Avoid These 5 Costly Travel Mistakes to Save Time, Money, and Stress
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What are the top travel mistakes people make?
Look, you know, it happens. Things are changing all the time in travel. The airport probably looks different from the last time you were there. Your credit card might have added benefits.
Or taken them away. You and I both know that travel credit card benefits change more frequently than we'd like, and many people miss this memo.
Yeah, it's easy to make mistakes when you're traveling if you're not thinking about it all the time.
But luckily that's our job, to think about it all the time. So that's actually the topic of this week's episode, the top five travel mistakes you can avoid.
I can't believe we're finally doing this. Welcome to the first episode of Smart Travel. I'm Megan Coyle.
And I'm Sally French. And if you feel like you don't have anyone to ask about how to make the trip of your dreams happen, we got you. We are NerdWallet's travel experts. We love travel. We don't just do it for work. We do it because we love it and we're excited to share it with you.
Definitely. So I suppose before we dive into the main segment, we should talk a little bit about how we got here. I've been an editor on NerdWallet's travel team for six years now. I also freelance doing some audio stuff. I produce podcasts and do some reporting for my local radio station.
So after all those years of producing radio and podcasts, everyone finally agreed it's time we gave Megan the chance to stand behind the microphone. As for me, I'm glad you're here. As for me, I've spent plenty of time on the mic already. I host NerdWallet's travel YouTube videos. I also serve as a spokesperson for NerdWallet, which basically just means I get to talk about all the cool travel data that we cover. That's things like our monthly travel price tracker. I go on live TV. I talk about whatever cool analysis we've done here on the NerdWallet travel team. I have to say the highlight of my job up until this point here at NerdWallet is getting messages from my high school friends saying not them, but that their parents saw me on TV.
I literally just saw you on my Instagram, so I get it.
I'm sorry.
For me, the highlight is now having friends that I can talk to about saving money and travel. Like Sally, I know you love a good deal. So I can share when I found a super cheap flight or something, or I spent hours looking for availability at a hotel that has like 15 rooms. You get it. You understand how much time I spent on that. So I'm hoping we can do the same thing for listeners. We see you, just not literally.
That's why we have each other. And now we have these new listeners. You are our friends, too. So I'm excited we get to talk about these things.
And some of you might recognize our voices if you tune into our sibling podcast, Smart Money. Yes.
Yes, that's the podcast hosted by our good friend, Sean. I consider Sean to be our older and definitely wiser sibling.
In fact, Sally, you gave quite the lowdown on the Southwest Companion Pass just a few episodes back. And Sean has graciously let us gush about travel topics on his show for a few years now.
You know, I love to gush about the Southwest Companion Pass and we love talking on Sean's show, but it is time we leave the nest. We fly off, do our own show on our own all about travel and bonus. We don't need to use any points for this flight.
Exactly. So we'll tell you about strategies to save money on travel and what things are actually worth spending on.
Now, some of those things might involve using points and miles or perhaps considering opening a credit card, but that's not always the case.
I think something I've learned in the past few years of covering the travel industry is that the majority of people don't travel enough or don't look at prices enough to know what's normal and like what's a good deal. So I'm excited to make this podcast for everyone to help you go into these decisions a little more informed, especially since travel can be a big expense for so many people.
And we're so lucky. We get to look at this every day. And so we're the ones who know there are mistakes and some of them really are costing you money. I hope that you can learn from us. And the reality is we definitely make these mistakes ourselves too.
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Chapters
2 chaptersSpeakers
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