Insider Strategies for First-Class Cruise Perks Without the Premium Price
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What are the latest travel news updates?
We are going to be talking about cruises, but first, the news. Welcome to Smart Travel, a deep dive into the tips, tools, and tactics to maximize your travel dollars. I'm Megan Coyle.
And I'm Sally French. And we're the travel nerds ready to help you plan your next big trip. As always, we'll talk about a few credit card companies that are nerd wallet partners in this episode, but that doesn't influence how we discuss them. The benefits, terms, and fees mentioned were accurate at the time of posting, but things can change.
How can credit cards enhance your travel experience?
Some offers may have expired by the time you're listening. For the latest details, follow the links in the episode description.
One of these days, I'm really hoping to start the news section off with something other than bad news about Southwest, Megan. That day is not today, unfortunately. Southwest fares used to have fun names like Wanna Get Away, but now all the fare classes have boring names. Choice, Choice Preferred, and Choice Extra. And don't forget, the basic fare they introduced previously is still there. The cheaper the fare you buy, the fewer seats you have to choose from when the assigned seating goes into effect.
And it's like happening kind of soon. The assigned seating is supposed to be available to book starting in the third quarter of 2025. Southwest cardholders and elite members will have the ability to pick a standard or in some cases preferred seat assignment within 48 hours of departure. So this is like kind of an extra perk if you have a Southwest card or if you have elite status is now you can kind of get a free upgrade to some of the better seats that you have to pick.
On the bright side, having one of these cards can really make it seem like you're getting a lot of value out of holding them, especially for a relatively low annual fee. So the Southwest Rapid Rewards Priority Credit Card has a $149 annual fee, but it comes with an annual $75 Southwest Travel Credit. and 7,500 rapid rewards points, while also now allowing holders access to things like that priority seating, even on the lowest fare classes.
If you are a Southwest Flyer, it seems like having one of the co-branded credit cards is almost a requirement to make it just a little better. Also, some other changes happening to airlines and airline cards. The United Club access changes went into effect last week. So if you have a United credit card that gets you one-time United Club passes every year, this change affects you. It used to be that you could just give those passes to anyone. But now the primary cardholder or the authorized user must be present when you go to the lounge. And you also can't go for as long. You have to enter within three hours of your flight's departure time.
Oof, this is a trend we are seeing. All sorts of airline lounges are looking to crack down to deal with overcrowding. So we've seen things like cracking down on how many guests you can bring and whatnot. United is just extending that trend.
And they're also expanding some of their lounges and redesigning them. Benjamin Din, our colleague we had on the podcast last week, went to the reopening of the United Polaris Lounge at Chicago's O'Hare Airport last week. And it looks so much more modern than the old design, although there's still like kind of a lot of marble. It's also 50% bigger, which is really nice.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What are the latest travel news updates?
0:41–1:09
2
How can credit cards enhance your travel experience?
1:09–6:43
3
What are the must-see features of the MSC World America and Norwegian Aqua?
6:43–16:54
4
Is a cruise cheaper than a land vacation?
16:54–21:04
5
What new ships are launching in the cruise industry?
21:04–26:08
6
How do cruise packages offer better value than expected?
26:08–30:29
Speakers
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