Secrets to Cheap Travel from NYT’s Frugal Traveler

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I haven't found Costco travel to be great for the other types of travel that you can book through them, but the cars are pretty sweet.

Yeah, that's true.

I know people that have booked their honeymoons for, you know, if all you want is like fly and flop,

it's great for that.

I like that.

That's all I ever want.

That should be my life.

I'm Christine Zeer-Clissette.

I'm Kyra Blackwell.

I'm Rosie Garin, and you're listening to The Wire Cutter Show.

Hey, pals.

Hey there.

Can I start off with a compliment?

One of the things I like best about you guys is the extent to which you have inspired me to travel more.

Oh, it's true.

Really?

That's a compliment that comes from the heart, but also from the fact that you guys, I feel like, are out and about.

You're seeing the world, and it's really cool.

Well, I wasn't able to see the world for a long time.

I have kids and they were little, and then the pandemic happened, and it's expensive to travel.

But lately, I feel like I've been getting to go places.

Yeah, I'm kind of the opposite.

I have no responsibilities, and I love to hop on a plane.

It's a privilege, and it also is a means, I think, of personal growth.

We're focusing on travel a bit this week on The Wire Cutter Show, and our guest today fits perfectly into that, I would say.

That's right.

And, you know, Wire Cutter, we cover a lot of travel gear.

You can find all sorts of reviews for travel bags and gear to put in your bags, all of that.

But what we don't cover is the actual sort of nuts and bolts of how to shop for travel, for your flights, for your hotel rooms.

And these are often the most expensive things when you're traveling.

So today we're going to talk with Elaine Glusack, who is the frugal traveler columnist at the New York Times.

and she is really a specialist in traveling well for less.

I have to tell you, I love Elaine's column.

I read it all the time.

I'm always kind of like following her from afar to see where she is going and how much is she spending on this trip.

Living vicariously through her.

We're going to chat with Elaine about how to get the best deals on airfare, lodging, and what you should know about travel deals during Black Friday.

We'll be back in a bit.

As the holidays approach, get prepped for all your hosting and decorating needs with Wayfair.

From dining tables and chairs that bring the whole family together to extra sheets and towels that make guests feel comfortable.

Wayfair is your one-stop shop for everything home.

This season, transform your space into an entertainer's dream.

Get everything you need to host, all in one place, at Wayfair.

Plus, Wayfair ships everything fast and easy right to your door.

Shop all things home today at Wayfair.com.

That's at W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com.

Wayfair, every style, every home.

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Your business is on your mind 24-7.

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Promoted jobs get three times more qualified applicants.

At the end of the day, the most important thing to your small business is the quality of candidates.

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Welcome back.

Our guest today is Elaine Glusack, a longtime travel journalist who currently writes the New York Times column, The Frugal Traveler.

As the name implies, the column focuses on budget travel, international and domestic, travel by car, by train, camping, cruises, hotels, hostels, rentals, and much more.

Well, I wish we could talk with Elaine for 27 hours and extract every nugget of wisdom you have, Elaine.

Today, we're going to focus on your very best tips for scoring great travel deals this fall and winter.

So, welcome to the Wirecutter Show.

Oh my gosh, thanks so much for having me.

Well, it's so awesome to have you here.

Elaine, I have to say, I'm a little jealous of your job, honestly.

You just travel around the world and you get to write about it.

So you write the frugal traveler column.

You've done that since 2020.

This column has been around for 30 years, though.

I'm curious, how long have you been writing about travel?

And how did you end up with this gig as the Frugal Traveler?

Yeah, I'm so grateful for it.

I've been writing about travel for at least 25 years or really most of my career.

I just basically followed my bliss, as the adage goes, and I really couldn't find a topic I liked that, you know, made me more happy and eager to get to work in the morning.

Partly that's the case because travel is this huge umbrella for so many interests.

You could be writing about food or adventure or art or culture or nature.

All of those things interest me.

All fall under the travel umbrella.

And I got the gig right on the verge of the pandemic in 2020.

So the timing was very interesting, but it ended up being a rather important time to be reporting on travel.

The industry was so battered, but people very clearly wanted to get out and go, which they've been doing ever since.

Like gangbusters.

It's been pretty wild the last few years.

Elaine, when you are writing columns for the frugal traveler, are you mostly traveling by yourself?

Are you traveling with family members, a partner?

How does that work for you?

Yeah, I mostly travel solo when I'm traveling for work, but I also travel a lot with my family.

So trips can often be sort of a business leisure

blend, if you will.

When I'm working exclusively, I'm trying to be really mindful of the balance between time and budget.

So, I'm usually running around like crazy to get everything in, to see everything, to eat everything, to do it all on budget.

You know, so I only invite my most energetic friends on my work-only trips.

I feel like I want to become your friend, so but we'll talk about that offline.

I want to know when you first began writing the column, what was your approach to writing about budget travel specifically?

You know, there are things I want to do and things I have to do.

The column covers both service and more experiential travel.

So we definitely want to give advice on the best credit cards and how to score deals and the ins and outs of bidding and upgrades.

But in the experiential stories where I'm traveling, I want to show people that being mindful of your money does not diminish your experience in any way.

I would argue that it enhances it.

I feel that you get closer to real people when you're traveling on a budget.

You're not cocooned in a luxury resort like the White Lotus and the only locals you meet are the staff, which to me is a whole point of cross-cultural exchange.

And I also really wanted to test drive a lot of different ways of traveling and that doing it on a budget can be like so much more interesting.

So, for example, what's it like when you exclusively use public transportation to go vineyard hopping?

Or what's it like to take a $300 cruise to the Bahamas?

Or, you know, what's gained or lost if you go to less popular places, you know, in popular destinations like Costa Rica.

How has that changed over the years?

I'm much more mindful of sustainability now and the contribution that conscious travelers can have in promoting it.

I think if you're careful about how and where you go, which is very much tied up with your budget, I think you do a better job of leaving no trace or at least reducing your footprint.

I also fly a lot less.

And when I do, I try to stack up assignments.

So I'm not just flying to England for one trip, but travel around the UK and report three stories.

I'm very interested in slow and sustainable forms of travel, including human-powered trips like walking, cycling, and paddling, and slower means like trains.

The thing that will usually cost you the most when you're traveling is flights and lodging.

So can you break down your best advice for getting better deals on flights?

Because I am a last-minute buyer.

Unfortunately, Elaine, I usually buy my tickets maybe two days before I have to leave.

That's not very frugal of me.

Unfortunately, it's not great for the spontaneous traveler.

I mean, I feel like spontaneity is for road trips, but flights are like, you need six to eight weeks for domestic.

Six to eight weeks?

Yeah, it's like, it kind of kills it, doesn't it?

And that's just, that's for domestic.

Right.

And it could be 12, you know, for international.

But I will say there are some exceptions with international, like the big destinations like New York, London, you can probably go a lot closer because there's so much service.

What is the closest you would do on a spontaneous trip?

On a spontaneous trip?

A month?

I feel like that's not spontaneous, though.

Do you think the same rules apply for holiday travel when you know it's going to be a really high traffic time?

Oh my gosh, holidays are so much worse.

And you're going to hate this answer because like for Thanksgiving, you have to start monitoring flights in August.

In August?

Yes.

And you have to be ready to book in September or early October.

Well, that's when prices bottom out and then they'll start to rise really, really quickly.

And then it's like the same sort of huge margin that you need around Christmas travel.

And one little piece of advice, my favorite little trick here is when we're thinking about the holidays, I love the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas for doing the personal trip.

It's a really low, like everyone's traveling at Thanksgiving, everyone's traveling at Christmas.

It's really tends to be quiet the first two weeks after Thanksgiving.

I always book a trip.

That's a hot tip.

Yeah, that is a great tip.

Where have you gone in the past during that?

Oh, well, I went to France and did the Christmas markets on the Rhine.

That's so twisted.

That's amazing.

I was going to guess Heidelberg Christmas markets during that time.

I am definitely the opposite of Cairo when it comes to travel.

I just booked my husband's birthday trip, which is in March.

I'm wondering, did I book too early?

I was like, oh, maybe I will be shooting myself in the foot by buying so early, like seven months in advance.

Oh, I don't know.

If it's a refundable ticket or not even refundable, but you can get a credit back, you could keep monitoring that flight and like see if it drops and then cancel it and then use that credit to rebook.

That is a good tip.

That is a totally good tip.

I will continue to monitor.

I'm curious, when you are, you know, you want to go to a specific place, what's your strategy at a technical level?

Are you putting in a Google alert on Google Flights?

Are there other places that you're looking?

You know, what are the tools that help you find the best deals for flights?

Yes.

And I'm not very techie.

So I just want to say, if I can do it, everybody can do this.

But Google Flights is great because I always start there because a search will tell you if you're getting a good deal, a worse deal, or an average price.

So you kind of want to go there and find out what you should be looking for, what a deal looks like.

And then I'll go to Kayak, which is another travel search engine, and they have a little advice monitor that will tell you to buy or to wait.

And then I'll set up notifications with both Google and Kayak, and they'll tell you what's happening.

Is it going up or down, the flight price that is?

And then I spend a lot of time playing with my itinerary.

Can I go a day later or a day earlier?

You know, is it better to spare myself the expense of an extra hotel night and take a late flight home.

I also sign up for free notifications from a website called going.com, which is great at finding deals from your favorite airport.

So I just booked a deal round trip to Toronto in first class for $300, which is awesome.

That's awesome.

Send me the link.

I know, I will.

Did Going used to be Scott's cheap flight?

Yeah, it did.

And it really, I've used this site too.

It's super cool.

But I also have found like, I think it works best for people who are super flexible, right?

Who can

go on the dates that it pinpoints as having good flights?

And can you pinpoint where you'd like to go?

It just gives you every possible deal there is at that airport.

Yeah, they just kind of look at your airport.

So you might not be interested in Honduras, whatever.

Just delete that email.

But yeah, every once in a while, it'll just come up with, hey, Toronto's on sale.

Wow.

Is there a best day to buy flights?

I've heard that Tuesday nights, like at midnight, is a really good time.

I don't know why.

Or like flying on a Wednesday is cheaper.

Is any of that true?

Some of it is true.

Like airfare pricing has changed so much in recent years and it's way more dynamic and sophisticated than it used to be.

So there's really no magic day to making your booking.

But there was a thing about Tuesdays.

Really?

Yes, it used to be.

That was the day when one person, like an actual person, went in and updated flights.

And now it's all computer driven, you know, so they can change hour to hour.

But I am a huge fan of flying Tuesday, like going out on Tuesday, returning Saturday, or flying Saturday and returning Tuesday or Wednesday.

Those are the lowest load days.

So not only are prices better, of course, but you get a better experience at the airport and in the air.

So in the vein of talking about flights, buying airfare these days can be really complicated.

Even on premium airlines like United or Delta, if you go for the cheapest option, you often have to pay extra for things like choosing seats or checking checking bags, which seems egregious to me.

Same deal with budget carriers like Frontier Spirit and now Southwest.

So

for you, do you tend to go for the cheapest option?

Or do you pay more for things like refundable flights, free cancellation?

I want to know because I want to know if paying less ends up costing you more in the end.

I think it definitely can.

And it may be different for every traveler.

I will never buy a flight I can't change.

Basic economy tickets, okay, they might save you $50.

But if you have to cancel, I mean, life happens.

If you have to cancel, you're out the entire fare.

So I always book a ticket where I can at least get a credit back.

If I have to cancel, I just have to have that flexibility.

I don't know.

Maybe my life happens more dramatically.

I don't know.

I've run into that.

I have little kids and things come up and life happens.

And so

I've gotten credits that I use for the next thing.

Yes.

And I mean, they keep your money, but at least they are allowing allowing you to use it within a year or two.

But I wanted to say when it comes to seats and bags, that I play the credit card game and I get those perks by paying with the airline's branded credit card.

It's kind of a no-brainer for me because I'm based in a city that has a hub for like two major airlines, actually three.

And within a trip or two, I'll have paid off that $95 annual fee through free seat assignments or checked bag fees.

And like everyone else, I hate budget carriers for their nickel and diming.

But if you abide by their rules, you really can save.

Again, for work, I once did a $100 round trip to Vegas, which only allowed me to bring a personal item.

Of course, this was Spirit Airlines.

So basically, I took like a little backpack with some running clothes and a toothbrush.

And I had this great budget trip.

And it was cheap.

But yes, if you're going to check a bag or you want a decent seat, you need to add those fees in when you're comparing fares with other airlines.

I have another red flag about budget carriers, and that's their frequency of service.

So, for example, they might have this great fare to Key West, Florida, but maybe they only fly it once a day or maybe twice a week.

So, if something happens and you get bumped, it could be days or weeks before they can get you home because their flights are so infrequent.

It's a good thing to keep an eye out for.

And actually, we're going to have a lot more to say about the points game.

We're going going to talk to Brian Kelly as well about how to manage that and figure that out if that's your bag.

I'm curious, do you buy flights directly from the airline?

Or do you buy flights from Expedia or Travelocity or third-party vendors?

I usually buy them directly, mostly because I want more control over my booking and I'm always worried about cancellations and getting my money back.

And I just feel like that's much more seamless if you go direct.

Are there any budget airlines that fly internationally that you've used before or you think are worth considering?

Yes, definitely.

I just took Volaris, which is a Mexican low-cost carrier.

I took them to Mexico City and I had a great experience.

It was super cheap.

It was under $300 round trip to Mexico City.

I mean, it was more like $200.

It was crazy.

The seats were fairly intimate, restrictive.

And I don't even think they were giving out free water.

Oh, no.

BYO water.

I know, but the service was professional and they dominate the route.

So there's like a ton of options.

You won't get stuck.

I want to pivot to lodging.

What is your best advice for finding a good deal at a luxury hotel, a boutique hotel, an all-inclusive?

Is that possible to do on a budget?

I feel like hotels are really worth booking early.

So that like March trip you're doing, you should get your hotels because that's when rates are lowest.

And most have unrestrictive cancellation policies.

So you, you know, you can make these early reservations without risking anything, you know, because as hotels book up, the prices go up.

And if you need to change it, you can usually do that without a penalty 24 to 48 hours in advance.

I don't do a lot of luxury hotels, as you might imagine, but I would say if you have a particular hotel in mind that you should sign up for their newsletter or their emails oh they often will include special offers for their subscribers or mailing list and with many hotels you can kind of scour their availability calendars and find the dates with the cheapest rates and like maybe work your trip around them

and then of course always try to book in the off season or you know on the quieter days of the week which is midweek if you can when i travel with my husband just my husband will stay at a hotel but i am way too cheap to do this with my kids.

I need to have a kitchen that we can cook some food in.

I usually rent Airbnbs or Verbos or whatever.

I'm wondering if you have any advice on how to find the best deals on that type of lodging.

Searching early is important.

It's basically one-of-one inventory, right?

If the one you love, you know, is sold out, it's sold out.

Also, you could consider staying longer.

Airbnb and Verbo both offer, not always, but often, discounts for stays of a week or more.

You can try to book directly with a host and you'll usually get a better rate.

This takes a little bit of sleuthing and I did an entire column on this, but you can get around rental platforms by like scouring their sites, like looking at the pictures on their site.

And a lot of people that run their own booking apart from say an Airbnb might have like a framed photograph on the counter that says, welcome to Home in the Woods or something like that.

Something that you can then go to Google with, say like home in the woods in Ely, Minnesota.

And like maybe their website website comes up you know if you go somewhere frequently like let's say you go visit your parents every year i would go to that host and say look i'm coming back you know would you deal with me directly and if so can i get a 10 to 20 percent discount so you can negotiate that way yeah i'm a current airbnb host and i will say that i'm always happy to have repeat customers and people who will hit me up like the upcoming weekend and I still don't have a booking.

And when people ask me to negotiate price, I'm happy to do it because I'd rather have some money than no money.

So I would say definitely, in my experience, it's better to go directly to a small actual host than like, you know, management companies now manage these Airbnbs and it's a whole thing.

Talking to the people in my experience has always been much better.

Oh, that's smart.

So I'm going to look up your Instagram for your house.

I'm going to reach out directly after this.

Our guest is Elaine Glusack.

She is the frugal travel columnist for the New York Times.

We're going to take a quick break and on the other side, we'll get into more travel tips and hacks.

Stick around.

As the holidays approach, get prepped for all your hosting and decorating needs with Wayfair.

From dining tables and chairs that bring the whole family together to extra sheets and towels that make guests feel comfortable.

Wayfair is your one-stop shop for everything home.

This season, transform your space into an entertainer's dream.

Get everything you need to host, all in one place, at Wayfair.

Plus, Wayfair ships everything fast and easy right to your door.

Shop all things home today at Wayfair.com.

That's at W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com.

Wayfair, every style, every home.

As a small business owner, you don't have the luxury of clocking out early.

Your business is on your mind 24-7.

So when you're hiring, you need a partner that works just as hard as you do.

That hiring partner is LinkedIn Jobs.

When you clock out, LinkedIn LinkedIn clocks in.

LinkedIn makes it easy to post your job for free, share it with your network, and get qualified candidates that you can manage, all in one place.

Post your job.

LinkedIn's new feature can help you write job descriptions and then quickly get your job in front of the right people with deep candidate insights.

Either post your job for free or pay to promote.

Promoted jobs get three times more qualified applicants.

At the end of the day, the most important thing to your small business is the quality of candidates.

And with LinkedIn, you can feel confident that you're getting the best.

Find out why more than two and a half million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring today.

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Welcome back.

Elaine Glusack is in the studio with us today.

She writes the frugal traveler column for the New York Times and has been generously sharing her most sought-after tips and tricks for traveling on a budget.

That's right.

I want to briefly zoom out and talk about big picture trends you're seeing in travel, Elaine.

Tourism is down significantly in the U.S.

More specifically, people who live abroad are not visiting here.

So I'm going to skip past the question and explanation of why and instead ask you, is this a financially good time for Americans to travel domestically?

Yes.

The decline of visitors from Canada in particular has really registered in a lot of places from Vermont to Florida.

And of course, travelers from Europe and other parts of the world are staying away, which means there's more availability.

This summer, for example, I saw a series of lodges in Alaska near Denali that went on sale in the summer.

And I have just never seen that in my experience.

And I have to believe it was related to tour groups canceling.

That's actually really interesting.

We talk these days a lot about inflation and tariffs.

It's in the news.

Many people are financially strapped right now with an uncertain economy.

I want to throw one other financial term into the mix and ask you about exchange rates and foreign currency as they relate to travel.

What should the average person know and look for when they're considering traveling abroad and hoping to maximize the U.S.

dollar?

Yeah, you want to look for a currency where the dollar is strong.

So, for example, if you go to Canada, one US dollar gets you $1.38 Canadian.

That's almost like a 40% gain.

And I can tell you from recent experience, because I drove across Canada in August, that the prices in Canada are not 40% higher.

So you're getting that bonus.

And it's the same in Mexico.

You get about 18 pesos to the dollar, which goes a long way unless you're going to like Los Cabos, which has gotten really expensive.

And how do you research that?

How can people find out?

I like the currency exchange websites that have blogs that identify these countries that have great exchange rate value for travelers.

I'm thinking of currency exchange international, but also like personal finance websites like NerdWallet are a good place to look for that stuff too.

So, Elaine, so far we've focused on ways of searching for, researching, and booking travel independently.

But I wonder about passing that time, since time is money, off to someone else, someone who can maybe do it faster and more efficiently like a travel agent are you ever going to actually save money using an agent or an agency or are those really a thing of the past no i think there are occasions when you can save i am a diy person and i kind of enjoy all the planning and research but travel agents are especially good at high-end trips and focusing on specialist trips like if you want to go on safari or if you want to do disney right And I will say that they own the cruise market.

If you are going to book a cruise, you'd be better off going with a travel agent and having them do that booking because they have access to special perks.

So you might not get a better rate, but you might get an upgrade or you might get like shipboard credits.

And I think they really prove their value there.

So if you were thinking about specifically for a cruise for your family, are you saying you'd maybe want a comparison shop with a travel agency or a couple of them versus what you could get on Expedia or I know that I look at like Costco travel sometimes.

Like I'm a member of Costco.

That's a thing.

Oh boy.

Yeah.

That's the yes.

We should talk about that.

Yeah, we should talk about that.

But just to finish this question,

how would you go about shopping in a savvy way?

Yeah, I always think it's having more sources of information is better.

Of course, like there is sort of this time is money thing where you're like, I don't really want to look at five different travel agents.

So, you know, maybe you look at Expedia.

That's easy.

And then maybe call a travel agent that someone told you about or the cruise line recommended because they have these close relationships with a lot of agents.

And, you know, maybe get a couple points of reference and then decide or look at Costco Travel.

Well, speaking of Costco, well, let's get back to that.

So my aunt and uncle actually are travel agents and they now almost exclusively deal in cruises.

But they gave me this very hot tip that when they travel, they, it was actually their daughter gave this tip to me.

She only books her cars through Costco travel because she gets the best deal on them and since then that's how I've booked my travel and I usually get a better deal through Costco travel have you found that are there other membership clubs that you'd recommend sort of looking at the travel perks through those membership clubs oh I use Costco all the time for car rental I don't know I just have not found better rates does that work internationally too I think so I think I rented in Canada and it was better I've never heard this I haven't found Costco Travel to be great for the other types of travel that you can book through them I'm not sure but the cars are pretty sweet yeah that's true i know people that have booked their honeymoons for you know if all you want is like fly and flop um it's great for that i like that

that's all i ever want should be my life

We want to talk about Black Friday.

Black Friday is kind of Wirecutter's Super Bowl.

We are on the hunt for deals.

We're trying to find deals for our readers, but this can also be a time to look for travel deals.

And you've written about about this, but if somebody knows that they want to buy airfare or maybe lodging or a cruise, do you advise that people wait until Black Friday to look for deals?

Yeah, I think the whole Black Friday season in travel is kind of like the sales bin of misfit toys.

Like, you know, cruises in the shoulder season rather than when the weather is reliable.

You know, there's a lot of first quarter trips.

I approach it as, what can I get out of this that I know I need to plan?

So like, do I have a wedding in March in San Francisco?

Oh, this might be a good time to look for a hotel sale.

It's a bin.

So like you have to do some digging and there are some gems.

A lot of national park lodges never cut their rates, but they'll do like a one-time sale at Black Friday.

So that, you know, again, if you're thinking about your year ahead, like, what do I want to do next year?

Peruse the deals and see if one works for you.

I gave it a shot for work.

I gave it a trial.

I bought a yacht trip in Croatia just to to see what it would be like on a Black Friday sale.

So I saved $400, which is significant.

But I had to go in April, which is relatively chilly in the Adriatic.

But I have to say that it was a great experience.

And I'm pretty sure that I would not trade it for high season in the sense that we had.

the islands to ourselves.

It was super unpressured.

The weather was great.

And we even did like a polar bear swim.

So this sounds like my kind of trip.

I would always take less people over great weather.

So if I am just to that point of like what you're looking for at Black Friday, let's say I'm looking for a spring break trip for my family.

Do you think this is a good time to kind of like see what they've got?

And then if they don't have what you want, then you can buy full price later.

Yeah, totally.

You're just like browsing the racks.

That's the way I look at it.

It's like the TJ Max's of travel.

Window shopping at TJ Maxx.

And every once in a while, you'll find like a cashmere at TJ Maxx and you're like, oh, score.

What advice do you have for people around getting refunds on flights?

If somebody is running into trouble with a cancellation, do you have any hot tips for them?

This is such a topical question because things are changing as we speak.

You know, when a flight is canceled, airlines are required to give you a refund.

And they're pretty good about that.

The cancellation has to be on their end.

And then you can decide.

You have to tell them pretty quickly, oh, I want my refund because otherwise they'll rebook you.

So you have to decline the rebooking.

The problem is with delays.

The Biden administration defined what a significant delay was, meaning three hours for domestic flights and six hours for international flights, but it was just rescinded.

And the Department of Transportation website specifically says that significant delays are undefined.

So consumers, sadly, are on their own.

with airlines once again when it comes to compensation for very late flights.

Do you you toggle the button to pay for travel insurance when you're buying through an airline's website?

Because I usually don't and I'm curious what the pros and cons of that are.

No, I don't.

I don't ever buy that.

You know, and they are such savvy marketers.

Like, are you sure you don't want to buy it?

No, because I find that a lot of credit cards, assuming you're paying with a credit card, have a lot of consumer protections built into them when it comes to flight delays, compensation for meals or hotels that you might have to book in the event of an emergency.

So, the things that you might get from travel insurance, you're already kind of getting, assuming you're paying with a credit card.

Okay, Elaine, while we have you, we thought it would be fun to do a quick lightning round.

We'll play green light, red light, yellow light.

So, I'm going to toss you some travel strategies and you let us know your thoughts.

Pursue, keep away, or proceed with caution.

Ready?

Sure.

Okay.

First one is error fares.

So these flights that pop up for cheap, maybe as a result of human error or software glitches.

Yes, green light, go.

Sweet.

Paying for subscription services that comb for deals.

Oh, okay.

I have to give this a yellow because sometimes they offer this free level of membership and that might be enough for you or it might convince you of its worth.

How about purchasing or bidding on trips people have had to cancel?

I've seen this recently platforms like Rumor or Plans Change.

I guess I give that greenish.

I think it's a really hard needle to thread.

You have to be so flexible to line up your dates and destinations.

Okay, Elaine, we are nearing the end of this interview.

And I'm curious, what is your best piece of travel advice that you've ever gotten?

Don't expect everything to go smoothly.

And when it doesn't, remember the worst trips make the best stories.

Okay, well, before we wrap, we usually ask all of our guests one final question, which is, what's the last thing you bought that you really love?

But today we're going to switch it up and we're going to ask you two final questions that are hotly debated here at WireCutter.

The first is, do you check a bag or a carry-on?

And the second is, are you a hard-sided person or a soft-sided luggage person?

Oh my God, this answer is going to be way longer than you guys want.

But honestly, I carry on mostly because I don't want a lot of baggage, like psychic baggage.

I don't want to worry about stuff when I'm somewhere trying to have this great experience.

I do make exception and check, like if I'm not moving around or I need fancy clothes, like a destination wedding or specific gear like skiing, and then soft-sided backpack for carry-on.

But I have hard-sided wheelies in sizes for both carry-on and checking.

I get all the wire cutter recommendations and buy those things.

Yes.

Well, Elaine, thank you so much.

Elaine Glusack, aka the frugal traveler.

We really, really appreciate getting to chat with you.

Thank you for the advice.

Oh, you guys, thank you so much for having me.

Wow, Elaine was so sweet and so knowledgeable.

And I'm still like very jealous of her job.

Oh, yeah.

Totally jealous.

Also, I feel like I had 16,000 questions I could have asked her.

Yeah.

What are you taking away from this?

So I'm going to be realistic.

I still don't think that I'm going to be planning ahead whenever I'm booking flights or hotels, but I really did like her advice about flying on Tuesdays or Saturdays because it's like the lowest traffic you can get throughout the week.

And if there's anything that I hate more than overpaying for a ticket, it's overpaying for a ticket and then coming to a really crowded airport.

So.

Love that.

Yeah.

My takeaway is book early in Kyra.

You know, you know yourself.

So you're going to, you are who you are, and we love you so much.

Yeah.

So before preparing for this episode, I had never really considered shopping for travel during Black Friday.

And I will be doing that this year.

I'm going to look in the discount bin and see what I might find for spring break.

And then I am also going to stop booking non-refundable flights, which I have a tendency to do.

Living on the edge.

I like to live on the edge.

And now I'm kind of seeing the error of my ways here.

And I probably should just pay a little bit extra for the refundable flight or for you know a free cancellation.

Love that.

Yeah.

And the last takeaway I feel like I have to shout from the rooftops from Christine and Elaine, rental cars through Costco.

Yeah.

Game change.

Cool.

That's it for us.

Till next week.

If you like the show, we'd love for you to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

We really appreciate it.

Peace.

Bye.

The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by Rosie Guerin and produced by Abigail Keel.

Engineering support from Maddie Mazziello and Nick Pittman.

Today's episode was mixed by Catherine Anderson.

Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Alicia Baitoup, Rowan Nimisto, Katherine Anderson, and Diane Wong.

Cliff Levy is Wirecutter's deputy publisher and general manager.

Ben Fruman is Wirecutter's editor-in-chief.

I'm Christine Sear-Clissette.

I'm Kyra Blackwell.

And I'm Rosie Guerin.

Thanks for listening.

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