How to Save on Your Holiday Flights (& When to Book)

The Thrifty Traveler Podcast

The episode provides a strategic guide for navigating the high costs of holiday travel through smart booking and award redemptions. Hosts Gu

Key takeaways

• Book Thanksgiving flights by mid-October and Christmas flights before November 1st to avoid peak pricing.
• Japan Airlines (JAL) mileage program is currently a high-value target due to new transfer bonuses from Citi.

Main topics

• Holiday flight booking timelines
• Japan Airlines mileage value

Notable quotes

Japan Airlines mileage bank is an absolute goldmine, criminally underrated.

Conclusion

By leveraging airline partnerships and booking international routes du

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Yo, welcome to the show. I'm Gunner and with me as always he's Holly He's jolly and he's coming down the chimney with Japan Airlines miles cheap flights to Europe and some Hilton free nights It's your travel Santa Claus. It's Kyle Potter Kyle. Welcome to the show You Speaker 2 (0:14) want to know how many Japan Airlines miles I have after getting a little book see this weekend Oh, Speaker 1 (0:18) it's got to be single digits at this point six Speaker 2 (0:20) six Speaker 1 (0:21) jail miles. I am flush you are feeling Festive. Today on the show, we are talking all about holiday travel. We're going to go over when to book, when to fly, all the tools that we use to beat high airfare around the holidays. I'm going to spoil one of those tips, Kyle, and that is to try and fly on the holiday itself to save money and to save travel headaches. So I want to find something out as we get started. Have you done this? Speaker 2 (0:47) No. You've never done it? No, I haven't. You know, in large part because, A, all of our family is around Minnesota. So when we're traveling for the holidays, we're driving, not flying. And B, we've never taken the advice that we give travelers every single year around this time of year, which is this is a great time to travel abroad, to do things a little bit differently for the holidays, because international airfare is typically quite a bit cheaper when you travel over Thanksgiving and Christmas. And we've just never done it. Because again, back to A, we're always hanging out with Speaker 1 (1:17) family near Minnesota. Yeah, I've spent many Christmases in the Delta Sky Club at O'Hare, which is actually such a lovely time to be at an airport lounge or an airport. We talk about all the time how Saturdays are the best time at airports. When you're there on the holiday, it's like that on steroids. It's even better. Everyone's chill and quiet and relaxed. It's traveling on the holiday itself. Some of the best advice that we can give. All right, today on the show, we've got some Hilton card offers, the return of cheap Europe airfare, Japan Airlines turning heads once again, and everything you need to know about booking holiday travel. All that and more. Speaker 2 (1:53) Hello from the sunny Speaker 1 (1:54) Mediterranean off the coast of Malta. Welcome back to Thrifty Traveler. Speaker 1 (2:06) Okay, welcoming us back to the show this week was Julius on a yacht off the coast of Malta. We're really getting our first shot of fall weather here in Minneapolis this morning. So seeing Julius with his sunshades on, with his sunglasses on, in the middle of the Mediterranean, really extended my summer there for a few minutes. Speaker 2 (2:26) And being on a yacht is a sign that Julius took your number one piece of advice for people, which is don't be poor. That's Speaker 1 (2:32) right. Very smart, Julius. If you want to send us your welcome back video like Julius did, upload it at thriftytraveler.com slash voicemail. And I'll do a call out for this too. If you want us to answer your questions on the podcast that you hear at the end, if you have any feedback for us, hit us up at podcast at thriftytraveler.com. We might feature your question on next week's show. Let's get into something hot and something cold, Kyle. It's usually... a look at the good and the bad news out there for travelers this week, but I couldn't find anything cold. So we're doing something hot, something hotter, and something hottest. Is that okay? Are you all right with this format change? We can do it just this once. Okay. We will start then with something hot. You started this podcast 80 episodes ago by convincing me that Hilton is at least on par with Hyatt, a take that's had more ups and downs than the Chicago Bears in that same time frame. The best argument you made was about these uncapped... Hilton Free Night Rewards, which I've used since you convinced me to book some of the best hotel nights of my life. Right now, Hilton and Amex are out with new expanded credit card bonus offers that include one of these free night awards on top of a good chunk of points and very attainable spending requirements. So I want to go over the nuts and bolts of these offers in a second. But if you were thinking about moving from Hyatt to Hilton, has there ever been a better time than right now? No, because I do really think that the especially now Speaker 2 (3:55) after all of the negative changes that both Hilton and many other hotel chains have made, Hilton's biggest differentiator today is still these uncapped free night awards. So most hotel chains will cap what kinds of properties you can book with their free night certificates at Hyatt. It's like 15 to 18,000 points per night at Marriott. It might be 35,000 points per night on their top top tier cards. It might be 85,000 points per night. In either case, those certificates aren't going to get you top dollar properties in almost every single case. And with Hilton, you can book properties that cost as much as 250,000 points per night, regardless of what the cash price is, so long as there is standard room award availability. So whether that's 35,000 points or 250,000 points, it is... crazy how valuable these certificates are. And, you know, maybe once, sometimes twice a year, we see Hilton roll out these bonus offers where they're not just upping the ante with points. They're throwing in one of these free night certificates. So that is a huge, huge win for these cards. Speaker 1 (4:59) Yeah, these free nights are really amazing. OK, so these offers I'll go through right now. They end January 13th. So you do have some runway here to try and figure out your card situation and also to sign up to put your holiday spend on some of these to hit these pretty quick as well. The Bottom level Hilton Honors Amex card has a 70,000 mile bonus and a free night after $2,000 in spend in six months. The Surpass card, the next level up, has 130,000 bonus and a free night after 3,000 in spend in six months. And the top tier Aspire has a best ever 200,000 point bonus and a free night. every year after $6,000 in spend in your first six months. There's also a business card that gives you $150,000 in a free night after $8,000 in spend in six months. The spending requirements are very reasonable on these, and you get that free night as soon as you hit that spending requirement, along with some bonus points. It's pretty amazing. Speaker 2 (5:53) Yeah, to me, the standout here is the Hilton Surpass card. It's got a reasonable annual fee, but earning 130,000 points and one of these free nights right off the bat after hitting the spending requirement. you can get so much value out of that. Again, like we always say, credit cards are serious business. You need to, whether it's $2,000 or $3,000 or eight in six months that you need to spend in order to earn these, you still have to do it responsibly. But if you can, this is the time to at least dip your toe into the pool that is Hilton Honors, as you have so wisely done. Speaker 1 (6:28) Yeah, take a look if you're thinking about it. All right, let's move on to something hotter. So Kyle, since the war in Iran started at the end of February, we've been in this frustrating ridge of high airfare due to the rising cost of oil. If you search for flights to Savannah or San Francisco today, I'm afraid to tell you that things are still pretty nasty out there. But if you search for flights to Venice or Vienna instead, it's like it's 2024 again out there right now. I wrote a piece for the website last week outlining how... The day after Labor Day, the fever broke on high flight prices to Europe. We're seeing fares in the 500s round trip to destinations all over Europe for this fall and winter. Some fares even dropping into the 400s. And then we even saw Iceland and some Scandinavia stuff in the 300s round trip. So, Kyle, like me, did you burst into happy tears when you opened your Google Flights Explorer map to see all these fares back to normal? Yeah, but you know it doesn't take much for me to do that, right? The only two guys on the planet who were crying at their Google flight screen. There's got to be. There are dozens of us, I bet. There must be. Yeah. There has to be. Speaker 2 (7:30) No, this is great news. And it's just so weird that in so many cases now, it is not just cheaper, but in some cases significantly cheaper to fly to Europe than it is to fly like 500, 600 miles within the US. It's just crazy how big the spread is on some of these flights. And I don't know what that says about where travel demand is at. If maybe we're starting to see travel demand drop internationally and people are kind of restricting their travels just to what they absolutely need to do, like for the holidays, for instance. I don't know. This is probably going to be a problem for a future us to start to dig into. But for now, the upside is that for fall and winter travel over to Europe. Fares are as cheap as we've seen them since, yeah, probably February. Speaker 1 (8:15) Yeah. More seats than butts flying to Europe right now. And you could be one of those butts, Kyle, if you really wanted to be for $500. I have no Speaker 2 (8:24) words for you. Speaker 1 (8:25) All right, fine. We'll move on to something hottest this week. I'll start really simple here, Kyle. Name one airline mileage program that's better than Japan Airlines Mileage Bank right now. I forgot what Gun Air Miles Speaker 2 (8:37) are called, but that would be the only one that could possibly because you get that free kokanee on board, right? That's right. One Speaker 1 (8:43) free kokanee per flight. Speaker 2 (8:44) Yeah. There is none. We have made the case for the better part of a year now. that Japan Airlines mileage bank miles are an absolute goldmine, criminally underrated, are worthy of your attention, and then some, and they have only gotten better. We've only learned more and more and seen more value and also had more avenues to earn these miles and seen transfer bonuses. It is unquestionably the single most valuable program in the world right now, period. Speaker 1 (9:12) So tell me what's new this week. Who's the newest transfer partner? Speaker 2 (9:16) Yeah, as of Sunday, Citi. thank you points. So if you're earning points from like the City Strata Premier or the City Strata Elite card, you can now transfer those points typically one to one to Japan Airlines. But through late October, you get a 30 % bonus. So if you're sitting on a stash of City Points, now is the time to look into Japan Airlines. Speaker 1 (9:38) Yeah. Okay. So for people who are uninitiated, who haven't been listening to the show every single week and heard you gushing about Japan Airlines, what are some of your favorite? redemptions that you can make. Speaker 2 (9:47) Yeah, for the people who do listen every week, I'm so sorry. We have to do this again. There is just so much value here. Of course, flying Japan Airlines itself to be able to book business class for as low as 55,000 miles each way and under $400 in taxes and fees right now from anywhere in the United States to Japan. If you can't find those ultra low rates, it's easier to find rates of 75 to 85,000 miles each way. In some cases, north of 100,000. But with one of these transfer bonuses, you're still coming out way, way ahead, especially when using miles from other airlines like American or Alaska. You're not going to see these Japan Airlines business class award availability over to Tokyo and back at all anymore. It just really doesn't exist. So that it really makes Japan Airlines miles shine. they're even better is for booking partner airlines. Of course, you know, other one world airlines like American and Alaska and British Airways and Cathay Pacific and others, but also some other airlines that are not in that alliance, including LATAM, so flying down to South America, Air France, they have a strange one-off partnership with Air France, despite the fact that Air France is part of the Sky Team Alliance, and then Emirates as well. To be able to book for Fewer miles than almost