Episode Details

Who knew that summer vacations could be so much work?

On the latest episode of PennyWise, host Nat Cardona talks with Sally French of NerdWallet about her top 6 tips for summer travel.

Nerdwallet explains tips for booking domestic and international flights as well as how to use travel rewards to your benefit.

Get more travel tips from Sally French here!

About this program

Nat Cardona is host of PennyWise as well as Lee Enterprise's true-crime podcast Late Edition: Crime Beat Chronicles. Lee Enterprises produces many national, regional and sports podcasts. Learn more here.

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome to Pennywise, a Lee Enterprises podcast. I'm your host, Nat Cardona. Summer is in full swing. But it's not too late to plan your summer vacation and save some money while you're at it. Here's travel expert Sally French. All right. So today's topic, we're talking about six tips for traveling this summer. Where do you want to begin? 

I think we should start by talking about how early in advance you should book on. Unfortunately, it is already this summer, so this advice might come a little bit late. But the bad news is it it can be really difficult to find. Last minute flight deals. A lot of people are used to last minute deals when it comes to hotels and rental cars in shows. Unfortunately, that's just not the case. So the sooner you can book, the better.

For domestic flights, the best deals are usually found 1 to 3 months out for international flights. The best deals are 2 to 8 months out. So, you know, maybe you just start planning ahead for summer of next year. That or the very tail end, right as it's about to hit September. Throw it in there that could be summer, too.

Aside from that, what else do you have for me? Yeah. You know, the next thing is to choose the right location. We saw in the early years of the COVID pandemic, borders were closed. So often domestic airfare prices got really, really high because the people who otherwise would have done international travel might just instead do domestic travel. That sort of actually flipped.

In fact, domestic airfare prices overall have actually dropped in summer 2023 versus summer 2022. So that's really good news. If you are a domestic traveler, you might pay less this year than you did last year. But the reality is international flights are much more expensive. Most people haven't taken international trips in a while. So this is a summer.

They're making it happen. According to Hopper data, the average flight between the U.S. and Asia this summer costs more than 1800 dollars for economy class. And it makes sense. Demand is high. The number of passengers leaving for Asia is about four times what it was this year versus last year. Okay. I may be jumping ahead and one of your tips that you have coming up, but when we talk about flights versus driving, do you have any tips on that?

Yeah, you know, it's hard to say whether driving or flying is a better deal because often it depends on your own individual circumstances. How many people can you fit in that car? Also, what are the things that you typically pay for when you travel? So something to consider when it comes to airfare is often you're not paying for the airfare alone.

You're also paying for checked bags. If you're someone who needs to board early, then you're also often paying for priority boarding. And the nice thing about a rental car or your own car is th