We’re in the heart of the summer travel season, so Gunnar and Kyle put together a Travel Survival Guide to help you grease the wheels of your next trip. The guys dig into the best ways to avoid delays and cancellations (including sharing their own worst delays), plus tell you all the apps, tools, and knowledge you should bring with you on your trip to make it go smoothly this summer or fall. The guys also talk about TSA’s new (and drastically improved) shoe policy and the insane thing CLEAR wants to charge you for now. Stick around for Gunnar’s bougiest travel take.
We’re in the heart of the summer travel season, so Gunnar and Kyle put together a Travel Survival Guide to help you grease the wheels of your next trip. The guys dig into the best ways to avoid delays and cancellations (including sharing their own worst delays), plus tell you all the apps, tools, and knowledge you should bring with you on your trip to make it go smoothly this summer or fall. The guys also talk about TSA’s new (and drastically improved) shoe policy and the insane thing CLEAR wants to charge you for now. Stick around for Gunnar’s bougiest travel take.
00:00 - Finding something out: What’s your worst flight delay?
04:30 - Something Hot: TSA reverses course on shoes-off policy in all security lanes
08:25 - Something Cold: CLEAR wants to charge you for what, now?
11:55 - A word from our sponsor (us, & how you can sign up for our free flight deal alerts and book roundtrip flights to Ireland under $299!)
13:25 - The Extra Mile: All the best travel tips and tricks to avoid delays & cancellations and be a better traveler this summer
17:00 - Using Google Flight Price Alerts and rebooking your flights for a voucher
19:30 - You need to be using Aerolopa when you pick (or upgrade) your seats
21:40 - Why Kyle and Gunnar use TripIt to organize their reservations
28:20 - Gunnar gushes about his favorite app for dealing with disruptions: Flighty
32:10 - PreCheck saves you from 98% of things you hate about going through the airport
35:30 - Window or aisle?
41:30 - The travel debit card that every member of our team has: Charles Schwab
46:40 - Listener Question: Carry-on or checked bag with a 2-hour layover in Paris
50:45 - On the Spot: Gunnar’s snobbiest travel take
Produced by Gunnar Olson & Erica Kamrowski
Edited by David Strutt
Show music: “All That” by Benjamin Tissot
Yo.
Welcome to the show.
I'm Gunnar Olson here with someone who promised me that he will always take off his shoes and socks at airport security because he, quote, likes to feel that airport tile as a grounding ritual before he flies.
It's Kyle Potter.
What's up, Kyle?
I'm about to vomit.
That is the most disgusting thing I've ever heard.
That's what I'm saying to you.
It's weird
that you do it.
It's like the anti Gwyneth Paltrow of, like, needing to ground yourself at the airport, grass, you're touching just the grossest, grimiest tile.
Ugh.
Ugh.
Gunner, no.
Show over.
I can't wait to see a TSA officer go to you.
Like, sir, you don't have to take your shoes off anymore and beg.
No.
No.
No.
This is for me.
Trust me.
I got this.
Alright, Kyle.
Today, we're, we're putting together somewhat of a travel survival guide on the show.
It's the middle of summer.
We've heard from lots of travelers who still have trips booked or are on trips, big and small, and, you know, trips coming up whether it's, down the road to Detroit or, across the world.
People are flying all over the place.
It's a great time to travel, but it's always the busiest.
And then these kinda summer and fall months always lead to the most flight delays and cancellations due to weather.
So I wanna find something out first.
What's your worst flight delay?
It doesn't have to be by time.
It could just be by vibes too.
Oh,
by time, and some poor vibes, getting stuck overnight, at Detroit, en route to Boston where we eventually had to reroute because of thunderstorms on the in the Northeast.
That it was a it was a fine night at the Hilton Garden in Detroit, Wayne Metro Airport, without a change of clothes because our carry ons got gate checked prior to this.
But, honestly, the worst one was flying.
You know, I've talked about this before on the show, a $221 round trip fare from Minneapolis to Bogota with a stop in Dallas because we're flying American.
On the way home, though, we were stuck in Dallas, most of it on the plane, including getting off the plane and getting back on and still sitting on the tarmac for about nine hours.
And then we got home finally, you know, seven, eight, nine hours later, turned on the TV, and the war in Ukraine had started.
So the vibes were just at an all time low.
All time low vibes.
Mine, there are no, you know, geopolitical or catastrophic vibes on mine, but I had a bad one, coming back from, Oslo.
We're flying British Airways.
We connected through London.
That actually went fine.
And then I had another connection in Boston.
It was a nasty ticket that I booked, using some American miles with three stops to get back to Minneapolis.
Part of the reason why is because I was going to Chicago with my little brother who is high school aged at the time.
So we get to Boston.
We have a layover there for what was supposed to be about an hour and a half, and it ended up being about seven.
Meanwhile, in Boston, my little brother on the descent got sick on the plane, sitting in British Airways premium economy, had to go into the lab.
And Ralph, before deboarding, got off the plane without his passport, lost it in the seat.
So we got to go back on to look for the passport, which I don't even think they shoulda let us do.
But we finally get that out.
We get through, and then we have seven hours in Boston, sitting there watching the last remnants of, of playoff football in the American lounge, which was no fun.
And then we get we got him to Chicago super late that night.
And then, I obviously did not make the rest of the way to Minneapolis because we were in super late, so I had to stay in overnight.
And then the next day, I was out on the kinda second flight of the day, but I took a $800 voucher to fly about six hours later.
So I ended up putting another about twenty four hours in Chicago, which is my fault.
I was gonna say up until that point, I don't know that was a, like, travel delay in cancellation horror story as much as it is a warning not to travel with your younger siblings.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Don't travel with family.
That's the key.
Alright.
Today on the show, we're talking about shoes at security check points.
We're talking about what Clear wants to charge you now, and a full guide to the tools, tricks, and more to help kinda grease the wheels of your summer or fall trip this year.
All that and more.
Welcome back to the Thrifty Traveler podcast.
Alright.
Let's jump into something hot and something cold where we look into the good and the bad news out there for travelers from the last week.
And we'll start with something hot as I referenced in the open.
It's some news from the TSA.
So, Kyle, way back in December 2001, Richard Reid boarded a flight from Paris to Miami with homemade bombs hidden in his shoes.
Luckily, that particular idiot failed to ignite those shoes, but it still led to this rule where everybody had to take their shoes off.
Later, TSA precheck passengers got the exemption on that.
But this week, twenty four years later, the TSA sunsetted the shoes policy, and it means that almost all travelers in regular security, pre check, or clear can all keep their shoes on now.
The exception being travelers without real ID who they say might still be subjected to shoes off screening.
So, Kyle, we know where you stand on shoes off screening personally, but this is good news for everyone else.
Right?
This is, good news for my attorney who is just building up an airtight case against you for slandering me in two podcasts in a row.
Now the last time I was at the airport, I watched a woman slide off her sandals and just raw dog the security checkpoint barefoot, which is not only something I don't wanna do.
I just don't wanna see anywhere, in anywhere near a plane or an airport or anything.
So if nothing else, this is good news for that.
I think, you know, the TSA has said that they believe that this is going to speed up the airport security process, which, I mean, based upon the struggle that, you know, some passengers seem to have with knowing what to do and taking off their shoes.
There's definitely gonna be a lot of confusion in the next couple of weeks as, you know, people have really been conditioned for more than two decades to take off their shoes.
But I think once we get past that hiccup, I think and I hope that this will make the airport security experience not just cleaner, but faster too.
Yeah.
And maybe just a little more, uniform.
It's nice for them to come out and say, like, alright.
Here's now the new standard nationwide because it does seem like sometimes you get to various checkpoints, and it's like, alright.
Today is, shoes on, but laptops out.
And but tomorrow, it's gonna be, you know, laptops in the bin, keep them in their case, but, no socks.
And then it's you know, it just seems like, the goalpost move on people, especially people who aren't traveling like road warriors or who aren't in airports every single day.
So, hopefully, a little uniformity here.
And, yeah, obviously, it's just for hygiene's sake, it's better that more people are keeping their shoes on at the airport.
It is.
I have found it funny that other than, you know, the people who, you know, understandably say, finally, I can keep my shoes on.
The other loudest group of travelers that we've heard from is people with precheck who are all just kinda going, come on.
I thought this was my thing that I got to keep my shoes on, which I on the one hand, I do kind of understand.
But on the check than just being able to keep your shoes on.
There's keeping your liquids and electronics in your bag, keeping a belt on, a jacket on, which, again, even those parts of it are just, like, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
This really should, improve the airport security experience, which, you know, to my mind is probably the worst part of air travel for most people, the thing that most travelers load the most, understandably so.
And this particular policy, I don't I don't even know that I could have told you prior to this rule finally getting relaxed where it stemmed from because I hadn't heard the name Richard Reid probably since 02/2001.
Yeah.
I had to look up, the TSA's own write up about the shoe bomber on their website, to get all that to get all those details, but that is, I guess, where it stemmed from, which is, really crazy that it's it's been that long.
And since then, there have been zero shoe related incidents.
So maybe that was that policy working.
We'll see.
Should we transition to something cold?
I will stay in the security screening area for it, but I need you to explain this to me, Kyle, because when you showed this to me, it blew my mind.
I don't know that I can.
Just to preface this conversation, I don't know that I can explain this to you.
Okay.
So for context, you discovered this week that CLEAR, the expedited security screening service, is charging travelers more than a $100 extra for expedited security.
What on top of their subscription to Clear?
What's going on here?
What did you find?
Let's just let that sit out there like a bad fart for a second because I think that kinda says it all.
Clear is a privately run expedited security service where you pay the, you know, the full freight cost now is $209 a year.
That is many multiples more than what you pay for TSA PreCheck, which costs $78 for five years.
I'm not gonna try I'm not gonna embarrass myself trying to do my math, live on the podcast, but safe to say Clear is just a little bit more expensive.
And yet, they are now selling this add on option to paying Clear plus members to add a concierge service.
There's two different options, and it depends on which airport you're at.
One of them, you know, in addition to kind of meeting you at the security checkpoint and guiding you through the process and bringing you to the gate or your lounge, that costs even more.
But one of the options is just expedited service.
So if you like expedited service, you're really gonna like expedited service.
I mean, it just goes to show you I mean, we've we've written about just how hit or miss CLEAR can be, especially, you know, depending on what day you're at the airport.
I'd say even more importantly, which airport you're at.
There are some like Atlanta and Denver, and I would say even to a lesser extent our home airport in Minneapolis, where it's it's a coin flip or worse, whether it's gonna save you time or if you should just walk into the TSA precheck line.
But the fact that they're now selling an add on for a $100 a pop to actually get expedited service, the thing that, you know, ostensibly you're paying, you know, at this point more than $200 a year for, it says it all.
Yeah.
I mean, you shouldn't be paying for Clear anyway.
You should get a credit card that pays for it for you if possible because this is crazy.
And they're they're just gonna keep adding tiers on top of this and upcharging more.
Like, you're paying to be this, you know, ultra premium customer, whatever, walking through the clear line, and they're just gonna keep adding another level of, well, now how are you gonna get above expedited?
Expedited already exists.
So what's the next level?
I need something better than that.
I want them to meet me at my house and pick my outfit to travel to the airport in.
Like, I don't know.
It's it's crazy to think that, they can just keep tacking on extra tiers to this thing, and their customers aren't gonna get very annoyed by it over time.
So that was a hilarious find from you this week.
I just keep thinking about the MTV show Pimp My Ride, and all of the memes that it spawned.
And at this point, it's just pimp my clear where we heard you, like, expedited service, so we expedited your expedited service.
That's perfect.
It's so bad.
It's not.
Oh, god.
Alright.
Well, we're, enough dunking on clear.
We got a lot to get to in the show today.
We're just gonna show you exactly how, how to travel this summer and give you some of our favorite tips and tricks to make things go a little bit better for you.
But first, we're gonna take a quick break.
So the man to my right doesn't just talk about travel a lot.
He also helps people travel smarter and more cheaply.
We do that by sending out flight deals even to our free subscribers, of which there are hundreds of thousands.
Gunnar, can you, read us through a couple of great flight deals that we've sent our free subscribers recently?
Yeah.
Our subscribers saw a deal recently to Athens, Greece with a bunch of fares under $598 round trip, mostly in the fall, but these are really, really good fares that can get you to Greece for way, way less.
We also saw this big, list of nonstop flights to Phoenix all under $99 round trip, which is some excellent fares there as well.
And then, just a few weeks ago, we had nonstop Aer Lingus fares to Ireland under $293 round trip.
We sent those to all of our subscribers while they were still very bookable to, book your fall or winter trip to the Emerald Isle as well.
So if you want round trip nonstop flights to Dublin for less than $300 and other deals like it, head to thriftytraveler.com and click that cheap get cheap flights button and sign up for free.
If you want 10 times more deals, you can sign up and upgrade to Thrifty Traveler Premium.
Use the promo code t pod, five letters, all one word, for $20 off your first year of premium flight alerts.
Alright.
Back to the show.
Alright.
Welcome back.
We're in the extra mile now where we dig a little deeper into some topics, in travel.
And right now, I think being in the throes of kinda summer travel season, we wanted to just go through some of our best tips from the booking process all the way to the day you fly and on your trip.
Just kinda some of the things that you and I think about while we're traveling to help people out, whether you're, you know, in the Uber on the way to the airport or you've got something come up in a few weeks.
It's good to touch base on some of these tips and tricks over time.
Let's start with booking.
Any tips that come to mind right away for you, Kyle, when you're booking flights or booking travel?
I mean, the first thing that I always think about is just picking the right flight, and sometimes that's just based wholly on your schedule.
You know, you need to get to Chicago, you know, by one or 2PM in order to take that long transatlantic or Transpacific flight.
So that can really dictate or limit, you know, what you're trying to do, especially if you have a specific events you need to get to.
But if you aren't really kind of building your entire travel day around that kind of specific schedule, the first thing I always do is I need to get on the earliest flight of the day, because nothing ruins, you know, your travels, whether it's for fun or for work or a little bit of both, more than getting delayed or getting your flight canceled.
And the data is just absolutely crystal clear that the number one best decision that you can make is to book the earliest flight of the day.
Because as the day goes on, you are much, much more likely to be delayed as airlines start to struggle, as things start to fall apart and their operation operational problems snowball.
You get to, you know, midday and onward.
And you're in some cases, you're you're, in many cases, you know, thirty, forty, 50% more likely to be delayed just because you didn't wake up a little bit earlier and hop on that seven, in some cases, 6AM departure.
So that's that's the best thing that you can do.
The thing that I always do kind of regardless, unless if it's just very clear that I don't need to be on that first flight of the day.
Yeah.
I won't sugarcoat it.
Waking up in the fours or the fives really stinks.
But It's not fun.
No.
It's not fun, but it's short term pain.
And, you know, the way I'll think about it is like this.
You know, as Kyle said, delays and cancellations cascade throughout the day.
So the later the flight is, the more likely it is going to be impacted by the inbound flight and the inbound flight before that and the inbound flight before that.
So if you're gonna be delayed at the airport for, four hours, I would rather be at my destination four hours earlier and killing time there if I have to.
There are so many good reasons to get to the airport early, especially in these cases.
Your plane is probably waiting for you overnight, especially if it's leaving at six, seven.
That's exactly that's exactly it.
That's why this matters so much.
Yeah.
The plane's there.
The crew is there.
Everyone's there ready to fly you someplace, you know.
And then the second that schedule starts for the day, things start cascading.
So that is the number one surefire tip.
If you already have something booked, look into rebooking, to that first flight of the day.
It's also often cheaper.
So you might not get fleeced on this deal if you have to change it if you're worried about delays and cancellations.
But especially if you're on the East Coast and especially if you're near if you're in the South, these kinda afternoon thunderstorms that pop up all throughout the summer.
And then, of course, in fall, we get into, you know, the severe weather hurricane season as well.
So just take a look at the flights you have.
If there's a really early one, it might be the best option for you, especially if you're traveling with a big group.
Any other tips?
You know, the first thing that I do after booking, if I haven't done it already, is set a Google Flights price alert, because, you know, I think you've you've said it best.
The time to stop booking your flights is when you're actually on the plane.
The silver lining of the pandemic is that airlines did away with change fees, and that remains true today so long as you don't book the cheapest basic economy fare, which means that if no matter how cheap it was, if the price of the flight that you're that you're already booked on drops after you book, you're able to go back, rebook it, and pocket the difference as a voucher.
So if you book for $200 and that and that price eventually, you know, days, even weeks later, it drops to a $150, you cancel that first flight you booked, get a voucher, use that voucher to rebook that flight, and you pocket a $50 voucher that you can put towards another trip, which is gonna come in handy, for one of my last booking tips here that we'll get to in a second.
I have I have lost track of how much how much money I've saved and then put towards future trips with Delta, with United, with American just as a result of keeping a Google Flights price alert in place.
Yeah.
I have, you get 100 free Google Flights price alerts, and I hit that cap last year.
What?
Yeah.
I had to, like,
go in the room with a unicorn.
Yeah.
100 Google Flights price alerts.
And the reason is because I set four essentially for every flight I book.
I set one for the exact flight I booked, the exact itinerary.
I set one for all the other options on the same day, so, like, that kinda landing page screen after you do your main search.
And then I set one for the day before and the day after as well just to see where prices move.
So I end up with four alerts for every single flight that I book.
And it's just part of, like, an overarching strategy.
I've talked about it on the show before, but just never stop booking your trip.
Book something good, and then tinker with it until it's great or perfect, which I haven't found yet.
I've never hit perfect.
But, I think just keep tinkering with your trip.
You can make it better, you know, as long as you're aware of changing cancellation fees on, you know, the non US airlines when booking with points and miles.
Just be careful.
Those could add up if you're, you know, changing your trip five or six times that $50 cancellation fee will rack up on you.
But if you're flying with the domestic carriers especially, you're not gonna get hit with those as well.
So keep tinkering.
That's my, my tip as well.
One other thing, tinkering with seat assignment, which I guess goes into a little bit of, like, the day of travel, but using Aerolopa, the tool aerolopa.com, they, basically have a full catalog of almost every single plane that flies and what the seat maps look like so you can see exactly what you're getting with the seat.
It's kinda what SeatGuru used to be good at, and SeatGuru has kinda fallen away a little bit.
I think Aerolope is just a lot cleaner and easier to use.
But, keep checking the seat map on the flight that you've already booked.
People are changing flights constantly, and that means the seat that you may have wanted to be in might have opened up.
So just keep hunting that seat map over and over again up until the day you fly after check-in, especially when the map opens wide open.
Yeah.
It's it that's where having your airlines app to be able to quickly pull up the live seat map up until the moment boarding begins.
You're able to kinda shift around the cabin.
So, I mean, you know, I just think back to a trip that I took to Hawaii a few years ago where, you know, in the long flight from Minneapolis to Honolulu, my wife and I, at the time that we booked, we were stuck in a section of four, and just wanted to be in our own little two seat section on the seven sixty seven that Delta flies nonstop from Minneapolis to Honolulu or at least did at the time.
And so I just kept checking that seat map, and it was literally about ten minutes before boarding actually began.
All of a sudden, there was a two seat section that was open, and it was right behind our in laws, my wife's parents.
So perfect.
But, again, if you're not if you don't have your airline's app, if you're not constantly looking to try to find it, you're gonna miss out on that opportunity, which, again, I just need to stress, keep doing it until the moment boarding begins because until then, it's a free for all.
Yeah.
For sure.
I and I just don't think there are a lot of travelers doing this too.
I think a lot of people book the flight.
They show up at the gate, and they're like, here's where so you can get ahead pretty easily by just staying on top of it.
Just this one little thing.
It's it's on your phone.
This isn't, you know, I'm not making you call anybody.
Just pull out your phone, keep tabs on it.
Any other booking tips, before we move on to the next part of our journey?
Yeah.
I got two more quick ones.
The second thing that I do if I haven't already set that Google Flights price alert for the flight that I just booked is I forward, the reserve the confirmation email that comes through to plans@tripit.com.
TripIt is one of my favorite travel smartphone apps.
I think of it can do a lot of things, but what I use it for primarily is just to keep my itinerary organized and in one place.
Because what TripIt will do is it will take all of the confirmation emails, whether it's flights, hotels, dinners, excursions, whatever you're doing on your trip, and it will just kind of order it in a linear fact in a linear fashion so you can see exactly what's coming up next.
At this point, it's just really second nature to me.
I just automatically forward that confirmation email as soon as it comes through.
And the number of people where, you know, somebody has asked, like, oh, well, what are you guys doing today?
And I pull up my TripIt, and they're like, what are you looking at?
I was like, oh, it's just it's TripIt.
And to me, it's just so it's just so common knowledge.
But I think a lot of people don't know just how handy this can be just to stay organized.
I mean, you really you don't need to be printing out a full binder of different confirmation numbers for flights and hotels.
TripIt really takes care of all this for you and organize it organizes it in a really clean way.
You asked me a few weeks ago on the show if I had ever booked something for the wrong day, like a flight or a hotel or something.
And I my reply was, I don't think I have, but I have caught a few, like, within twenty four hours, and that's because of TripIt.
I send everything to TripIt.
And then if there's a discrepancy in my kinda timeline, like, if I'm if I'm a day late or a day early on a flight or a day later, a day early on a hotel, it lets you know, especially if there are kinda conflicting itineraries.
It'll tell you, like, hey.
By the way, this doesn't make sense.
And you can just see it very easily on the timeline.
So I love using Trippet for that as well.
It catches all of my mistakes, of which there are plenty.
You do make a lot of mistakes.
I can attest to that.
Last one.
I'm gonna make this as quick as I can.
Those delta e credits in particular come in handy for something that we've talked about on the show in a recent podcast episode with Nick about just how confusing and convoluted some of the premium credit card benefits in particular for American Express can be.
And so there's this $200 annual, annual airline ancillary fee benefit, which by the terms of the benefit means you can't use that to just go out and book a $200 flight with Delta or Southwest.
It's meant to pay for things like luggage and seat assignment and stuff like that.
But, we'll link this in the show notes.
There is a great way to kind of use a workaround to use those credits to put them towards booking flights with Delta in particular, and then it involves using a Delta e credit.
So this is, I mean, the first two flights of the year that I book.
I'm typically like, alright.
Let me just use up whatever AmEx airline credits that I have to make sure that I put those to use because then I don't have to think about them anymore for the rest of the year.
Yeah.
All good tips.
Alright.
Let's go let's move on to the next part of the journey, and that's, when you're at home getting ready to pack up and go, what are your best packing tips, Kyle?
I'm gonna I'm gonna quiz you on this.
Are you a packing cubes guy?
I have some.
I use them I have a when I travel to ski, I, bring a big duffel bag, which gets pretty unruly.
It's like a backpack duffel bag, and so I use cubes in there, but I also have the just away carry on, and that one's a pretty tightly organized, bag.
So I don't use any packing cubes for that typically.
I have never used packing cubes.
I live in a divided household.
My wife is just so firmly packing cubes, pro packing cubes.
Why haven't she bought packing cubes yet?
And I just I haven't seen it.
I just like to roll my clothes.
That keeps things pretty organized.
So I mean, just being strategic about how you pack.
I think especially if you're either going on a short trip or you're just really set on sticking only in just a carry on, being strategic about, I think, in particular, how much how many shoes you bring.
Packing versatile shoes, I think, is just the biggest thing.
You don't need a separate pair of running shoes, I don't think, unless if you're, you know, about to go somewhere for a marathon.
I think, you know, having a versatile pair of shoes that you can go on a long walk through the city, but then also head to the gym in, something like that.
I mean, that's that's where that kind of strategic thinking really comes in handy.
But to me, I think the carry on luggage, you know, baggage piece of packing for travel is almost less important than having a really good backpack that you can strategically pack things in where you have a place for everything that you need.
So for my backpack, for example, there is a, you know, a side pocket where I can just slide in these headphones that I'm wearing right now, which I always bring with me on any long trip.
There's another side pocket on the other side where I can, put in my computer charger, and it fits just perfectly.
And then you go through the list, and there's a spot for, you know, putting sliding in a laptop and then a Kindle and everything that I need really now after having this backpack for the last four years, has its place and fits perfectly.
And then all of that fits in, and it slides perfectly underneath the seat in front of me.
Having finding that right backpack that fits everything that you wanna need, I think, is one of the most important parts of packing for travel.
Yeah.
I have I have a travel backpack that's, like, almost exactly what I need.
It's just lacking in some areas like my, Just sew on a pocket.
You can sew.
Right?
Yeah.
Maybe.
The side pocket is just a little too shallow for the size of my water bottle because as an American, I have to travel with just a liter gallon of water everywhere.
Nobody ever drank water before we invented the Stanley Cup.
Yeah.
We all we're all walking around without headaches now in the year 2025.
It's incredible.
I don't have any other packing tips other than that.
I'm actually not a good packer.
I think this is probably where I fall the shortest, when it comes to travel, but I do have I have these shoes.
Just go with it.
If you if you're not watching on YouTube, you just missed Gunner lift up his leg with all of the grace of a 30, white male to show everybody his shoes?
Pure athleticism.
I have three pairs of these white Nikes that I bring everywhere.
I only bring one pair at a time, obviously, but they're just machine washable as generic as you can, cheap white Nikes, and that's the perfect travel shoe.
I have brought these to places just planning to leave them there, being like because they're so cheap and so easy.
I'm like, alright.
These might not come home with me, especially if I trash them.
And I've definitely left shoes in places before if you if they're totally mangled by the end of the trip.
Alright.
Let's move on to the airport.
Once we are at the airport, what kind of tips do we have for you guys?
I'm gonna start with this one because this is my favorite my very favorite travel tip.
Flighty, the app, specifically Flighty Pro, which is kind of the service that they sell with the app.
It's the best aviation app there is, period.
It helps you track exactly what flights you are on.
It'll give you probabilities, and statistics about how that flight is operating.
It gives you weather data.
It tells you exactly what plane you're on.
Once you're kinda within twenty four hours or sometimes forty eight hours of travel, it'll tell you exactly what plane you're on by the tail number and tell you if you've ever been on that plane before.
Very fun nerdy things.
But
Super, super useful for the average traveler, that particular statistic.
The really useful stuff is that flighty often notifies me about delays that are coming up before the airlines do.
It can tell based on airline data when the cascading delay is gonna happen.
If my if my plane is three stops away, between San Antonio and Detroit, and it still has two more to go before it gets to me in Minneapolis to take me wherever, it's gonna tell me, like, alright.
That plane is two hours behind.
There's no way it's gonna make up the time you're gonna be delayed.
Either that's the case or they end up switching the plane out or and saving it if you're at a hub like that.
But I get a lot of alerts about flight cancellations, and then I can immediately, you know, get on the phone with somebody or get into the app and change things on my own before the, the airlines even know what's going on and before, more importantly, all 170 other passengers on the plane get to it.
Knowledge is power when things go wrong in travel, and having knowledge before your 169 fellow passengers is a silver bullet for getting where you need to go quicker and solving the problems that you need to solve.
I mean, the perfect example of this is sitting at a gate, and the airline says boarding at 8AM.
And it's 07:55, and there's no plane there.
And you and I know that this flight isn't getting off on time, but the airline isn't saying anything about this.
With something like Flighty, they will tell you exactly where that plane is, what time it's likely to pull in, what time it's likely to actually start boarding and depart.
The volume of information that flighty can give you about your day of travels is, in some cases, too much.
Like, sometimes I'm a little bit worried when I shouldn't be, but the amount of times when it saved me.
The perfect example, I will never forget flying from Minneapolis to New York City, last year.
And I'm it's probably twenty minutes after takeoff, and I'm sitting there reading a book or something, and I feel my phone, a notification, and I look at it.
And it's flighty, and it says, your flight has been diverted back to Minneapolis.
Like, what's going on here?
Sure enough, like, five, ten minutes later even, the pilot comes overhead.
Well, folks, some bad news from the flight deck.
We were, in fact, diverting back to Minneapolis, but Flighty notified me right when they logged that change, but before the plane actually started to turn around to go back to Minneapolis and land.
The number of times when I've gotten a notification from Flighty just like you about a change to our flights before not just before, but long before in some cases, thirty minutes, even an hour before the airline itself notifies me is just incredible.
Yeah.
There are tons of practical uses for it.
It does also, lead the league in, sarcastic wows from my wife.
Like, hey, babe.
This plane is 29 years old, and she'll give me a, wow.
That's that's really great, hon.
The things that my wife does not care about, all on flighty.
It's the best app.
I love it.
What other at the airport tips, do you have for people, Kath?
I mean, it is it is really basic, but at the same time, it's maybe the most valuable thing any traveler can do, which is get precheck.
There have been a couple of times whether it's, you know, in Europe where no quite similar system to precheck exists or just because of one snafu or another, the my precheck didn't pass through to a boarding pass, and I didn't have time to fix it.
Those few times when I have gone through security without precheck, I'm like, oh my gosh.
Precheck is the best.
It saves you so much time.
More importantly, it saves you so much hassle.
And all of the things that you hate about going through airport security, 98% of them, precheck solves.
So if you don't have precheck, check the list, which we'll put in the show notes of the different, travel credit cards, some of which are $95 a year.
That can cover the entire cost of signing up for a precheck.
If you travel internationally, go for Global Entry.
It takes a little bit longer to actually get enrolled because you need to do a background check and an in person interview.
But the fact that you get precheck as well as, you know, the ability to go through global entry upon return to The United States and have a much faster customs and immigration experience too.
I mean, it's just the ultimate two for one in travel.
Yep.
Massive time savers, headache savers takes, you know, global entry that kinda reentering to The US and then security with TSA takes two of the most annoying parts about travel and, makes them way, way easier.
Anything else for, you know, tips for at the airport?
You know, I think I griped about this on a previous pod.
Just please, people, do what I do.
The time to empty your pockets and take off your watch and all of the things is not when you're standing in front of the conveyor belt.
It's before you get in the line.
So please join me.
When you park your car or when you get out of your Uber, take that time, take that thirty seconds to do some inventory, and start putting things in your backpack or wherever they need to go in order to make sure that you can just keep walking, grab your stuff, put it on the conveyor belt, and walk through rather than spending an extra more stressful, you know, thirty seconds a minute even trying to do that strange dance where you're feeling every pocket.
No.
You just need to know that every pocket is empty by the time you actually step in line.
I got I got one more at the airport.
Lounge access, as much as it feels overblown, especially as lounges have gotten busier and more crowded than ever, it still is just makes your travel day a little bit better.
And I'm not just saying go get lounge access.
What the tip here is if you have lounge access, in particular with Delta through either a Delta Reserve card or the American Express Platinum, add that credit card to your Delta Wallet.
Because then when you go to the Delta Sky Club to get in on the morning or the day of your flight, all you have to do is just scan your boarding pass.
You don't also have to whip out that credit card, which means you can leave that credit card at home.
I don't travel I almost never travel with my American Express Platinum card anymore.
I just have it attached to my Delta Wallet, which means I can just scan that boarding pass and walk in.
Yeah.
Another really good tip.
Alright.
Let's, let's take our tips up in the air.
We've taken off Kyle.
We're flying.
What do you what are some, kinda on the plane travel tips you have for people?
I think it's pop quiz time.
Window seat or aisle seat?
I prefer an aisle seat.
Potty police.
I like to make sure I know what's going on with everyone's bathroom habits in the plane.
Not where I thought you were going with that.
I just like to be able to get a jump on, the lavatory right when the seat belt sign goes off.
So I prefer the aisle unless I know I'm flying somewhere, like, exceptionally beautiful and I need to see the landing.
Yeah.
That's fair.
I'm the same.
I'll see it, every time.
I yeah.
It just helps with the anxiety of feeling like you might get trapped when you really have to go to the bathroom.
Mhmm.
Yep.
So that's an easy one for me.
I have a I have a travel tip, Kyle.
I've been I've been workshopping this one.
Basically, you know, sometimes travel gets, a little anxious.
People get nervous about it.
I understand that.
I've tried everything and every gadget in travel, but the one thing that really makes me the most comfortable in the air is two glasses of red wine.
I don't think anything has ever helped me more than two glasses of red wine.
Just a just a good red blend out of a can, you know, whatever the airline has to offer for you.
The quality of the wine doesn't really matter.
It's more about the quantity.
It doesn't.
It's, you know, it's a can of red wine.
It's low stakes.
And, really, you know, two glasses is the sweet spot.
You know?
Three, four, five, you could become an issue.
One's
You.
Speak for yourself, buddy.
One's never quite enough.
I think two glasses of red wine, it, you know, it kinda alleviates all that anxiety.
You know, the nothing feels as good or as bad with two glasses of red wine.
Just it's low stakes, you know, casual airplane drinking, and there's nothing quite like that.
Two glasses of red wine.
That's my tip for around the airplane.
You have officially become the Shane Gillis of travel, which is a reference to that SNL skit he did earlier this year, which for a couple of beers.
A couple of beers.
Shane Gillis has got a couple of beers.
Gunnar Olsen's got two red wines.
I will I'll add one add on.
I have not tried this myself, but my buddy, Will, shout out Will in New York City.
He just flew, back to Chicago for July 4 break, and he texted me and he said that he had a breakthrough and that he got a Woodford Reserve and a Biscoff cookie, which he said was the best pair that he's ever had.
Best, wine food pairing or drink food pairing on an airplane that he's ever had.
I'm inclined to believe him.
The guy's got an advanced palette, but I haven't tried it for myself.
So let me know out there.
Podcast at thriftytraveler.com.
Is Will onto something or not?
The Woodford and Biscoff cookie combo.
Yeah.
My combo is, a good pair of noise canceling headphones, which it's a it's always amazes me how much engine noise that these can drown out.
I sometimes you're on the plane and, you know, you get up to go to the bathroom because you're sitting in the aisle seat, and it's much easier, and that's why we sit there.
And you take off your headphones, and it's like, oh my gosh.
I didn't realize how much louder this plane is just from thirty minutes even of having them on.
So, you know, in addition to, you know, tuning out a loud neighbor that you don't really wanna talk to on the plane, we've all been there.
Yeah.
It's it's to me, it's one of the biggest game changer investments that you can make in improving your travels, whether it's a, you know, a quick two and a half, three hour domestic flight or certainly fifteen plus hours in the air on an ultra long haul.
Having a good pair of noise canceling headphones is huge.
Most of them are Bluetooth.
Most of them, including, you know, the ones that you and I have on from Bose have, the ability to, you know, plug something in and plug into a seat back screen, most of which still today don't have Bluetooth capability.
But the combo part of this is having an accessory like the AirFly.
There are other Bluetooth adapter receivers like this.
So whatever it is, just adding that to your cart when you buy that set of noise canceling headphones so that you can turn any set of headphones, any seat back screen into a wireless headset.
It's just it makes it makes the travel day it's a little thing that makes your travel day a little bit easier and more comfortable.
Yeah.
The AirPlay is really, really slick.
And, you know, when it comes to travel, the bigger, the better for headphones.
The only place in the world where, you can have massive headphones on and not I guess that in a recording studio or a podcast studio.
But nothing sets the tone to your neighbor that I don't wanna see pictures of your niece than one of these bad boys.
Just big old headphones.
Please stop talking to me.
I'm trying to watch missing impossible.
Any other on the plane tips that you have, Kyle, or should we head to the ground?
No.
I think let's land and hit our destination.
Yep.
I already talked about my best on the ground tip, which is just using TripIt, helping you figure out the gaps in your itineraries, creating itineraries that work for everybody.
And, yeah, I just love that tool.
I also sync it to my calendar, and I'm a big calendar guy.
So I, I think TripIt is just the all around best on the ground tool.
What do you got?
I got I got three quick ones for planning your travel and getting a little bit more out of it.
The XE app is what I use for currency conversion.
In the latest, Apple iPhone iOS updates, there is the ability to turn your calculator into a converter.
But to me, the process is just a little bit clunky.
You gotta, you know, open up the settings and change things, and then the process of changing from currency to currency is a little bit more, confusing and clunky.
XE is really great.
It updates when you do have a cell signal or Internet based on the latest currency rates, which I imagine the Apple version does too.
But you also have the ability to plug in, say, you can do 1 US dollar and then have a list of, you know, six, seven, 10, even more different, country currencies and automatically have that conversion in front of you.
So it's just really, really slick.
It's something that I use every single time we travel internationally.
With that, having, a Charles Schwab debit card or a similar travel debit card that allows you to withdraw money without paying ATM fees is huge.
I think almost everybody, if not everybody on our team, has the Charles Schwab debit card.
We'll link it in the show notes.
It's just it's a must.
Even as much of the travel world, the entire world has moved towards cashless society and being able to use a credit card, 99 times out of a 100, there's still gonna be a situation where you do need cash.
And so having the ability to withdraw it rather than go to your bank and, you know, travel with a folio of hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, please don't do that.
Please also don't go to, you know, the airport kiosk and convert your money where I promise you, you are absolutely getting ripped off.
The solution here is to have a Charles Schwab debit card or a similar international travel debit card.
My wife and I just kinda treat this as our travel savings account.
So when we're getting ready to go on a trip, we transfer some money from our primary checking account to the Charles Schwab account.
It clears in, you know, three to four business days typically.
But then we've just got money there to withdraw whether we're in Turkey or South Africa or England or Scotland or whatever.
It's just it's huge.
Yeah.
Easy travel tip.
It's it's free to sign up.
And the an important note is what you mentioned that it does take a few days to get money into the account sometimes, so you gotta have a little advance notice.
Don't try and make a transfer, while you're standing at the ATM.
But it's, saved me a lot of money on fees and just the convenience of looking at the first ATM in the airport and walking over to it and grabbing the money you need to after you land is really slick as well.
So, I love that card as well.
Any other tips for on the ground, or, do you have any last tips for everybody here?
Last one on the ground is it's gonna sound really basic.
I've just really come to love Google Maps in particular, the ability to save restaurants or sites or whatever you want to do with your travel companion and share them so that you can contribute together.
So, you know, we've talked a lot on the show about this trip that my wife and I are taking to England and Scotland later this summer, really, in the fall.
We have a Google map going, you know, between London, Edinburgh, and, and the coast of Scotland.
It's probably got a 100 different pins on it.
But it's really, really organized, and you can organize each individual city if you want to.
You can add notes.
This is something that I have started doing just within the last few trips because inevitably, I'll see something cool or hear about something cool and save it in a map.
And then I'll look at it, like, two days later and be like, why is this here?
You can add a note so you can remind yourself, oh, this you know, this is the place that has really good fish and chips, or this is the pub where you need to go to order a Guinness or whatever.
Really, really helpful to start planning the travel process.
Yeah.
For sure.
Alright.
Let's, let's each give one last travel tip, and then we'll we'll get out of this extra mile segment.
And I'm gonna start with mine.
Cool?
Yeah.
Okay.
My tip, I've said it before.
I said it earlier in the show.
Get up in the morning, and I say with the caveat, not every day, but for the important ones, it's almost always worth doing things early when you travel.
I think we mentioned it.
First flight of the day is always gonna operate on time, almost always gonna operate on time.
And then other than that, I think some of the best experiences of my life in travel have been from, you know, predawn wake ups where you get to go, you know, whether it's go get on the chairlift and go skiing in a deep powder day or, you know, going on a hike where you get to watch the sunrise or something like that or just walking around the city before it gets busy and hot, especially in the summertime.
I just think getting up in the morning and doing it.
If you need to pair that with an afternoon nap, even better is vacation.
Why not?
But I just love getting an early start on the important days, and then, you know, make sure that it's not every day.
Make sure you have a day or two where you can, have a slow morning as well.
But, get up for the stuff that's worth it.
It's gonna sound like I'm contradicting you, and I promise I'm not.
Especially for trips overseas, book something big for your first night.
The number of times where I have struggled to stay awake and I'm about to succumb to, like, that 5PM nap, which is just so deadly for really beating jet lag and adjusting as soon as you can, and I'm like, oh, we're meeting up with a friend tonight, or we've got a big dinner reservation at 7PM.
The longer you can force yourself to stay up that first night is just so, so key in beating jet lag and putting it behind you sooner rather than later.
So booking something, whether it's a big dinner, plans with friends, a walking tour, whatever for as late as you can at night to make sure you stay up at least until that reasonable hour is just so crucial for beating jet lag.
It helps every single time we travel.
That's that has just become kind of like an unspoken agreement every time my wife and I travel is that we're gonna do something big that first night to make sure we put jet lag behind us.
That's a great one.
Really good one.
Let's help out a listener.
Today, we have a question from Thrifty Traveler premium subscriber, Dawn.
She posted in our members only Facebook group.
Our community kinda helps each other out there.
People post questions, lot of kinda itinerary stuff.
It's a great little community we have, among our Thrift Traveler premium members.
Dawn posted a really simple question that has kind of a million answers.
She asks, hello all.
I'm debating whether I should check or carry on my luggage.
She said she's specifically on an Air France flight from MSP through Paris to Rome, a two hour layover in Paris.
She says, would we be better off with a carry on, or what is the likelihood that our luggage won't make it to the final destination?
Kyle, what are your thoughts on her specific situation and then just kind of the carry on versus checked bags debate in general?
Well, there's there's the Paris of it all, which is a notoriously difficult airport.
I mean, the number of times where I have connected through Paris on what was supposed to be a two, two and a half hour connection that has become a thirty five minute connection or less is a lot.
It's it's every time I've flown through Paris, in fact.
That doesn't bode well for your bags making it.
Now the nice thing about connecting through Europe is that unlike The United States where you always have to collect your luggage upon landing in your first port in The US, that's not a concern in Europe, in particular for countries that are in the Schengen area, in the Eurozone.
That said, that's still just a little bit too close for comfort.
And even if it's not, things always go wrong with baggage.
I mean, it's one of the most frequent issues and complaints that we hear about airlines.
So I think if you're willing to entertain the idea of packing and just to carry on, now is the time to try.
I mean, the number one thing that we hear from travelers who check bags is I can't fit all of this into a carry on.
And they're right based on the volume that they're packing, but the problem has almost everything to do with the volume that they're packing and that it's too much.
And so think back to the last time you checked a bag for a trip and how many things you put in that bag just because there was space and how much you didn't use.
And so start to do inventory.
And I promise you, just by doing that, you're probably already getting pretty close to being able to fit everything into a carry on.
Stuff like liquids, I mean, you can always buy a new a new small bottle of contact solution or shampoo or body wash or whatever.
Being able to size all of that down and then also have it with you on the plane, because if you're packing, you know, in those, in those smaller liquid bottles, that means that it can go in your carry on.
It has to now, and that means it can be in your backpack, and you can just grab stuff out as you need it rather than waiting until you land.
I mean, the combination of not having to worry about waiting for bags at the carousel, not having to worry about losing all of your belongings and having to spend the first few hours on what was supposed to be a really fun vacation going to stores and buying things.
What even if the airline is picking up the tab, that's not a fun way to start a trip.
So I think this is the time to try out the carry on life and see if it's gonna work for you.
Yep.
Simple as possible.
If you can, carry on.
I know that some people can't.
If you're, you know, flying with skis or equipment like I often do, or I know some traveling families who really wanna bring their car seat along.
Understandable.
Check if you have to.
The one exception is if my wife and I have an agreement that if we're coming back to MSP and our reservation ends at MSP, we'll always just check everything on
the
return flight.
Because who cares?
If they lose it, they gotta deliver it to my door anyway.
So no skin off my back either way.
So I think, unless I'm heading home on the outbound, I always try and, and carry on.
But in general, then, you know, you might as well carry on the way back in most cases unless your bag is super, super heavy.
So good help there for Don.
If you want us to answer your question, email us at podcast@thriftytraveler.com, and your question might be featured in next week's show.
Alright, Kyle.
It's my turn to put you on the spot, isn't it?
So coming into the studio this afternoon, I was pretty sure I was gonna ask you a question about the Burger King that you ate for lunch, but I'm just gonna let that sit out there.
And instead, you know, we're talking about practical travel tips on the show.
It's time for us to veer in a different direction.
What is your snobbiest travel take?
Oh, my snobbiest travel take.
The thing that would just make you seem out of touch to, you know, all of the thrifty traveler podcast listeners out there.
I don't know.
You've got some.
Oh, man.
Okay.
Well, here's one.
Here's one.
I think especially off a long haul flight, having somebody at the airport waiting for you with your name on a sign is just about the best thing that you can do in travel.
I, you know, I'll use public transportation when it's very easy to use and inexpensive, But, I will spring and have sprung before for, someone standing there with a placard with my name on it just because, you know, especially off a long flight.
And the last thing I wanna do is start piecing together more travel, and it's just get me to the hotel, please.
If I'm traveling with my wife, that's, extra points because she's usually actually impressed by that.
One of the few things that I can do to impress my wife.
So, having my name on a placard when I get there, having a taxi ready to go, and avoiding the transportation or the taxi stand or whatever else you have to do.
That's probably my bougie just travel take.
I there's gotta be something more than that, though.
You'll you'll come up with more.
I'll just I'll just rerack this question every time you're on the spot and press it for something better.
That's a that's a good on the spot.
Do you have one?
No.
No.
We get to skip me.
You're not putting me on the spot.
Come on.
Just Kyle's such a man of the people.
He can't even fathom having a bougie travel take.
Alright.
Well, that's gonna be it then.
Thank you so much for listening to the Thrifty Traveler podcast.
If you would go and rate us five stars in your podcast platform of choice, we would really appreciate it.
Like and subscribe to the show on YouTube as well.
It's a lot of fun over there, and you get to watch us.
We heard from several members, this week who've been watching us every week.
God bless y'all.
Send this episode to somebody you know who, has a trip coming up.
Send it to the family members that you know you're gonna be traveling with as, like, a subtle way to tell them to get their
Get their act together?
Yeah.
To get it in gear before you travel.
And if you have feedback for us, send us a note podcast at thrifty traveler dot com.
We love hearing from you guys there.
Positive and negative feedback.
We're we're open to it all.
Kyle, tell us about the Thrifty Traveler podcast team.
This episode was produced by the awesome Erica Kimrowski and by your favorite host, a man who contains multitudes, who loves both Burger King and having a private driver, Gunnar Olson.
It was edited by David Strutt.
Our theme music is by Benjamin Tissow.
See you next week.
Later.