NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
How to Budget for Trips: When to Book and How to Avoid Hidden Fees
17 Mar 2025
Learn how to budget for travel, save on flights, and maximize credit card rewards for your next trip. How can you budget and save money for travel? How can you maximize credit card rewards and travel points to help lower trip costs? Hosts Meghan Coyle and Sally French discuss budgeting strategies and travel rewards to help you plan smarter for your trips. They begin by sharing new data that might impact your budget for spring break travel, give some highlights of new airport lounges that opened in Las Vegas and Philadelphia, and discuss a change coming to the Uber app that could affect you if you’re traveling abroad. Then, they dig into some options for setting a travel budget, with tips on estimating costs using Google Flights, creating a dedicated travel savings fund, and planning ahead for rising airfare prices. Meghan and Sally also explore some of the ways you can leverage credit card perks and travel rewards to stretch your budget even further. Resources discussed in this episode: LAS Centurion Lounge Review Capital One Lounge Las Vegas: Hits the Jackpot with Food and Drinks What Credit Cards Can Get Me Into Chase Lounges, And Where Are They Located? Best No Foreign Transaction Fee Credit Cards The Best Days to Book a Flight and When to Fly Best High-Yield Savings Accounts The Best Travel Credit Card Welcome Bonus Offers Right Now In their conversation, the Nerds discuss: travel budget, how to save money for travel, best travel credit cards, travel points and miles, airline rewards, Google Flights price alerts, budgeting for flights, cheap flights, best time to book flights, credit card travel perks, Southwest Companion Pass, travel savings account, airfare inflation, high-yield savings for travel, vacation budget, flexible travel dates, how to maximize travel rewards, best hotel rewards programs, credit card sign-up bonuses, when to use travel points, credit cards with no foreign transaction fees, airline lounge access, how to get cheap last-minute flights, and unexpected travel expenses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
Hey, Smart Money listeners, Sean Piles here. My co-host Elizabeth Aola and I are both traveling this week, so we thought it would be appropriate to share some travel tips with you. Only, we won't be the ones sharing them. Instead, we're going to share an episode from NerdWallet's brand new podcast, Smart Travel.
Longtime Smart Money listeners will recognize the hosts, travel nerds Megan Coyle and Sally French, from previous episodes of our show. And in this episode of Smart Travel, they cover new travel data that could impact your budget, highlight some fresh airport lounges, and break down how to save on flights and maximize credit card rewards.
So sit back, relax, and enjoy this special presentation of Smart Travel. And don't worry, we'll be back with a brand new episode of Smart Money in your feed on Thursday. No connections or layovers required. Enjoy.
Sally, it was so good to see you over the weekend. This is why I love Find My Friends.
Okay, I'm glad you said that you love Find My Friends because when I saw you on Find My Friends at Disneyland and I happened to be in Orange County this weekend, I was like, do I hit you up? Should I tell you that I'm here? Should we meet up?
Yes, of course. Always. I love when our little bubbles just like end up in the same place. Like this is why I love travel.
And of course, you live so far away from me, but it is fate that we both happen to be at Disneyland at the same time. Of course, listeners know that we love Disney, so maybe it's not completely surprising.
And we did it the budget-friendly way. We met up in the free zone at a Disney hotel. Do you want to tell people how much you spent on our little meetup? Yes, that's right.
I was just at Downtown Disney for a little bit of time, so I got to see you for just the low cost of $10 parking, which gets you four hours. We were able to go hang out at the Grand Californian Hotel Lobby, which we love, and And I ended up getting to go walk around and see all the shops. But most importantly, I got to see you.
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