There's no question about it: travel for Americans is more popular than ever before. Spending on U.S. leisure trips is projected to reach $909 billion, driven by a desire to prioritize experiences, the volume of travelers continues to rise, and for the first time ever, more than half of Americans report taking at least one airline trip.
That also means busier airports, planes that are more full, airport security lines that are longer, and extremely complicated ways to maximize travel rewards, points, and get rewarded for loyalty. That's where sites like Minnesota-based Thrifty Traveler come into play, helping people figure out where to go, and how to do it.
On Friday night, a couple of hundred podcast fans and travelers joined the Thrifty Traveler Podcast Live at the historic Parkway Theater in Minneapolis, hosted by Thrifty Traveler's Kyle Potter and Gunnar Olson. The podcast and their success points to just how important travel is, and how much help people need navigating the complications of booking travel, finding "deals," or even figuring out the tricky world of points and credit card rewards.
Potter joined WCCO's Chad Hartman Friday to talk about their live podcast taping, but also some of the news from the travel world right now, including airfare prices, getting through airport security faster, and where people should be traveling.
Hartman: Fuel prices and where we're at now in relation to 100+ days of the war in Iran. What has changed the last couple of weeks, and where are we at with fuel prices and air travel?
Potter: This is tough because there's no question that many flights are more expensive, in some cases much more expensive than they were 100+ days ago. That said, there are always deals. It's kind of hard to put a bow on this and what the outlook is. I'll put it this way. It has felt like within the last, let's just call it 2 or 3 weeks, that the tide has turned and that we're starting to see more price drops than increases. That tracks with what has happened with jet fuel over the last, let's just call it a month or so because jet fuel prices, at least in the United States, are lower than they've been at any point since about early-to mid-March. But you know, if the war in Iran takes a turn again for the worst, we could be back right where we were in April and early May. I don't want to overpromise and underdeliver, but now on Friday, June 12th at about 12:46 p.m., I'm feeling much better than I was just like two or three weeks ago about the likelihood of getting a fair price on flights.
Hartman: So I'm looking at Thrifty Traveler right now, and if you fly with any regularity, you have some options to move through. You have TSA PreCheck and Clear among your options. I'm looking at two of your headlines here: Clear raising prices once again. I feel like Clear raises their prices about twice a day. So take me through that and tell me why the TSA PreCheck lines are about to get bigger?
Potter: Well, Clear, this is just what Clear does. There are a surprising amount of ways to get what is otherwise an exorbitantly expensive service for free. Clear just has more bandwidth to raise the prices without losing customers. So this is in fact the fourth time in four years that they have raised the annual fee. Just a couple of years ago it was $179. It's going to be going up to $219 a year. I think effective July 1st is what we've been told.
More troubling is PreCheck, and I don't want to overexaggerate here. We're just trying to read the tea leaves a little bit. An even larger number of popular travel credit cards that will cover the cost of signing up for either TSA PreCheck or Global Entry, which also gets you TSA PreCheck.
Hartman: How many would you say?
Potter: Oh, we've got to be over 20, I bet in the United States, and that includes the more expensive Delta SkyMiles credit cards. But the big change here is that the single most popular travel credit card in the country is the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. It has been the most popular travel credit card in the country since it came out near two decades ago. And Monday, that card is adding a TSA PreCheck credit which covers the entire cost of signing up for this program. Which is great for people who have that card, but we just wanted to warn people, 'hey, there is going to be an unprecedented influx of people who are getting this program.' Because they can now get it for free with this credit card. So it could get a little bit ugly, especially at some airports where TSA PreCheck lines are already quite busy.
Hartman: You can take your significant other, and then you and three friends, and you're going somewhere in America where enough people don't travel, or somewhere out of the country where people don't travel? On both those scenarios, significant other or buddies, in the states and out of this country, where are you going?
Potter: In the country, my impulse would almost always be to go somewhere I haven't been yet, but if I want to steer people to a place that should be more on their radar, I'm gonna go for Maine. My wife and I took a trip up the coast of Maine, flying into Boston and then driving all the way up to Acadia National Park. I mean, when you talk about how special the North Shore of Minnesota is, that's what the kind of the area north of Portland, Maine is to me. So in the country, that's got to be my number one.
Outside of the country, you know, I got to go with Vietnam. It is a place that just, it honestly changed my life going there for the first time. And I'm not going to say that everybody's going to feel exactly the same way, but there's just something special about that country and how cheap it is. And how amazing the food is, and how warm the people are even towards Americans given our incredibly complex history. It's a special place, and I would love for more people to be willing to steel themselves for the 20 hours of travel to get there because I promise you the payoff is worth it.
