Gunnar and Kyle put Southwest on trial, explaining the (shortsighted) logic behind the airline’s incredibly unpopular changes to baggage and other negative moves - and what it means for all you travelers going forward. Plus, some Hyatt properties to book ASAP before they’ll cost you more points and our absolute favorite travel hack ... that isn’t much of a “hack” at all.
Gunnar and Kyle put Southwest on trial, explaining the (shortsighted) logic behind the airline’s incredibly unpopular changes to baggage and other negative moves - and what it means for all you travelers going forward. Plus, some Hyatt properties to book ASAP before they’ll cost you more points and our absolute favorite travel hack that isn’t much of a “hack” at all.
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(0:00) Thanks for ruining our first podcast, Southwest!!!
(1:38) Something hot: Flight prices are dropping - rebook your flights to save more!
(4:48) Something cold: Hyatt properties on the move, book ASAP!
(12:54) A word from our sponsor (us … and our really cool tool to help you pick your next travel card!)
(14:00) The Extra Mile: Why Southwest did it … & what’s next
(33:53) A listener wonders how to redeem Delta and Capital One miles
(36:52) Putting Gunnar on the spot about our (alleged) issues
Produced by Gunnar Olson & Nick Serati
Edited by David Strutt
Show music: "All That" by Benjamin Tissot
Yo. I am Gunnar Olseon from Thrifty Traveler here with the man who needs no introduction. It's a guy who's got a new haircut and is rapidly skyrocketing up the rankings of most handsome guy on the podcast. It's Kyle Potter. How you doing, Kyle?
You know, I think we've been here under better circumstances, haircut notwithstanding. That's true. That's true. So I have a quick question for you to get started. Are you more mad that Southwest lied to everyone about protecting bags fly free, or are you more mad that they ruined our first podcast?
You know, I'm I'm not gonna answer that. I'm gonna dodge it, and I'm just gonna say, I I had just hoped that we wouldn't have the magic of podcast show business wear off within one day of starting the podcast. That we would at least get, you know, a couple weeks, maybe even months before we got caught with our pants down on big news that we had to go back and update the episode to catch it. No. This is big news, and we're gonna spend a lot of this episode talking about it.
Yeah. We always knew there'd be no magic with two guys like us on screen. That's true. We'll we'll talk about it at length, like we said. So today on the show, we're gonna talk about a major dip in airfare, what you should be doing about it.
We'll also look into Hyatt's latest award chart changes, in our featured segment called The Extra Mile. We're gonna talk about Southwest Airlines. And like any good podcast, we're gonna lean heavily into our personal grievances as we do so.
Welcome back to the Thrifty Traveler podcast.
Alright. I get to lead off this segment. We are kicking things off by jumping into something hot and something cold, where we look into the good and the bad of the news out there for travelers in this past week, and we're gonna start with something hot. Gunnar, there's a new trend in flight prices that can be a big win whether you're just, you know, looking for a trip, later this spring, maybe early summer, but also if you even have something on the books. So kind of spell it out for us. Yeah.
So what we're seeing is demand in air travel right now, especially domestically in The US in April and May, has just bottomed out. And the airlines have all admitted as such, but we're seeing some of the lowest fares that we've ever seen, specifically for those April and May months. And it's what it's created is it's a great time to book flights if you're able to travel in April and May, but even more so if you booked April or May flights a long time ago and you paid out the year for them, now's the time to go back and rebook. Because if especially when you're flying an airline like Delta or Southwest or American, you can just rebook and get a credit for the difference, get a voucher for the difference in price. So it's pretty much risk free.
You're keeping that seat assignment if you booked it. And that's just one of our favorite travel hacks period. You know, it's the easiest travel hack there is. It's just keeping an eye on the airfare you've already booked and then just getting a better rate as you go. But the key is you've you had to have booked main cabin to do this.
If you've got a basic economy fare a long time ago, you might be stuck with what you got. But right now, we're just seeing, flights are really cheap. And even more so than booking anew, it's time to rebook if you've got something on the books. This is by far the single greatest silver lining of the pandemic that, you know, every airline across the board, not just Southwest, but, you know, American, Delta, United, even most of the, you know, major foreign airlines made their main cabin economy fares flexible for good. No more change fees, no more cancellation fees, which, again, as Gunnar is saying, you know, gives you that flexibility and that ability to keep an eye out for price decreases, which we're seeing a lot of recently.
And when you see them, when you get an alert from a Google Flights price alert, which everybody who's listening to this needs to be using, not just for the flights that you wanna book, but for the flights that you've already booked. Because once that hits your inbox, you just go in, you either modify your current reservation and just rebook it into that same seat that you already have, or you cancel it, rebook it, and pocket the difference as as an airfare voucher or a credit. I mean, I I have lost track of how much money in air airfare credits that I've pocketed as a result of this over the last four years. It's certainly north of a thousand dollars. It's probably closer to 2, if not 3.
What about you? Yeah. Definitely. At least that. My mantra when booking travel is just you're never done booking a trip.
Just stay at it. Keep tracking those prices. It's so often that fares go down like this, and you're able to capitalize on it. And then with all the credits you build up over time, maybe use those on a much better seat the next time or an upgrade this time. I mean, it's just making your travels better just by staying on it.
Google Flights price alerts. Four words save you a lot of money in travel. Can we dig into something cold, though? Yeah. Let's do it.
Yeah. We have to. Okay. Hyatt announced their award chart changes. We've got some hotels that we didn't wanna see that are gonna get more expensive.
A couple bright side, pieces of news there. Not much. Not much. No. No.
Let's just call it what it is. It's negative. Yeah. So I guess we were expecting maybe something worse, but describe this to us. What are we looking at here?
Yeah. So every year right around this time in in March, Hyatt reshuffles all of its, you know, thousands of properties up and down its award chart. Some, you know, get a little bit less expensive when you're redeeming points for a free night certificate. Most, though, end up moving up, and that's exactly what we saw here this year. You know, more than a hundred properties on the move upward, which means that all of these properties are gonna cost you more points if you wanna book a free night, and just a handful dropping in price.
So, again, let's call it what it is. This is negative. This is something that people have to prepare for and try to take advantage of while they can. But that's the silver lining here is that Hyatt actually gives everybody, you know, really a one month warning to book all of these properties before they go up in price. And because, you know, Hyatt and all the major hotel chains allow you to book at least twelve, if not thirteen months in advance, there's some discrepancies with that on a property by property basis, but that's the rule of thumb.
That allows you to lock in a stay, you know, as far out as April of twenty twenty six before these properties go up in price. So at the time you're listening to this, you know, if you're listening to this when this episode comes out, you've still got a few days. This whole big change with Hyatt's award chart takes place on March 25. So, you know, you really need to get moving because we're talking about just a matter of days before, you know, some properties are gonna cost you 3,000, five thousand, even 10,000 points per night in additional points, which is is, again, a real bummer. You know, the flip side of this is, you know, and we had written about this in just the days prior to Hyatt coming out with this, you know, big bash of bad news that we worried Hyatt's award chart in its entirety was gonna be a thing in a thing of the past that, you know, Hyatt was finally gonna take a page out of the books of Marriott and Hilton and others and transition just wholly towards dynamic award pricing where the price of a night is just based on the cash rate, not on an ironclad award chart, which is where Hyatt gets a lot of its value from.
So it could have been a lot worse, but it's still pretty bad. I mean, there are a lot of hits here, and I know you've got a couple and I've got a few which, you know, we would urge people to go out and book before it's too late. Yeah. I a couple of mine I've stayed at, and a couple of them are just hotels I've had on my list where I may have to, take our own advice here and get booking. But, the Park Hyatt Tokyo was the first one on my list.
One of my favorite stays ever, moved to category eight. So it's gonna cost you 40 to 45,000 World of Hyatt points. And it's not even open right now. It's been closed for renovations for months. I don't even think anything is bookable.
So this is one that really, really hurts because going from 30,000 to 40,000 points per night without the ability to book, you know, a stay for next year far in advance, that one's really tough. Yeah. It stinks. That's the "Lost in Translation" hotel for those who don't know. It's a beautiful space.
It's really cool. It did feel very old. It was due for an update, but, it was a pretty unbelievable hotel stay. I I really enjoyed it there. And before I checked in there, I spent a few nights at the Hyatt Regency Tokyo, which is also moving up.
Moving into category five, 20,000 points a night. I'll say it's not worth that. So this is a tough one as well. It was a really affordable way to stay in Tokyo, that Hyatt Regency. Great location.
The rooms are are small and nothing to write home about, but this one stinks as well. Yeah. This one was on my list too. And just as a whole, Tokyo is Tokyo and Japan is getting hammered. I mean, there are nine Hyatt Japan properties that are moving up in price on the March 25.
You know, the two that you just mentioned, you know, the Hyatt Regency Tokyo also really hurts because the number of properties for which you can use a Hyatt free night certificate from their World of Hyatt credit card, you know, that's capped at a category four, which means it can cost no more than 15,000 points for a standard night. Hyatt Regency Tokyo, one of the few really affordable properties in Tokyo that fell underneath that umbrella. And as it moves from, you know, 15,000 to 20,000 points for a standard night, that's not gonna be an option anymore. So definitely anybody who's looking at using a free night certificate from one of their Hyatt credit cards or one of their perks from status, you gotta move on the Hyatt Regency Tokyo. Yeah.
Unfortunately, a bunch of Hyatt Regencies, which is, you know, more or less a pretty dependable hotel. You know what you're getting with a Hyatt Regency. They're not they're not all created equal. That's for sure. But a lot of those are moving up to category five, which kinda stinks.
Stinks. And you get a lot of higher agencies around airports too, which is when I often use them. It would be a great use of that, category four certificate, but no longer for me. Higher regency, Vancouver is one of the ones on my list. Vancouver is one of my favorite cities, inexpensive place to stay, though.
So that would have been nice. Book that while you can. And, the nicest one on my list, the Andaz Peninsula Papagayo Resort in Costa Rica. This place looks unbelievable, and it was probably rightly moving to category eight. You can't fault hide on this one, but it was good while it lasted.
It was good while it lasted, but, also, I think it was, I don't know, five or six years ago that this property was a category four at 15,000 points per night. So in just in less than in basically half a decade, it's gone from 15,000 points a night up to 40,000 or more, which is a little absurd, but I guess, you know, Hyatt has seen the headlines about inflation and figured they could get in on the action. Yeah. Why not? Everyone's heading down there anyway.
What else do you have on your list? Yeah. I have another Tokyo property, the Andaz Tokyo Taranimon Hills, moving up from 30,000 to 40,000 points per night for a standard night. That one personally has been on my list forever. It's also getting really hard to book.
So, you know, it just so happens that by increasing the award rate at this property, it does get a little bit easier to book at 40,000 points a night, then, you know, you might make peace with that. But as it stands, that one's pretty tough to swallow. There are shockingly few affordable all inclusives still in Hyatt's per portfolio that you can book with points. You know, it had been one of the biggest bright spots of using Hyatt points, period. And within the last few years, every time, you know, Hyatt does this each spring, more and more of these all inclusives move way up the food chain and start costing 40,000 points a night or more, which is the case at the Secrets Maroma Beach Riviera, Cancun.
I know John, who runs our premium flight deal service, this is one of his favorite resorts, period. So I know he's, probably racing to book this as we speak. Yeah. I think so. He he's definitely on, worldofhyatt.com making things happen today.
Any more on your list that stand out? You know, I'll just call out one more. The Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort and Spa on the island of Kauai. It's on the South Side. I haven't stayed here myself, but I've walked the grounds.
It's beautiful. I've never heard a bad word about the property from anybody who stayed. But, you know, when it's gonna cost soon 40,000 points a night, that becomes pretty tough to swing, especially when there's a lot of great Airbnbs, VRBOs in that area of, of Kauai. So I'm not gonna race to book this one, but definitely anybody who's trying to pull off a big family vacation to Kauai and has Hyatt points to burn, that's one that you definitely wanna book before March 25. Yeah.
Definitely. You all have been warned. It's time to use your Hyatt points on these properties that are about to go up in price. We have a full list at our website as well. We wrote about this, just a few days ago.
So anything else in this? I think I think we've covered it. I mean, it's let's not sugarcoat it. It's a real bummer. It I'm grateful that it wasn't even worse, but it's hard to celebrate this one.
Yeah. Tough one.
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And this week, we're gonna ask the question, what are you doing, Southwest? I don't think they can answer that question. If we could have them on here and I don't think I think they would just kind of be good. Yeah. They don't wanna they don't wanna talk about it, and there's a reason for that.
So let me just catch everyone up here first. Southwest shocked everybody last week, by announcing it would no longer include two free checked bags on all fares, starting for new tickets purchased May 28 and onward. So only travelers who buy business select tickets or have that top A list preferred status will continue to get two free check bags. If you have A list status or a co branded Southwest credit card, you'll get one free check bag. Oh, and, just six months ago, Southwest executives promised that its ultra popular bags fly free policy would remain untouched.
They insisted it was part of what made them different and was a key factor in why passengers chose Southwest over other airlines. And that's not all. It also The list goes on. I have to continue the list because we had to catch everybody up. The new basic economy fares, are also being announced.
That breaks another promise. And they announced that any new flight credits will now expire after previously saying that flight credits would never expire on Southwest. Oh, and rapid rewards points will be harder to earn on the cheapest tickets, and those same rapid rewards points will be priced differently soon too. Okay. Instead of me getting worked up way too early in this segment Take a breather.
I think we should go through Southwest year and explain kind of what has happened to them, over a timeline, and I guess why it matters even if you never fly Southwest. So May 21nd of last year, Southwest fares appeared on Google Flights. We were sitting right over here in our office. John Shellbetter, our chief flight deal analyst, turned his monitor towards me and showed me a Southwest fare populating on Google Flights. We all thought something must be wrong, but lo and behold, it was true.
Unbelievable moment that came out of nowhere. No warning, no press release, no video statement, nothing. You know, and this was really important, and, you know, I think we'll get into this. I think that decision probably laid the groundwork for what we saw from Southwest last week Because for decades, Southwest just refused to sell its tickets anywhere other than Southwest.com. It wanted to condition people to go to Southwest.com, open their Southwest app, look there, look nowhere else, and book those Southwest tickets.
So suddenly seeing it on, you know, the biggest and the best flight deal search engine, Google Flights, without a word of warning. I mean, this was a major, major sea change in how people find and book Southwest tickets. Yeah. It was huge. It was and finally giving us an apples to apples comparison with what the other airlines are charging.
We were all assuming we're we're okay. Okay. Now people aren't going to see that, Southwest fares are actually that much cheaper. Right? We thought, you know, this would finally kinda, lower the curtain and show that Southwest fares are pretty much right on par with everybody else.
But what it also did show is that those fares are coming with two free check bags. And so when you line them up against Delta, American, United, Spirit, Frontier, you're gonna see all the value you're getting. So it was kinda double edged sword for Southwest, but, pretty amazing announcement. And then over the course of the last few months, they've also added Kayak and Expedia. So if you have a metasearch engine that you wanna use to go find airfare, you're gonna see Southwest almost everywhere you look now.
So this was a major change. And then in September, we got another major change, when Southwest announced, assigned seating and extra legroom seats. Also, a massive announcement for them considering their whole part of their whole brand is, the open seating policy and the fact that every seat on the plane is more or less the same. But after that announcement, did you think anything more could change? Yeah.
I just didn't expect it to be this, and I didn't expect it to happen so soon after, you know, Southwest CEO Bob Jordan insisted that Bags fly free was untouchable, that it was part of their brand, which I agree with. It is part of their brand. I mean, it's synonymous with Southwest. It is far and away. You know, that simplicity is the reason why legions of travelers out there love Southwest.
It's the reason why so many people didn't bother searching through other airfare sites before, you know, when Southwest required it because they knew what they were getting. They love the airline. And, you know, honestly, I'm sure if you put it to them and told people the truth, which is that, you know, Southwest prices are generally on par with, if not more than, you know, some of the major carriers like American, Delta, and United, they probably would have said, fine. I'm getting my two free checked bags. I don't have to deal with feeling nickel and dimed.
I feel like my time and my money is valuable to this airline. And then, you know, last week, Bob Jordan comes out and says that it's about securing our future. We're announcing changes to our business that will help us return to the levels of profitability we all expect, not return to profitability, but the levels of profitability. And then also, the cherry on top here was, quote, our DNA isn't open seating or even bags fly free. It's a dedication to service and hospitality and and hospitality and to the golden rule for each other and for our customers.
And it just landed like a wet fart. I can't believe that he said this out loud, let alone on video in a prerecorded message that they could have edited. You know, I think the response, which has been almost unanimously negative and, you know, from my perspective, dwarfs any kind of negative backlash to airline changes that I've ever seen, including when Delta first tried to revamp, its, medallion status program a couple of years ago. It's unreal that this is the tact that they took and that they went this far, but, you know, and I think we're gonna get into it. It really it's clear Southwest and and CEO Bob Jordan are not calling the shots here.
Yeah. I think, I saw lots of people saying that the video appeared a little bit like a hostage video. And I just want Kyle, can you explain kinda why this has all happened and who's responsible? Because it is almost hard for me to be angry at Bob Jordan about this because it does it actually does not feel like he's in charge here. No.
No. So, you know, going back, you know, almost a year or so, give or take, a hedge fund called Elliott Management. Elliott Investment Management took a large stake in Southwest and began, you know, really hammering them to make some big changes. Again, not to return to profitability, but to restore elevated profitability, which is just Walt's free speak for make us more money because, you know, we own a good chunk of the airline now. And, you know, they have just been continuing to pressure, you know, the CEO of the entire airline, gaining seats on the board in order to gain the leverage to push Southwest to do what Southwest has insisted for decades that it's not become one of, you know, just another airline.
Charge more for bags, charge more for seat assignments, you know, copy a lot of the unpopular measures that have proven to be moneymakers, like introducing basic economy fares. And, you know, we saw late last year Southwest kind of holding out doing half measures trying to satisfy, you know, their new their new ownership. And it's clear that they just ran out of rope, and they had to go even further. And that's what brought us to, you know, what happened in early March. Yeah.
It's it's frustrating. You know, I'm sure there are a lot of travelers out there who, like me, do not care about shareholder value. I do not care about the investors and how much money they're going to make on Southwest. What is important is the health of the airlines in general and Southwest in particular who has driven the market in The US with domestic airfare for a long time. But even so, it's you'd be hard pressed to, explain to me that this is going to make Southwest a better airline.
And, you know, this matters a lot. Even if you don't fly Southwest, and and I tell people all the time that you really do need to care about this airline even if you hate the open seating and the boarding corrals and stanchions and, the things that people don't like about Southwest, that's fine. Even if you never fly them, when Southwest runs a sale, every airline stumbles over themselves to run a competing sale at the same time. And this has happened since I've started tracking airfare since essentially 2020, and it's like clockwork. Southwest announces a sale on Tuesday morning, and by Tuesday afternoon, Delta's fares are $1 cheaper.
And this how it always happens. Unmistakable. They are the single biggest factor driving the domestic airfare price and market, and it's not even close. I mean, you know, Spirit and Frontier, which, you know, by the way, and we touched on this last week, are struggling too. And, you know, these three airlines are and even more if you lump in some of the other low cost carriers who, you know, some are doing better than others.
They all really dictate domestic flight pricing. And so if you start to see these airlines on their heels or, you know, United, Delta, American don't feel as if they have to respond as strongly when Southwest offers one of these fare sales, that's kinda troubling. You know? And that's exactly why, you know, the booking domestic flights was is one of the highlights for 2025 because we wondered one day before Southwest made this move whether this could last much longer. And I think we've proven ourselves right that there is cause for concern because it's just it's hard to see how strong of an airline Southwest emerges out of this when it feels like they've really shot themselves in the foot.
Yeah. I've never run an airline, so, maybe this is so exciting. Just a little disclaimer here. Yes. Small disclaimer.
Gunnar and I have BAs in journalism, not in airline management, have never worked for airlines. So grain of salt. Yeah. We may be full of it, you know? But, you know, this is our podcast and not theirs.
Yeah. I've never run an airline, but you'd be hard pressed to say to me that when you put up a Southwest fare against a United fare and against a Delta fare, say they're all within $3 of each other, there is now no reason that I would choose Southwest over another airline. There's no extra bags. On Delta, I'm gonna get in flight entertainment and, you know, maybe some some other perks and a little more reliability. And the fact that that the flight's gonna be on time.
Southwest, you're getting almost none of that. You might not even get an outlet at your seat, and it's gonna be the same fare for the same price with no free bags. And, you know, I just feel like they're no longer going to be competitive unless they start lowering their fares to, like, frontier level lows, like $20.01 ways and things like that. I just, I don't understand why someone would choose Southwest now unless they're super loyalists and they're already so deep in the ecosystem and they're so flushed with rapid rewards that they just can't afford to make the switch. But I don't know.
I'm running out of reasons to fly this airline, to be honest. Yeah. And you know what? You touched on an interesting possibility of if, you know, in doing this, it allows Southwest to slash their fares even further and make them even cheaper and kind of compete more in the ultra low cost market with, you know, the spirits and frontiers and allegiance of the world, which, you know, that might be a possibility. You know, that is what we have seen every airline in the country do when they introduce basic economy, which Southwest is doing.
So if by unbundling their fares and charging separately for baggage and making all of these different changes that we've outlined allows them to to bring prices even lower, maybe that works. But at the same time, if we've learned anything in the last two years, it's that the things that Spirit and Frontier do don't make money period, let alone more of the profits that Southwest is after. So it's almost like they may be creating an even bigger problem for themselves. And I just, I need to point out, and I posted this on social media. So if you're just reading the dumb words that I said and hearing them now from my dumb mouth, I apologize.
Replacing Wanna Get Away fares, which is some of the most brilliant branding in the entire airline industry, at least in the in The US market, with basic economy, is one of the biggest unforced errors I can think of. I mean, I can understand how, you know, they're changing so much about the flying experience that in order to be honest with consumers, they can't call those cheapest fares wanna get away anymore. But to just get rid of wanna get away altogether, something that's basically synonymous with Southwest just seems really, really foolish. I don't I don't understand a lot of the decisions that they've made, but that one in particular is a real head scratcher to me. Yeah.
It's like changing the name of your fair to the only thing that people hate, which is basically basically economy. I mean, there's still time for The old strategy economy. It's it's a bold strategy. Again, never run an airline. Yeah.
Never run an airline. So do I know. If you want Gunnar and I to run your airline, please reach out to us at podcast@thriftytraveler.com. No. Nobody wants that.
I don't I don't think I want that just to be clear. Yeah. What would you call our airline out there? Podcast@thrifttraveler.com. Let us know what you think.
So there are there's a lot of time for these details to come out here. We have a few months, on what these fairs will, I mean, I guess, actually be called and what they will include. We have a general sense. And then, of course, come fall, we're gonna start seeing assigned seating, and the extra legroom seats are gonna start coming online here soon. The backlash has been pretty fierce, including in the last ten minutes here.
Is there any chance that Southwest backs off this?
No. Because it's not, you know, the people that you hear from quoted in the press releases about this that made the decision. It's ownership. It's the investors.
It's Elliott Investment Management. They are the ones who are driving the bus here. It's it I if you haven't watched not not sure why you would, but maybe you should watch the video of CEO Bob Jordan explaining these changes because it you can just feel Elliott off screen with a gun in their hands talking about, you know, why this needs to happen. I understand why people are so upset because this goes against everything that people love about Southwest. I mean, in a single minute, in a single day, they blew up decades of brand loyalty around the idea that, you know, customers' time was valued, that you're not gonna get nickeled and dimed, that you're not gonna get charged extra for baggage.
And then, you know, to make matters worse and part of the reason why I feel so confident saying there's no chance that Southwest can backtrack on this, days after this, after causing, you know, one of the biggest firestorms of, you know, airline bad PR, why did you do this, I'm never gonna fly you again, the first thing that they said publicly was on social media. And, you know, they said some version of it's not like we traded Luka, you know, in reference to the admittedly very unpopular trade of, a Dallas Mavericks NBA player to LA for, you know, a questionable return. Sure. I'm also in addition to not running airlines, I don't run NBA franchises. I probably can't even shoot a free throw, but at least the Dallas Mavericks got something for that trade.
What did Southwest Flyers get? Nothing. You know, they just get getting charged probably, let's just say, you can safely assume $35 per bag each way. So they get in exchange for, you know, what Southwest did, they get the privilege of paying $70 or more per round trip ticket for what used to be included in the price of their fare.
Yeah. Short term profits. I, really hope it's worth it. And I want everybody to know it does not give us any pleasure to dunk on Southwest like this. I love Southwest Airlines despite being the guy who told you "don't be poor" last episode. I am a budget traveler.
I love Southwest. The two free check bags is really important for someone like me who often travels with a ski bag. And, you know, I'm I'm hoping to have a family here soon, and, I'm gonna be traveling with more strollers and baby equipment. And a two free check bag airline is the kind of thing, that I'll always keep in my mind when booking flights. Right.
And now that doesn't exist. So I'm gonna have to, you know, do other things or just dive deeper into the Delta ecosystem, which is always a pain in my butt. The house always wins, man.
It's so tough for families in particular. You know, everybody in our office who has children and is traveling frequently pointed at this, at suddenly being charged for baggage to bring all of the things that they need to travel with their children. You know, rightly point out how terrible this is for traveling families. So it goes just beyond the budget traveler. It's making any trip that you take more expensive because all of a sudden, if you check one bag, let alone two, that's gonna cost you a lot more for every single ticket.
And as much as you and I can say, well, just we'll just pack in a carry on. That is not realistic for some people, especially for families. So I think it's especially brutal for them.
There is a cynical part of this that we haven't really gotten to. You mentioned it mentioned it at the top of the segment, which is that credit card holders get will get one bag for free.
That's a common perk for the entire US airline industry. You can get a free check bag if you carry one of their cobranded credit cards. There's no question that that is a huge factor in why Southwest is doing this because airlines are not profitable without credit cards. Period. They need those credit cards in order to survive.
And there's no question that Southwest is banking on, and I'm sure that they're right, that by making free baggage a key benefit of their credit card, something that everybody used to get for free, they are going to drive a ton of credit card sign ups. And that is going to drive additional spending on those Southwest credit cards, which in turn is going to make them a lot more money than they that they've just there wasn't as nearly as big of an incentive for people out there to pick up one of these Southwest credit cards. They just created one with these negative moves.
Yeah. And, unfortunately, I might just run right into their trap if I wanna keep flying Southwest.
Maybe, they'll have a nice little bonus offer sign up bonus offer coming up here soon to try and, get some more people in. But, unfortunately, that might be exactly what we're looking at.
I would love to hear from you listeners and viewers out there. Are you gonna change the way you fly? Are you gonna book around Southwest now, or are you are you all the way in still?
Podcast at thriftytraveler.com. I think we'd all be very interested to hear what people are doing, with this new news. Is that enough ripping on Southwest Airlines for one episode? Should we move on? We'll take the rest off I think.
But, yeah, let's move on. This is a family podcast.
Alright. Let's go to our listener question of the week, which comes from Jean from Gainesville who asked, what is the best, most efficient thing for me to do with the miles I've spent years accumulating? I have 97,000 Delta Sky miles and 128,000 Capital One miles.
There is so much information. Jean, you are very correct about that. It is overwhelming. Honestly, I think it just confuses me more. I'm interested in a trip to Europe probably in 2026.
Gunnar, I think you've got some really, really good suggestions for Jean here.
Yeah. So if you really wanna use the SkyMiles, hunt down a Delta SkyMiles flash sale, we will alert you to that on our Thrifty Traveler premium flight deal alert service and also on our website. We love SkyMiles flash sales. And when they do run a good flash sale to Europe, you're looking at, you know, round trips in the 40 thousands, 50 thousands, which is Sometimes less.
I mean, yeah. Lately, we've seen it under 30,000 SkyMiles round trip. And, you know, if you're reset on going to Europe, you can wait for one of those. But, otherwise, I mean, these kinds of flash sales where Delta will just randomly slash award pricing, it's pretty constant, you know, especially if you're looking domestically down to The Caribbean, wherever. I mean, just kind of pocketing your SkyMiles to wait for one of these sales and jumping on something that you like is easily, easily the best thing to do with SkyMiles these days.
Yeah. And as as far as the Capital One miles, I would look at transfer partners like Air France, Air Canada, and most importantly, Emirates. I here's here's exactly what I would do, Jean. Jean from Gainesville, we're gonna get you to Europe. You're gonna transfer some of those points to Emirates.
Emirates, thirty five thousand points round trip in economy from New York City to Milan or Athens. So that's JFK to Milan and Newark to Athens. It's nonstop. It's on Emirates. It's one of the best economies in the sky, economy classes that is.
Sorry. And better yet, you can also get it for 17,500 points each way. So here's exactly what I do with your I would transfer a 4,000 Capital One Venture Miles. You're gonna book one way to Europe in business class at 87,000 miles, and you're gonna book the way back the daytime flight in economy at 17,500 miles. That's what how you're using your Capital One miles, and you're just gonna use the SkyMiles to position yourself to New York City and back from Gainesville.
How's that sound for a trip? I think Jean should go book this right now. You really can't do a whole lot better. If you're just talking about yourself, if you're if you're thinking for a family to be able to book, you know, round trip from from JFK to Milan in Emirates economy for 70,000 miles for two tickets, that's a that's a really incredible deal. Either way, you really can't go wrong.
There's some good suggestions there, Gunnar. Yeah. Really fun one. Thank you, Gene. If you want us to answer your question, email us at podcast@thriftytraveler.com, and your question might be featured in that next week's show.
Oh, I'm excited for this. It's my turn to put you on the spot, Gunnar. Okay. Alright. So professional athletes, they go back and watch tape.
Aspiring podcasters go back and listen to tape. And let me tell you, in our first episode, forty two minutes long, I counted 12 instances where we talked about beer, wine, and booze. You even dropped a Kokanee reference, which is not the most popular beer out in British Columbia. Well, it's very popular in British Columbia. Alright.
So to put you on the spot, do we have a problem?
I was, you know, I was thinking, do we just turn this into a segment? Like, can we are we gonna be able to turn off all the boost talk? I mean, we did we did pretty good up until this point. So, you know, we made it to the bitter end of the pod before we talked about booze again.
So I think that's progress. Yeah. That's pretty good. We maybe we do a little offshoot Friday night, secondary podcast called Booze Bags with Thrifty Traveler, and you and I just Trade market. Yeah.
Get all of our takes out, about, you know, how much we like. But, hey, guess what? When I'm on vacation, I'm usually thinking about having a drink or two, maybe, a couple of kokanee when I'm in Canada next week. But, you know, I can't really turn it off. This is part of travel for me, and I know it is for a lot of people out there too.
But, yeah, we reference drinking quite a bit in the first episode. I guess we're also talking about the cost of things a lot. But usually, especially in The US, you're gonna get dinged the hardest on booze. So maybe that's why, it came up so often.
Whatever you gotta tell yourself, man.
Yeah. Thanks. Alright. Well, thank you so much for listening to the Thrifty Traveler podcast. It would mean a lot to us if you'd rate us five stars on your platform of choice and like and subscribe to Thrifty Traveler on YouTube.
All that stuff helps others find the show. If you have feedback for us, just send me a note at podcastthriftytraveler dot com. We would really love to hear from you. I think I speak for Kyle when I say that the support so far has been really excellent. Some of the reviews you all have left have been way, way too kind for a couple of guys like us.
So it's it's been really nice to see. Kyle, can you, tell us who helped us put the show together this week?
Sure can. This episode was produced by our cofounder, Nick Cerate, and the man to my right, Gunnar Olsen. It was edited by David Strutt. Our theme music is by Benjamin Tissot.
See you next week, Gunnar.
See you, Kyle.