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Welcome to Travel Buddy
In this episode of The Travel Buddy Podcast by Switchfly, Ashley Martinez, Rachel Satow, and Ian Andersen explore how loyalty programs impact holiday travel decisions. They share personal stories and practical strategies for using points, miles, and loyalty perks to offset high travel costs during peak holiday periods like Thanksgiving and Christmas. They emphasize flexibility in both travel dates and destinations to maximize value, such as flying on holidays or shifting trips by a day or two to save big. Ashley details a trip to Peru booked through a mix of loyalty programs, showcasing how strategic point usage can stretch budgets. The conversation also highlights the importance of understanding airline alliances, booking sweet spots, and leveraging ancillary benefits like lounge access and free checked bags. The team warns that points are often worth less during peak periods due to increased redemption costs, so sometimes paying cash is wiser. Tips include joining loyalty programs, knowing where your points live, and using tools like Google Flights and AwardHacker. The episode wraps with advice for travelers feeling overwhelmed: start with simple habits and make incremental gains in loyalty value.
Transcript
Brandon Giella (00:01.143)
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Travel Buddy podcast presented by Switchfly. Today we are talking about how loyalty programs shape holiday travel decisions. So we are sitting at the very early part of November, travel is coming up, everybody's thinking about Thanksgiving, Christmas, and we are all making these calculation decisions. Should we go and visit family or not?
And how do we pay for those flights? Points, cash, credit card, how is this going to work? And I'm thinking about, you know, when you think about travel and visit family, you have, course, your pros to go see the family is that you go and see the family. And the cons are that you go and see the family. And there might be some people that love that and other people have some consternation around that.
and then of course you could, go abroad or go to some other city and that's always fun. And sometimes you can find some really cheap deals and then, so you have a pro there. And then the con is that, you might miss time with your family and either that's sad for you or they will be upset with you. And so you have to make this calculation problem every year. So I have made this decision, once before where, and I think this, this relates to this topic.
where my family was gathering in Tampa and the flights to Tampa for Thanksgiving were like $500 a piece. And we saw flights to Rome round trip from Dallas for like $280. And so we did not go see my family for Thanksgiving and we went to Rome and it was great, even though I miss my family. So I know people have these kinds of decisions and thinking through where to travel.
But I wanna start with talking about why holiday travel, particularly as it relates to loyalty programs, is such a big deal. And so when we're thinking about making these decisions where we wanted to travel, a lot of times, because there is super high demand, there is very high pricing as it relates to flights especially. So how do we get around this? Should I go, where can I afford this, you know?
Brandon Giella (02:24.927)
How can I afford this decision? so I want to see how can points help us make this decision, loyalty programs specifically. So Ashley, I will start with you. Ashley, you have been around the block on making travel plans for others as a travel advisor. And you yourself are a world renowned world traveler. And you have a particular
vacation in mind where you went to Peru. And I wanted to see if you could talk about that decision about going to Peru and how that influenced your kind of thinking through this kind of problem of thinking about holiday travel.
Ashley Martinez (03:08.841)
Definitely. Well, thank you for that kind introduction, Brandon. So, historically in the U.S. market, the Sunday after Thanksgiving is the busiest time to travel annually.
That being said, I love that you got that cheap flight to Rome, but sometimes coming back, as everyone, there's great flight deals, maybe leaving and getting out of the States, but coming back can be quite challenging as everybody might have the same idea. So that is what I actually have an upcoming trip to Peru this Christmas. And I had a lot of different points on different platforms. And so the engineer in me, the travel advisor in me was how do I maximize the points that I have with different programs to build an idea
Brandon Giella (03:29.923)
Hmm.
Ashley Martinez (03:52.433)
itinerary that is economical, affordable, and I get to go to a great place. So I started looking at multiple destinations, specifically in South America. And I guess for context here, I had points on American, I had points on Southwest, and how could I maximize those? So I started looking at different destinations and on all of the airlines directly to see where I could use my points. And I found that leaving on New Year's Eve was a great day.
as there are lot of different travel deals. But my problem was I could get almost anywhere in the world on New Year's Eve. No one really wants to travel on New Year's Eve. Similar to maybe if you're leaving on Thanksgiving Day or if you leave on Christmas Day, those are great days to travel. But it was coming back. So as everyone maybe was leaving, but how do I find a travel deal coming back? So what I was able to do was maximize my points by leveraging different airlines. So I live in a market. being in New Orleans, we don't have necessarily a lot of great international
destinations. We only one international flight to London which which I love but what I decided to do was where could I get myself somewhere else in the US that I can maybe find a flight deal. So I was able to use Southwest points to get myself to Florida Lauderdale and then we will be taking taking the train or a bus to the Miami Airport and flying out of Miami. So
Brandon Giella (05:14.691)
Okay.
Ashley Martinez (05:17.941)
So definitely a combination of maximizing a flight deal and in what I had, which were points. And then similarly on the way back, I was able to get myself from South America, from Peru to Miami, and then I'll use points to get myself from Miami back to New Orleans.
Brandon Giella (05:36.324)
Fascinating. Okay, so the engineer in you putting all this together, like, okay, let me map this out on a spreadsheet or on like a Google map and like see where I can get. I think that's interesting. there's so many different components where you're actually putting together a bunch of different modalities to where you need to go. So it's like flying to another city, then maybe a bus or a train down to another city to fly where you need to go. That's interesting.
Ashley Martinez (05:54.943)
Thanks.
Ashley Martinez (06:02.643)
Yeah, I would say the best resource I've found to help plan for a trip like that is if Google has a feature, if you're looking through Google Fights, I can put New Orleans to anywhere and it will search a destination anywhere in the world and give you and compare flight prices. So I found that to be a really helpful tool. So similarly, I will use OK, I know I can get myself to Miami, which is a larger airport with more destinations, Miami to anywhere. Where can I go? And that's how I land on Peru.
Brandon Giella (06:17.24)
Ha!
Brandon Giella (06:29.303)
Hmm. Fascinating. Okay. So this is a really interesting point that we've got some articles that I want to include in the show notes that I think will be helpful for listeners. But, but one of the things is, thinking about how typically when you plan travel, it is like, I know I want to go to this destination. I want to go to this city. How do I get there? And maybe I can do some math and use some points and make it happen. Or you could flip that and say, I want to travel at this date.
destination is less important. Maybe there's a dozen different places that would be fun to travel to that I haven't been to. What can work?
And then, so by flipping that around, maybe you actually get really great deals to, you know, like for us, the trip to Rome was not on our radar until I saw this incredible price. And I was like, well, we got to go. So I went to Rome. so Rachel, I want to bring you in to, to talk about that. How, when you're thinking about these travel decisions and how loyalty impacts that decision, thinking about the destination first might actually, or might actually hinder your, decision. should actually think about what are my points.
Rachel Satow (07:23.361)
Thank you.
Brandon Giella (07:36.185)
What are my programs? What's available to me as far as a destination? And then make that decision. Is that how you see it?
Rachel Satow (07:41.197)
Yeah. Yeah, so you actually, tying back to your initial equation that you were discussing regarding the holidays of like, do I go see my family or do I go somewhere else? I think a lot of times when you do have distant family, it becomes, that question comes into play a lot more often than you would like. And it becomes a, do I spend these very valuable points that I spent all of my money on?
Brandon Giella (07:48.291)
Yeah.
Rachel Satow (08:10.988)
like earning to go somewhere that might be pretty expensive for me to actually travel just to see family or could I get a better deal somewhere else and say, I'm sorry, maybe you guys can come with me. Do we do family abroad this year? So that's a great like tie into that equation is it, know, loyalty programs can really make that decision a little bit more difficult because
Brandon Giella (08:12.035)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brandon Giella (08:25.451)
Mm-hmm
Rachel Satow (08:40.64)
with the available points that they have or miles that they have, they now have this greater emotional weight to decide between. So I think to answer your question, yeah, going the route of flexibility might be the best way to help make that decision. And seeing any destination in the world.
opening that up a little bit, opening up those parameters might be a better way to ensure that you're maximizing your points.
Brandon Giella (09:16.957)
I know there's several different decision factors going into thinking about holidays. One is where, so we've talked about that. Instead of maybe thinking about the city first, think about...
points first or program first. But then there's also a matter of timing. So regarding timing, when you're thinking about making this decision for holiday, it's a little late now maybe to think about Thanksgiving travel, maybe holiday travel for Christmas and so on. So Ashley, I know you have some thoughts, given your background on how to plan effectively for the time. So we've got location and then timing. How do you see
whether somebody needs to plan or buy an airfare early or late, or is there like a sweet spot that makes that make sense for people thinking about this decision?
Ashley Martinez (10:12.405)
Definitely I love this topic. think timing is.
critical as so for example with Switchfy we get the week off between Christmas and New Year's which is an amazing perk and benefit of working at the company but that kind of I know I wanted to travel within that time frame so similarly maybe with Thanksgiving and I would say it's never too late to plan a trip so definitely if you're thinking about traveling for Thanksgiving or Christmas you definitely still have time and so maybe you know you get that day after Thanksgiving so you want to leave the Friday after Thanksgiving so when should we
Brandon Giella (10:33.29)
Okay, got it.
Ashley Martinez (10:45.431)
looking at buying a potential flight. They say, you know, the word on the street is internationally six months ahead. It is a good sweet spot in terms of deals and domestically six weeks.
So six months internationally, six weeks domestically. However, however, I would say, and just to some context for how flight pricing works, are there a range of fare classes on an airplane? There's almost there's up to 20 different flat for your classes. So multiple fair classes for first class business, premium economy and economy. There are certain allotment of seats for each of those classes. So once those seat groups have been sold, that's typically where you see that price bump.
go so once they have filled a fare class, then they will go to the next fare class and that's where you see typically as it gets closer to the actual departure, you'll see a higher price. However, where you can get those last minute deals are definitely and using loyalty programs and points. Airlines want to drive revenue. Their best margins are on putting travelers in seats and from ancillary products. So maybe they want to just get you on the plane so then they can upsell a bag.
Brandon Giella (11:44.119)
Mm.
Ashley Martinez (11:57.662)
or maybe you buy an upgrade or maybe you're buying even wifi on the plane. So their goal is to drive travelers and get what they like to call butts in seats. So you can definitely find some last minute flight deals. I would highly recommend using programs and points. And one of the best ways and I'm doing this for Peru. So for example, I'm flying American.
Brandon Giella (12:02.529)
Interesting.
Ashley Martinez (12:20.255)
from Miami to Lima, but I booked that flight through Qatar Airways using my points with Qatar since they're One World Alliance partners. definitely there's also some other ways where you can get flight deals through partner airlines. Great resource for that is How to Win at Travel by Brian Kelly, the points guy. So lots of different ways to maximize and find deals.
Brandon Giella (12:43.543)
Fascinating. Okay. This sounds so complicated and like you have to be an engineer to like figure this out. And I know there's tools to do that and we can talk more about that. And I have some questions maybe around that, but.
Ashley Martinez (12:46.482)
It's
Brandon Giella (12:54.499)
But before that, I'm curious, and I want to get all three of you to chime in on this, is you mentioned fair classes. And so there's upgrades, there's, you you can get a first class C, business class C, maybe a economy plus, which I've never done before. I'm strictly economy. But I'm curious how you guys think about like, whether you get bags on a credit card loyalty program, or if you're just part of a loyalty program, if there's like lounge access. How do you guys think about like, you know, some of these
other things that are beyond just the seat, whether you should upgrade bags, etc. etc. for being a part of these loyalty programs. How does that factor into how and when you decide to travel for the holidays?
Ashley Martinez (13:42.326)
I definitely think there when factoring or analyzing prices you have to factor the all in. So for example if I'm flying with Southwest and I get a free checked bag but maybe the base fare is a little higher but compared to another carrier I need to take in an account I'm going to have to pay for a checked bag on another carrier. So I think those are a great way or definitely need to think about the all in price but maybe you only have a couple thousand points on an airline. You can use that for a checked bag. So if you pay the base fare in cash
Brandon Giella (13:59.652)
Hmm.
Ashley Martinez (14:12.279)
you can do upgrades in points or other ancillary options in points and that's a great way to leverage maybe you have a smaller balance but you can leverage them on some other ancillary items such as a bag.
Brandon Giella (14:25.315)
Interesting. Yeah.
Ian Andersen (14:25.345)
Well, and something else to be aware of, don't know, growing the topic, but like, always be aware of your points, whether it's through a credit card or direct through the airline or whatever it is, that they're always running promotions for extra points, right, an extra mile. So for example, I know I have a,
United loyalty club credit card and for groceries I get double points right so I always try to make sure to use that card whenever I go buy groceries and then just pay it off so really make sure that that
You're not just spending on travel like that is not the only thing earning you points and miles right like really be tactical about how to spend You know if that means like running up that credit card every month and then just paying it off or whatever you obviously don't want to be stuck with all that credit card debt, but if you can be Pretty smart about it, you know and how you're you're using it and paying it you can really double down on a lot of the points and
You know the Make sure you're checking out the website. Make sure you're signed up to the newsletter. You know, they're always I'm constantly getting emails for you know Go to Home Depot this week and you get triple points or you know, whatever like the case may be so Just be aware of that
Brandon Giella (16:00.291)
Really?
Ian Andersen (16:06.793)
I want to step back just one sec on the vacation around the holidays. One of the things that makes it tough is... So obviously Thanksgiving is an American holiday and that can be very tough for, you know, in the US travel. But like Christmas, you know, is a world holiday. And...
people tend to have, especially people with kids, their kids tend to be off school.
more or less at the same time, right? So that's something that makes it really tricky. So if you can be flexible on we don't have to celebrate Christmas as a family on Christmas day kind of stuff or, you know, New York New Year's or, you know, whatever it is. think Ashley mentioned this earlier. We almost always fly Christmas day just because it's like half the price of going the day before the day after. Right. We try to
Brandon Giella (17:10.359)
Mm-mm.
Ian Andersen (17:14.28)
fly will fly on Thanksgiving Day often.
and then maybe take an extra day off work and come back that Monday instead of the Sunday, right? Just because if you're able to stretch and most of them, most airlines do it now, most vacation booking platforms do it now, but we'll kind of give you a glimpse of what a day or two before and the day or two after where you're looking, what the price looks like. So try to keep that in mind of building.
in a flex a couple of days on either side and you can really save a lot of money on travel.
Brandon Giella (17:57.668)
I am I'm curious if you guys think that status for some of these programs is more useful or you get more bang for your buck out of the out of the holiday period than other periods throughout the year is that something that resonates with you guys?
Ian Andersen (18:20.159)
I think a tad and I don't want to monopolize it, but the thing about holiday travel is it is so culturally relevant that most travel platforms and travel providers.
Really craft their entire sales strategy around the holiday season, right? It's like toy manufacturers make what? 75 % of their product or profits within the last month of the year, right? Like it's very similar with travel probably not to the same degree but definitely very heavily weighted towards the end of the year so a lot of times their promotions and stuff are geared towards that holiday increasing the
Brandon Giella (18:50.979)
Mm.
Ian Andersen (19:05.903)
travel so if you if you're looking at the the tier you know or various status structures a lot of times it's easier to kind of make up that that whatever purchase requirement to hit that next level in the holiday season because they're trying to make it easy for you to travel in holiday season right so
Brandon Giella (19:31.715)
Interesting. Yeah.
Rachel Satow (19:33.206)
Yeah, would absolutely agree with that. think status perks are definitely amplified during peak crowds, whether that be during the holidays or other timeframes. I mean, we're thinking about this in the perspective of Thanksgiving and Christmas. But, you know, when you think about the Fourth of July as well, that time frame is, know, status perks really, really come to shine during those peak crowds and peak travel times. I mean, when you think about it,
some benefits that might feel small like a free bag or priority check-in when you're doing just you know regular travel or sometimes business travel but like when you're thinking about the extra hundreds of thousands of people that are also now traveling alongside you during this time frame that priority check-in feels a lot better than that two-hour line you're gonna be waiting in especially you know not to call out Houston for the
Brandon Giella (20:26.285)
Yes.
Rachel Satow (20:32.715)
long lines that are going on right now, like I could absolutely imagine that that priority checking is gonna go miles, pun intended, for the holidays than just if you're traveling on a random weekend in, I don't even know, March.
Brandon Giella (20:33.355)
You
Brandon Giella (20:44.086)
Ha ha.
Brandon Giella (20:53.675)
Yeah, purely anecdotally, I will say that is the primary factor in me even considering the, American airlines world elite mastercard for the advantage program. I'm in DFW, so I am, it's an American hub and I hear that.
Rachel Satow (21:05.195)
You
Brandon Giella (21:11.459)
I fly mostly American and I hear those sales pitches like constantly and I get all the mailers and I have opened two of them and sat them on my desk for weeks and stared at this thing and used Chachi PT to tell me the benefits and costs associated with that versus the American Express Platinum card. And I have thought about this for years and it is just for that reason though. Literally I want to cut the line, I want my bags free and I want to get upgraded when it comes around to it.
Rachel Satow (21:23.751)
Yeah.
Rachel Satow (21:39.367)
Yeah, the other thing... It depends Brandon, are you gonna fly out of Houston? The other thing that I think, you know, status really comes into play here is with winter typically comes rather large snowstorms in the northeast and around the world and...
Brandon Giella (21:39.939)
Is that worth $800 a year? I don't know, but I think about it a lot.
I know. Nope. Nope.
Rachel Satow (22:03.644)
know, lounge access during those delays or snowstorms can make a world of a difference when you have, you know, two young ones like yourself who definitely would feel the pain of sitting in just like a regular gate area and not having some little more, you know, private section. So absolutely, those statuses definitely come into play here.
Brandon Giella (22:07.829)
Yes. Yes.
Brandon Giella (22:19.223)
Yes, yes.
Brandon Giella (22:24.226)
Yes.
Brandon Giella (22:27.661)
can confirm I was in a lounge in my last airport trip. This is a few weeks ago and there was multiple blowouts in our.
waiting for our flight and it was nice to have like a nice bathroom in the lounge rather than the public bathroom if I may say so myself. So yes, totally agree. Totally agree. But so that brings up a great, a great point on one of the segments that we wanted to touch on was about the like the stress, blackout dates, know, holiday rush travel. Like yes, we're talking about winter holidays right now, but the same is true for whether it's Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day, different, different
kind of weekends that people take off and do some traveling. And so there's a lot of, like you said, long lines. There's just a lot of stress about maybe a flight gets canceled, a flight drops, you know, for whatever reason. And that's a huge, huge benefit of being in a good loyalty program. So yeah, that's great. Yeah.
Rachel Satow (23:27.848)
Yeah, I mean to that point, you know.
we just talked about status and one of the things on the other side to consider when you're thinking about like all of the stress of travel, et cetera, is that, you you may have these benefits coming into play, like the lounge access and the priority boarding and the checked bag, but one of the things that you would want the most, I think, is upgrades are going to be a lot harder because the flights are usually packed. So to both Ian and Ashley's point,
The idea of traveling on an off-peak day just a couple of hours later, if you can wait one more day to fly on the actual holiday, might make it so that you can even stretch those perks a little further because those award seats definitely become harder to come by when you have a fully packed flight.
Brandon Giella (24:18.371)
That's right. That's right.
Well, what else? you know, one thing that we had mentioned was maybe there's a way to, pay with cash or credit card, or you pay with your loyalty points. Is there anything around that that might be useful for listeners to know where you can kind of mix the way that you pay for travel? So again, just to kind of, to, summarize in a way is when you're thinking about this decision, there's where you're going. So we touched on that first, and then there's when you choose to either, you know, go or, when you make that purchase decision, but then there's how you pay.
So you know you can get those upgrades, you can get a mix of points in cash, like how does that factor into the way that you guys think about travel?
Ian Andersen (25:01.979)
I mean it's tough it is very case by case I'm a bit like Ashley in that I will I will spend literally hours and my wife gives me a hard time but it's it's actually fun for me to like okay if I can use my United points to get from Chicago to here to Phoenix or whatever and like okay and then I like being my own travel agent in booking you know and checking
every single step of the way rather than just sort of like plugging in my days and letting it do it all for me. I don't know how much money I save, but it is fun for me and I like to think I'm saving some money. So definitely do some legwork in that regard, right? You know, if you travel a lot, you probably have...
Brandon Giella (25:46.403)
There you go.
Ian Andersen (26:00.035)
you know, a couple thousand American Airlines points, a couple thousand United points, right? Like you, you're very rarely going to have all of it in one, um, very nice pile, uh, to, use. So be strategic on maybe you can buy, um, one leg of the journey or, or at least reduce the cost using points for the, you know, you're going out flight and then book the return flight separately on a different airline.
If that works for you Be aware of everywhere you do have points a constant theme Rachel could probably give you Some off-the-head statistics of it, but the constant theme that we talked about a lot is unredeemed loyalty points Industry-wide right like And it's just just mind staggering. No, you know billions and billions of dollars every year just go unredeemed
Brandon Giella (26:47.939)
Hmm.
Ian Andersen (26:59.908)
And that's that's free money. I mean that's that's your money right like you've paid Yeah, right right because they're they're essentially holding a big IOU that they don't know when it's gonna be cashed so Mm-hmm Yes, so for sure
Brandon Giella (27:05.003)
It's literally a liability on the business side for them.
Brandon Giella (27:14.637)
Yes, they want you to burn those points. Like, please use those points. They're begging you.
Rachel Satow (27:20.17)
The answer is 35 trillion. 35 trillion unredeemed points.
Brandon Giella (27:23.551)
What? No. What? That sounds like too many.
Ian Andersen (27:25.25)
Wow, it just in total out there in the world hanging out
Brandon Giella (27:30.573)
J, whiz, that's amazing. And businesses are like, please, please use these points. Get them off our balance sheet, please.
Ian Andersen (27:37.269)
Yeah, so be aware of where you have points, know who you have them through like can you roll them over into to To using them like combined there's tools. There's like
Award Hacker, I think it's just awardhacker.com if I remember right. You can kind of put in your, like where you have points with and it'll sort of search the best deals for you for travel. There's another one, point.me, I think is another one that's similar. But there are tools out there to help you do this, so.
Brandon Giella (28:09.955)
interesting.
Ian Andersen (28:23.628)
Definitely be aware of what you have.
Brandon Giella (28:24.435)
Yeah,
Ashley Martinez (28:27.582)
One thing I would add in terms of the currency as loyalty mileage is absolutely a currency but thinking to use points or cash is who you're traveling with. So for example on that Peru trip that I was telling you guys about that I have coming up is my partner and I traveling and I'm using the points for his flight.
Brandon Giella (28:36.643)
Hmm.
Ashley Martinez (28:46.198)
and I'm going to pay cash for mine so I can earn miles for my own flight because you don't earn on a points redemption. So if I was, let's say we paid cash for his flight, well, he's going to earn those miles. I want the miles, right? So I put the point, you can use points redemptions for other people. So I think it's also, you know, from a strategy perspective, you have to think you're also burning, but think ahead to on the earn side as well and setting yourself up for future success.
Brandon Giella (29:04.771)
interesting.
Brandon Giella (29:14.659)
Hmm. Okay. I have a point about this that I'll close with. Ashley, I'm gonna come back to you. But before we do that, any other closing thoughts for our listeners when they're thinking about these decisions?
Rachel Satow (29:29.694)
I think, know, since just on the topic of points and whether or not points and cash, you know, during this time to Ashley's point, like you could definitely try to think through the potential earn as you burn. And, you know, during this time.
Brandon Giella (29:44.643)
Hmm.
Rachel Satow (29:47.43)
We often think of points as like a financial relief, right? Like, I've done all of this work to earn all of these things and these points will in the future be a financial, know, make this investment a little bit less of a burden. But during the holidays in particular, your points are going to be worth less because...
Brandon Giella (29:53.315)
That's great, yeah.
Brandon Giella (30:03.139)
Yeah.
Rachel Satow (30:08.531)
the amount of points you need to actually cover the cost of a flight is going to increase alongside the actual cost of flights. So sometimes those cash fares are cheaper than the total investment you will need from a points perspective. And definitely try to consider, okay, if my point, know, point per dollar or whatever it may be is equal to this, I'm actually better off going the cash route.
Brandon Giella (30:13.635)
Great point.
Rachel Satow (30:34.153)
It's probably a contributing factor into why there's so many points unredeemed but from my my personal strategy is I will I will spend the points especially on longer trips to say Rome or to you know overseas or abroad I will save the points for the long haul and premium cabins because that's when the comfort of traveling in that style is going to outweigh the cost
Brandon Giella (30:39.309)
Yeah.
Brandon Giella (30:54.496)
Okay.
Rachel Satow (31:03.315)
that I like the investment from that side. So I will save my points for the premium cabins for sure.
Brandon Giella (31:08.993)
Okay, interesting. But there is a downside to doing that because once you do book one of those very fancy seats, you're never going to go back to economy. That's a problem. That's great. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So I'm, I'm picturing that meme.
Rachel Satow (31:16.809)
That is a problem.
Brandon Giella (31:28.693)
of that GIF where there's like a woman who's like kind of staring off into space and there's all these like math formulas that are like overlaying her face and she's trying to like work through this calculation problem. And not everybody listening to this show is like Ian or Ashley.
travel nerds wanting to like break all this down on a spreadsheet and spend hours tinkering and figuring out the maximum, you know, benefits of their points. But it is extremely useful to be thinking about these different criteria, if you will, in making this decision. And so you've got where are you going? You've got when should you go and then when should you buy? And then you've got upgrade.
issues, the ancillary products, if you will, whether you're going to, you know, a higher, better seat or lounge access, free bags. And then you've got a mix of whether you're going to, buy with points versus cash and also thinking about the different travel programs that you are connected to or have points with. With even airline partnerships, like you mentioned Qatar airways is part of one world alliance. And then you've got who you're traveling with. Maybe you can, you know,
shift points over to another person to cover some of that. This is all a lot.
If you don't have the time and space to do this in your life, what are some general rules of thumb that you might have like, okay, you are gonna go flying for the holidays. Obviously there's winter holidays and there's other holidays throughout the year. But generally speaking, if you follow these steps, you will maximize the travel programs or points that you have to make the best optimal decision, even though maybe it's not.
Brandon Giella (33:09.505)
you know, 100 % the best possible pricing decision you can make, but generally you're going to be pretty well off if you follow these steps. What do you say to that? What, what do people do that are feeling a little bit overwhelmed like I am at this very moment?
Ashley Martinez (33:23.744)
would say take it back to the basics. Step one, make sure you are a loyalty member of whatever carrier you are flying. I think that's basic. Establish yourself as a loyalty member, whether that's American Islands, United. And then another tip I would say is maybe you're, let's say, I'll give you an example. I'm flying Copa to Peru or coming back from Peru. I'm not gonna probably fly that carrier.
Brandon Giella (33:25.932)
Okay.
Ashley Martinez (33:49.446)
you know for a while but I can earn United miles on that flight. So there are ways to earn miles with your primary carriers whether you know that's one of the big three in the US but always be earning so you know sales always be closing but always be earning. Make sure you're at least signed up for the loyalty program or an applicable loyalty program where you can earn miles on any flight that you're on.
Brandon Giella (34:04.897)
I like that.
Brandon Giella (34:14.627)
Okay, okay, okay. Anybody else have any tips? If you're just considering this decision, you're not gonna wade into the weeds, but generally speaking, do these couple things, you'll be in good shape.
Ashley Martinez (34:15.978)
I would start there.
Ian Andersen (34:26.819)
I think depending if you're not a frequent traveler don't just go join a loyalty program just to join a loyalty program right like find what you use in your life that works for you that you're gonna use a lot and more than likely you're gonna be able to easily find one that has kind of a loyalty
Connection right you're gonna be able to use your American Express You know grocery credit card whatever like Sam's Club card, you know Whatever it is. You're gonna be able to use those to buy travel. So You know if you're not flying On a routine basis to where it's worth getting like a specific airline credit card
know, look at your, your, my grandfather uses, I think he has a BP.
Card because he has a little BP station just right around the house that he gets his gas at every time you know and he could buy travel through there so Find what works for you in your life that you're going to use a lot that you're going to rack up those points with and then just Explore what options they have for using your points and travel I almost bet will be one of them
Brandon Giella (35:40.419)
Interesting.
Brandon Giella (35:56.066)
Okay, yeah, that's helpful. That's how I think about it. I've considered a bunch of different individual loyalty program cards for specific airlines and things like that, but I keep coming back to the American Express Platinum because I'm not going to wade through that decision every single time, but dollar for dollar, it's a really good...
I guess cost, you know, it's like $800 a year now, but I know it gives me tons of perks for tons of airlines, tons of hotels. And it's, it's pretty good. You know, it's maybe not the best decision overall, but given all the factors, it's pretty good. Rachel, what would you say? What's your, what's your hot tips for, for people thinking about this decision that don't want to wait through all the details.
Rachel Satow (36:34.555)
Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna completely left field this answer, just so you know. Because I myself am one of the people who purely go to see family. That decision is made for me. There will not be a holiday that we have not sorted it out, barring any other, you know, like...
Brandon Giella (36:38.047)
yes.
Brandon Giella (36:49.941)
Okay, okay, okay.
Rachel Satow (36:58.45)
they decide to go on vacation. Like my family, we're pretty, we're pretty on lock when it comes to, comes to seeing each other for the holidays. And, you know, Ashley mentioned traveling with her partner. We have it pretty much sorted out that like Thanksgiving, we go to Charleston to see my partner's family. And for Christmas, we go to Cocoa Beach to see my family. And that's, that's our routine. So knowing that there are people who are probably listening that are,
Brandon Giella (36:59.999)
That's good. OK.
Brandon Giella (37:06.029)
Good, okay.
Rachel Satow (37:28.546)
in a similar situation where they know that these are the areas that they're going to go to, I would say try to find a program that also gives you the opportunity to spend your points in a different way than just on flights. Because there are ways to enhance your holidays by doing other things than just flying somewhere. So...
Brandon Giella (37:50.499)
Hmm.
Rachel Satow (37:53.263)
if the program offers the ability to do a certain activity or to go see a museum and get those tickets all redeeming through your points and you can burn that way in order to meet status, I think that there's, that's definitely something I would recommend exploring as well because I know that if I go down to Coco, there's an aquarium down there, there's the zoos down there, there's probably something that I can do in that general area that I can,
use my points to spend and still enhance my holiday that way. that's my advice is if you know what you're doing and you know the plans and you might not be flying because we don't fly, we do the drive, it's fine. I would recommend taking a look at the programs that allow you to spend your points on other things.
Brandon Giella (38:41.347)
That is a great point. Generally speaking, be creative. It's not just a flight, but in others' defense, maybe listening to this, their families don't live in exotic places like Cocoa Beach and Charleston. So Statesboro, Georgia is not as exotic. Charleston is so beautiful. Okay.
Rachel Satow (38:53.509)
I don't know that I would say Cocoa Beach or Charleston is exotic. It is beautiful. It is. It's very beautiful. Maybe we have different definitions of the word exotic.
Ian Andersen (39:00.355)
it is.
Brandon Giella (39:03.465)
It is more beautiful than Statesboro, Georgia. No offense to Statesboro. Go Eagles, okay? But it's not as fun as the beach, okay?
Rachel Satow (39:07.72)
Fair enough.
Ian Andersen (39:08.695)
I
Ian Andersen (39:12.419)
One last point is Ashley said something that triggered my reaction that you don't earn
Points on when you're when you're booking reward miles, right? So think about your next trip as well Right that that this trip could be a little more expensive and if you've got the cash It might be worth it to just buy it in cash right now and really rack up the miles for the next trip, too. So Don't think of it as like you got to burn everything right now, right? Like now's a good time to really earn points as well. So
Brandon Giella (39:44.877)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ian Andersen (39:57.642)
Keep that in mind.
Brandon Giella (39:59.009)
Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. Really great point. Well, as you all are considering these decision criteria as a fallback, just plug it all into ChachabiTea and it'll...
Great, I'm not generating a rare for you. Just kidding. You can go to switchfly.com, however, because there are amazing tools and resources that you guys have to be thinking about your travel. And please join the newsletter there, see the other podcast episodes that we have and other blogs. But you guys do such phenomenal work helping people make these kind of decisions, especially on the travel loyalty side, when thinking about putting together programs and how that can best serve travelers, especially on their technology side and things like that. So you guys are experts.
I very much appreciate your insight and input as always and I'm very much looking forward to the next episode. So Rachel, Ian, Ashley, thank you so much for your insight. Can't wait to talk again. We'll see you soon.
Ian Andersen (40:54.275)
Thank you, Brenna.
Rachel Satow (40:54.738)
Thanks, Brandon.
Ashley Martinez (40:55.958)
Thanks, Brandon. Plan that trip.
