Smart Travel: Upgrade Your Getaways
How to Budget for Trips: When to Book and How to Avoid Hidden Fees
Wed, 26 Feb 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.
Chapter 1: How can you budget for travel effectively?
Yes, it was so fun. If you are planning any travel this year and you're putting together a travel budget, we've got tips for you. Welcome to Smart Travel, a deep dive into the tips, tools, and tactics to maximize your travel dollars. I'm Sally French. And I'm Megan Coyle. And we are the Travel Nerds, ready to help you plan your next big trip. Today, we're talking about how we budget for trips.
But first, the news.
And just a heads up, in this episode, we'll talk about a few credit card companies that are nerd wallet partners, but that doesn't influence how we discuss them. All right, let's dive in.
Chapter 2: What are the latest trends in spring break travel?
Okay, so I know you and I got to spend the weekend in sunny Southern California, but many people are facing extremely cold temperatures out there in what feels like this never ending winter. But I am still not stopping thinking about spring break. AAA sent me over some interesting booking data that's made it pretty clear if you are going away on spring break this year, you should pad your budget.
The big thing with spring break travel is airfares. And in fact, round trip airfares to popular domestic cities are averaging 7% more than last year. Domestic hotels are up 8% more than last year.
Well, then I'm glad our main segment today is all about budgeting, at least.
Look at us on top of it.
They also gave you some data on the top 10 destinations where people are going for spring break. Where are they going, Sally?
Okay, I'll give you this list rapid fire. We have Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Atlanta, Miami, New York, Honolulu, Anaheim, where we just were, Tampa, another Florida in there, and Chicago, and finally, Charlotte.
Lots of great Florida representation on there and a little SoCal. Love it.
of lots of Disneyland trips for more people than just us on the horizon. Also, we have some interesting cruise data from AAA. According to AAA's cruise forecast projections, a record 19 million Americans are going on ocean cruises this year. That's the third year in a row that cruise passenger volume has hit a new record.
That's not surprising to me at all. Ever since the pandemic ended, cruises have been super, super popular.
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Chapter 3: How do new airport lounges enhance travel experiences?
Awesome. You'll have to report back. Speaking of checking out new things in travel, last week I went to the new Capital One Lounge opening at the Las Vegas airport. That's right. You also flew to Las Vegas. How was it? It was so great. Vegas is such a popular destination for both vacationers and business travelers.
So it was really smart to put a lounge there where people can sort of recharge after a week or weekend of revelry or work. That's also tiring. And Capital One Venture X cardholders get unlimited access for themselves and two guests to these Capital One lounges.
So it's also much easier to bring companions or your family or your work friends with you there than it is at the nearby American Express Lounge at the Las Vegas Air Board.
Although, do you think that generous guest policy means it's going to be super crowded?
Yeah, I'm a little scared, to be honest. The good news is that the Capital One Lounge is pretty big. There's room for about 135 guests. So it's a tad smaller than the Amex one at the Las Vegas airport. But honestly, a lot to like in there. I think the food at Capital One Lounge is the best among the credit card issuer lounges. They serve all these like small plates.
It's sort of like tapas style and it's all you can eat. So you can try a little bit of everything. I had caviar deviled eggs, salmon, avocado toast, short ribs, strawberry pop tarts. Honestly, I had so much I can't even list it all.
That sounds so good. And then I know that people love Capital One Lounges because of their to-go food offerings.
Yeah. So this one has that too. They have this like big grab and go section at the front of the lounge and you've got a refrigerator full of sandwiches, bowls, salads. There's pastries out on the counter, drinks. You can make your own snack mix. So they know people are going to take food for their flight and they make it super convenient.
Okay, I'm going to have to go check it out. Now, if everyone wants to read your review, I think we'll put a link to the show notes. I want to see your photos so they can see them online there.
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Chapter 4: What changes are coming to Uber for international travelers?
So for example, if you're in Italy, instead of showing you Uber's prices in euros, it's going to start showing you those prices in US dollars. This goes into effect on February 27th, but it is possible to actually avoid this fee if you turn off that preferred currency setting in the Uber app.
So if you have a credit card that charges no foreign transaction fees, and of course, NerdWallet has a list of those credit cards, go back to nerdwallet.com or in the show notes to find those. You won't pay any type of currency conversion fee when you use your credit card, but you need to make sure that you are paying in the currency of the country that you're using Uber in.
We'll have more details about that on the NerdWallet website, as well as which cards get you more rewards on Uber rides.
Just another example of one of these annoying fees that continuously comes up in travel. Of course, I'm so glad you're listening to this show so you can learn how to avoid those types of fees. Also learn how to better budget for travel. That's the topic coming up right after this break.
Okay, so Sally, it's the beginning of the year-ish, so I feel like we have almost the whole year ahead to plan trips and figure out how to pay for it.
Year-ish indeed. And yes, figuring out how to pay for trips can be the trickiest part, so it's good that we're here starting early. So for this week's main segment, we're going to go over some of the ways we budget for travel, whether that's saving cash, using miles, or just finding deals.
And you'll find out it can be as low maintenance or high maintenance as you want it to be.
Wait, I hope you're not saying that I'm high maintenance.
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Chapter 5: How do you set and manage a travel budget?
Well, definitely not with travel. And honestly, it's not a bad thing to be high maintenance with your money management. If it helps you keep track, do it.
Thank you. I love the validation. So let's start by talking about what sorts of plans people should make in terms of their money. For many people, that's having a dedicated fund just to pay for their travel.
It's kind of like having that piggy bank as a kid where you put coins in a jar to save for a certain toy, except the adult version is just a separate account at your bank.
When I was a kid, my piggy bank actually was not a literal pig. Instead, it was this little island figurine and you put the coins inside of the sand. You were already saving for vacation that young. I love it. I think it was destiny that I was supposed to host this podcast. Okay.
So for this episode, we're talking about putting away a certain amount of money into a separate account or just a portion part of your regular savings account. You don't actually need to have a full separate account, but just a portion piece to fund the trip. So I'm curious, do you do anything like this, Megan?
Sort of. So I really prioritize travel in my life. So for me, it's a non-negotiable. I've always gone home for the holidays, usually both Thanksgiving and Christmas. So, you know, as much as you can try to find a deal for those, the holidays are an expensive time to fly and I've got to save for it. You know, that's actually why I avoid traveling during the holidays.
Yeah, like my family has been doing this turkey trot, which is this race on Thanksgiving Day, for 20 years. So I can't miss it. I need to be there. Actually, you know, I do love a good turkey trot.
Okay, so never mind. I endorse this. You do have to be there for the holiday travel for the turkey trot.
Yeah, so whenever I fly home for the holidays, in my mind, I set a budget for that. So it's about $500 round trip going from the West Coast to the East Coast back for Thanksgiving and Christmas. So I'm paying about a thousand bucks for holiday flights every year. Oh man, a thousand dollars. So are you paying cash or are you seeing points at all for this?
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Chapter 6: When is the best time to book flights?
Okay, so I have a side hustle and it involves podcasting, funny enough. So any income that I make from that, I put that into a separate bank account.
You know, you and me both love the side hustle.
Oh yeah, we've been on the side hustle life for years. And I don't recommend getting a side hustle just to fund your wanderlust, but it's been a great way for me to budget for travel separately. the money from those gigs for me goes straight into this high-yield savings account. So that account also earns a bit of interest.
And I just save all that money and feel very comfortable spending it on travel when I want to.
I love that you bring up high-yield savings accounts. If you are curious about learning more what these actually are, we have some great articles about that on NerdWallet. We won't go into that too deep here. I know our buddy Sean has talked about them quite a bit on our sibling podcast, Smart Money, shameless plug over for there. At least for now, we'll link those resources in the show notes.
But for the listeners out there who have just one job, which I think is most people, what do you recommend?
Well, a lot of people don't realize that most employers that use direct deposit allow you to direct your income into different bank accounts if you want. So you can go to your payroll team and you can say something like, I want 90% of my income to go into this account and 10% to go into this other account, which could be for travel or any kinds of fun things you're saving for.
Yeah, it's super simple.
Yes, and this is usually just a few clicks. Typically, something in your payroll system will make this pretty easy.
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Chapter 7: How can side hustles fund your travel?
So because of that experience, I definitely overestimate for how much I'll need.
Cool, cool, cool. I think that's a good tip. Overestimate. Worst case scenario, you have some extra savings in your travel fund.
Totally. And if you end up having to pay for something unexpected, like something goes wrong and you have to book a different shuttle or something like that, your travel budget will have room for that if you have extra.
Ooh, yes. Those unexpected travel expenses. I actually think that should be a topic for a future show. Oh, yeah, definitely. We could talk forever about that. Okay, cool. So we talked about budgeting for flights. Now, I imagine you budget for rental cars and hotels the same exact way.
Of course. And sometimes I can avoid those expenses if I'm staying with family or I'm in a walkable city maybe where you don't need a rental car. But yes, I'll roughly go through and budget the same way I do for flights and hotels.
And we have mentioned Google Flights so many times. I also love Google Hotels, which if we're looking to budget for our hotel costs, it largely operates the same way.
Yeah, and we have some awesome data too about rental cars, which can help you budget for that. We did a big rental car analysis last summer, and we found out that rental cars tend to cost about 13% more when booked three months in advance versus just seven days in advance. I remember pulling that data.
I was actually super surprised to see that because everyone wants to know about last minute rental car deals.
Yeah, it's good to know that there are some last minute deals you can get and rental cars just happens to be one of them. Let's talk points and miles because this is the part you've been waiting for, Sally.
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