April 2025
Here are some key takeaways from their conversation:
1. FLIGHTS:
• Once you have an idea of your vacation dates, try using the date finder on airline websites or Google Flights to see which specific days are the cheapest to fly.
• Chris says opening a new credit card in advance of a big trip can be a great way to get one or two flights covered, especially if the card offers transfer specials between airlines.
2. HOTELS
• The American Express Platinum card offers many upgrades and discounts at many hotels.
• Stacey says if a guest uses booking sites like Expedia, hotels will usually put them in the lowest-quality rooms. They prefer it when guests book through their website, American Express, or travel advisors.
3. CRUISES/YACHTS
• Booking last-minute cruise deals can offer great prices since cruises are trying to fill rooms.
• Booking excursions locally tends to be more affordable than through the cruise line.
• Chris says after September 1st, yacht and boat deals tend to be heavily discounted.
4. CONCERTS/SPORTING EVENTS
• You can access American Express concierge services through their Platinum, Business Platinum, Delta SkyMiles Reserve, and Hilton Honors Aspire cards. The concierge services can help users get tickets and sometimes special seating at exclusive sporting events/concerts.
5. INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL
• Stacey urges listeners to take videos of rental cars (exterior and interior) before they start driving so that rental car businesses cannot accuse them of damages that were done by previous drivers.
• Chris has a Fidelity Cash Management Account, which reimburses him for ATM fees anywhere in the world. They also offer cheaper currency exchange rates when using international ATMs.
• Many places in Europe don't take American Express cards. It is important to do your research on what cards are usually accepted in the regions you are visiting prior to traveling.
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Watch previous episodes here:
Ep. 130 Should You Own or Lease Your Car?
Ep. 129 Money Conversations Every Couple Should Have
Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us for THE FINANCIAL COMMUTE. Stacey McKinnon and I love traveling. And so we're going to talk today about some tips and tricks that you can use to save money while traveling. Stacey, I know you love traveling and you just got back from a really amazing trip. Yeah, let's talk about that for a minute.
This is my favorite topic. I love this. My husband and I just got back from skiing in the Alps. We did Switzerland and France and Italy, and we did a structure where we did one spot and one ski day, and it was just. It was just magical. I love it so much.
It sounds amazing, but this is not your first time going out there for this type of trip. So you've learned some things about structuring it differently.
Well, let's talk about travel hacks. It's cheaper to ski in Europe than it is to ski in the United States. Like now when you go to Mammoth or Big Sky or Jackson Hole, it's 250 to $300 a day just for the ski ticket, let alone the lodging and the flights and everything. And so a few years ago, my husband and I figured out that you're up and you can pay for the flight.
Your hotels are more like 300 to 400 and I versus in Jacksonville. The cheapest I could find for a decent hotel was like 700 to 800 and I and skiing there to ski them out of Boston, which is what like Disney's Matterhorn is created from to ski. The Matterhorn is only €75 a day versus 380.
And, it's like I just don't I just don't understand it. And every single like chairlift is a gondola or a heated seat. And so it's a whole different world to ski in Europe. Speaking of travel hacks.
That is amazing. Yeah. Flying the skiing or the Matterhorn? Yeah. Is €75. Yeah. I mean, it takes me back to when I was a kid and I used to skate all the time with my parents over a lift ticket was, you know, $50. Yes. Versus 300 something today here.
Why is it so expensive here? And the chairlifts are not that nice. I don't understand. So, yeah, we just got back, and it was just so lovely to be there. Picked up a little cold on the way back. I guess that's what you get from 11 hours in a plane together with lots of other people. But other than that, it was so great.
And while I was gone, you were also in Hawaii. So tell me about that trip.
You know, I was talking with a friend recently because a lot of people travel over to Europe and we we both agree that traveling to Europe is actually cheaper than going to Hawaii because of the points and the, you know, hotels and whatnot. Yeah, we just got back from a wine trip. My wife is just crazy about points and credit card hacks.
And so we just had an amazing time with the family for my daughter's fifth birthday. Can't believe she's five. Oh my gosh. I think everyone on the island of Maui, by the end of it, knew that it was her birthday because she went around and told everybody, but we just had a fantastic time. The reason why I love Hawaii is because I'm in the water with the kids a lot, so it's one of the few places that I can go and really check out from work, because if I'm not in the water, then I'll just check my email.
You don't want to ruin your phone, so you got to leave it or leave it on the beach.
But we got lucky. We have the time of the year, and I'm so jealous of people that are retired because if we tried to fly from Saturday to Saturday, it was going to be $900 a ticket. But because we got to fly Tuesday to Tuesday, it was 270.
Oh my gosh, you basically got almost four flights for the price of one, if you so choose your days of the week.
Having flexibility around when you're going to go is amazing.
So I have a fun game that I like to play with friends after they get back, where I ask for questions and you have to, you have to answer before. Okay, first question. Favorite part of the trip?
The first day we got there, we went right to the pool and then the ocean, and we walked out before dinner. And on the beach there was a whole new sea right there on the beach. And we were the only ones sort of standing about 20, 25ft away from this beautiful creature. The sun was setting. We turned around to go walk back to dinner, and it just starts pouring on this.
Oh, we got soaking wet, but we had so much fun. We were laughing about it the whole year.
So beautiful. Though. There's nothing like the Hawaii rain, right? Oh, it's water, but it's drizzling on you. I love it.
We call them pineapple kisses.
Oh, really?
Least favorite part of the trip coming home.
I mean, look, traveling with little ones is a little bit more difficult, and so they just get a little bit unwired and glitchy. And they were great from the flight all the way to getting our bags. But then that 45 minute car ride from LAX back home at 1130 at night when they're supposed to be sleeping, it was the longest 45 minutes.
And so it's so tough. Briana and I were talking about Kim next time, maybe we try to get a different flight home, so that way it's a little bit more reasonable.
But given how LAX traffic is right now, it could have taken you two hours if it wasn't 1130 at night. So yeah.
It's just brutal. I mean, that's probably the worst part. The other part was probably having a little bit too much structure and not enjoying a little bit more local food, but like.
What was the best hack of the trip? Like, what was your travel half for the trip?
So Briana has she keeps track of all of our miles and status, and she makes sure that, you know, we get the most bang for our buck that we possibly can. She has great status with American. And so going out there, there was two upgrades left to first class. But one of the people that was ahead of her in line didn't want they had a family too, and they didn't want to break up their family.
We were fine with it. So I went up to first class. Really? Yeah. And, got to be able to enjoy it only because last time she. I'm not a horrible husband, so she got the upgrade. But, this time I was able to take it. So it was kind of fun to fly out there.
Oh. That's amazing. I feel like those stories happened to other people that have never happened to be. So. I was lucky that that's happened twice.
I did get lucky and our bags were like one of the first 15 bags to come off the carousel.
Don't you love that? When that happens, it's just like that. There's no there's some other level of anxiety sitting at that carousel wondering if your bag is going to come. It's not. It's not a good feeling.
Sometimes it's like the last you get the first bag and then the last bag, you just say whatever, but what?
What's the last question? What's one thing that you wish that you would have like, known in advance or done differently?
You know, my kids are now getting better at swimming. And so like if you're going to rent snorkel gear for the day, it's around $35 for the day. And I kind of just gone on Amazon and I haven't been around.
And then, you know, the next time we have to have an excuse to schlep.
It's like, that would have been pretty good. But one of the things that we did, we fortunately had some free nights that we were able to stay at the Ritz-Carlton up in Kapalua. And with that is this lounge part where you're food for breakfast, lunch and dinner is covered. So it was about $700 for five days, but it made it so much easier with little ones to be able to have that place where you could go to for all of your meals, even throughout the day, for little snacks.
Because breakfast for little kids, you know, bacon and eggs and fruit, it's $25. It adds up. So that was a great hack to be able to sort of add that on there.
Oh that's great. Oh that's awesome. Sounds like a great trip.
No, we had a good time. Yeah. What was your favorite part of your trip?
My favorite part about the trip is that my husband and I found this very fun spa brand called Itami or Spa Winters, which is an Italian, group that has about, I think, 12 different locations throughout Italy. And they have these just magical spa where you can go and you can enjoy. And we look up at the mountains and you relax and we just love.
We just thought that we could also have more than one left in Turin. Italy is only when we haven't been to but all the rest. So my favorite part of the trip was just enjoying enjoying them and certainly.
Any any travel hacks for going abroad? And you shared one with me about ways to find really good and under the radar restaurants.
Oh yeah, there's some local, websites that you can go to in different countries where you don't just depend on TripAdvisor to find your restaurants, you actually go and to like a website that's with for people who are more like foodies. So I found one in France called Fooding. Love Fooding I think is what the name of it is.
And you can basically sort by the types of food you like, and it's these underrated restaurants. And that was, that was such a such a good travel hack. The other travel hiking, we usually do is I book the hotel directly, as opposed to going through a travel website whenever I go to the spots like the services, and you tend to get discounts and then upgrades too if you do that.
So that was a really good, really good travel hack as well.
I like that. What are some other like 3 to 5 travel activities... you bucketed in a number of different routes from, you know, flights to hotel cruises, yachts, concerts, games and even, you know, bang for your buck for your buck. Yeah, bang for your buck for travel.
Yeah. So let's let's go through a few of them I think number one flights. So when we're looking at flights online the first thing I do you mentioned actually the date situation where you looked at salaries versus Tuesday. Tuesday I'm a Delta SkyMiles member. And so I tend to just always choose an airline and then stick with that airline, because the more you stick with the same airline, you the better.
I think the benefits are. So before I go on vacation, the first thing I do is I put in sample dates of what I think I want to do, and then I use the date finder tool to like, figure out which dates are actually the cheapest dates, and then I'll move my dates around depending on what it shares with me are the best days to fly.
So flight wise, number one rule from my perspective is you can have like theoretical dates, but use that flight finder so you can choose the days of the week where I think the flights are tend to be the cheapest. What's your hack?
I mean, I was blown away by being able to be flexible on dates and how much of an impact that makes on price. We we have our own airline that we stick to, American, Hawaiian. I mean, they all have these preferred programs nowadays, but I'm not afraid to open up a new card in advance of a trip to get those extra mile earlier.
Because those miles sometimes are transferable to other airlines. Are there other, other benefits? And so it's a great way to get 1 or 2 flights cover a round trip for your next flight or even this particular one. And so we've got southwest, we've got American, we've got Hawaiian, we've got Alaska. And so we've got we've got a few, we've.
Got a few to choose from. This is one, struggle that I have is I am always comparing and contrasting the benefit of using my credit card as a resource. So I have the reference for this platinum card. You can go online to see their, travel deals. They have an international program where I could take coupons out or another airline and utilize the American Express travel deal, or I could transfer my American Express points to Delta, which oftentimes are a better deal than booking through American Express.
And then I could use those points to book a Delta flight. So I'm always playing this game of are the international deals on American Express website better than transferring my points to Delta Points and booking through Delta directly? And it's a coin toss. It's a coin toss sometimes, but I do tend to play that game as well, just to kind of see what else is out there and if there's a better way to do it.
You sound just like Briana. I mean, her research background and just sort of how she operates in terms of trying to evaluate and look at all those deals. Her spreadsheets look just like what you describe. So we agree to.
Well, and sometimes these credit cards offer points transfer specials. Right. Like even this last month, I think that you and I both saw quite a few where you could transfer to the points system that British Airways runs under, and it was like a really good deal to switch your American Express points to be airline points. And so that's something we both I think both me and your wife are paid.
I think that's how we got a full week in Hawaii completely covered by points. A year ago, there was a small window of a special where you got 3 or 4 times points. If you moved from Amex to Marriott, we transferred 30 or 40,000 points from Amex platform to Marriott. It covered a full week.
At the hotel. Well, that's our travel hack number two, which is hotels. So that's an amazing one right? Is if you can get those like discounted travel transfers.
I love being able to do that on an American Express Platinum. I know it's expensive, maybe $700 for the year, but the automatic upgrades, you know, when you use it to check in the discounts around food and spas that you get while staying there and being able to transfer the points to other, you know, preferred partners. It's just fantastic.
Yeah, the American Express Platinum Hotel benefits are incredible. Even when we were in Lille, in France, we booked through American Express. The only downside is sometimes you do prepay, so you kind of have to pay attention to that and really accept that you are going to be going to that hotel and you don't need flexibility to change. But I went there, got the $100 credit for the hotel, got upgraded to a two story junior suite at this hotel in Lyon overlooking the Rhone River.
It was so magical and so beautiful, and this hotel was like a few hundred bucks a night. But we booked it through American Express and we were able to get the upgrades to stay in a hotel that's like more like $1,000 a night for a half, that price. And so that was really like such a good deal as well.
So I think that American Express specifically has the best, hotel deals.
They're really good. I mean, not to mention the access to the airport lounges and whatnot, but I've found that we get treated a little bit better when we, you know, book using that card, interact with the hotels, then using, Hotels.com.
Yes. Those actually I learned this from a travel agent. If you use Hotels.com or Expedia, the hotel, puts you in the lowest room. So they actually dislike those booking sites. They like booking direct or booking through your express, or through a travel agent. And so they'll put you in better rooms through the if you go through those, groups, then if you confuse that book, there's also so some.
People to that situation. I know we've got a large subset of clients that like to, you know, go on cruises or even or potentially us. What are some things that you've learned, about leveraging cruises in their yachts? I've got a couple of things that I found interesting.
So I have a couple friends that cruises all the time, and their best advice is to book last minute so you have the flexibility to not book in advance. Booking last minute can offer you the best deals from the cruise lines because they're trying to fill rooms, and so that's something that not everybody has the option to book last minute, but that's one of their best pieces of advice.
And then their other piece of advice is to always buy the packages in advance. The Wi-Fi package, the drinks package, and then when they're when you're booking, don't book, excursions through the cruise line instead of locally, wherever you're, going for it, because they're going to be better deals than people globally than if you go for a cruise line.
So I asked a friend, I phoned a friend for that one, and that was their best advice.
A few years ago, more than a few years ago now, maybe 8 or 9 years ago, we took a trip to Greece and it was awesome. We went, right before May 1st. So it was towards the end of April where we got really good weather and we got a great deal in state and some amazing places.
But there was these people off the island, I think of Mykonos, were having breakfast. They were just jumping off this yacht into the water. And I looked at Brian and I said, man, that would be amazing to be able to do something like that. It looked like a small, small yacht, maybe 8 to 10 people on it. Just as many crew.
And I was talking with someone there and they said, you know what the trick is, is after September 1st, those things are like 60 or 70% discount. So something that would normally be 15 to $20,000 for 5 or 6 days, you can get for 5 to $7000 for the week with. And so you think about it, you know, you get three couples $7,000 a person.
You're spending a week on a yacht. It's the second week of September while you're still getting great, you know, weather, warm water and the in the restaurants and places are still open.
Just how little date change can go a long way. Yeah. As long as it's not summer where hurricane season. And then you're saying that's true? What about, I guess travel to remember for concerts or like sporting events, anything that you would suggest people do to kind of maximize their opportunities there?
I mean, look, I love sporting events and I love concerts. If it was left up to me, we'd never go to them because you got to, you know, plan it out and you've got to pay attention to the dates and, you know, special schedules. But Briana was able to get some amazing tickets to sporting events and concerts through the American Express presale.
That was 3 or 4 days before the actual release. And so, I'm grateful to have someone that has organized to serve with paying attention to those skills.
Like, you know, for the first time, I also called the American Express Club series, which is a special phone number. You call people answer, this is not a hotline. You call immediately. So an answer is there. American Express Concierge is. And I was trying to get, Liverpool tickets for football in England soccer us. And they were able to get me the most amazing seats there was like included tea and coffee and beverages and basically a box setting for something like $500 a ticket, which Liverpool games are very hard to get tickets to because Liverpool and all the I think football clubs in England play a game where you only can get tickets
if you go to a certain number of games or if you have inherited a ticket. So it's really hard to get tickets otherwise that the fact that American Express concierge, they answer the phone immediately and they got me tickets within 24 hours. So that was pretty amazing.
Wow. Yes. That's pretty awesome.
All right. Last one okay. So bang theory about travel ideas, currency exchange rates, winter travel, stuff like that. What are some things that you think that you can.
Well I think that the winter travel is certainly one of them. Like if you're willing to do winter travel, the tickets especially to Europe are going to be way cheaper than trying to go in the summer. There's not going to be as the big crowds. I think a few maybe unknown travel tips that I would, I would share, car rental agencies have gotten out of control.
So one of the things that's been happening the last few times I've traveled is I tend to get a bill for thousands of dollars of damage after every single car rental. And if I were able to send them back a video that I took off the car, they waive all of that. So they're basically kind of like trying to rack up damage charges no matter what.
I didn't have any, I actually didn't. Just to be clear, didn't damage. And my rental cars, they just essentially were trying to get somebody to pay for any types of like dings and maintenance on the cars. And so now one of the travel tips I have is videotaping the whole outside of the cars immediately in the parking lot, so I can show that I did that before I took it off and time stamped.
Yeah, now I have to video in the car. So the last, rental I got pit photos back from Hertz, had photos in the car where every single, like, dirt spot on the leather of the seat. They were trying to clean as a damage. And so that's one travel tip for everyone is be crazy paranoid about the rental car situation, because that's a fast way to ruin some memories from a $1,000 rental car bill afterwards.
Yeah, that would not be fun. Yeah, I'm still thinking about that. One of the ones that I have, I've got a Fidelity Cash management account, and I know that there's a lot of, you know, great ATM, ATM, and checking accounts out there. Yeah. What I love about this one specifically is I get reimbursed any ATM fee from anywhere.
And so if I go take $20 out of the ATM and it's a $4 surcharge, I get reimbursed that. But if I go internationally and I use those ATM, not only do I get reimbursed the ATM fee, but my currency exchange rates are much cheaper because it's just pulling those euros directly from the machine. And so I love that perk of that card or that that that account.
That's that's incredible. I feel like not having to pay those fees is so helpful. I also use Capital One a lot. Oh, this is an interesting travel hack actually is a lot of places in Europe don't take American Express. So you have to have a secondary card that you need to use, especially when you're going through the insane amount of tolls that exist in on the roads in Italy and in France, having a Mastercard as opposed to American Express is going to come in very key, and you want to have one that doesn't charge you fees for every single transaction.
Right? Feels sort of like going to Costco, right?
So one of the one of the big takeaways of this, there's a lot of ways to kind of find, save and make extra money or, you know, creating a better experience when you're traveling. There's a number of resources out there, whether it's the points guy is on Instagram, he's on YouTube, we follow him and get a lot of updates.
There's even the guy, Colin Straud. We can, you know, put his information in the link as well. He sent an email out last week, I think on Thursday or Friday, if you don't have a Chase Sapphire Preferred right now, you can get 100,000 points by spending $5,000 in the first three months. That's almost a free trip to white.
So, you know, taking advantage of stuff like this is important.
Yeah, I think, you know, historically speaking, ten years ago when we did French learning for finance and we had to put a budget in place, we had a travel budget that had to come from income. Now travel budgets can come from points. And that is, a pretty cool thing.
Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much.
Disclosure: Information presented herein is for discussion and illustrative purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by the speakers are as of the date of the recording and are subject to change. These views are not intended as a recommendation to buy or sell any securities, and should not be relied on as financial, tax or legal advice. You should consult with your attorney, finance professional or accountant before implementing any transactions and/or strategies concerning your finances.
