Bin Space Wars, BofA Transfers Coming & Why Giant Suitcases & Rewards Debit Cards Are Taking Over!
MTM Travel - The Fun Side of Points & Travel!
The hosts dive into common travel frustrations, starting with European airports delaying gate assignments until minutes before boarding and the surprising prevalence of oversized luggage in Lisbon. They then shift to cabin dynamics,
Key takeaways
- European airports often withhold gate assignments until ~5 minutes before boarding to manage crowd flow and maximize retail dwell time rather than due to operational uncertainty.
- Overhead bin disputes frequently escalate when late boarders claim space or flight attendants enforce second-bag policies, but the hosts advise accepting bin limitations gracefully to avoid deplaning delays.
Main topics
- European airport gate assignment delays
- Overhead bin space etiquette and airline enforcement
Notable quotes
"If you are worried about bin space, you can't come on with a big roller at the end and expect it to work out."
Conclusion
Listeners gain actionable strategies for navigating airline status cha
Transcript preview
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Whether your post-game hot takes turn into a blog, your fantasy expertise becomes a newsletter, or your passion for the game turns into something bigger, Squarespace gives you everything you need to bring any idea online. From personal brands to full-blown businesses, start with Blueprint AI or a professionally designed template. Then make it yours with simple drag-and-drop editing. Want to share your content with the world? Upload videos and build a library for everyone to enjoy. Or keep your best stuff exclusive. Whatever you're building, Squarespace has the tools to make it real. Head to squarespace.com slash sports for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code sports to save 10 % off your first purchase of a website or domain. Speaker 4 (1:27) Giant suitcases in Lisbon, European gate announcements suck, Alaska's getting a debit card, and Bank of America's blockbuster new transfer partner. All that coming up right now on MTM Travel. Speaker 2 (1:40) Yeah, these suitcases, man. It's like 1980s. I don't know what was happening. Speaker 4 (1:51) So happy Monday, everyone. And this is our travel show. So we have some travel gripes and fun things to talk about. I'm getting ready for my big trip to Asia. I'm going to have some Macau stuff, China, all that good stuff coming up in the next few weeks. And just getting ready for my big Starlux award. My other flight fell through. I had a different plan, but that fell through back to Starlux and going through Taiwan. But I'm looking forward to that in a few weeks. So good times. Speaker 2 (2:17) Oh, did you get canceled? Did your flight get canceled? Speaker 4 (2:21) I got canceled. But I got my Starlux award, so I was always meant to fly Starlux, I suppose. And, yeah, super happy about that. And it's still the best. I've been searching, and nothing better has come up other than I found, you know, a deal that fell through that got canceled. So good times there. But we had this discussion this week, Mark, about European gates. I think when you were there, I think you texted something in Slack about. Why can't the Europeans assign gates ahead of time? And it is something that I have always wondered. Why in America can we have gate assignments well in advance? You know, they do change them once in a while. It's not a big deal to get your gate changed. But in many airports, not just in Europe, I think elsewhere in the world I've seen where they don't assign the gate until, like, I don't know, right before boarding. Speaker 2 (3:08) Yeah, it's not like the airplane gets there within five minutes. It's already there or whatever. You could do a better job with this, but it is frustrating. And Lisbon's a little bit confusing when you go in. Like, when you look at the main board, the first board, it says A1 to 30 or whatever. And you're like, oh, okay. I was thinking that must be my, like, the gate. Okay, cool. Like, it's going to be in that section. They haven't announced exactly the gate, but I'm going to be in the A gates. And come to find out that is not what that's about. That's about check-ins. Yeah, Speaker 4 (3:40) those are the check-in desks. Speaker 2 (3:41) Yeah, that's all the check-in desks. So they have all these check-in areas. And I'm like, well, I don't need check-in. I'm carrying my luggage. But there's lines everywhere. They have like 200 check-in gates, desks, or whatever. And there's lines everywhere with huge suitcases, like massive. I don't even know that they still sold these type of suitcases, big suitcases. And people are just lining up hundreds of people deep to get into each airline. And I'm like, what is going on? When did Europe change? I always thought they were like more of a backpack, small suitcase. They always make fun of us Americans for overpacking. Maybe there was a ton of Americans there, which would have been weird for the time of year and everything. But I don't know, man. Have you noticed that when you've been in Europe lately, that they have more big suitcases or is this just a one-off thing? Speaker 4 (4:27) I mean, I do notice big suitcases around. I actually think Americans are the smallest Packers. I think that the whole carry-on only thing is caught on here a lot because of the Internet. It is interesting how detached we are as carry-on only people. when you see like normal people, or I even talked to like just normal travelers in my life who are people in my life who travel once a year or whatever. Um, and what they do, but like, I just picked up my cousin. Who's not a big traveler. Like he goes on a cruise once a year and, you know, just normal vacation stuff. I took him to the airport the other day and they had like a couple of smaller, like, you know, bags with them, but their main things were carry ons. And I think, and they were going on a week long trip. So I think more Americans are probably catching onto that. I do wonder like. I mean, those suitcases where you could fit an entire body inside of them. What are we packing here? You know what, Mark? You don't see this, but on cruise ships, I see them all the time because people pack their entire home to come on a cruise ship because of dinners and they're changing all the time and they want to be fancy and all of that. And probably a legitimate reason, but you do see on cruise ships these giant suitcases all the time. Speaker 2 (5:31) Yeah, and I don't know if they were going overseas for months or studying abroad. I see. I can see that. But that wasn't the case here. There was quite a few younger people, but there's a lot of older people, too. So it's not like that. And it's not the holidays. So you're not taking a ton of presents or something, anything along those lines. So it was just kind of stood out to me. I'm like, this is chaos, man. There's so many people here. So then I get through security. go to check the gates. And I think they only had two gates like SMV or something like that. And I look at my departure and it goes, it says, we will alert you to the gate at 725. Well, boarding starts at 730. I'm like, really? Five minutes? And it took up until 725 for them to add the gate to the thing. And of course it's a gate that's as far away as it could possibly get. And it takes me longer than five minutes to walk over there. And like, there's gotta be a better way to do this. I don't know why you guys struggle to just give us a gate, like 30 minutes in advance or an hour in advance. It shouldn't be that hard. So I have a couple of theories to this, although I've never. asked an Speaker 4 (6:35) expert, I don't know who I would ask, who could give me like a real legitimate inside answer. But I do think a lot of these airports don't want you going to the gate. And I think that's what is the reason. I don't think it's because they don't know that the aircraft, which gate the aircraft is going to go, especially when you're talking five minutes before. As you point out, that aircraft is at least sitting there 30, 40 minutes before that, if not before. A lot of international airports too. planes are parked, right? They're parked to sit there for long periods of time, and then they're towed to a gate. And so, but again, those decisions are more than five minutes before. I just had the same thing happen in Morocco, where they didn't assign the gate. And it was the middle of the night. It was like a 5 a.m. There was only one plane taking off anytime soon, or a couple of flights, and they didn't give us the gate until the end. So I never quite understood it. I think it's more about crowd control, though. Keep you away from the gates. In many of these airports, there isn't a lot of space there. Speaker 2 (7:27) Yeah, that's true. And they're in Europe, especially the up by the gate, there's like no seating in it. And it's kind of terrible. So I understand that to a point, but also the main areas are so overrun and so busy that there's not much you can do there either. It's just not a great