Traveling Again?
Welcome to Saving Money with Andrew!
After at least 10 calls, a lengthy spreadsheet, and months of waiting, we finally received refunds from Delta for our cancelled early-COVID flights. The whole process was extremely frustrating but finally worked out. And one tip - always politely tell the representative how you feel. At the end of our call, I gave a lengthy speech about how I’ve been flying on Delta for decades (true!) and that it’s my favorite airline, but that this has been a huge inconvenience. Without any prodding, the representative immediately gave us $300 in vouchers as an apology.
And with that chapter closed, another chapter hopefully opens—we recently booked our first flights in over a year for a trip in July. Unfortunately, there is relatively little one can do to save money on air travel, other than to search broadly for flights (we use Kayak).
With expectations that most Americans will have access to vaccines in the next few months, however, it’s likely that flights to vacation destinations will be in short supply come summer. So, now might be the time to make those bookings.
Hotels, on the other hand, have tons of saving opportunities. If you’re considering booking a hotel for the summer, I urge you to re-read my lengthy post on Saving Money on Hotels. There are some incredible deals available now for summer travel that will likely dry up if travel is safe for the summer.[1]
And now…Andrew’s pick(s) of the week:
As a Millennial with the music taste of a Boomer, there’s nothing I find more flattering than Gen Z musicians acknowledging that, in fact, music peaked with the progressive rock of the early 1970’s. And that since then culture has been in a long and slow decline (joking... mostly).
If that resonates with you, I present The Low Darts, a group of high school and college-age kids playing almost flawless covers of Steely Dan, Supertramp, and Billy Joel (among others). I particularly enjoyed their covers of My Old School and Reelin’ in the Years.
I hope this has been helpful. If you liked it, please share it on social media! Also, please send me your feedback, requests, and success stories.
[1] As far as when it’s safe to travel, it’s a very personal decision. We have not traveled and don’t intend to do so until everyone we’re traveling with has been vaccinated. But once we all are, we feel comfortable traveling.