Your Guide to Saving Thousands on Travel This Summer
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Free upgrades are very hard to come by. More often than not, you'll need to have status with an airline. That means flying with them a lot and racking up that airline status or having an airline credit card and being able to essentially purchase into that status. That is really largely the only way to get a free seat upgrade these days. However, the airlines have gotten smarter and that's actually worked out to our benefit. If you don't have airline status,

There are now ways to get cheaper upgrades. What's up, rich friends? Welcome to another episode of Net Worth and Chill. I'm your host, Vivian Tu, aka your rich BFF and your favorite Wall Street girly.

As the weather gets warmer and people get more antsy to spend time in the sun, it can only mean one thing: summer travel season is here. Everyone just wants to be outside! This is the time of year that makes you wonder, "How on earth did my friend, acquaintance, or frenemy afford that trip?" Soon, your entire Instagram feed is just going to be filled with the most perfectly poised beach pictures with views that alone cost five grand.

But do not be fooled by Instagram. Some people have some money to spend. Some people are smart travelers. But a lot, like a lot, a lot of people are racking up debt to recreate their own season of White Lotus. Seriously. Nearly three in 10 travelers are planning on taking on debt to get in the summer travels.

Look, I love to travel as much as the next person, but it is not worth putting yourself in financial peril. So today we are going to go over some of my favorite travel hacks to help save you money, live your best life, and see the world without risking your financial future. Let's get into it.

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Okay, so first and foremost, let's go over a couple tips on how to actually travel for cheaper. First up, use a VPN to book your travel. Flight prices change constantly, literally day to day, and often those changes in price can fluctuate based on your location, the strength of your country's currency, and how popular a destination is in your region. So maybe you live in New York City and you wanna know if your summer trip to Italy is cheaper if you were searching from Brazil.

So, how do we see what that flight price would be in another place? We are using a VPN. VPNs essentially hide your data that the internet uses to locate you so people, including airlines, won't be able to see where you're browsing from. This lets you change your location to anywhere in the world so you are free to explore flight pricing from different regions and make sure you are getting the best deals.

All you have to do is download a VPN and choose your desired location as where you are actually pinging from.

Then you're gonna check all the flight prices for different locations, write them down, repeat with a few different locations. And now you can compare prices on flights and ensure you're getting the best deal. And now you're probably wondering which VPN should I use? There's a ton out there, but a couple that have had great reviews are ExpressVPN, NordVPN, Surfshark, and BetterNet VPN. Next up, another tip, go somewhere where the exchange rate is strong and in favor of your home currency.

So, if you're US-based, some great places to consider are Mexico, Poland, Vietnam, South Africa, Japan, Brazil, Portugal, and Ireland. While the flight over to that location might actually be a little bit more expensive, I know I did list some countries that are quite a ways away.

but you'll spend significantly less once you're actually there because the U.S. dollar will get you further. If you can afford to spend a little bit more up front, but don't want to have to penny pinch on excursions, hotels, or even food once you're there, this could be a great way to help you find the perfect summer destination for you. Yes, I know to make this timely, we are seeing the U.S. dollar weaken, but

still for many of these countries, you're going to have a decently strong exchange rate. So certainly still worth exploring and visiting a country where the US dollar is strong or your home currency is strong is just going to get you a little bit more bang for your buck once you get there. Okay.

So next tip is all about those flights, all about that airport, because guess what? Sometimes those flights are the most expensive part of the trip. And these days, flying can be a little bit of a headache. Whenever you book a flight on Delta or Southwest Airlines, go to Google Flights.

and turn on price alerts for that exact same flight you just bought. If and when you get a notification alerting you to a price drop, you can then head over to Delta or the Southwest app or site and pretend like you're just gonna change your flight. But instead of picking a new flight, just pick the same flight you're already on

you're gonna notice that for this flight, you'll actually receive a flight credit of how much the price had fallen that you can then use later for another flight. These price changes can be anywhere between a few bucks or even a few hundred dollars. So this is something you definitely want to be tracking if you are booking on these airlines.

Furthermore, most of the larger airlines like American and United will also do this if you have a refundable ticket. That said, they definitely don't make it nearly as easy. You likely will have to call and probably sit on the line waiting for customer service for a hot minute. But

If the difference in the cost of what you paid and what the ticket is now worth is significant, it may certainly be worth doing. I always check before my flights to make sure I'm getting the best price and not leaving money on the table. This is a great way to fight that sensation of, oh, I'll just wait and maybe the flight will go down in price later. So instead of worrying about whether you'll overpay now

and get a better price later, you can book your flight today. And then ultimately when your flight goes up in price, you'll have locked in that nice lower price earlier. But if it does go down, you can still get kind of some of that money back. So you kind of have the best of both worlds. Up next, my next tip is for students. You should never be paying full price for flights. I didn't know this when I was a student, but you're probably familiar with the travel comparison site, Kayak.

Instead of going to the regular Kayak website, you're going to go to kayak.com slash see slash students. No, this is not an ad. No, I'm not being paid for this. They are not sponsoring the podcast, but this is actually a great site where you can find some discounts. You're going to find discounts on student travel. They're ranging anywhere from five to 40% off normal flight prices.

All you have to do is when you're typing in your flight search, change the traveler information from one adult. There's going to be a little toggle that says one adult and however many kids, whatever, how many senior citizens. There is an option to change from one adult to one student. And I know what you're thinking. What's stopping anyone from doing this? Can I still do this even if I'm not a student? No, unfortunately not.

Student validation is usually required when you book through FlyLA, ScholarTrip, and Student Universe, which are the three student travel discount programs that Kayak is working with. So whether you're planning for a group trip to the beach or just need flights between your parents' home and your summer internship,

this could save you some serious money. And I certainly remember being an absolutely broke college student and I definitely could have used some of those savings. So make sure you're not leaving money on the table. Make sure you are getting the best deal because a student discount is a great way to get the exact same thing for a little bit less. Up next, we got to talk about

The big elephant in the room, points. If you're buying a flight with points, you have to make sure it's actually worth it. If you have loyalty with an airline or you have a travel credit card, using points or miles can be a great way to get a discount on a flight or a hotel, but you need to make sure that those points are actually converting to the right dollar amounts.

you're going to check out the PointsGuy Awards versus Cash Calculator. So this tool helps you compare miles and points and rewards versus the cash price of a flight or a hotel stay. You can select a specific rewards program and the amount of points you have or want to use, and then it'll compare the cost of using your points to the actual cash pricing. Sometimes it's way better to just pay for stuff in cash. Sometimes it's way better to use points.

But you want to make sure that if you are using your points, it's not converting to this crazy high cash dollar value just because it's

If you are overusing your points, that's still money you're wasting because you could have used it in another conversion scenario. I did this recently and found out that using miles on my flight from New York to London was significantly cheaper than paying for the flight in cash. So I knew it was well worth my hard earned loyalty miles.

But there have been times that I've checked loyalty points, miles, whatever, between Florida and LA, and it actually made more sense to pay for the flight in cash. Always make sure using your points or miles is worth it, or if you should save for a better redemption, because these can be used like cash, so they should be treated like cash. The points and miles values can fluctuate based on certain factors. So this is a great way to check that you're making sure you're getting the best deal. And

And last tip before we get into some hot summer Q&A, get a travel credit card. If you're a major traveler and you're looking to get some more bang for your buck, getting a credit card that focuses on travel benefits can be a major upgrade for you. Oftentimes these cards have a decently hefty annual fee for some more luxury perks. I'm talking the Amex Platinum or the Chase Sapphire Reserve or...

the Capital One Venture X, these can make a lot of sense for you if you are that type of spender. So for example, the Amex Platinum offers a ton of luxury benefits from access to airport lounges, travel and hotel credits, up to five times bonus points when you're paying for travel and cash. The Chase Sapphire Reserve offers something similar like TSA pre-check for free or global entry for free, travel credits, 5X points on air travel, 10X points on hotel bookings,

But you have to make sure that this is what you are actually spending your money on. Because if you are someone who is spending most of your money on groceries and gas or even retail shopping, these cards may not make sense. They do come with pretty hefty annual fees. So I'm talking anywhere between $395 all the way up to $695. But

But if you are using them correctly, you will make that fee back and then some. But if you're not actually consistently traveling or consistently dining out or using these cards to the maximum of their benefit, they may not make sense in terms of your life. If you want a much lower annual fee, but still to get some of the travel benefits and miles, something like the Chase Sapphire Proofreader,

preferred might make more sense for you. The preferred is definitely a good starting point if you're new to traveling but want to explore getting points and miles on all your purchases, but again, can't commit to a nearly $500 to $700 fee. It is quite hefty there. Either way, if you are a regular traveler, the benefits may far outweigh the annual cost, and a lot of these cards have great transfer partners, meaning you're

The points that you rack up with them can then be sent over to airlines or hotel chains. So you can be doing a lot of that traveling you love so much for free. Support for this show comes from Pure Leaf Iced Tea.

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Okay, now that we got some of my hot tips out of the way, let's get into the Q&A section. We asked for your guys' burning travel questions about how to actually save on travel, so we're going to answer a few of the top submissions. And just in case your question doesn't get answered, I do want to highlight a brand new tool that I'm building where you can ask me and licensed CFPs questions without needing to have half a million dollars and hire a financial advisor.

It's called askdolly.com, A-S-K-D-O-L-L-Y.com. Right now, we're getting people on our wait list. And for the first 20,000 people who sign up, you'll be invited to beta test as this tool rolls out. We've seen an initial adoption so far that has been beyond my wildest imaginations. I am so grateful that people are testing this and using this, and I really hope that it changes people's lives.

This is, think about this like a pocket financial mentor that can help answer all those questions you're too embarrassed to ask. The more people we get added to the waitlist, the more signups we'll ultimately be able to get. And that is more people that can use this tool. This is certainly something I wish I had at 22 when I had no idea what to do with my money and didn't even have two nickels to rub together. So please check it out. Sign up for the waitlist, askdolly.com. All right, but let's get into our Q&A.

First and foremost, how can I get a free seat upgrade?

So people used to spread this myth that if you showed up to the airport in a suit, you would be able to get a free seat upgrade because the gate agent or the flight attendant would think you're like pretty or handsome and just give it to you. These days, that is so not the case. Free upgrades are very hard to come by. More often than not, you'll need to have status with an airline. So

That means flying with them a lot and racking up that airline status or having an airline credit card and being able to essentially purchase into that status. That is really largely the only way to get a free seat upgrade these days. However, the airlines have gotten smarter and that's actually worked out to our benefit. So before what would end up happening is, okay,

80% of business class seats would be awarded as free seat upgrades to status holders. And only 20% of those business class seats or first class seats were paid. However,

These days, the airlines, they need to make money. So they have gotten a really, really smart pricing algorithm so that based on the demand for business class or first class seats, they'll either lower or increase the cost of upgrading. And why this is actually better is if you don't have airline status, there are now ways to get cheaper upgrades. They're not free, but something that I know very,

firsthand very often is when I go to book a flight between New York and Miami, more often than not, the economy seat is $200, $300, and the business class seat can be $700, $800. For a three-hour flight, I'm not spending that. I'm just going to book the economy seat. But as the flight oftentimes nears and everybody has had the exact same idea as me, they're like, it's a short flight. I don't need to upgrade. I don't need to pay for it. They will start offering those

business class seats at a discount. And I know that if a seat is offered to me at roughly $150, that's about as low as it's going to get. And if I want a seat, if I'm going to be working on the plane or if it's a late night flight or an early morning flight, that is a great time to get it. And so I'll have spent

$250 for the initial economy seat. I'll spend $150 to upgrade. I'll have spent $400 in total, which is more than the economy seat, but not nearly the seven, $800 that it was initially quoted. This is honestly great for regular everyday travelers because you might be able to get a discounted upgrade because otherwise all of those upgrades would go to status holders. And if you don't have status, you're kind of up a creek without a paddle there. So I'm

Some ways to get free seats are just having status, but there are cheaper upgrades available these days. So make sure to watch your flight apps as well as just checking the websites right before you travel. Okay, up next. What is the best travel credit card for points? Okay, so we kind of talked a little bit about this. There is no such thing as the best credit card period or best travel credit card. There is the best travel credit card for you.

Depending on how you travel, depending on the way that you are booking flights or where you're trying to stay, certain credit cards are going to make more sense. If you are someone who only flies between your home and your vacation home and it's two specific cities with two specific airports, it may behoove you to actually get a credit card with an airline so that you can build status up for those, you know, the airlines that those cities are hubs for.

However, if you are an international traveler and you travel all over the world and you're never in one place more than twice, it may make more sense to get one of those generic cards like an Amex Platinum or a Chase Sapphire Reserve or a Capital One Venture X because those points and miles and rewards are

are not affiliated with any one airline or any one hotel chain. You can then transfer them over to transfer partners and then use them that way. Something I like to check is who the transfer partners are. I would say

Amex has better international transfer partners and Chase probably has better domestic transfer partners. So again, think about how you're traveling. Are you staying in the US? Are you going abroad? What are you really spending on? Would you rather personally pay for hotels in cash or flights in cash or use your points on flights or hotels, vice versa, whatever? Because that is going to dictate which credit card makes the most sense for you. Next question. Ooh, this is a really good one.

Is it dumb to spend on leisure travel in this economy with everything going on? Listen, I know it can feel a little scary right now. There's the word recession floating around. There's, you know, the tariffs, girls. There's a lot going on. And that can require you to feel like you're on edge. I think it is totally okay to travel in this economy if, big if,

All of your other financial needs are met and you are in a financially stable position. So what does that mean? It means that you have a very husky emergency fund. So if you have three to six months, if you can get that three to six months of living expenses up to six to 12 months and then still have money to travel, you can do so. I'm not asking you to completely give up your life or put it on pause, but you want to make sure you do have that emergency fund ready to go and you should not be sacrificing that to travel.

Additionally, if you have high interest debt, so high interest rate debt is things like credit card debt, maybe a car loan, maybe a payday loan. I hope you guys don't have payday loans. But if you have debt that has a very high interest rate, anything above 7%, you kind of want to get that paid down before you're spending on large leisure purchases just because you're

If the economy continues to worsen, you're going to want to have that money that you're spending.

to support your lifestyle versus it going towards debt payments. So ultimately, I do think you can still travel, but you want to make sure all of your other bases are set first. It's also just never a bad time to set aside a little extra for investing. So do I think you need to give up everything that's going to bring you joy? No, I'm not going to be the person to tell you that. But

These days, think about leisure travel as dessert. You do not get dessert until you finish your broccoli and your protein and your rice or your carb or whatever. Like you have to eat a full healthy meal before you get to the ice cream. So make sure the rest of your financial picture looks healthy before you travel.

How will tariff wars impact airline tickets? So short term, you're likely going to see fewer passengers and emptier planes. Long term, as demand for flights cool, because international travelers don't want to come to the U.S. and U.S. passengers may be cutting back on discretionary spending, we'll likely actually see fewer flights and fuller planes as the airlines attempt to maximize the profit from each flight.

having already cut the number of flights offered every single day. Less flights doesn't necessarily mean lower prices either. They're going to change flight supply to meet demand, not lower prices. So once they recalibrate how many tickets they're likely to sell on a specific route, that'll kind of be that. Furthermore, a weaker U.S. dollar means foreign airline tickets are going to feel more expensive for U.S. customers as well.

So ultimately a tariff war is not going to be beneficial for travel, even though it's largely a service versus a good. Next question, what are the best times to book a flight? Okay, so I do this every single time. It is a problem. I go and I look up a flight and then I see the price and I'm like, hmm, that's quite high. I'll wait. And then in two weeks I go back and I'm like, oh, oh my God.

This is even more expensive now. I'm just gonna wait for it to come down. And then suddenly it's one week before the flight and the flight has tripled in price. I have saved no money. I have still yet to book the flight. And now I'm paying three times the cost for my same flight. Don't do that. Don't be me.

These days, you're very unlikely to see prices go down. And if you do, we talked about this earlier, setting that Google flight notification and being able to essentially get a refundable flight ticket and then being able to get a discount or a travel credit is going to work for you. But if you wait and wait and wait, more often than not, as you get closer to the flight, it's going to be more expensive. So.

For domestic flights, I aim to book one to three months before my travel date, with prices often bottoming out around three to four weeks, so roughly a month right before departure. For international flights, booking three to six months in advance is generally recommended, with prices sometimes fluctuating in the months leading up to the trip.

international flight tickets are so expensive. Sometimes I even book a full year out and I've just found the more time you give yourself, the better. And I don't think, you know, you typically have buyer's remorse. You typically just have waiters, like you waited too long, waiter's remorse. So the earlier you can do it, the better. But that's all to say, sometimes my schedule changes and I do book flights 24 hours in advance and I have to pay up. It is what it is. Next question. Any

Any tips on just finding cheaper rates? Well, a site that I absolutely love is called Skyscanner. If you just wanna go somewhere and you don't really care where, you just wanna travel or you just wanna get out of town, do a little long weekend getaway, Skyscanner essentially helps you book a flight to anywhere. You can select where you're gonna be traveling from, what date you wanna go, and then say anywhere or everywhere, and they'll pull the cheapest flights for you.

two different locations. And then maybe you'll see some flights to Boston are expensive this weekend, so we'll fly to Austin instead. Or maybe we'll go to Chicago versus San Diego. But what's smart about this is you are going to be able to just see where the flights are the cheapest first before deciding where you're going to be traveling

more often than not, the stuff on site won't fluctuate nearly as much as a flight can. A flight can change by hundreds of dollars, but getting dinner in any city that is domestic in the US, that restaurant's not changing its prices every single day. So once you get the flight sorted, that might just be an easier path. So that's a great way to get cheaper rates for flights. Next question, how to travel in business or first class with not a lot of points?

Something that is a misconception is that people think you have to be spending a ton of money to get a lot of points, but that's not always true. A lot of these travel credit cards have welcome bonuses. So if you're worried about not being able to rack up enough charges to get a lot of points, something you can do is just open up a new credit card. If you have a good credit score, you pay it off quickly.

in full on time every single month. But they typically have a clause that's like, if you spend within a certain amount within the first three months or six months, we will give you 100,000 points. And 100,000 points would take you quite a while to rack up. But if you are able to just spend that

amount within the first three or six months, you can have 100,000 points within three or six months. And that's probably going to pay for a good chunk of a vacation. I know people who actually churn through credit cards, meaning...

They will continuously like open them up and close them to keep getting those bonuses. I would say do not do this unless you are very, very credit score savvy. If you are planning on maintaining your oldest line of credit consistently, you have very, very little debt to begin with because this can kind of spiral out of control. But again, welcome bonuses are a great way to get a lot of those points without having to spend a ton of money.

Ooh, another wonderful question. Should I get single trip insurance versus an annual insurance plan for my travel? Fun fact, depending on what credit card you have, trip insurance might already be in the terms and conditions that you didn't read as a perk. So this is...

I can't exactly remember if it was the Chase or the Amex, but one of the two actually has trip insurance built in. I want to say it's the Chase, Chase Sapphire Reserve. And essentially, if you have a full vacation booked, but for some reason or other, maybe you get COVID the day right before you're supposed to go, you are actually able to contact them and get, you know, refunds on things that you can't get refunds for. And they'll work with you to try and get your money back. Yeah.

Also, if you are traveling and maybe you get stranded because your flight gets canceled and you have to sleep overnight in a city where you don't have a home and you're worried like, oh, is this airline even going to cover the hotel cost? Well, not to worry. Chase might be able to cover that hotel cost for you. So just look into your credit card terms. You might not even need to buy trip insurance. It

But when it comes to single trip insurance versus annual, this will depend on how much you are traveling. Think about it like a wifi subscription plan on an airline. If you are traveling nonstop throughout the year all the time, annual may make more sense. But if you're a family that really only goes on one trip, one big trip a year, two big trips a year, singular like trip based insurance may just be a little bit cheaper. I kind of touched upon this already, but

Best travel credit card for middle class people. I think if you are someone who is traveling enough, but you're not like a high flyer, you know, constantly taking business class flights and staying at the Four Seasons, the Capital One Venture X has a more reasonable annual fee. It's $395, I believe, as of the last time I checked.

but it still has a lot of the major heavy hitting perks. So these are things like getting into lounges and some of those really, really great travel benefits that I mentioned earlier. This is going to help you essentially manage the cost every year versus what you're getting. Things like the Amex Platinum have like

purchase protection. So like if you crack your phone, they'll help you get it fixed. Like there's a bunch of stuff that if you are using it makes sense, but the Capital One Venture X card doesn't have all of those perks, but it also doesn't have all that fee. So that might be something worth considering. Ooh. And the last question is how do you decide whether or not to book at a fancy hotel in a low classroom versus a more affordable hotel, but in a higher room class?

What I always like to say is that it depends on how much time you plan on spending in the room. So

For me, more often than not, I would book at the nicest hotel possible in the lower and lowest possible room class because then you still have access to all of the amenities. So I'm talking that mega pool, those great restaurants, maybe the free yoga class in the morning. Maybe it's the incredible gym. Maybe it's, you know, they're offering free tea service or drinks in the afternoon, complimentary. I've often found that I'm able to make

the perks that come with an ultra luxury hotel worth it for me, even if I'm staying in a room on the second floor looking at a brick wall, I don't spend that much time in that room anyway. I'm really using the premises.

There have been instances, for example, when my husband and I went on our honeymoon, we wanted to make sure that we were going to be able to have a room that we actually wanted to spend time in. Yes, we were using the amenities on site, but we were also just enjoying each other's company. And we wanted to make sure that it was ultra luxurious. So we got the highest suite class room.

It made for a really great honeymoon, one, because the closet was enormous and we had so much stuff because we had been schlepping all of the stuff from our wedding with us. It just made the experience a little bit nicer. We were having private meals in our room that the hotel staff was bringing to us. It was just him and me, like,

individual one-on-one time. So we wanted to make sure that it was special, but it really does depend on the occasion. But more often than not, when we're just regularly traveling, I would say stay at a nicer hotel in a lower room class because you'll be able to access all the other perks and amenities.

That is all for today. I hope some of these tips help you snag your summer travel trip for a lot less than you were originally going to pay for it. I'm really curious. Let us know in the comments if you're watching this on YouTube or maybe leave us a review if you're listening to this via a podcast platform. Let me know where you're traveling to next.

I'm really excited to hear all about it. And I hope you learned something today that makes your next trip that much more enjoyable. Thank you so much. And I will see you guys next week.

Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Net Worth and Chill, part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. If you liked the episode, make sure to leave a rating and review and subscribe so you never miss an episode. Got a burning financial question that you want covered in a future episode? Write to us via podcast at yourrichbff.com. Follow Net Worth and Chill Pod on Instagram to stay up to date on all podcast related news. And you can follow me at yourrichbff for even more financial know-how. See you next week.

Support for this show comes from Pure Leaf Iced Tea. When you find yourself in the afternoon slump, you need the right thing to make you bounce back. You need Pure Leaf Iced Tea. It's real brewed tea made in a variety of bold flavors with just the right amount of naturally occurring caffeine. You're left feeling refreshed and revitalized, so you can be ready to take on what's next. The next time you need to hit the reset button, grab a Pure Leaf Iced Tea. Time for a tea break? Time for a Pure Leaf.