Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. To close out several of our shows this week, we'll talk travel tips with a travel expert. It's Brian Kelly, who founded the travel website The Points Guy in 2010. His work focuses on finding the best travel deals and specifically how to leverage credit card points for travel. In his new book, How to Win at Travel, he provides a broad range of advice, everything from budgeting for travel to handling flight anxiety and what to do if your flight is delayed or canceled. We'll take advantage of his knowledge on a few different things this week, starting at the beginning with how to win at booking travel. Brian, thanks a lot for doing this with us. Welcome to WNYC.
Brian Kelly: Thanks for having me.
Brian Lehrer: Before we get into booking the actual ticket, you talk about setting a budget. There's something called the 50-30-20 rule for setting a budget. What do those numbers refer to?
Brian Kelly: Well, you should be spending 50% of your budget on absolute necessities, the rent and things like that. Then ideally, you've got 20% for your future you, saving for the future, that emergency fund. Then that leaves you 30% of your take-home salary to use for the things you love. That's where travel fits in. In the book, I talk about, no one can set that budget for you. That's a good framework for people because you really shouldn't be going into debt to travel. The idea is to fit it into your budget so that you're not paying for it for many years to come.
Brian Lehrer: Yes, good framework for life in general. When purchasing airfare, you suggest using Google Flights for some initial research. Why that?
Brian Kelly: Google.com/flights is my go-to and I know most travel experts. You don't actually purchase the airfare through Google Flights, but it is technology that will help you quickly search most major airlines. It's got a couple different tools. Number one, it helps you search flexibly. You can actually click a button and see the airfare in a certain route, say JFK to LA. You can do non-stop business class economy. Then you can see a calendar view of the cheapest flights. Sometimes just changing your flight dates by a day or two can save you dramatically.
My favorite feature of Google Flights, and this is one of the themes of the book, you don't get cheap travel deals on Tuesdays at 2:00 PM. I wish it were that easy. How you get the best travel deals is being flexible and using technology to scan billions of airfare. Google Flights has what's called the Explore tab. You can put in New York City and say this winter has been freezing, you just need to get to the Caribbean. You can actually reverse engineer and have it show you an entire map of the Caribbean for a month at a time, a specific set of dates, and then you can sniff out the cheapest deals.
This is where you can save dramatically by being able to see an entire region. Same goes for Europe, Asia, et cetera. This allows you to hunt where the deals are and then plan your trips around them.
Brian Lehrer: I'm glad to hear that being flexible doesn't just mean flying the red eye in the middle of the week.
Brian Kelly: Exactly. Sometimes you can get really great deals. It doesn't have to be the worst islands. I was doing the Google Explore map and Turks and Caicos was the cheapest by far. That's one of my favorite Caribbean islands. It's not like you always have to give up or fly spirit to get the cheapest airfare. Sometimes, the major airlines in premium have sales as well.
Brian Lehrer: You are The Points Guy, to cite the name of your website. A lot of the work you do on the site is all about maximizing credit card points in order to pay for flights. This one makes me cringe a little though, because consumer advocates warn, and I know you're one of them, that points can be a trap, making people charge more money than they can pay off because they focus on the little bit they get back. I know you have tips for using credit cards responsibly as well as strategically for travel. Share a couple of those.
Brian Kelly: I've got the credit card commandments in my book. It does not make sense to go into debt to get points because you'll get crushed by the interest. To win at the points game with credit cards, you've got to be committed to paying off your bills in full every month, or else that interest will eat away at all the value of those points. Also, you're going to get a new credit line. You're not going to be tempted to outspend outside your means. You have to be disciplined.
That being said, if you're disciplined, there's no reason to spend cash or a debit card, not just for the points, but for the protections. Credit cards come with a huge array of protections. Purchase protection. If you buy an item and lose it within 90 days for any reason, most credit cards will reimburse you. Your flight's delayed, credit cards will be the ones to actually pay for your hotel. The points are valuable, but there's a whole lot of other value behind using a credit card and getting all that consumer protection.
If there's fraud instantly off your bill, if there's fraud on your debit card, you might be out cash for weeks or a month at a time and that can really pinch. You will eventually get it back, but with the credit card, bam, it's off your bill right away.
Brian Lehrer: That's really interesting about credit versus debit. How about booking a flight with the airline directly or going through a website like Expedia?
Brian Kelly: These days, the airlines are punishing people who book through online travel agencies in a really unique way. If you book through an online travel agency, if you need to make changes or, say, you're at the airport and the airline cancels your flight, if you booked with the airline, the agent at the desk can click a button and get you on the next flight.
Unfortunately, for many travel agencies, if there's any changes or even if the airline cancels the flight, you have to go to your online travel agency. Imagine being in the airport, being told there's one seat left and it leaves in 20 minutes, but you got to go call online travel agency. That's where a lot of people get stuck. Also, on tight connections, so many people set themselves up for failure, especially in New York City, where we know the air traffic control, it's some of the busiest airports, there's going to be delays. Even on the sunniest, most beautiful days, you should expect to be delayed in New York City.
Choosing the right flights, building in minimum two-hour connections these days. I do not recommend anything less than two hours domestically and three hours internationally, especially if you have to switch terminals at airports like Heathrow, I avoid connecting through Heathrow, period. Especially you have to look at the details. That's what most consumers aren't. They're choosing the cheapest ticket and then realize, "Oh, wait a minute, what I bought isn't what I expected." Cheap is expensive when you miss a connection and you have to spend the night in Charlotte versus a beautiful resort in the Caribbean.
Brian Lehrer: When cheap is expensive. That's a phrase to remember. Last one for today. 30 seconds. Travel insurance. That always pops up as an option these days. Do you recommend it?
Brian Kelly: I do recommend it, but never through an airline or hotel. Go to insuremytrip.com. It's an independent marketplace where you can compare and contrast, but it's about 5% of the cost of the trip and it'll cover a lot, and especially internationally when US health insurance does not cover evacuations, et cetera. I'm all for travel insurance, but bought through a reputable travel insurance provider.
Brian Lehrer: Great stuff. We'll leave it there for today. Brian Kelly is the creator of the travel website The Points Guy. His new book is How to Win at Travel. He'll be back with more tomorrow. Brian, thanks for today. Talk to you in a day.
Brian Kelly: Safe travels.
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