If you want to take your travels to the next level (and who doesn’t?), it’s not about what you do before booking a flight – it’s what you do after that matters most. So Gunnar and Kyle are diving in on this week’s pod, spelling out the five crucial steps they take after booking each and every flight to ensure they get the best deal and set themselves up for success. Plus, the guys got a little “booksy,” discuss a new airline partnership that’s piqued their interest, and help out a traveler planning a trip to Japan.
If you want to take your travels to the next level (and who doesn’t?), it’s not about what you do before booking a flight – it’s what you do after that matters most. So Gunnar and Kyle are diving in on this week’s pod, spelling out the five crucial steps they take after booking each and every flight to ensure they get the best deal and set themselves up for success. Plus, the guys got a little “booksy,” discuss a new airline partnership that’s piqued their interest, and help out a traveler planning a trip to Japan.
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 - Gunnar & Kyle’s recent (fancy) lie-flat bookings
02:39 - Roger introduces the show from Komodo, Indonesia!
03:35 - Something Hot: The new American & Aer Lingus partnership
08:00 - Something Hotter: New & improved travel credit card tracking
11:15 - A word from our sponsor: Bilt Rewards
12:30 - The 5 Things We Do After Booking a Flight
12:35 - 1st: Forward your trip to TripIt – an essential travel tool
16:05 - 2nd: Clean-up & manage your booking
19:15 - 3rd: Set up Google Flights price alerts and award tracking
28:10 - 4th: A quick look at major logistics (using the 24-hour rule!)
31:00 - 5th: Asking your wife, requesting PTO and other “life stuff”
37:00 - Listener Question: A mea culpa & how to approach booking a Japan trip
43:40 - On the Spot: Kyle’s Cathay Pacific First Class Lounge gameplan
Produced and edited by Sylvia Thomas
Video editing by Kyle Thomas
Show music: “All That” by Benjamin Tissot
Yo, welcome to the show. I am Gunnar here with Kyle, as always. Today on the show, we're discussing what I think is maybe the most underrated part about travel booking, and that is those first 10 minutes after you book a flight. I think I'd argue that I've saved more money on travel, taking these few easy steps than anywhere else in the process, and I've also lost out on big savings by getting really lazy about this over time.
How many beers have you cracked in the 10 minutes after booking a flight? The beers get cracked after this checklist. Okay, this is serious. Stuff right here. This is, this is where you, you save money on travel for real. Okay. To find something out to start the show. We both got a little bit booksy recently.
What did you book lately? Tell me. Well, I've talked before about how I have, my wife and I have a one-way flight to Hong Kong in April, and as the weeks wore on, it went from like, I am 90% sure this will work 80. It got down to about 50. It felt like a coin flip, whether we were gonna be able to find a way home that was gonna make this trip work or not.
And then, lo and behold, another premium deal, uh, in this case for Cafe Pacific. First class flying from Hong Kong back to LA and the departure dates just worked out perfect. So yeah, we booked, uh, two seats in Cafe Pacific First class, uh, assigned our seats. It'll be my first time Flying Cafe's first class.
It'll be my wife's first time flying cafe. Period. Um, really excited. I'm, I'm mostly excited that we made this work because we're gonna turn this into, you know, exploring Hong Kong for the first time. Going to Thailand for a weekend change. But I mean, to fly Cafe Pacific First Class Home makes it so much cooler, right?
Oh, I'm super jealous. That looks like such a fun product. And you get to go to my favorite lounge in the world, the Cafe Pacific First Class Lounge of the Pier. Um, I got Booksy. I booked, uh, the new Hawaiian First Class Suites, the La Hoku Suites from Seattle to Honolulu, and then I booked it actually all the way to Maui, which is where we're going in March.
We had American Airlines Premium Economy booked and with like. I think it was 32,000 Alaska miles each way. And so for 40,000 to go into business class, pretty amazing. Um, so we're gonna do that. That'll be a lot of fun. Uh, I think my wife was actually seriously impressed after I booked this fight. So write it down.
Yeah, put it on. Print out that confirmation code and put it on the fridge. Yep. There's a plaque hanging in my office already. Alright. Today on the show, we're going through our checklist of all the things you should be doing right after you book a flight to level up your travels. Plus we're doing something hot and something hot or this week, all that and more.
This is Roger from Naperville, Illinois, and I'm coming to you from Komodo in Indonesia, so I'm really enjoying living. The points and miles lifestyle. Welcome back to the Thrifty Traveler Podcast.
All right. Welcoming us back to the show today was Roger from Naperville, Illinois, who was flexing really hard from his upgraded suite in Indonesia. We edited his video down 'cause he had a lot to brag about Kyle and he intentionally tried to trigger you in the video by calling it miles and Points. I'll be honest.
I completely glazed over that because he is not just in Indonesia, he's in Komodo, Indonesia. That is like the sickest brag of all time. Uh, the fact that you took time outta your trip to do this for us Rogers. So cool. You have set a new bar for these intro videos. Thank you so much. Um, alright, let's look at something hot and something cold.
I'll look at the good and the bad in travel from the past week. Last week though, we did something cold and something colder, so I'm turning it a little more positive this week. You all right with that? This is new territory for me, but let's try it. All right. We'll start today with something hot, a new partnership between American Airlines and Lingus.
And my question to you is, Kyle, wait. Weren't these two already a thing? Kind of, this is a weird one. So, uh, American is part of the One World Alliance. Part of the One World Alliance is basically all of the airlines that use Avios, British Airways, Finnair, Iberia, Qatar, but not really. Air Lingus, the the Irish carrier.
So what happened this past week is they actually kind of formalized their own partnership, which opened the door for the first time to be able to use. Uh, American Advantage Miles to book an Air Lingus flight or vice versa, use Air Lingus Avios, which are transferable from basically all of the major credit card points to fly American Airlines instead.
And, you know, I'll be honest, I wasn't. I wasn't real high on this when, when this news hit our inbox last week, but as, as you and the team started digging into this, I think you made the case that this is a, this is a big one. Yeah. I think the, the real value that we've seen so far is, so first of all, the Lingus business class award rates when you book with AA miles are 57,500 miles.
It's kind of their standard partner redemption to Europe. Uh, five. 60 in taxes and fees. Pretty amazing. Um, that's for one way. Business class flights to Europe booked with AA miles. But the best part is it, it includes connections to the American hubs, um, in the us. So now you can book, you know, if you're in, uh, Sioux Falls.
You can book a Sioux Falls to Chicago to Dublin Fair, all for the same one with American Airlines Miles, which really opens up the map for a lot of travelers who are based here in the US and on the other side of the pond. You can book. Connections on Air Lingus beyond Dublin too, which is making this really interesting, I mean, I was looking at Rome flights for my, my Italy.
I still don't have my, uh, my outbound flight to Italy booked. And I was looking at this through Rome, and if once hopefully this, uh, award space opens up, this is a really good option for me too. So is this actually. Awesome. Or do I just have a lot of a eight miles, 4K, no less dose? You know, we're bringing it back.
Yeah, it, I think it is both, but I do think the value here is just how much this opens up the map on both sides of the pond, right? Because. W prior to this, you know, you would, you would really have to, if you lived in a place like Sioux Falls or Fargo fly on your own dime to one of Air Lingus, um, you know, outposts here in the United States, and then book that flight.
So you, you're booking two different flights or you're booking something, using Air Lingus or British Airways, avios. But as you start adding in connections, the cost goes up because. They tally up the cost of those segments separately. So you're paying for, you know, Minneapolis to Dublin and then paying for Dublin to Rome.
American Airlines award chart, how they set these prices just looks at the region. So it's just a flight from United States to Europe, whether that is Minneapolis to Dublin, nonstop. Whether that is. Sioux Falls to Chicago to Dublin with one connection, or from Sioux Falls to Dublin to Rome. It's all the exact same thing.
It's all 57,500 advantage miles and either $5 and 60 cents or you know, like $20 or less, at least for a one way from the US to Europe. So there are a lot of savings here for people who have American miles. And want to get to Europe. And I think maybe the most important underlying part of this is that, you know, as we talked about on our, on our episode months ago now, about the easiest business class cabins book, air Lingus is probably number one on the list.
There are is a solid amount of award availability as long as you're booking, you know, like three-ish months in advance, sometimes even less. More so than any other airline. So having a great award rate that you can take advantage from basically any airport in the country with American airline service to get over to Europe in business class, that's a win-win, win.
Yeah. We really, really love this. I hope everyone out there can take advantage. I know we're, we're searching for all the possibilities for this, uh, at Thrifty Traveler Premium every single day. Alright, let's go on to something hotter, Kyle. You've been making moves in the sheets. Again, the spreadsheets.
Careful the spreadsheets to be specific. Um. Spreadsheet Trackers 3.0. It's these spreadsheets that you created were basically all the ways that you can keep track of your travel rewards credits, the mounting credits on all these cards that you have. You know, if, if it's a Chase Sapphire reserve, you have like 170 rows of data that you gotta keep.
Care, keep track of, but you've been doing it for everybody. You created these spreadsheet trackers and now it's more than 50 cards, so you had to lock yourself in a cell to get this done over the last few weeks. How was that? How's freedom, taste now that you're out? The next time that I have to look at a Google sheet is too soon.
It's, it's a lot. But this is fun and it's important, and it's been, um, I would say like surprisingly popular that clearly people needed something like this to, I mean, so many people, myself included over the years have built their own spreadsheets, but. It tends to be a little bit clunky and you forget about different benefits.
So we just sat down as a team and we're like, what are the cards that we need to track? Make sure we track every single individual benefit and make it really easy and intuitive to, you know, see a color coded reminder each time you have a card that has a benefit expiring in 14 or 30 days or less. And to tally up each credit as you use them, and then you get a notification in green like, Hey, you've exceeded the.
$895 annual fee on your Amex Platinum card. So we've just continually gone back to the well, trying to make these better and more useful and easier to use. And in this latest update that we pushed live just late last week, we added, um, I think 15 additional cards, which includes, uh, the entire Atmos rewards, uh, trio of cards, the new upcoming built 2.0 options, IHG.
Southwest, there's probably one other kind of portfolio of cards there, but there was, there was a fair amount that we added to this and it's a lot of frequently requested additions that we've heard over the last few months. Yeah, you'd be hard pressed to find an an annual fee card, uh, in the US that we don't have covered at this point.
Um. These trackers are really, really amazing. I, uh, kudos to you, man for putting in all this work. Uh, we call Peter Thornton St. Peter for staying on hold with airlines to check for award space. You are St. Kyle this week for all of your work in the spreadsheets. Um. You know, these are, these are just so valuable, especially if you have player twos, if you're, if you're looking to earn rewards with your spouse or partner, like this is all so important to keep track of all these things.
If you are the person in your house who keeps track of the travel rewards, it's a must have. I use them all the time now. It's, uh, actually. Turned on its head what used to be my way of tracking these things, which is with a little Apple note that turns into a mess really quick. So kudos to you. Yeah, no, if, if you wanna get started, remember this is free.
We will include a link in our show notes to, to get started. Um, otherwise yeah, just go to thrifty traveler.com and, and make a copy and, uh. Have at it. Yeah. Alright. We are talking about all the things we do after we book a flight, the ultimate checklist to save on travel. But first we're gonna take a quick break.
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Built cards are issued by column NA member FDIC, pursuant to license from MasterCard International Incorporated. Okay, it's time for the extra mile where we dig a little deeper on an important travel topic. And this week we put together a checklist. I put together five things that I do. Directly after booking a flight, I'm gonna see if you agree and see what else you have to add on this list.
So, first thing's, Kyle, the confirmation email. Just hit your inbox. You booked a flight. What's the first thing you do? I thought this was your list. Well, it is my list, but I wanna know what you do first. Uh, the first thing I, I think we both do the first thing. Uh, we both use TripIt. Religiously to stay organized because it's so hard to, it's so easy to lose track of confirmation emails and then have to dig through everything and find out which day am I going Somewhere.
You forward every single confirmation email that you get to TripIt, that you, as long as you have a TripIt account, you just forward that email to plans@tripit.com and then that puts it all into a single itinerary that plots it out. Day by day, you have your flight from Minneapolis to Seattle to Hong Kong, and that arrives on April 23rd, which is the day that you check into your hotel.
And then on April 26th, you fly from Hong Kong to Bangkok. It goes on and on like this. You can even. Send, uh, rental car reservations, of course, hotels, flights, activities and excursions that you might book. It's maybe the most important thing that I do just to stay organized. 'cause if I don't do this right away, I just probably won't do it.
Period. Yeah. Once you set up. TripIt, it puts a lot of this stuff on autopilot for me. So for instance, the second I send something to TripIt, uh, just forwarding it to plans@tripit.com, I have linked my TripIt account and my flighty, for instance. So then my flights automatically get put into my flighty app and there's no like, uh, me guessing which flight it was that I just booked and accidentally putting in the wrong one into flighty.
Um, and then also trip it. Talks to my calendar, puts everything straight into my calendar as well. So we have, you know, three major things done immediately just by hitting forward on the confirmation email. It is the first thing I do. It's the single easiest thing I do. I cannot sing Trip. Its praises enough.
It's totally free as well, by the way. Um, it's just a great tool. There is a, there's a paid pro version, but I would say the paid pro version kind of loops in some of the things that Flighty does that we love, uh, and doesn't do them quite as well. So I think everybody's. Pretty much well served with the free version of TripIt.
The one other great thing that this does is if you screw up booking a flight, say, you know, you, you mess up the connection times. If you're flying from your home airport to JFK and then onward to Europe or wherever, or you mess up something with a date, international date change, and you book a flight that's departing.
Before you actually arrive, TripIt will show you, it will give you a notification in red that there's a conflict with your trip, which, you know, especially if you're doing, if you're forwarding these emails and you're getting everything on your TripIt timeline, as soon as you book that can save you huge.
To be able to say, oh, screwed that one up. Cancel your existing flight you're in within the 24 hour window, at least within the United States, and rebook it, and you're gonna be all fine. Yeah, I, I like to have sometimes multiple flights booked at the same time, going to the same place, right? If we wanna have like, redundant flights or if we book two things, just wanna make sure we have a backup plan.
And TripIt also helps me with that if I, you know, log on a few days before my trip and be like, oh, I never actually canceled that last leg that I needed to get rid of, or whatever. So the resolve conflict, big red button at the top, uh, really helps me out on occasion. Okay. I'm. TripIt is my number one thing that I do right after booking a flight.
The second thing I do, Kyle, is what I just like to call cleanup. I go into the booking, the flight booking into the kind of manage booking section and there are a few things I do first. Always double check my name spelling. Uh, I've got some scar tissue there. This is the Gunner Olson Olson Olson checklist.
That's right. Listen to almost any other episode of this show for that story. Um. And yeah, clean up my contact info, my name, spelling, everything like that. Uh, if I got the right fare, I'm going in and doing seat selection. If I couldn't do it during booking or uh, working with the partner airline to get the seat selection done, I'll correct loyalty numbers.
If I want to credit the flight to a certain loyalty number, you know, if I'm flying, uh, air Lingus and I want to credit it to American instead of Alaska, or vice versa. Doing something like that is, uh, is something I always add in there. Make sure my passport info is correct, just, you know, put it in there.
It's always good to have, um, my known traveler number for my TSA pre-check. I just want to get that outta the way as soon as possible too. You don't wanna be scrambling at the airport to add your KTN onto a number. Kyle, what am I missing? I, I mean, I think you covered a lot. The one thing that you might be missing, depending on how you booked your ticket, is if you're booking a partner award ticket.
If you're using one airline miles to book a, a flight with another carrier, which you know is really the gold mine of booking flights for less, at least in the award travel space, sometimes you need to. Do some background digging to actually get the six digit confirmation code with the airline you're flying.
So if you book a flight with delta sky miles or Air France flying blue miles and you're actually flying a different carrier, you'll get the confirmation code with the airline whose miles you booked. But in most cases, you'd need a different confirmation code. You need the confirmation code for the airline.
You're actually going to fly. And so what you need to do right after you book to get that is. Reach out to the airline. Well, first of all, try the confirmation code that you got with the airline you're flying. So if you book China Airlines business class, see if you can plug that in on their website. If that doesn't work, reach out to the airline.
Ask for your partner confirmation code. They will give you a different six digit confirmation code that you can then put in with the airline. You're actually gonna fly. So you can do all of these important things you're talking about. Enter your known traveler number if you need it, select your seats.
That's just a, a niche, uh, aspect of handling these kinds of partner award tickets. I will say American Airlines in particular, does this super well. If you go to manage any. Trip that you booked using American Advantage Miles, and you open up that reservation, it will actually list each and every partner confirmation code separately, whether you're flying Cafe Pacific or Japan Airlines, or Qatar Airways or whatever.
Most airlines don't make it quite so easy. Yep. Another really important step, I think that rounds out. Clean up. So we had number one forward, my itinerary to trip it. Number two is just, you know, put the yellow rubber gloves on and get in there and clean that, clean that stuff up. That was strained. Yeah, you do a lot of cleaning in your house based on your relative handiness or lack thereof on others.
So I do you, if you don't have any skills, Kyle, you better be really good at cleaning. All right. Uh, number three. I think this is by far the most important part. Uh, the most important thing I do after booking a flight is setting up my price alerts and my tracking. Um. This usually starts with Google Flight's price alerts.
I go and find the exact flight I just booked and I set up a Google Flight's price alert. There's an easy little button to push. It says set price alerts, and as long as you have a Gmail account and you're logged into Google when you're searching on Google flights, it will send you an alert if the price moves on your flight at all, up or down.
Um. I like to set the exact flight. I like to set some other preferable flights, like if I booked a flight that I, you know, maybe there's another one that I like better. I definitely will set up a price alert on those ones, uh, or other flights that would also work for me if the price on those got significantly cheaper.
Um, and then you can also just set up a price alert for every flight that day. Every single flight option will come up. Uh, and then I usually bookmark these Google flight searches as well, just 'cause I like to have them all. Organized in a little folder in my bookmarks on, on Google Chrome as well. So those are, that's kinda what I do for my Google Flights Price alerts.
Do you do something similar? You're not type A at all, are you with a folder of bookmarks for individual Google flight searches? Good on you, man. I, I do a lot of this not to, not quite to that extent. I think really importantly, when you're searching on Google Flights, if you wanna set a price alert, whichever filters you put on your flight, that will.
Restrict what you get price alerts for. So if you booked the 9:20 AM delta departure and you search and filter for Delta only Nonstops from Minneapolis to Miami and filter so that you only see the 9:20 AM departure and not the 5:00 PM or whatever that is, all you will get price alerts for. So if you are dead set on only taking that flight and you want to get a heads up, if the price decreases so that you can either rebook for a voucher or.
Potentially rebook using fewer delta sky miles. That is all you're gonna get, which is really important. So I did this for our upcoming trip to Costa Rica, which by the time that this episode drops, we'll be on our way. And yeah, lo and behold, we booked one of the segments using Delta Sky miles to get down to Costa Rica.
Booked it for like, I dunno, 28,000 sky miles a piece set a Google Flights price alert. Got a notification that the price on that flight dropped a couple of days after we booked. So waited a couple hours in this case, anywhere between eight to 12 hours after there's a price drop from Google flights on Delta, the Delta sky miles rate will decrease takes.
You gotta be a little patient, but it can happen. And so then we went back and booked rebooked it for 21,000 sky miles a piece, and we've each got 7,000 more sky miles to spend on the next thing. Or in our case, probably a bottle of champagne. That's right, the potter special. Too good for the free champagne at the Sky Pub.
Can't do it. Um. So you mentioned sky miles for award flights. I, I actually still do all the Google flights trackers, even for like big business class award flights. Maybe it's just because I like to see that, uh, I didn't pay $12,000 or whatever it is for a long haul business class flight. You know, you check the Google flights the day of and you can see how much money you may have saved.
Uh, but I think it's, I, I do this one outta habit just 'cause I like to have all my flights tracked. And then two, because of. Programs like Delta, sky Miles and other dynamic awards. It's just good to keep a, a pulse on what the fair is doing. 'cause like you said, if that fair drops precipitously 24 hour, 12 to 24 hours later, that sky miles rate will fall as well.
So I still do this for all my award flights. Um, but on top of that, I set up manual tracking reminders in my calendar for my award flights. So, um. YII don't think you need to do this every week. I do. Uh, I'm a bit of a sicko. This is my full-time job too, but every Sunday I put aside like 30 minutes for what I call, uh, my financial wellbeing where I just kind of rip through all my banks and credit cards.
Just make sure I'm on top of everything. Uh. And I, at the same time, at the end of it, I'll just go through all my booked flights and just check 'em again where I booked them, what the rate is. Now, maybe more award space opened up. If it's a long haul business class, maybe the the price is way cheaper. Maybe the price got really expensive.
Uh, either way, it's just good to keep tabs on things. I like to do it once a week. I think doing it once a month for most people is probably just fine. Um, you don't need, please don't be like me. There's no, no upside. To what I'm doing. The world does not need another gunner. No, it does not. I mean, you are, you are.
Notorious in our team and even on this show for you're not done booking until you actually bore the flight. So I think the perfect example was, you know when you went to Japan a few years ago, and I think you were booked just in a Delta economy seat flying there, and then you got to what, two-ish weeks before departure and found.
Business class award space, flying a and a is the room from Chicago to Tokyo, Haida, which I mean, upgrade of the century maybe to do that. So what is your mindset? How do you go into figuring out how to rebook and rebook and rebook to upgrade your experience? Yeah, that was the only other time I ever impressed my wife.
Actually. That was the first time. This weekend was the second time. Um, I mean, really my, my process is. In the weeks leading up to things, you can see some patterns in award space too. So in that case, I knew that it was gonna come open because it kept coming open in the weeks ahead. Um, but really I'm just, I'm casting a wide net and, and by setting those Google flights price alerts, what I'm also doing is, uh, putting tabs, reminders to myself on what flights I'm actually actually interested in.
So then I'll be like, okay, I'm gonna, I, I know that. Air Lingus, for instance, is gonna fly to Dublin and then to Rome to get me to Italy. So I'm gonna check that every week just to make sure nothing pops up there and make sure that I'm covered. Uh, luckily I also have Peter Thornton, Katie Rollins, and John.
She better the Thrifty Traveler Premium team on my side. So they, and I also make sure that they know what I need. So they're, they're doing a little bit of private work for me too. Free. Um. But I, I like to just keep tabs on things and then just kinda roll through them once a week. Just make sure that I'm not missing out on award space and it, this really doesn't take a ton of time.
The, the longest part of it is. A two factor authenticating every single award program. Yeah. I mean, I just spend all my Sunday mornings just, uh, to f aing my way through the travel internet. But that's, I mean, it's not like a special strategy or anything. I just, I, I know what my preferred flight will be and I'll just keep checking it.
Yeah. I think your tip is a good one of, you know, let's say you're four months out. And you're still searching for your travel day and you're not seeing anything on, you know, that flight experience that you really want, what you really wanted to book from the get go. But you book something in economy or a a, a trip with a stop instead of a nonstop to, to not just focus only on your travel.
But to search a couple weeks out from from today to search a month out, to get a sense of what the trends are as it gets closer to departure, because it really is within that last 30 days or so where typically you're going to have the best chance of rebooking a different flight. The flight that you really wanted or a better flight, um, maybe for fewer miles or just a better experience in premium economy or business or first class, to get a sense of what that is so that you know, like, okay, once we get a month before a departure, I know what the general trend is, that's when I'm gonna start checking more regularly.
And then, you know, to fill that in with. 50 traveler premium alerts, maybe we're gonna send something to your inbox that is gonna work better. Something that's not on your radar to, to be ready to rebook a different flight and cancel what you already have on books. Or using tools like points Yeah, or seats arrow, which allow you to set alerts for specific flights, you know, typically.
Either on that exact day or with a one to three day buffer on either side. That's a really great way to make sure you end up getting the best redemption, the best flight possible. Yeah. Anything else on setting alerts? No. I I, I think you and I kind of have the same mindset. I don't. Take it quite to your extreme.
I don't know that anybody does. You get 100 free Google flights price alerts and I've maxed them out several times. I'm, I'm currently under the minimum right now, so I'm just, I'm itching, I'm looking for something to track. You need to flight tracked out there. Let me know. I'll, I'll track it for you. That is your biggest flex that you've repeatedly maxed out Google flights price alerts.
Yeah. Look, you gotta be impressive somehow. Hey, Google Flights, if you're listening, bump up Gunnar to 200. Let's really challenge 'em. What? Let's see what he can do. I'm not gonna use it. It's a free tool. Um, number one, forward your trip to TripIt. Number two. We're cleaning up our booking in the managed booking section, and number three, we're setting our price alerts and tracking rates.
Um, number four, Kyle, the number four thing I do right after booking a flight is I take a first look at the major logistics for the trip. Crucially, this has to happen before the 24 hours. And ideally it would happen right after you set up your tracking. So take a look quickly at how are hotel prices, uh, how is hotel availability?
What are rental cars like, are trains, um, you know, are things going fast? Are things crazy expensive? Is is the rest of this trip going to be prohibitively. Expensive to pull off? Um, or are the logistics just gonna be too wild? Uh, do I need to go check with my wife quick to make sure this isn't way, way out over my skis?
Um, basically these are the things I'm looking at where. Is this trip possible as booked and you have 24 hours to make this decision because of the 24 hour rule? Tell me about that rule. I mean, this is your window to figure out if you can make the trip work for the great deal that you just booked. You have 24 hours in some cases more.
We'll get into that shortly to. Figure out the logistics. Can, are hotels too expensive? Can you get the time off of work? Is it okay with your spouse? Is your spouse coming with, are you going to invite other friends? You have this window to answer all of those questions. So if within 24 hours you can get to the answer, yes, you're good.
If the answer is no, this really isn't gonna work. This is your window to cancel and get all of your money back. Now, that includes if you're booking any flight within the us, departing from the US, or returning to the us. It also applies to both a ticket that you booked with a credit card. You know, a cheaper cash fare or an award ticket, you can get that money refunded to your credit card.
You can get your miles back and get whatever taxes and feed you paid on an award ticket back to your credit card and back into your mileage account without paying any fees. It is a full unquestionable refund within 24 hours of booking. Some airlines take it a little bit further where they say. It. It goes until the end of the day, the following calendar day from what you booked.
So if you book a flight, say at 12:00 PM today, as you're listening to this on Thursday with an airline like Delta, which is one of the airlines, that gives people a little bit more, you actually have until 11:59 PM on Friday the following day. So as much as. 36, I mean, honestly, as much as almost, you know, 47 hours in some cases to actually get your money back and, and, you know, use this 24 hour window to your advantage.
Yeah, I mean, we're talking about kinda the first 10, 15 minutes right after you book a flight, but you really do get the day. And that kind of brings me to number five here, which is life stuff. Um, this is, you know. Am I gonna be able to get the time off work? I'm sending Kyle a desperate email asking for the time off work for the flight that I've booked.
Uh, I'm looking into do I have childcare or dog care? Um, I, you know, I'm pretty sure cats just take care of themselves, right? They're fine. They're basically fine. Uh, I am talking about floating it to the group chat or a select group of friends that you actually wanna travel with. Uh, I'm talking about doing a mail hold, uh, for while you're gone.
I'm, I'm. The life stuff kind of happens last in all of this, but it's still important to put a feeler out in that first 24 hours. 'cause if it looks like, Hey, all of my childcare options are also traveling, then this, this trip isn't gonna work out for me. Right. Or I can't get the time off work. I'm not working remote from Indonesia.
So these things are important too. I would put a feeler out as soon as you can right after you book these flights. But, and if you can get a response in the 24 hour rule, then you're covered. Yeah. Referring to requesting time off from your boss, which is across from you at this table as quote, putting a feeler out is a, is a bold move.
It's a heat check. You know, I'm just seeing taking your temperature. Yeah. Like, look, I'm, I'm gonna, what happens if I'm gone? You know, I mean, this, this really is the right way to think about the order of operations be, especially because, you know, a lot of the stuff that we end up booking, the deals are fleeting.
You know, a $123 round trip fair from Minneapolis and Chicago to Dublin is probably only going to last a matter of minutes. You do not really have time in that specific instance to check with your spouse to check with your work and confirm that time off and get it into your work calendar system. You gotta book it now.
You gotta ask questions later, and those questions include, do I actually want to take this trip? Are the rest of the pieces like hotels and positioning flights to fly from Sioux Falls to Chicago in order to take that dirt cheap mistake fair over to Dublin? Is that going to work or is that going to be obscenely expensive and yet requesting time off of work?
This 24 hour window is just so perfect for those situations to figure out if you can fit those final life pieces together in order to make the trip that you just booked work. Anything I missed in these five steps before we review them? You know, one last thing that I, that I typically do, especially for, I mean, any long haul trip.
You want the right seat. That includes, especially back in economy, you know, you wanna make sure if you're flying a, a jet that has a 2, 4 2 configuration in economy and you're flying just with a spouse or a your best travel pal, you want one of those two seat sections. If none of those are open at the time, you wanna set an alert.
Using a site like Expert flyer, which has a paid version, but setting seat alerts for specific seats is free. Definitely the same is true for, uh, flying first in business class. If you're flying together with someone, you want one of those two seat sections in the center so that you can talk together. Or maybe you don't.
Maybe you want a window seat set and you wanna be alone and just focus on sleeping. So setting seat alerts so you get an automated email when the seat that you actually want opens. We did this for our. Cafe Pacific First class flight that we just booked a, you know, a couple of days ago, uh, we wanted to make sure we got the seats one A and two A on kind of, it's its own little section in the six seat, first class cabin.
We got an alert a couple days later and, and rebooked it over the weekend. Ah, that's awesome. That's another really good tip. Okay, let, let me just review quick from the top the five things that I do directly after booking a flight. Number one, we forward everything to TripIt, which in turn puts it into my flighty, which in turn puts it into my calendar and organizes everything for me so I don't have to.
Number two, I do some cleanup. We're going into the manage booking section. We're double checking our name, spelling seat selection. Getting the right loyalty numbers in passport info, TSA number, um, getting partner confirmation codes, all very important. Number three, we're setting up our price alerts, namely with Google Flights, price alerts, especially for cash flights on the flights we want, and some flights around it that we would be okay with.
And we're even doing it if you're a sicko like me for all of your award flights or setting up a manual way to track your award flights as well. Number four, we're looking at the major. Logistics of the trip. Is this even possible? Is this going to ruin me financially if we take this trip even on a very good deal?
Uh, and then number five, what I just call life stuff. The time off work, the childcare, the dog care, getting everything else in order to take a trip before that 24 hour window hits. Is this a good comprehensive list, Kyle? Yeah. I think it is. I think we covered a lot of ground and hopefully gave people some new ways to think about the trip planning process.
'cause a lot of this stuff is just front or back loading, the things that people stress about before they actually hit purchase on a flight or redeem their miles. And I think if you kind of flip that on its head and, and. Take care of some of this life stuff or to, to quote, uh, uh, what the, the Joe Tiger guy, I'm never gonna recover from this.
Figure out if you are in fact going to recover from it. Joe. Exotic, that's his name. Nailed it. Joe, tiger. Guy. Joe, tiger guy. We don't need to take that again. He's just Joe Tiger guy. Now. Um, yeah, I think this is a, is a really smart way to think about your travel planning and maybe most importantly, to remind people that.
The things that you do after you book are just as if not more important than the first thing that you book for your trip. Yeah, it's crucial. This is, like I said, where I save. The most money in my travels. It's how I'm able to travel more for less. Is that the fact that I do all these things right after I book?
It's, it's the most important part of the booking journey. Uh, you ready to help a listener? Let's do it. Okay. Um, a reminder. First to leave us a video message. Introducing the show at thrifty traveler.com/voicemail. We've gotten some bangers so far. I can't wait for you all to see them in the coming weeks and to see what else, uh, Kos out there come up with.
Send us your best stuff. Um, I'll start listener question with, uh, Maya Culpa. Jennifer and Justin both wrote in to correct me in episode 46, the credit cards you should get in 2026 episode I said the Chase Sapphire Preferred earns three on groceries, which is not. Totally correct. It earns three x on online groceries, food and meal kit delivery, grocery delivery services.
Like the ones like Instacart, uh, in-person groceries are one x. The reason why I got this wrong is I haven't been to a grocery store in like five years. I only do online groceries. So to me, this is a three x on groceries card. That's, that's fair, but in a very important correction. Yeah. Thank you Jennifer and Justin.
Yeah, thank you Jennifer and Justin. Uh, holding me accountable out there. Uh, our listener, Amy o asks, thank you guys for all the expertise you share with listeners and newbie award travelers like myself. It is so helpful and makes travel feel so much more accessible and attainable. My question for you is.
If you were planning a trip to Japan for the first time, knowing what you know now, where and how would you start with booking or finding award availability for flights? For some context, my husband and I would love to fly on j ideally in business class, at least one way. Thank you all again for you. Do newbies like me.
Really appreciate it. Um, do you have any advice to start out for a EO? I really think this entire episode is a good roadmap for how Amy should think about tackling this book, something that's gonna work. Then keep checking. Build out your checklist. Build out your reminders to try to rebook it. Get that Japan Airlines business class seat, maybe an A and a business or first class seat, depending on the points that you have, and just work your way towards.
Booking the trip that you actually want without letting you know that ideal stop you from getting something on the books right away. So maybe that's, you know, some, some cheap delta sky miles or American advantage round trips in economy. Just to get something on the books. Book it one way as separately as possible if possible.
To make sure you have the flexibility to rebook one segment. Um, if you, if something pops up in business class, watch your inbox. If you're a Thrifty Traveler premium member. 'cause our team is looking for Japan Airlines business class every single day and sending out the best of what we find. Last thing is, is kind of a practical one.
If you can fly into Tokyo Haida instead of nida, it's so much closer to the city, it makes the trip. So much easier to pull off. That's not to say if you get a, the Great Japan Airlines business class deal to Tokyo, nida, you should say, no, this isn't good enough. Make it work. It's, you're gonna be fine. But I'd love flying in and out of Heida.
Yeah, I think that's all really good advice. I was gonna say the same thing, just book something. So your trip's gonna happen. And then wait on that business class award space to pop up, especially if you're gonna want, if you wanna go in like the winter. Um, we found that that jaw space does pop up. It. Uh, in these kind of off seasons, if you want to go right in the heart of, uh, cherry blossoms in, in March and April, might be a little tougher.
Uh, but in, if you wanna go in January or February ski season, uh, up north or you know, just another really good time to visit Tokyo, there are no bad times. Um, book something, get it on the books and then stock out that. Really, really perfect deal that you're waiting for. Um, I, I also, when I was looking at my flights, I was looking at Japan Airlines Premium Economy, which I know our colleague Katie Rollins flew and said it was awesome.
I mean, they even treat you amazing in, in, in economy, in on Japan Airlines. But premium economy is great. You get lounge access with that ticket as well. Um, it's gonna be a little more when you book with Avios than it would be just that 60,000 American Advantage miles each way for business class. But that gets you something on the books.
What we did when we went is I booked the nonstops, uh, via Virgin on Delta from MSP to Heida there and back, um, which is a pretty good deal and we would've been fine with it because it's a nonstop flight. Uh, and then when the. You know, a and a, the room space came up. We had booked them one way. 'cause I knew I wanted to switch out of one at least.
And so I was able to just cancel the, one of the one ways book a and a the room and, uh, get on our way. So I would just highly recommend booking one ways if you can, so that if something awesome comes up, you can actually do it. Um, I want a quick diversion. Uh. When we flew Delta nonstop back from Heida, that was one of the weirdest flights of my life.
We, we show up at Heida, the check-in agent goes, congratulations. I was like, whoa. And they're like, there's only 54 people ticketed on this flight. And Megan and I were like, oh my God, that's incredible. So we went on the seat map. Uh, we each chose our own row in Comfort Plus and had our own rows in Comfort.
Plus we were like, this is ama a row of four. In the middle. We were like, this is amazing. Like, uh, basically lie flat seats all the way home, 50 people on the plane, and the second they started boarding, every single person that got up there got a new. Seat assignment. As they were going, they were printing out new seat assignments for everyone.
We were like, what is going on? They took all 54 people on the plane and put them all into comfort. Plus it was a wait and balance issue for the cargo they had under the plane, and they jammed every single person on the plane into the same section, including taking. People from Delta one seats and putting them into Comfort Plus for the trip from Heida to MSP.
Can you imagine paying six grand for a Delta one flight from Heida to MSP? And then they're like, oh, by the way, you're sending 23 C next to sweaty gunner, straight off the ski hill. That's, that's you, you really put the icing on the cake with that last tidbit there. That's, that's brutal. On the other hand.
Tokyo to Minneapolis and vice versa, especially in the winter, is one of the Emptiest international flights, at least from the United States. Not just to Asia, probably anywhere. So if you want some room to stretch out in economy, that is a really good bet to get to Asia and back. Hearing you say that maybe don't splurge for business class might not work out for you.
You know who the angriest person in the history of travel is? The guy who got ripped outta Delta one and put back into Comfort Plus for his flight from Tokyo to Minneapolis. Oh man, those people were so salty. That was a, that was not a. Pleasant flight. Everyone who is very on edge staff travelers, everybody.
Um, thanks for granting me that diversion. 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. I'd also be interested in hearing what other steps that you take after booking a flight.
I think my, my five step plan is pretty ironclad, but I'm sure I'm missing something. Someone's got something creative out there we'd love to hear. We can get a four A or a three C in there. I bet that's right. We got plenty. Alright, we're closing the show with on the spot, and I'm putting Kyle on the spot.
Are you ready? Maybe at the Cafe Pacific, the Pier First Class lounge in Hong Kong, which you will be ransacking in just a few short weeks. On your trip, you get your choice of a back and shoulder massage or a foot massage at the lounge. What are you choosing? Oh, I, I am not a massage guy. I'm, you're not a massage guy.
I'm, I'm a little too ticklish. I. I once paid like $7 in Thailand for a massage, and I think that was the last time I did so I'm certain, I mean free. All right. I might have to entertain it. I, if I have to pick, I'm probably going foot massage. That's, that is what I chose. I think I, I, maybe I should have gone with the back and shoulder, but I don't know.
It was, it was all extremely pleasant. I liked it a lot. I can't believe you're not a massage guy. This is the most extreme first class problem ever of, not just like, I want something. It's, I just, this massage is, it's too free. It's too nice. Yeah. Kyle's turning down the bane amenity of the best lounge I've ever been in.
Um, make sure you order a Betsy, the beer, we have one up there in our background. You can see on YouTube, uh, the beer that they only brew. For first in business class guests and that they have at the, at the lounge. My, the, my lounge attendant at the first class lounge was so excited to bring me a couple of Betsy's while I was there.
Um, the day suites, how many, Betsy's be honest, I think I had three at that lounge. And then they sent me to another lounge, which was a little closer to my gate. And I remember after she sent me to this lounge, she goes, sir. I hope it's okay, but it's a business class lounge I'm sending you to not a first class lounge.
I said that'll be quite all right. Thank you. Uh, I had another Betsy there, so I was four Betsy's down before I jumped on the plane. Atta boy, use the day suites. Yeah, those are really, really nice. The sit down dining. It's all amazing. This is, that's an incredible lounge. I can't wait for you to go, um, you don't need to FaceTime me or anything while you're there.
I'm sure your wife wouldn't care for that, but I'd be excited to see it again. Yeah. Say hi to my favorite lounge attendant. Is that all? Got anything else? I, I think that covers it. I'm just thinking about you drinking Betsy's. All right, we're outta here. So am I. Thank you so much for listening to the Th Traveler Podcast.
Rate us five stars on your platform of choice and like, and subscribe to the show on YouTube. Send us episode to somebody that you know. Who needs a vacation? If you have any feedback for us, send us a note at podcast@thitraveler.com. We'd love to hear from you there. Kyle, tell us about the team. Yeah. This episode was produced by your favorite host who hopefully is not podcasting for beers Deep Gunnar Olson.
It was produced and edited by Sylvia Thomas, and edited by Kyle Thomas. Our theme music is by Benjamin Tissot. See you next week. See ya.