, the rest of 'em are 40. I don't care how much,
what country are we in, where you're king for a day and you also manage the airlines.
I don't wanna
say you, the king of Bruna.
I don't wanna say, um, yeah, I don't know. Bag fees are backwards. Uh, Southwest has. You know, regressed, uh, to the rest of the pack.
And, um, they're dealing with the same problems that every other airline deals with, and they're just shocked. They can't figure out why. Uh, this story annoys me.
I, I, yeah, I mean, I, I do think that these changes will help. It won't make the boarding process amazing. It won't. Make it as generally speaking, smooth though.
Definitely controversial as it was before with the open seating. First come, first served, you know, seat selection model. I think the problem here is that Southwest changed a lot for people who were conditioned to the Southwest way, and then that changed. Overnight, so no free bags anymore for, you know, the vast majority of passengers means more people are bringing carry-ons on board and stowing carry-ons for the first time potentially flying Southwest.
That is a recipe for a disaster. You need to condition people to these things. So is the, is the boarding process perfect on other carriers? It's certainly not, but at least people flying. Delta and American and United are conditioned to, I gotta keep walking in order to put my carry on up. Um, and, and, you know, adding things like basic economy where you don't get to pick a seat for families who are, you know, expecting to be able to get on board and sit.
Next to each other and get a flight. Attendants help to move people around if they can't get seated next to each other, based upon what's available on board. Now, you know, Southwest flight attendants are required to be militant about not allowing people to move throughout the cabin. Once they're seated, it's again, who could have seen this coming?
The answer is everybody with a brain and you know, some common sense and some logic because it's just there's so many changes that are difficult for passengers to process here.
The seating thing was interesting. On my two Southwest flights, there were no less than six announcements of flight attendants reminding people that they cannot move seats.
They have to be in their exact assigned seats 'cause of weight and balance issues. Um. Constant, constant reminders for people to stay in their seats. And that includes families. We've seen some reports of families who are getting stuck apart and are not allowed to switch or change or do anything. Um, so
in the, in the old ways, I've been on Southwest flights where.
Flight attendants have come overhead and said, I've got a family of three. They need a spot to sit together who, who will volunteer? And then they come back overhead a couple of minutes later when nobody raises their hand and says, we are not backing up this plane until we find seats together. Somebody needs to, to help us out here.
And it immediately solves the problem. Yeah, it. For, for all of the problems that Southwest had and all some of the changes that it no doubt needed to make, it's tough to look at what's happening right now and not come to the conclusion that they went too far too fast.
Yeah. Um. I wanna quickly touch on a little bit, uh, more Southwest News.
Uh, according to a report from Gary left, from View from the Wing, Southwest might be trying to build a lounge at Austin International Airport in Texas. Uh, he pointed to some documents that show the airline is looking to lease a 40,000 square foot space as a crew lounge, which he points out in his post would be ridiculously big for an area of that size.
Um, and he came to the conclusion that they're actually gonna put, uh, a customer lounge there. Um, we have not been able to confirm this news ourselves. I can't dig up this document. I've tried, uh, we've seen Southwest get into the lounge game recently with their, uh, newest, their first lounge is coming to Honolulu and they're also rumored to be in for a space at Dallas.
Love. So this does seem consistent with what they're doing. Strategy wise, what do you think about the Southwest Lounge at Austin?
You know, this is still very up in the air, but it makes a whole lot of sense. A 40,000 square foot, uh, area for crew doesn't make sense really. Anywhere in the country for any airline, let alone Austin for Southwest.
I think it also makes sense because we're going to continue to see Austin become more and more competitive. Um, American Airlines has really shrunk there over the last two years or so. Delta is growing incredibly fast. They're trying to. If it's not a hub there, I think that's clearly in their long-term plans.
You know, Delta itself is also planning to build lounges there, and I think as Southwest is trying to compete, it knows clearly it needs to be a more quote unquote premium airline to do that. And nothing says premium like an airport lounge or your own airline lounge. So I think this makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, definitely. Okay, let's move on to a section I'm calling things were unqualified. To talk about Kyle, um,
the whole podcast. We're moving on to the whole podcast.
The rest of the show. There are seismic world events happening right now. Of course, uh, they impact the travel world. I'm hard pressed to find anyone less qualified to talk about those events than I am, but, uh, at least you're an adult.
So I think between the two of us, we could maybe. Get through this. Um, first, let's touch on the war in Iran that's affected traveling around the Gulf region. Uh, last weekend and into this week, thousands of flights were canceled throughout the Gulf. Uh, one of the busiest air travel regions on Earth Middle East airspace was closed much of the weekend.
And into this week, Qatar, Emirates and Etti had all suspended operations at various points. Um, both Dubai and Abu Dhabi international airports suffered damage from strikes in the conflict. Um, we saw a lot of. Reports of flights heading to that region, turning around over Europe and heading back to the US Some extremely long flights to nowhere.
Uh, lots of Emirates, a three 80 parked throughout North America, um, waiting for that airspace to return. And then, you know, a lot of US airlines. With service to that area have canceled flights too. Uh, and flights to places like Tel Aviv and Bahrain were also canceled this week. Um, this news is happening fast.
Things have probably changed by the time you hear this, but it's safe to say your flights to and through the Middle East are likely to get disrupted at this point, just from a traveler's standpoint, anything that you recommend that people can or should do.
Can we just have some unprecedented times?
Yeah.
For a week as a treat.
Yeah.
I'm, I'm, I'm over Unprecedented times. Some unprecedented times would be nice.
Just a little bit of unprecedented times, please. That's all we're asking. That's all Kyle needs.
Yeah. Um,
I'm
falling apart over here.
Any advice for travelers who, uh, are dealing with unprecedented?
Once again.
Oh, this is a big one. And, and I think the, the, the wrinkle here, why this one is, is so big beyond. Global warfare, which that's the elephant in the room. What, what travelers are dealing with kind of pales in comparison to that. So let's some perspective is probably a good thing. The other reason why this is so big is that this isn't just about people who are flying from the US to Dubai or within the Middle East.
It's that these hubs in this part of the world. Are among, if not the most important hubs for connections. You know, especially for people flying from west to east, from the United States to India, for example. So much of that traffic connects through Dubai or Doha, and to a lesser extent, Abu Dhabi and other hubs in that area.
So this is, this is really big. It, it's, it still feels really early despite the fact that we're now almost a week into this. I think patience is gonna be a big one. You know, if you're not set to fly. Within the next couple of days as you're listening to this, being okay with letting this play out and seeing how air service to and from these major hubs is eventually restored, before you make a knee jerk reaction, like we talked about last week, about, you know, the situation in Port Vallarta and not.
Canceling flights throughout Mexico. I think you really do have to have that mindset and also, again, really bone up on your travel insurance policies, whether that comes from your credit card or a standalone policy you purchased with the knowledge going into that, that acts of war, generally speaking.
Are excluded from travel insurance coverage. So it may be time to get pretty creative, but that also means that this is not the good time to cancel a trip in April or May, just because things feel really rough right now. I think now is just a time to step back and let this play out a little bit.
Yeah, sure.
If you're, if your trip is next week, maybe take the waiver.
Yeah.
Uh, if your trip is in April or may, just hang on, see what happens. Um, but yeah, obviously, uh. Stay, stay up on whatever cancellation policy you have. It's important to have these things written down. If you booked it off a Thrifty Traveler premium deal, it's written right there in the deal, so you can have access to all that information there.
Um, let's turn to an update from last week. You mentioned it. Uh, it appears that some air service to Port of Ata Mexico has resumed. This week, Kyle, uh, Delta, United, Alaska, Southwest Air Canada and Porter have all resumed at least some service. Into Port of Vallarta, including, uh, I just saw San or, uh, Southwest is launching a brand new flight from San Diego to Port of Vallarta that launches this week.
Good timing there. Um, interestingly, Delta started reducing some of its upcoming Port of Vallarta service in April from Seattle and Salt Lake, according to the latest Syria scheduling filings from over the weekend. Um, I wonder if some other carriers will follow or wait and see. Those are. Notably seasonal flights.
So those are not kinda year round flights. I think they're maybe just canceling the very end of the season given what's happened. Makes a lot of sense. Um, like I mentioned for, uh, the war in the Gulf, Delta and some other airlines have put travel waivers in place. Uh, kind of longer standing travel waivers that allow people to rebook or change their flights with no change fee and no fair difference to, uh, as a general rule, Kyle, do you think people should take those waivers?
Maybe, yeah. How's that for a general role in being super, super helpful and being the, the so-called adult in the room maybe? You know, I think we're now, we're now almost two weeks into letting this play out and I think. It's progressing the way we kind of expected it would. Things are more or less coming back to normal, but that doesn't mean everybody should or will feel normal about a trip down to Port of Vallarta in the weeks or months ahead.
So I think if you're here right now and you're looking at your trip next week or in mid-March or whenever, and you're feeling really uncomfortable about it, you're probably not gonna have a great time in Puerto Vallarta. Whether that's right or wrong. I, it's not up to me to tell you what you should be comfortable with, how you should feel.
If you're gonna have a bad time, you should really think about how to unwind that trip and do something different and pivot in a way that's not going to leave you holding the bag for the trip that you initially booked as long as 11 months ago. So I think looking at this, this would be one of many important elements to try to pivot and do something that's not gonna cost you a small fortune.
So these waivers could really come in handy.
Okay, well that's a natural transition from global unrest to credit card dining credits. Kyle, let's move on to a section. You
really nailed it
to a section I'm calling, not travel. Uh, in last Friday's extra mile newsletter, you wrote a section that was really well received.
Uh, I got some replies to it, uh, about the new relationship between resi and talk. Um, I heard from a few readers, especially in rural areas. Uh, who were given a big hallelujah to this one can calling this massive news that they were actually gonna be able to maybe use their dining credits on credit cards like the Amex Platinum.
Can you tell me about what the res and talk relationship means?
It, it means that the portfolio of restaurants that you can use these credits on the Amex Platinum card of a hundred dollars every quarter, $50 twice a year on the Amex Gold. 10 or $20 a month, which is just the most annoying thing in the world on, uh, the Delta Platinum and Reserve cards.
There's gonna be a much longer list. Uh, it's gonna be north of, I think, 25,000 once this relationship finally, you know. Is formalized and comes together and goes live sometime this summer, which, you know, for, for us here in Minneapolis and especially even larger cities like LA and Chicago and New York, the list of resi participating restaurants is already quite long.
I have used these credits on accident many times. Mm-hmm. Because I just wind up somewhere for dinner in a cocktail or whatever and go back home and check my statement a few days later. It's like, oh. Guess that one's on Resi didn't even know. But for people in other smaller cities across the country, talk has a much bigger presence than Resi does.
These are just two what had been competing reservation platforms by becoming one. It just expands the list of where you can dine with these credits, which is gonna be a win for everybody. And I think maybe most importantly. Again, this brings it to when this goes live, sometime this summer, more than 25,000 participating restaurants with Chase, which launched it, launched its own similar dining program with credits on the Chase Sapphire Reserve card last summer.
That's still shy of 400 total restaurants, so 400 or less as compared to 25,000. It just shows how much thought and work, um, and time American Express has put into these things that doesn't necessarily make these kinds of credits not annoying. They still definitely are, especially on those sky miles cards with as little as $10 a month.
But at least the scope of where you can put those to use is so, so much larger.
Yeah. A woman reached out from rural Michigan. She said that there were zero resi restaurants within two or three hours of where she lived. And when this comes online, she thinks that it's gonna be at least three that are gonna be like in her town.
So pretty amazing. Uh, that would be a huge game changer. And another reason why someone would wanna pick up the card. Smart move from Amex for sure. Uh, let's move on to another not travel segment. Um, there's a new Capital One shopping promo out right now that gives you an $80 bonus when signing up through a friend's referral link and you don't even have to make a purchase.
Um, in order to get the bonus, you need to create an account and add the Capital One shopping browser extension within. Seven days of creating the account. And you have to keep it there for 90 days. No purchase required, either. That's all you need for the bonus. And you can earn up to $1,900 in referrals if you have a lot of friends.
Sick brag.
Just spam in the group chat.
Yeah. Uh, so Kyle is $80 worth having to show your dad how to install a browser extension.
Depends on the dad. This is, this is really fun and smart, and maybe most importantly, this, this promo has actually been out for a while. It started sometime late last year, but typically for these Capital One Shopping portal promos, you can earn up to $500 in referrals.
And sometime in the course of the last few weeks, capital One quietly changed that from maxing out at 500 to almost $2,000, which if you have enough people that you can refer for this. And it takes a while to wait because there's the 90 day window after installing this browser on a browser that has never had it before, and there's all the gotcha texts in there, but it's pretty easy to navigate.
Then that $80 per person bonus kicks back to you, which you can then turn around and not turn into miles with Capital One, but redeem for gift cards at a couple of dozen different retailers. On everything from Marriott. And hotels.com to Lowe's if you have a big home renovation project in mind for the summer.
So this is a, a good way to take the mindset that we talk about, about maximizing your purchases and using them for miles and broaden it a little bit. 'cause you know, my wife and I have a trip coming up to, um, Peru. Potentially this summer to go see Machu Picchu for the first time. And I'm looking at, you know, as much as $3,800 in Marriott that we could use to cover those hotels and probably future trips as well.
Mm-hmm.
That's awesome. This is a no-brainer. You should go ahead and try and take advantage if you've. Got friends. Um, I've heard that. That's so fun. When you have friends,
let us know what that's like. podcast@thriftytraveler.com. Gunner and I just have each other here.
Yeah, we just have, I just have coworkers.
Um, alright. Should we help a listener? Speaking of friends,
let's, well, I don't know if that listener would agree with that categorization, but Sure.
Brenda wrote in, so she's a friend. Congrats, Brenda. Or sorry, I don't know. Uh, first before we get to Brenda's question, if you wanna submit your welcome back video, upload it to thrifty traveler.com/voicemail.
These have been so great. I can't wait to see what you all come up with next. Um, okay. Brenda asks. I booked an AA flight on points. I paid cash to upgrade my seat. If I cancel that flight, I know I'll get my points back. But what about the cash for the seat upgrade? I really only want a flight credit for future travel.
Or do I lose that money? Uh, any tips are appreciated. Okay, Kyle, do you know the answer here? I was stumped by this one, but I did a little digging.
In, in practice? Probably, uh, on paper. No airlines are not required to refund this, but they generally will with the important caveat being you just, you have to ask and you have to ask nicely.
I think this is generally speaking something that airlines will do because they want. To do right by you and make sure that you come back and saying that, oh, well, we'll give you your points back, but that $400 you paid to upgrade to first class, sorry, that's non-refundable. That's just a really poor experience.
So I think generally speaking, they will. I think really interestingly, the, the Biden administration before they left office, among the many different changes that they made in kind of beefing up regulatory requirements to help out. Consumers, they, they made a change that required these kinds of ancillary fees, be it for wifi, and it winds up being, um, you know, out of commission.
The entire flight or seat selection required those to be refunded. But that only kicks in my understanding when the airline itself cancels the flight because. People had been in that situation where the airline canceled the flight, they would get a refund for the flight itself, but not for those kinds of upgrade fees.
But at the very least, that gives you a little bit more ammo if, if American Airlines or whatever airline you're dealing with ends up fighting you a little bit on this.
Yeah, that's exactly right. Um. Yeah, according to a's terms and conditions, there are, there's no promise of an automatic refund. 'cause that is, that is an ancillary purchase.
Um, it is not considered airfare. But, uh, lots of anecdotes on a flyer talk of travelers, uh, saying they got refunds when they submitted a refund request, which is an actual website, uh, on every airline. It's a page. You can just go Google American Airlines refund request. You fill out a little form, explain what's going on, and most people say that they got their money back even if it took a little while.
So definitely worth asking
you. You just always have to ask with this stuff and ask nicely. Mm-hmm. Kindness is always a superpower in these situations, especially when you're in a situation where the airline may not be legally required to do something. But the w the absolute worst that can happen, no matter your scenario is that the airline says no.
Then you try again with a different agent. Then maybe you try one more time and you keep asking nicely. But yeah, you just, you gotta ask for this stuff and you have to take the responsibility for it when it's not something that the airline is required to do,
for
sure.
Kindness and persistence. Uh, if you'd like us to answer your question on the podcast or view any feedback, hit us up at podcast@thriftytraveler.com.
We might feature your question on next week's show to close the show. As always, we're going on the spot and it's Kyle's turn to put me on the spot. What do you have?
You've had some time to digest your experience flying Southwest a few weeks ago. You also now see that Southwest is making some changes to maybe improve, maybe not the boarding process and, and some of the flying experience.
Would you fly Southwest again and in which situations would you or wouldn't you?
I would fly Southwest again, uh, for the right price, on the right routing, uh, to get to where I need to go. Um, I am first and foremost a price sensitive flyer, so, uh, if they give me the right fare, uh, to get, get me to where I need to go, I would definitely fly Southwest again.
Um. You know, I think a lot of people are actually gonna like these changes you and I hate them. Uh, I love the old Southwest because of the free bags and just the way that they did things differently. Um, and, you know. Now it just feels, you know, people always talk about the US flying experiences, feeling like cattle and I just felt like cattle on Southwest instead of, you know, someone who is getting perks.
You know, when I used to fly Southwest, I was like, man, I get two free check bags today. And you know, maybe, uh, you, you. It's, it's easy to upgrade your boarding number, or at least you know exactly where you stand in the boarding process. Uh, and this time it was gate lice and cattle and too many carry-on bags and just all the same afflictions that every other airline deals with.
And, but yes, I would, I would fly Southwest again for the right price, uh, especially if it was convenient. And you know, for this one, I, I did it just because they're one of the only airlines that would fly me to Montrose for cheap. So I, I took 'em up on it. And I was also curious, and I work here, so I have to do some digging.
You know, I can't just fly Delta Comfort Plus everywhere
you're, if you submit an invoice for that flight, you will be declined. Just to set expectations.
I know I used a flight credit. I paid, I paid, uh, old gunner paid for that one. I didn't have to pay anything. It
was old gunner's choice. Yeah, he was much wiser.
2023 gunner. What an idiot. That's all. All right. Thank you so much for listening to the Th Traveler Podcast. Rate us five stars on your platform of choice and like its subscribed to the show. On YouTube also, the, uh, the review challenge roast me in the reviews still stands. Okay, we're, we're still looking for someone who can roast me the worst.
I haven't, I haven't quite shed a tear yet. So, let's see. Do your worst.
None of you have been nearly mean enough.
Five star review, but you can be as mean as you want in the comment. Um, send this episode to someone that you know who needs a vacation, and if you have feedback for us. Send me a note of podcast@thriftytraveler.com.
We read everything that comes through there, and we'd love to hear from you. Kyle, tell us about the team.
This episode was produced by your favorite host who is just begging for a roasting gunner Olson. It was, uh, produced and edited by Sylvia Thomas, and edited by Kyle Thomas. Our theme music is by Benjamin Teso.
See you next week.
See ya.