Smart Money Podcast —The Best Time to Book Holiday Travel and How to Use Points to Save

Welcome to NerdWallet’s Smart Money podcast, where we answer your real-world money questions. In this episode:

Learn expert tips and tricks for saving money on holiday travel booking, from the best time to book to when you should use rewards points.

When should you book your holiday travel? How can you save money on travel during the busiest travel season? Hosts Sean Pyles and Meghan Coyle talk to travel rewards Nerd Sam Kemmis about how to save money when booking holiday travel, with tips and tricks on using companion fares, the optimal time to book holiday flights, and understanding the fine print of airline programs. They also discuss the challenges and benefits of standby flights, the value of subscribing to flight deal newsletters, and the advantages of using credit card points and transferring them to partner airlines. By exploring these topics, the hosts aim to provide listeners with actionable advice to make holiday travel more affordable and less stressful.

Check out NerdWallet’s roundup of the 16 Best Travel Credit Cards of September 2024: https://www.nerdwallet.com/best/credit-cards/travel

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NerdWallet stories related to this episode:

16 Best Travel Credit Cards of September 2024

The Best Days to Book a Flight and When to Fly

TSA PreCheck vs. Global Entry: Which Is Better?

Have a money question? Text or call us at 901-730-6373. Or you can email us at [email protected]. To hear previous episodes, go to the podcast homepage.

Episode transcript

This transcript was generated from podcast audio by an AI tool.

Sean Pyles:

Over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother's house we go. And if you don't want that to break the bank, have we got an episode for you — and Grandma. Today, tips and tricks for saving money on holiday travel booking.

Sam Kemmis:

Because changing and canceling flights for most airlines is a lot easier now than it used to be, and there aren't as many change and cancellation fees, that actually is a pretty good strategy.

Sean Pyles:

Welcome to NerdWallet's Smart Money podcast. I'm Sean Pyles.

Meghan Coyle:

And I'm Meghan Coyle.

Sean Pyles:

And this is episode two of our Nerdy deep dive into holiday travel and the costs therein. And Meghan, I know you and I are both in the camp of avoiding holiday travel if at all possible. As much as we love our families, sometimes the hassle of getting to them just isn't worth a wing and a leg of, you know… turkey.

Meghan Coyle:

Yeah. I heard what you did there, Sean. As we know, plenty of people do brave the crowds and the lines and the delays to see their loved ones over the holidays, so we are here to help smooth that process as best we can, especially when it comes to what you're spending on that travel.

Sean Pyles:

The holidays are infamous for higher prices, especially on airfares, and there are definitely ways to save money if you're willing to be a little flexible.

Meghan Coyle:

And when you know some of the secrets to booking ahead of time.

Sean Pyles:

Ooh, I love secrets, and we're going to share lots of them today. So listener, perk up your ears like you're listening for sleigh bells in the distance because we're going to drop a lot of insider knowledge on you today. It's our holiday gift to you.

Meghan Coyle:

That's right, wrapped up all pretty and nice.

Sean Pyles:

We want to hear what you think too, listeners. To share your ideas and experiences around holiday travel with us—the good, the bad, and the insanity—leave us a voicemail or text the Nerd hotline at 901-730-6373, that's 901-730-NERD, or email a voice memo to [email protected]. So Meghan, who are we hearing from today?

Meghan Coyle:

Today, our guest is our Nerdy colleague, Sam Kemmis, and we're going to explore all the ways you can save yourself some cash when you're booking holiday travel, and you don't necessarily need to redeem your points to do it.

Sean Pyles:

That's coming up in a moment. Stay with us.

Meghan Coyle:

Hey, Sam. So great to have you back on the show.

Sam Kemmis:

It's so great to be here.

Meghan Coyle:

What are your travel plans for the holidays?

Sam Kemmis:

They're not the most exciting, but I'm going to go home to Montana, where I'm from, with my kids to see family.

Meghan Coyle:

Aw, that sounds really sweet.

Sam Kemmis:

Yeah.

Meghan Coyle:

Is it going to be cold there?

Sam Kemmis:

Oh, yeah. It's always cold. I always go for the cold snap. It always gets into the negative temperatures while we're there.

Meghan Coyle:

Oh my goodness. I don't know if I could handle that. What are some strategies you are using to save money on your holiday travel this year?

Sam Kemmis:

This is always the question, and I wish I had that silver bullet where I'm like, "Here's the one weird trick to saving money on holiday travel," but the truth is it's hard to do. But I do have a few tricks up my sleeve. So one of them is using companion fares. My partner and I both have the Alaska companion fare, which is great because we have two kids, and it lets us book a second ticket for just a little over $100 no matter how much the first ticket costs. Because you're spending the same amount on that second ticket no matter what, the more expensive your first ticket is, the more value you're getting from it. Holiday travel tends to be pretty expensive, so I usually save that companion fare for the holiday so I can kind of maximize that difference between the $100 and whatever I end up paying for the actual fare.

Meghan Coyle:

So it's kind of like you're almost using your companion fare as a kid discount, a child discount on your airfare for the holidays.

Sam Kemmis:

I wish my oldest was still young enough that I could put her on my lap. That's the real discount for the holidays. In a pinch, I use companion fares. Alaska has a great one, but there's also one from Delta. Southwest has its sort of famous one. There are some companion fare options out there.

Meghan Coyle:

And tell us how Alaska's companion fare works. I believe you get that through a credit card, is that right?

Sam Kemmis:

Yes. You get it through its co-branded credit card and you get one of them to use every year.

Meghan Coyle:

Is this an annual tradition of yours to use the companion fare on the holidays?

Sam Kemmis:

Yeah, I guess it is becoming one as my kids get older. It used to be I would try to just book the most ludicrous flight that would still qualify with stopovers and multi-cities and going to Costa Rica and whatever I could do. But for one thing, Alaska has sort of changed the terms of it so it's not so easy to do that. And now, yeah, not as exciting and my most expensive trip is usually home for the holidays.

Meghan Coyle:

Makes sense. Yeah. And I know some of the other companion fares have different terms and things like that, but Southwest's companion pass lets you get flights for a discount for the entire year, so the holidays are also a great time to use that for a really high value.

Sam Kemmis:

Just no blackout dates on those, as far as I know.

Meghan Coyle:

That's what we're looking for for holiday travel because the travel companies know that these are such high demand times. You have to be really careful with the deals. Let's talk about when you book your holiday travel. Have you done that already?

Sam Kemmis:

I have not. I have learned from covering this beat for so long that it's actually usually better to wait until the fall to book, and maybe even a little later in the fall. So that's easy for me because I'm a procrastinator, but I know there are a lot of people who want to book as early as possible. But the data show that booking months in advance doesn't actually save you money. One piece of data I got from Google Flights that they shared with me showed that the lowest prices for the holidays usually happen between 80 and 20 days before departure, so about one to two months before departure, and that's true for both Thanksgiving and the December holidays. If I'm booking for Christmas, that will put it somewhere in October, likely, that I'm booking. That's a rule of thumb, but every year is different. It could be that if you wait until that 20-day cutoff that prices will actually go up, or that may be when prices are actually lowest. Just like anything that revolves around supply and demand, there's no way to really play the market. Booking way in advance is usually not a great idea.

Meghan Coyle:

Okay, that makes me feel a lot better because I haven't even started thinking about it yet.

Sam Kemmis:

I know. It's like 95 degrees here. It's hard to imagine.

Meghan Coyle:

I know we're talking a bit early about holiday plans, and one thing I wanted to float out there is that you could book something now and kind of lock in a lower rate, and then you might be able to rebook it or change it or cancel it if something happens, your travel plans change, or even the price goes down. Can you talk a little bit about that and why that might be a good option for the holiday travel?

Sam Kemmis:

Yeah, because changing and canceling flights for most airlines is a lot easier now than it used to be, and there aren't as many change and cancellation fees, that actually is a pretty good strategy. If you're just one of those people that doesn't want to wait and you see a decent price right now, you can always book it now and, like you said, either change the ticket when you see a better price and you might get a refund on that difference, or just cancel your ticket outright and rebook the lower price. So that's not a bad idea.

You want to be a little careful, though, to make sure that you're actually booking a refundable flight. And that doesn't mean a fully refundable fare, but usually basic economy flights and flights with budget airlines like Spirit and Frontier do not have full cancelability. They won't offer a full refund, especially those basic economy tickets. You want to watch out booking those. You probably won't be able to get your money back. The same thing applies for hotels. Hotels are usually a lot easier. They're usually much more flexible in terms of letting you rebook and even cancel last-minute. You can always book some hotel rooms in advance as long as you're checking that fine print and making sure that you can cancel it later.

Meghan Coyle:

Something I used to do in college as well was I would take advantage of same-day changes and standby to help save a bit of money on holiday travel. I'll tell you how this worked and then you can tell me if that was a good strategy or not to use.

Sam Kemmis:

Yeah, I want to hear about this.

Meghan Coyle:

I went to school out of state, so I had to fly home for the holidays. The cheapest flights were usually these super early morning, 6:00 AM flights, or maybe they would have some stops or I would take the red eye. I mean, these were just awful flights I was booking. But if you look into some of the same-day change policies and standby policies, you might actually be able to sometimes call your airline ahead of time, like the day before, or even look in the app and see if there was any availability on a better flight. As long as your departure airport and your arrival airport didn't change and you were still taking off on the same calendar day, you can save a lot of money by just taking any of those extra seats on a better-timed flight. Something I would do is I would book maybe the earliest flight back on the Friday after Thanksgiving, and then I wouldn't actually get up at 6:00 AM after eating tons of turkey the day before. I would just check on Thanksgiving and change it, sometimes for free if you have elite status, or there's some type of policy that'll let you change for free, or I would pay a pretty nominal fee, like $75, and fly back at a much more normal time. What did you think about that strategy?

Sam Kemmis:

That's not bad, and I've definitely done things like that. I think it's for sure a good college student strategy because it works as long as you're pretty flexible on what actually ends up happening. You can have this great plan and, "Oh, I'm going to change it to a better flight," and there may just not be better flights available. Or you could sort of go on standby, that fills up, and then you've got to get over to your actual flight or onto another standby. You could kind of end up in this purgatory where you're not on any flight.

Meghan Coyle:

Oh.

Sam Kemmis:

Obviously, I'm speaking in generalities because every airline is going to have different policies for this.

Meghan Coyle:

Right.

Sam Kemmis:

I love it. I love that kind of thing. I've done that with red eyes where I've booked a red eye that's way cheaper and then just said, "Oh. Actually, could I just fly a normal flight?" and it works out. Totally a possibility if you're willing to put in a little extra uncertainty work.

Meghan Coyle:

That's a good call out. And probably wouldn't work if you have multiple people traveling, like your family, so that would make it a bit more difficult.

Sam Kemmis:

Yeah, I think my kids would break up with me.

Meghan Coyle:

So where should people look for deals, whether on hotels or airlines, for holiday travel?

Sam Kemmis:

Airline deals themselves can be tough for the holidays. You might see airlines promote different sales, but usually those have blackout dates that are actually around the holidays. And so unless you're willing to fly quite far off from the holiday itself, that's probably not going to apply. That said, it might be worth subscribing to some flight deal newsletters or social media accounts. You can find those on Instagram or TikTok, and email newsletters are all over the place. And every once in a while, those will have deals around the holidays, especially internationally, especially around Thanksgiving. Because other places don't celebrate our Thanksgiving, you can find deals around then for sure. Hotels also might have some deals around the holidays depending on how popular that particular property is around that particular holiday, so it's worth going to the hotel's website to see if they have any packages that might be a good deal.

Meghan Coyle:

I know we talked about this earlier in the episode—your credit card can come in handy for saving cash on travel purchases. Yours was through a companion fare through your Alaska co-branded card. What are some other situations where you should maybe look at your credit card and see how it can save you cash for holiday travel?

Sam Kemmis:

There's a few options. One is using your credit card points. The most obvious way to do that is through the booking portal that the credit card has, so Chase Travel or AmEx Travel, whatever it is. Then you're basically using the points for a fixed value, so you're essentially buying cash tickets and using the points to pay for those cash tickets. If you've got a big pile of points and you want to use them up and you're going to book a flight anyway, that's not a bad way to do it. But there is another way to do it, which is to transfer those credit card points to a partner airline, and then book award travel through the partner airline. For instance, you might transfer them to American Airlines and then book using miles through American. So I say that's another option. We've looked into the data and have seen that those bookings don't usually offer a better cent-per-point value than booking at any other time, but they're also not much worse. If a flight is twice as expensive as it normally is around the holidays, it will probably be about twice as expensive using miles. So again, there's no free lunch here, there's no way to game the system, but you might be able to find a little bit more value by transferring those credit card points to an airline and then booking through the airline.

Meghan Coyle:

Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. And you could also do half points, half cash in a lot of cases if you're booking through the portal, right? So that might be a way to save some cash as well.

Sam Kemmis:

Yeah, it's all relative. Do we call our credit card points cash? Are they their own thing? What is it?

Meghan Coyle:

Now we're getting super nerdy. Are they cash?

Sam Kemmis:

Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes, also, your credit card might have cash back offers on certain hotels or other travel opportunities. Chase offers or AmEx offers might give you 10% back on a statement credit, so you could add that offer to your travel card before you book. Some travel credit cards offer statement credits on travel purchases either booked through the issuer's travel portal or booked directly with a certain airline or a hotel. That's a way to offset both the airline cost and the hotel cost.

Meghan Coyle:

Okay. Now let's make it a little bit spicy. Let's say you don't have to go home for the holidays. You want to use that time off to go somewhere else. What are some good ways to save money on this type of holiday travel that's more like a vacation?

Sam Kemmis:

One option is to go international. Like I said, other countries aren't necessarily celebrating Thanksgiving. Some don't celebrate Christmas or the same holidays in December. It might be worth looking at some of those countries to see if there's some cheaper flight options. And then you can always check out Google Flights or Skyscanner search tools and put in "Anywhere" for the destination. Just be like, "Surprise me," and just see what's cheap.

Meghan Coyle:

I love that. You could end up literally anywhere for the holidays. Any other tips for saving on holiday travel without using your points?

Sam Kemmis:

I plug this all the time. I'm always promoting selling your family on doing Thanksgiving the week before or after actual Thanksgiving because...

Meghan Coyle:

Oh, yeah. I remember you wrote an article about this.

Sam Kemmis:

I did, and nobody ever cares and nobody ever bites, but I'm going to say it again. If you just convince your family to do it the week after, airfare will be half as expensive. There will be so much availability for vacation rentals, anything you need, and it still feels like the holiday. It doesn't really matter as long as you all agree. Then you could extend that out to anything and be like, "Is anything real? Is everything arbitrary? Is it all just in our minds?"

Meghan Coyle:

And with that, we'll leave everyone with a lot of existential questions.

Sam Kemmis:

That's right.

Meghan Coyle:

Well, Sam, I know it's a couple of months away, but I hope you have a great holiday season, or let's just say a great fall/autumn season, and thanks so much for helping us out today.

Sam Kemmis:

My pleasure.

Sean Pyles:

As ever, I am impressed by how far a little flexibility can go when it comes to saving money on travel. And I say that as someone who is totally inflexible with my travel plans and therefore will never save money like you described doing in college, Meghan. That might be another reason why traveling around the holidays is not my thing.

Meghan Coyle:

I'll say I did a lot of crazy things as a college student to save money. I remember going to these hour-long talks about the economy so I could get a free Chipotle burrito, and then it turned out it wasn't even a whole burrito. That tells you how much my time was worth back then. One hour equals half a Chipotle burrito. But back to holiday travel, flexibility is really the key to getting deals on travel at any time of the year.

Sean Pyles:

Yeah. This is really something that I've taken to heart, which is that if you're going to travel for the holidays, try to do it on the days when other people don't. I mean, if you travel on the holiday itself, sure, you might miss out on some meal prep and maybe some games in the backyard if it's not snowing where you are, but the hassles you'll avoid just might be worth it. Now of course, that might not work if you have to deal with layovers or you're going, say, from the West Coast to the East Coast and the time change makes it untenable. But if you don't have those factors, why not? I'm sure the captains and flight attendants would love to have your company on the actual holidays.

Meghan Coyle:

Yes. And a hearty, “happy Thanksgiving” is always welcome when you have to work the holiday. And just think of the money and potential annoyances you're saving by traveling the day of. If you can swing it, why not?

Sean Pyles:

All right. Well, our series continues next week. Meghan, what have you got in store for episode three?

Meghan Coyle:

Well, Sean, I would venture a guess that the biggest worry people have about traveling for the holidays is probably a flight getting canceled or maybe a road getting iced over so you can't get somewhere. But a close second would be your luggage, all your stuff, the stuff you'd need to look and feel great at your destination, not to mention the presents. You lose that and, well, sad face. We're going to have some tips and advice for getting your stuff from one place to another without losing your mind or your money.

Jessie Beck:

Once you add on the cost of paying to have a carry-on bag on that basic economy ticket, you might as well just get an economy ticket and be able to be a little bit more flexible. I think that's the most important thing for me. If I did have to make a last-minute change, I can do that penalty-free.

Sean Pyles:

For now, that's all we have for this episode. Do you have a money question of your own? Turn to the Nerds and call or text us your questions at 901-730-6373. That's 901-730-NERD. You can also email us at [email protected]. And remember, you can follow the show on your favorite podcast app, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and iHeartRadio to automatically download new episodes.

Meghan Coyle:

This episode was produced by Tess Vigeland, Sean helped with editing, Claire Tsosie helped with fact-checking, and a big thank you to NerdWallet's editors for all their help.

Sean Pyles:

Here's our brief disclaimer: We are not financial or investment advisors. This nerdy info is provided for general educational and entertainment purposes and may not apply to your specific circumstances.

Meghan Coyle: