Morgan Lavoie is here. She is the editor in chief
at the Money News Network.
Great to see you, Morgan.
How are you,
Amy? It's always great to be here.
I'm so happy. Well, listen,
this is one of those things that a lot of
people,
you know, struggle with, right,
is do you live by that?
I only live once mentality of,
you know, I'm going to go now because I may,
you know, may not get that chance later in life.
Or do I save my pennies and hope that I
can maybe go to my dream vacation in retirement?
Wait, how do you decide something like that?
I know, Amy, it's really difficult.
And the question that a lot of people are asking
themselves is,
is it worth it to spend more than I have
if I'm just putting it on my credit card?
We all deserve a vacation,
right? But I have to say it is not the
best move just because interest rates on credit card debt
is so high right now.
It's over 20%. So if you're swiping your card on
a vacation for more than you can pay off in
your next credit card statement,
your vacation just got 20%
more expensive. And so I would really think about it
that way.
If you're looking at a dreamy hotel,
it might turn into a financial prison if you're not
careful.
So I just would say it's really not worth spending
more than you have.
So Morgan, how do we better budget,
you know, for a vacation to some people are really
good about saving and they have like a,
a special, you know, account that that is their vacation
budget and they work with that.
You know, some folks like to play the points game
with their credit cards and they're able to,
you know, get points for hotels and points for flights.
That's a good way to do it.
Yes, I am a huge fan of the points game.
We just talked about how credit card debt can work
against you.
But if you have the right credit card,
your credit card can actually work to your advantage.
I've been using a travel credit card for 10 years.
I don't remember the last time I used cash on
a vacation.
I've used points for pretty much all of my vacations
since then.
And so there are a ton of different credit cards
that have travel perks out there and travel perks range
from free checked bags to lounge access.
But of course, the big one is being able to
use points to redeem on flights and hotels and the
like.
And it's very cool because you basically get to use
your money twice.
You use it once when you purchase things that then
earn you credit card points,
but then you get to use it again as credit
card points.
So it's a great hack to do more with your
money and get that great vacation.
And as you said, there's a lot of good options
out there.
You almost just have to research,
right? Like these are my favorite places to go.
These are the airlines that usually go there.
What have you, What about,
you know, just trying to to book a trip on
a budget,
Morgan, because you know, you can go to places you
don't have to stay in a four or five star
hotel everywhere you go.
Definitely, definitely. And there are a lot of travel hacks
that I do when I go on vacation that help
me stay in budget.
So there are three that I I like to do
often.
So first it's really important to look at what day
of the week you're flying out.
Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays tend to be the cheapest day
to fly.
A lot of people will say it matters the day
that book the flight,
but it actually matters more when you fly.
So look at Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays for your trips.
Another thing that I like to do is look at
one way flights instead of booking round trip.
Often times it's cheaper to try and fly out on
one airline and back on the other.
I would just flag for everyone that if you're flying
internationally and you're booking A1 way flight into a foreign
country,
that might get flagged in the
country's immigration. And so you might not be able to
check in for your flight on online,
but that's no biggie. You can check in as long
as you do have a return flight booked at the
airport.
You're just going to want to budget a little extra
time for that.
And then my third favorite hack that not enough people
are doing is taking full advantage of setting price alerts.
So a lot of us set a price alert when
we're going to book our flight.
And that will just let us know when a certain
flight destination that fare has dropped and do you want
to jump on it and book it right away.
But what I do is I also set a price
alert after I book my flight to see if the
price drops beyond the point that I actually bought the
ticket for. Because there's some airlines like Delta,
that if they do, who offer a cheaper fare for
a flight they've already booked,
they'll either give you an E credit or even refund
you for the difference in fare.
So that's money that can just go right back into
your pocket so you can spend on that vacation.
Yeah, that's brilliant. And I actually did that on a
Southwest flight once and got money back as well.
So, I mean, if you can
do it, anything we can do to save money these
days is huge.
Those are great tips, Morgan Lavoy.
Thank you. Thanks, Amy. Great to see you as always,
too. Take care. Morgan Lavoy,
editor in chief at Money News Network.
All right, Brooks.