January 7, 2026 • 42 mins
Bradley Jay Filled in On NightSide
Do you use third party apps when planning a vacation? What tools or services make vacation planning a breeze? Kevin Brasler, an executive editor at Consumers’ Checkbook joined Bradley to give general tips for travel planning, dos, and don’ts, and more!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's night Side with Dan Ray. I'm telling you Boston's
Speech Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Oh my goodness, this is the final all hour for me.
Dan will be in tomorrow night. And we continue with
Kevin Brasler of checkbook dot org, and we're talking about
some real solid tips for travel not you know, these
are real actionable stuff, stuff that will save you a
lot of money, stuff that might save your trip. In fact,
(00:28):
what should we talk about next? We didn't talk about
the insurance yet. I might as well get that out
of the.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Way, out of the way. Yeah, I have our argument
about that.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
We have an ongoing argument. I'm sort of changing my
mind a little bit. But uh, do you recommend that
you get the insurance A the insurance the airlines offer
or B third party insurance? Why or why not?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Okay, definitely don't buy the stuff the airlines are offering you.
And definitely don't buy the stuff like all these travel websites,
these booking websites offer you, because what they're offering is
like trip cancelation and interruption coverage. And if you if
you dig into these policies that like the American Airlines
Travel Protection Plan that they're selling you, you know, I
(01:08):
dug into what it's like thirty pages. There's all these exclusions.
They have all these reasons for, you know, denying your claim.
So don't buy those plans. If you want to buy
travel insurance, buy what's called there's two types. One's called
cancel for any reason, and that is what it sounds like,
where if you can't make the trip, either because there's
(01:28):
a death in your family, or somebody gets sick, or
there's some kind of turmoil in that part of the world,
or you just decide you don't feel like going, you
can cancel your trip and they'll give you your money back, however,
any prepaid fees back.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
However, there are restrictions.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
There are still restrictions, and a big one is that
say so, the good news is these days, if you
decide not to take a trip and you cancel your
air ticket, you say, okay, I'm telling the airline I'm
going to cancel my tenerary. The good news is they'll
give you a trip credit. They won't charge you this
two hundred dollars change fee that they used to charge everyone.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
They just is that a thing with all airlines at
all levels, even the cheap tickets.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Except basic Economy. With Basic Economy, you usually if you
cancel your ticket, you don't get your money back, or
you only get fifty percent back, depends on the airline
where you're going. For these cancel with any reason travel
insurance policies, they only kick in for money that you
have lost, that you prepaid for a trip that you
(02:27):
can't get back. And if you get back a trip
credit from an airline, they consider that, well, you didn't
lose anything, can you still the value of that ticket?
And so, as you know, Bradley, we've talked about this before,
and I actually written about your experience once. Didn't use
your name, but you can use mine. But no, actually,
but you decided not to go to like Greece. You
remember that you had a Basic because I wrote about
(02:48):
it because and you had a Basic Economy ticket and
you so you said, I did it, decided not to go.
You had bought the cancel for any Reason policy, and
you called the insurance company and they said, okay, we
just have to prove to us that you didn't get
a trip credit. Well, you can't prove a negative. It
was a Basic Economy fair there is no trip credit,
and it just it was a lot of hassle for you.
I think you did get your money back, but it
was a big hassle. It was interesting to get back.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
It was interesting because, first of all, the restrictions on
that are significant. In that particular policy, you had to
do this cancel for reason within forty eight hours of
departure right number one and two. You only get seventy
five percent of your money back, right.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
And another problem with these plans is that they are expensive.
You end up paying it's usually between fifteen to twenty
percent of the cost of the value of your trip.
So if it's a cruise and you paid five thousand dollars,
the travel insurance for that cruise could be like eight
hundred dollars. It depends on your age and where you're going,
because to me that much, well it can't be. You know,
(03:48):
as you're getting up in years, Bradley, your premiums are
going to go up for these plans because I might
drop that over there, or you just you get sick
before you go and you're canceling because you can't go
because you need surgery, or I had something happen, or
somebody your travel partner had something happen. So they're expensive.
They don't always cover the full cost to your trip.
But the good news is with these plans is they
(04:09):
don't have this long list of exclusions the stuff that
the airlines are, so this stuff the airlines are, Sonny
was dunk, please don't buy it. If I would say
that here's why you should buy travel insurance to cover
the costs of your trip, is that if it's a
unique trip, if you're booking a cruise and there's no
refunds allowed period, consider getting travel insurance. Although personally I
(04:29):
wouldn't buy it. If you're gonna take if you're like
doing some kind of group tour or package or something
like that in Europe, you have to pay up front.
I guess consider buying it, but just know it's expensive.
I alce took a trip to Alaska and I stayed
in this lodge and like the other side of Denali,
And it was one of those things where, uh, well,
my wife, is that.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
The one where there went farest fires?
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Well that was that was a different thing. It was
the same trip, but this place was like six hundred
dollars a night and I was going for like five nights,
and I was like, man, my mom hasn't been well.
I end up not buying the insurance, but I mean
I didn't feel good about it. Those are the types
of trips where if it's high risk, if you know, look,
something might happen, I might not be able to make
this trip and I have to prepay for a lot
of stuff, maybe it's worth buying the insurance, but even
(05:13):
then it's it's expensive for what it is. The other
type of plan that you should consider buying, though, are
medical plans. If you're going abroad and you're on Medicare
and you don't have a Medicare advantage plan, especially if
you're just on straight Medicare, you do not have coverage
for medical costs while you're abroad, it won't cover you,
and some private health insurance plans won't cover you either.
(05:33):
So if you have private insurance or Medicare advantage, check
to see what you get. Does it cover foreign medical care,
Especially if you're older, it's important that you might be
important to you have that coverage, especially going a part
of the world where the medical care isn't very good
and you might need to be kind of extracted or
ambulanced back, that's when it gets expensive. I had a
(05:55):
friend who was in Uganda and she got in this
really bad car accident, had this really add back injury,
had to be evacuated back to the US for like
emergency surgery. And let me guess, okay, well now I've
given you.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
You gave me the first numberty grand.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
No, it was like it was around two hundred thousand
dollars is what it cost her to get back.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
And fortunately somebody at her church stepped up and paid that,
because otherwise she's gonna be paralyzed for life.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I'm gonna go on to church. Yeah, joined the Church
of Latter day Saints. They'll take care of me.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
No, But so yeah, I think you know that's something
worth buying, is if you're going abroad, especially if you're
on Medicare, you don't have coverage for it. Uh, you
always say, and you should buy insurance to protect against
something against risks that if they happened, they would be
financially catastrophic to you. So you need to ensure your
home because if your house burns down, you're gonna lose
(06:50):
what for most of us is our biggest asset, right,
and even if you're renting, you're gonna lose all your belongings.
If you haven't sure, you need to ensure. If you
own a car, you need to have adequate vehicle insurance,
not just to protect the value of the car, but
in case you hurt somebody and get suited. Yeah, that's
the big one. That's a big one, a liability. These days,
everyone really needs healthcare insurance. Otherwise, you know, if you
(07:10):
get sick and you're not gonna be able before people
go bankrupt trying to pay medical bills. I don't think
you need to buy insurance to protect yourself for a
four hundred dollars round trip airfare or even a three
thousand dollars vacation. That's not gonna be funny. It might
be a disruptive and it might hurt, but I don't
think you should buy insurance for it. But you should
buy insurance against the risk of needing to be evacuated back.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Yeah, I'm on the same page as this is what
I did this time for the upcoming trip. I only
they said how much is your cost? I said fifty bucks.
And even though I'm only ensuring my trip with the
fifty bucks, all that medical stuff still counts. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
So the good news is that these plans. These days,
there's there's a couple of websites, ones like I don't
know It's at cover your Trip or travel insurance dot com.
These these websites have these comparison tools or for multiple policies.
You can click with you want, I do want medical
coverage and I want it at this you know limit
I do or don't want? Cancel for any reason. You
put in your age and where you're going and how
(08:08):
much your trip costs, and they spit up premiums and
you can kind of zero down to the company that's
going to charge you a lot.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
And if you don't want to do that online they
do have there's a company, at least one company that
is sort of an independent insurer. Way you can tell
them what you want and they will help you decide
on which policy is right for you. Say I need
this that, and they asked do you want do you
want waiver of pre existing condition, et cetera. Can we
go back to something you said? I want to make
(08:33):
sure I heard it correctly. If you are on Medicare
and you have medical original Medicare, you are not covered.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
If you just have Plan A and B or just
A for Medicare you do not have coverage for for medical.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
But most everybody has to have the what's it called
the supplemental and usually whin the supplemental.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Some do, some do. Medicare advantage plans tend to have
some coverage. Yeah, when you travel abroad, but it's you.
It could be a low limit. So it really does
depend on where are you going. You know, right, what
are the risks of having to get evacuated back? I mean,
that's the big risk I think in terms of, you know,
catastrophic financially to you. So it's maybe the other thing
(09:14):
is like with these plans, you can buy an annual plan.
So if you know you're going to take three trips
this year or whatever, you might take three trips, you
can just buy a plan that covers you anywhere for
the year. For these medical plans, not necessarily for the
cancel for any reason stuff, those may be worth considering
again the travel insurance overall, as with any insurance, you're
going to pay more in than you're than on average
(09:36):
you're going to get out. That's just the way they work,
that's the way they make money. With these trip cancelation
plans that the airlines offer, they're ridiculously profitable for the
companies that write those policies.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
So the takeaway from US is, according to Kevin our guests,
is he doesn't recommend you really buy insurance just to
protect your airfa or maybe airfare in a hotel. If
you're taking an exotic or unique vacation, you might want
to and you may want to just get do what
you have to do to get medical insurance and evacuation
(10:08):
insurance as well.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Yeah, and also the other thing is some of these
tour operators. I was looking at a trip today, I
probably won't do it. It's like a backpacking trip through
Switzerland or something. And part of the requirements for this
trip was you had to show them before you arrived.
You had to show proof that you bought traveling true. Well,
the reason is is because now it alleviates that company
(10:30):
from having to deal with people in terms of, well,
I can't make the trip and so now you're not
going to dispute the transaction with your credit card company
or something like that. The travel operators like, well, you
bought travel insurance, so just deal with them, not with us.
We don't have to even deal with this this emergency
issue that came up with you. We don't have to
accommodate you at all.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
All right, good stuff. More to come after this On WBZ, It's.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Night Side with.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Can with travel advice. By the way, we'd love to
hear from you. Do you plan a trip, because it's
fun to talk about planning a trip and have you
been on one recently? We want to hear about it.
Your friends don't really want to hear about it. They'll say,
how was your trip? They don't really want to hear
about it. Watch their eyes glaze over when you start
to get into the details. But we all want to
hear six one, seven, two, five, ten thirty. And we've
(11:23):
been talking about the strategies and all, let me see
where should we should we do? Now? Oh? Yes, set
up alerts so you get informed when real airfare deals
show up.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Yeah, I mean I often get asked, you know, what's
the best way to you know, find the best deals
on airfare on travel, And the answer is always look,
if you can be flexible, be flexible, if you can,
if you can plan, uh, you know, start booking your
airfare nine months out maybe for the best. And the
reason is that, look, okay, if you have kids, and
(11:57):
you know you're gonna want to go somewhere during break,
and you know when the spring break is, well, you're
kind of locked into the week you're traveling, right, But
if you can be flexible, if you can go to
you know, Europe in February or March, it's significantly less
expensive than it is during the summer months around the holidays,
and we're talking about half price. Instead of being eleven
(12:18):
hundred dollars per round trip ticket, it maybe only five
hundred dollars or six hundred dollars per round trip ticket.
So the more flexibility you can have the more the
better your chances will be of getting good deals and
also being flexible in terms of your destination. Like you know,
if you're locked into going to Paris, okay, start planning
your trip to Paris at least if you can't be
(12:39):
flexible on dates, you try to go on the shoulder
season when it's less expensive. But the more flexible overall
that you can be, the better. I mean, I've seen
differences in airfare, you know, hundreds and hundreds of dollars,
just a difference of one day right that, you know,
instead of leaving on a Saturday leaving on a Monday.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
It's weird dynamic.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
And so the good news is that my favorite booking
site for airfares, Kayak, it has the best filters I
can put in there. I can say, look, I don't
want basic economy fares. Uh, you know my wife's gonna
want to check a bag, so include that in your thing.
I don't want to connect through certain airports.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
It just overall which airports do you not want to
connect through? Heathrow?
Speaker 3 (13:20):
No, I'm fine with you. Throw The main thing is
that if I'm going to connect through well, pretty much
any airport in Europe, I want to make sure I
have at least two hours to make the next good
work through that well, because you got to go through
basically their customs and security all over again. And the
Heathrow you got to go from half an hour from
(13:40):
your midfield terminal to terminal five, then you have to
go through security, then you have to go back out
to some midfield terminal. It's going to take you an
hour and a half probably to do that. They've got
a lot better with security. It's a lot faster there now,
but at some other airports, and you can just take
forever and also if there's a delay, well, you know,
it's hard to know whether you're going to be doing
later or not. A track or whatever if you have
(14:01):
a European direction is minimum for me?
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Yeah? Sometimes, like I remember Swiss Air fifty five minutes
the whole trip over, you're worried, am I going to
be able to do it? Cause it's it's like a gauntlet.
You got to be the first off the plane. People
is standing around. Oh, that uses up ten minutes, and
then you do have to go through the passport thing
and rego through probably reo through security, take shoes off again,
(14:26):
and you're just pulling your hair out. Am I gonna
make it? Then you run out of breath and you
just barely make it. If your plane had been even
five minutes late, you wouldn't have made it. Some two
hours is minimum some of these. It's crazy to say
it's going to be an hour to fifteen minute.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Layover, but every flight gets boarded by a bus. Oh yeah,
that's not so you have to go to the gate,
and then you go to the gate and you're not
even at the plane yet. You get on a bus.
You're on the bus for twenty minutes before you get
to the plane. So the bus leaves long before the
plane actually takes off, and so I'd say two hours.
So again, the nice think about you know, Kayak especially
(15:02):
is it just has the most filters. The filters work
I think better than you know, Google has a good
flight search, but I just think Kayak works better than
the others. You do have to watch out though for
these kind of and it's another tip we have in
here is that if you can, it's I think it's
always better to book directly with the airline now with
(15:23):
a third party website, and not with one of these
discounters like there's like e Dreams and all these other things.
And the reason is when you book these kind of
consolidated airfare, these companies that specialize in these cheaper tickets,
you're the lowest person on the totem poll when it
comes to you your fair class. So we once booked
a ticket through one of those companies and it was
(15:43):
on British Air and you know, live in the DC area.
We wanted to leave out of Dulles, which is twenty
five minutes from where we live, and at the last
minute British Air was like, now you're gonna fly out
of Baltimore instead, and your connection is going to and
your flight's going to be different. Your connection is going
to be a seven hour wait and he throw and
there's nothing I could do about it because I had
booked like the lowest cost fair class. Yeah, I had
(16:07):
no control over this trip at this point. Never again, right.
And the other thing is again when you book direct,
and this goes for hotels and other things. If you
could save a lot of money, fine, But if you're
not saving that much money, it's better to book direct
with any travel operator because if there's a problem, you
know who to go to to complain or even to
get a refund. There's not this third party website between
(16:30):
you and that operator. You know who owes me money?
How I'm gonna get a refund? If I need to
change things, do I have to contact this travel booking
side or can I just contact the airline and deal
with it.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
You mentioned the buses that sometimes you have to get
off the plane and get on a bus. This is
just a little bit of trivia. Travel trivia in Zurich.
In the Zurich airport. When you get on that bus'll
hear You'll hear they have a cow mooing. He goes moo.
It's weird because I guess they's such a cheese place.
They have cow mooing sound effects on that bus. It's
(17:01):
quite shocking. And you mentioned we just talked a little
bit about the websites where you don't know what you're
getting and it's like hot wiring, is it price? I
kind of enjoy those, and I just wanted to point
this out. If you're really a sleuth, you can pretty
(17:21):
come pretty close to figuring out which it is because
you can look at the picture of the show with
the place, and then you can go to the actual
hotel and maybe you can recognize the same thing out
the window. I know that's a lot of work.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
No, the big the key for me is they'll some
of these websites, they'll say it's a four star hotel
in San Francisco on knob Hill. It wouldn't say nob hill,
would know, would say not Hill, neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Neighborhoods, Okay, give it in that neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
And then it would say and you know, in four
and a half stars out of five in terms of
user reviews, and that's based on threeenty four and eighteen
rating and you just go down. You see. Oh okay,
well the Mark Hopkins International in San Francisco also has
three thousand, four hundred and eighteen ratings, so you know
which one it is.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
I really think they want you.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Oh, they don't care anymore.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
They used to.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
It used to be a big mystery when you book
these this wheel would spin.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
It was like.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
And price Line. Originally you'd bid and it didn't work,
so you'd have to come back the next day and
bid again. And now it's just now they've given up
on that. It's just it's their way of offering you
a discounted room. And they're getting around these contracts. So
hotels and these big booking websites, we won't.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Say where it is. If you give it a better deal,
that's right, give you big.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Now they had. Now they can give you a real
discount because all right, so the hotels and price Line
and Expeding, all these companies, they have contracts that say, essentially,
we're all going to charge the same price for the
same hotel rooms across all these different platforms for the
same stay, so they don't have to compete on price.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Right.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
The only way you can get a discount off that
regular price that they have to charge everyone is to whatever.
You can be a costco member now they can only
now they're only showing those rates to Costo members. You
can do these Priceline mystery deals. A lot of these
websites say log in or create account to see lower prices.
They're doing that because they can now give you a
(19:21):
lower rate than what they have to offer the general public.
It's not going to be considerably lower. It's going to
be like eight percent lower. But with hot wire and
price Line, we found that the you know, sometimes it's
say forty percent off the prevailing rate. By using these
these mystery deals, selecting one of these things.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
And another thing they do if you've never been there
is show you we promise it will be one of
these three or four hotels, so that nars it down
and they say, I don't know why they say this,
The last person who booked got this hotel. But a
lot of times all of the hotels are beautiful, fun
and you can set a filter.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
You could say, look, I only want to stay at
a four star plus hotel. I only want to stay
a place that has user rates means that are you know,
eighty percent highly favorable or whatever, I only want to
be in this neighborhood. You can kind of narrow it down.
The only risk with these hot wire hot rate deals
Priceline Express is what they call them, is that you
(20:15):
have to prepay. So you say, okay, this is the
one I want. You put in your credit card number,
you hit book, and you're locked in. There's no backing
out at that point. If you're not happy, or you
change your mind, or you've done what I've done before,
which is I booked for the wrong days, then it
becomes a hassle. But I have found that the hotels,
they won't refund your money. But if you if you
(20:36):
need to change your travel plans to move your trip
to different you know, weekend or my case, like book
the wrong weekend entirely, I can usually call the hotel.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
And I mean, this.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Is the thing about travel providers, is it's their business
to accommodate people and good hotels, the highly rated ones
for example, or more likely than not to say, oh, yeah,
you screwed up, We'll go ahead and move your state.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
No, I would like to ask you this question should
have a brief answer. When you have an airline that
has partners, say is Delta and Delta and Swiss together.
Maybe it's like Delta air France, maybe Delta. Okay, let's
just say there is. Yeah, what if the flight you
(21:21):
choose as you gone one airline out and the other
one back, does that present risks?
Speaker 3 (21:28):
I don't worry about that. What I worry about is
change in airlines midstream, right. Uh. You know, I know
a lot of people they find out I found it
was cheaper to fly from Maui to la on the
last airlines and then to switch to Delta, so.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Buy another ticket.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Yeah, but then now they gotta you know, come out
of security, get their luggage if they have checked bags,
switch terminals, go back through security just takes a long time.
And also if there's a delay on one end of
their trip, well, you know the second and the second
half of the triple, Delta doesn't have to commodate you.
You're you're not late because of Delta, you're late because
of some other airline.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Yeah, So these people who do that, I always think
that's little nuts. Personally, I do think it's worth paying
attention to, especially with these mixed fares as you describe them. Yeah,
is there some kind of terminal change and my connection is.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Extra complications and if something goes wrong you call airline
one that you book through, Yeah, and they go, oh no,
now you're going to talk to airline too, even though
their partners you didn't book it.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
It's a little more competent. Yeah, I have you know,
I have booked often booked flights through American airlines website
that have me on British air and I haven't had
trouble at all, and they seem to be pretty synced up.
I think Air France, Kaleum Delta, they're very much synced
up because they're basically flying you across Europe and the
same tubes.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Right, there's another thing. You may be booking thinking and
going the whole way on airline one, say Delta, but
you didn't notice that. You can check, but the second
leg of your fly might be on some entirely different
airplane airline you thought was Delta. It's say it'll say
Delta flight one, two, three, four, operated by air small
(23:12):
Greek airline. Yeah, it's good to know ahead of the time.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
That's good to know, and it doesn't worry me so
much as long as again, you don't you know, you
have to like midstream change terminals and do something.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
You know, it's disconcerting. You're looking for that maybe a
little your brand, and you say, WHOA, I don't know
if I trust this airline, this weird airline stuck way
out in some sad little corner of the airport you
have to take the bus to. They're not a very
they're not very high on a totem pole here.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
My favorite is when I look for Airfair and I say, oh,
this looks like a good price, and in the the
itiner area is flying from DC to LaGuardia and then
from there having to make my way to jfk oh
All to Europe, and I'm like, no, nobody's doing this.
And then you have this shuttle so it's supposed to
be so I'm you know, okay, but you still gotta
go across Long Island. Basically you gotta go.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
It's a giant hassle when you're really tired and lugging
stuff around and maybe you have gets you can't. That
is a huge thing.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Got to collect your It's just too much.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
There's another thing to watch out for. When you're booking tickets.
You may forget to check the layover A lot of
times I'll say, oh wow, look at that airfare. Make
sure you read about the connection time before you.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Click twenty hours at Casa Blanca.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
For twenty four or thirty two hours, then maybe you
have time to go into the town. But you gotta
check all those little details. It is a lot of work,
isn't it. I'm surprised I even bother.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
I mean, some people they do it on purpose. They
want to spend twenty hours in Casablanca, they want to
have a meal there, and I don't know. But for me,
I know, I want to get to where I'm going.
I don't that that whole long layover thing. It's just
not for me, you know.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Okay. We have some more actionable, solid information and travel
tips coming up on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Right after this, It's Night Side with Dan Ray on
Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
More excellent travel tips with Kevin Bresla from checkbook dot org.
This is important. I'm surprised we let it go. This
long sell service your phone. I used to be I
use it. As you may know, I used to be
very frugal and cheap and buy everything cheap. And now
I'm not cheap. I'll play more, I'll pay more. And
(25:27):
I don't really have any more money. It's I don't
have the patience I used to. Maybe I'm just older.
I want a little more comfort, I want a little
more convenience. And before I would I didn't get any
cell service. I what did I do? I just would
use messenger but that way, but that way you can't.
I couldn't get directions, I couldn't use apps to find places.
(25:52):
So finally I decided on a cell plan, and I
wanted you to talk to us about well the ins
and outs of that.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
All right, So the good news is when you go abroad,
if you have you know, with if you're with T Mobile, Verizon,
AT and T and even some of these resellers, right,
your phone will work when you get abroad. Although if
you're like with a smaller company like Consumer Cellular or
Boost or Mint or whatever, you need to find out
in advance what you need to do to get your
phone to work abroad, or even if you can. But
with the three main carriers, your phone's gonna work when
(26:25):
you land abroad. That's the good news.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
You purchasel, No, it'll work, Oh, it'll work. What what's
in the play is how much.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
You want, how much you could pay for the privilege,
right because these companies they have partnerships with the cell
companies in Europe. But you you may pay extra, and
with some of these plans you may pay a lot
extra if you don't have a research in advance. So
so the best deal for international travel in terms of
US cell phone carriers is probably T Mobile because T Mobile,
(26:55):
if you're going to Europe most countries in Europe, you
don't pay anymore U to have Gervis in Europe, so
long as you have a conventional plan. If you have
these prepaid plans, it's a whole different topic, okay, But
if you have a regular plan with TEA Mobile, your
phone is going to work in Europe and you don't
have to pay more. That's a nice thing. With AT
and T, your phone will automatically switch over to its
(27:15):
international calling stuff. And it's ten bucks a day for
the first line, and I think five bucks a day
for the second line. And you can buy a monthly
plan if you're going to be there for a long
time to make it makes more financial sense. But just
you know, for for me in my family and the
family of four, you know, these costs start to add
up right ten dollars a day per line. Right with Verizon,
(27:38):
it's now twelve dollars a day per line. So a
family of four is gonna pay forty eight dollars a
day for the privilege of having a non bricked phone.
When abroad, Verizon finally started waving that extra and you
also had to enroll on that plan. You had to
know to enroll on Verizons per day plan before you go,
(27:58):
otherwise they're going to charge you per like megabyte of
data and stuff in the cost.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
If you send a video, you're going to get kids.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
I've talked to people who had thousands of dollars, you know,
came back home and a few days later got their
cell phone bill and it was four thousand dollars because
they didn't notice.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Is there any way out of that? Are they stuck?
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Not really pretty much stuck. So you have to know
any advanced with Verizon. Exfinity is another one. They have
a cell service for their their data home internet customers.
They're basically reselling Verizon stuff. They're charging ten dollars a
day per line. So for me, when I had Exfinity
for a while, Exfinity Mobile, we go abroad and I'd
tell my kids, you'd put your phone airplane mode for
(28:35):
this whole trip, because I'm not paying twenty dollars a
day for their lines.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
And if they sent a video to their friend.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Well they have to do it over Wi Fi, right,
and so you know before if they obeyed you, they
were they were annoyed. The good news is Verizon started
waving that twelve dollars a day fee or whatever, but
only if you're with its top top tier plan. And
so you know, you're you're paying hundreds of dollars a
(29:02):
month for the privilege of having Verizon top to your plan.
You may be saving something when you're fad, but I'm
not sure to worth that. I think the short answer
is the best deal is T Mobile. Another good deal
is you can buy a SIM. You can actually before
your trip or once you get there, you can switch
your phone over entirely to that foreign carriers network and
(29:23):
it's a lot cheaper. It's like, you know, a couple
of dollars a day and.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
You and you have a different phone number.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Right now, you have a different phone number, You're you're
you're old. If most new phones have dual SIM capacity,
So somebody from the US is trying to call or
text you, you'll get it. But yeah, it with with
older phones that don't have that. If switch back and forth,
people will not be able to touch with a little
bit of a pain is if you're going to be
abroad for three months, you definitely should get one of
(29:49):
these others because you just don't have to pay.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Some okay, and it is super imperative that you have data,
and you have really unlimited data because there's so much
stuff that you have to do online, uh where not
just get directions, but if you plan on going you
say I'd like to go on a side trip to
a town maybe an hour out of town, you have
(30:12):
to have the phone to book the.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Tickets right because they know what train to get on.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
And know what train right, what train to get on,
because if you don't, you have to go to the
station and there may not be tickets there and and
so you need to You've got to book stuff in advance.
And if you want to make a reservation at a restaurant,
perhaps it's really imperative.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
I mean there's there's Wi Fi abroad is way better
in Europe and in Asia is usually way better than here.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
But if you're in a building, it's you got to
find out their password, and if you're if you're on
the street, you got to go in some restaurant and
ask that password. You got enough on your mind.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
And the other thing is that, uh, you know, outside
the US, like the standard communication tool isn't texts and
phone calls, it's it's What's app. What's which is an
app that you know basically Facebook bought up a while back,
but that's their standard way of communicating. They generally don't text.
They use WhatsApp to send these texts. And it's Internet based,
(31:12):
and so if you don't have an Internet connection or
sell connection, then you're not gonna get messages. You need
to meet up with the host for your apartment or whatever.
You're just not gonna be able to communicate with people
in Europe. You know, you're not gonna be able to
tell a restaurant yes I can from a reservation kind
of stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
All right, we have only one more segment left here
with Kevin Wrestler, and then well I'll be out of here.
Dan Ray will be in tomorrow night on Nightside.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's
news radio.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Only a few more minutes left with Kevin Bresler. Check
book dot org. You might want to check that out.
Check book dot org some real solid travel tips. It
almost there's so many things that can go wrong, it's
almost would make folks go, never mind, I'm staying home.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Yeah. I've gotten back from some trips and said, that's it.
I'm not going anymore.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
We say it all the time, that's it. I'm done.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
I'm not worth the hassle.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
I'm done. I'm gonna. I always say I'm just gonna
go up to New Hampshire or maybe maybe Quebec, and
then it never happens. Yeah, okay, Uh, we haven't mentioned
the reminder to check out the plugs that you have
to use in your country. That.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
Yeah, I mean a lot of I know a lot
of people they just enjoy kind of you know, flying
by the seat of their pants, right, But I think
there's some things that are just worth checking in advance.
You know, what you know are if you're in really
anywhere outside the Europe, outside North America, the plugs you use,
what you plug in when you go abroad. There's different plugs.
You buy adapters. It's really easy to do, but just
you know, there's different types. Know which one to get.
(32:53):
You know, we mentioned WhatsApp, you know, just kind of
find out, you know, how to people mostly communicate in
the country.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Make sure to check out find out what app is
used to get transportation. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Yeah, And that's the weird thing.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Is we're in a lot of places not the case.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
Uber sometimes lifts, sometimes it doesn't. Some countries, like just
got back from Barcelona and there there aren't there is
an uber or lyft, but there are ten cabs every
block it seems like waiting to pick you up. And
it's good to know and advance. Hey, you know that
they're only going to charge me eleven euros or something
to get me mostly across town. It's pretty cheap to
get a cab. In Barcelona and some other cities it's
(33:28):
a lot more expensive to get a cab. And in
some cities the cab doesn't have to give you any
information on fares. They drop you off and can demand
fifty bucks.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Well that's not a genuine cab.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
It's not. But just in sometimes be careful.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
About getting a genuine gap.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
I think it's just it's good to know in advance
what the norms are how the cabs operate. Is it
a meter, Is there an app for it? Is there
an express train into the sea one some If it
doesn't have a meter, don't get in it. Yeah, it's
just so much easier now to research these things than
(34:03):
it used to be because of the Internet, obviously, but
I just think, you know, before you go, just take
those basic steps. The other thing I do is I check,
so I'm just not confused when I get on the ground.
You know, what's the tipping norms in that country? They
very tremendously from country to country in Europe and across
the world. In some some countries, you know, tipping is
(34:23):
just kind of unheard of, and so you know you
don't need to worry about it. In other countries like Spain,
it's not expected, but it's appreciated. If you tip five
ten percent of your restaurant bill. Cabs don't really expect
it at all. I mean, it's just kind of different.
Everything sure is quick story.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
And if folks know you're an American, they're going to expect
a tip because they know, yeah, you're used to tipping.
And in Istanbul, my brother and I ate to this
place and we I guess didn't leave what the guy
thought Americans were used to leaving or should leave, and
he yelled at us, actually physically yelled loudly in the
(35:02):
restaurant backsheesh, backsheesh, which I guess means it has to
it's about money. Yeah, And he, you know, yelled and
embarrassed us, and then we thought, what's going on? Are
people going to come after us? Backshish?
Speaker 3 (35:16):
I just in general, I find the tipping thing is
to me is it's always a little uncomfortable you no
matter where you are, right right, But if you know
and advance what the norms are and what they expect,
it just makes it a little bit smoother for me.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Isn't it difficult for you to not tip like a
little bit, especially say you're in France and they don't
expect it, but they've been so nice to you, Ben.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
Translate everything for the rest of the family or whatever, right,
and the kid doesn't want what's on the minute, she
wants pasta just with a little bit of butter, and
trying to explain that, and they're so welcoming tonight, and
then and then it's they don't expect any tip it
all because they because they get paid at a living wags.
Like a waiter's job in Paris, for example, is a
good job to have because you know, they have pretty
(35:58):
short hours and then they get paid wage.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
I like to tip, not as not twenty percent, because that's.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Like ooh this, that's like, yeah, you're it's like.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
You're a sucker American. But you give them something more
than they're used to, but not as much as we pay.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Somewhere in the countries that is normal, like it is
like tipping norms are more and as you said, in
some countries, like in the touristy areas which I kind
of try to avoid restaurants tours series, you know, so
in I think a good example is in like Prague
when I was there, and in Barcelona, tipping really isn't
expected at all. Most people don't tip, or they tip
me only like five or ten percent. But if you're
(36:33):
in like the more touristy restaurant, no, there's actually a
place on the uh you know, they bring you the
thing to your table to pay, right, they don't. They
don't take your credit card and come back with it.
They have a little wireless thing. A lot of US
restaurants are doing this now, and in those restaurants, it's
actually there's a place where you can add gratuity because
more Americans are there, and therefore you know, they're happy
to get the money, right, And so now it's uncomfortable again,
(36:54):
right like, well, normally people don't tip, but I guess
I'm gonna tip here because you're presenting with the option. Again,
it's just better to know in advance what the norms
are and what the the customs are, and so you're
you know, it's just a little bit easier. I find
a little more comfortable to know in advance what but
expects them.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Here's a good one. Watch lots of YouTube videos about
where you're gonna go. I don't know if you do.
I do that a lot. For Spain, there's this guy
named James Blick who's just fantastic. And then for France
there's live Frenchies, this husband and wife who just they
go to French restaurants and they talk about the place.
And that way, I found restaurants that I wanted to
(37:30):
go to and I don't. I don't feel bad if
I don't get there, but at least if you walking
by and say, hey, we saw that one on the
headline and you have some idea of what it's like
and it's kind of fun.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
Or you know what to expect. If you're renting a
car and you go through a toll plaza, Okay, god,
what do I which? Which one am I looking for?
You know which sign above which thing? And how am
I going to pay? It's just better to know in advance,
which is and that's why I said to do a
little bit of research and advance, because driving in Europe
can be very different than here in some countries. If
you're going from Germany, which really doesn't have many toll
(38:02):
roads at all, into you know, Slovakia or whatever, like
the toll roads. Oh no, you need to buy this
pass for your car. Basically, you need to register your
license plate to pay for the tolls in advance. It's
like plate passes here in the US, but you may
not know about that. You get all the way over
there and you have to register this thing and it again,
if you don't have a good cell service, kind of
(38:24):
go into panic mode. It's just better to know and
advance what you need to do so that once you
get there, you're just not trying on the fly figure
stuff out to me that's just it's just more comfortable
for me to know and advance what I need to
be doing before I get there.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
What do you have to offer on whether to drive
or take a train at your say.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
You're in Europe, I strongly prefer trains, but when I'm
traveling with my family, it just becomes a little It's
usually easier just let's just run a car because there's
four of us, we have a lot of luggage and right.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
And you'd have to pay four train.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Tickets for train tickets. And then also I always.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Feel and your kids would complain.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
I think they'd like to they'd like the trains. I
just feel now more responsible, Like in Europe sometimes you
only have like two minutes to change trains if there's
a transfer.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Yeah, and I just you know.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
If it's just me and I miss it or what,
I'm fine. But now I'm there, I'm like the travel dad,
and I'm like responsible for everyone, and there's a lot
more pressure there.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
What about tips on when you rent a car and.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
Well, I would say, first of all, be patient because
for some reason, renting a car in Europe often can
take an hour for them to get to you in
line and to pull the car around or tell you
where it is. And also in Europe they are far
more particular about every little nick and scratch on that
car than most US car companies are. So definitely before
(39:43):
you leave with your car, you take a video of
the whole car and note every little piece of damage
on there. The good news is they are less pushy
about insurance there because by law on the EU, for example,
the car insurance company, they have to carry a lot
of liability covering. And also if you're booking with a
travel where they have a credit card, you get some
(40:03):
protections there, so you're usually better covered in Europe by
default than you were in the US.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
I have one tip learned the hard way about train travel.
There's so many trains, even in smaller stations, that you
may know where you're going to go at what time.
So you go out to platform three and you generally
you see it's close to the time your train's coming.
(40:31):
Say it's one o'clock and you see a train pulling
it twelve fifty five, we would tend to think, oh,
it's got to be my train. Do not assume that
trains have numbers. Check the number on the ticket, because
that train could be would leave and then your train
could be coming one minute behind that. So I made
(40:52):
a mistake in some tiny place in Normandy and on
the wrong train we got We thought, this is our train.
Oh my god, it's you know, this has to be it.
We got on and it was the wrong train. Happily
we were able to get off, and there was a
connection that was had the same connection, so we were
(41:13):
able to It was all right, but it was a
close call and it would have been just a kind
of an expensive pain. Well, let's do it for tonight.
Thanks for being with us. You flew all the way
from DC to be with us, and it's really helpful.
Checkbook dot org does have a lot of information on services,
including all this travel stuff, and this is a good article.
If there's something that we touched on that you want
(41:36):
to know more about, you want the whole article. It's
called sixty Strategies for finding the best travel deals and
avoiding trouble and that's checkbook dot org and uh I
kind of recommend it. Kevin. We really appreciate you coming
by here in person. It's always so great to have
someone in the studio and you know you have a happy,
(41:58):
happy trip to wherever you're going next, where.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
You go next, I'm not sure. I mean, we just
got back from Spain and you take a breather, all right.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
So thanks to Troy, thanks to Rob Brooks for working
the wheel back there and Master Control, and to all
of you. Thank you for your support and being with
us on night side for the past few days. I
appreciate it. Dan Ray will be in tomorrow.
It's night Side with Dan Ray. I'm telling you Boston's
Speech Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Oh my goodness, this is the final all hour for me.
Dan will be in tomorrow night. And we continue with
Kevin Brasler of checkbook dot org, and we're talking about
some real solid tips for travel not you know, these
are real actionable stuff, stuff that will save you a
lot of money, stuff that might save your trip. In fact,
(00:28):
what should we talk about next? We didn't talk about
the insurance yet. I might as well get that out
of the.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Way, out of the way. Yeah, I have our argument
about that.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
We have an ongoing argument. I'm sort of changing my
mind a little bit. But uh, do you recommend that
you get the insurance A the insurance the airlines offer
or B third party insurance? Why or why not?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Okay, definitely don't buy the stuff the airlines are offering you.
And definitely don't buy the stuff like all these travel websites,
these booking websites offer you, because what they're offering is
like trip cancelation and interruption coverage. And if you if
you dig into these policies that like the American Airlines
Travel Protection Plan that they're selling you, you know, I
(01:08):
dug into what it's like thirty pages. There's all these exclusions.
They have all these reasons for, you know, denying your claim.
So don't buy those plans. If you want to buy
travel insurance, buy what's called there's two types. One's called
cancel for any reason, and that is what it sounds like,
where if you can't make the trip, either because there's
(01:28):
a death in your family, or somebody gets sick, or
there's some kind of turmoil in that part of the world,
or you just decide you don't feel like going, you
can cancel your trip and they'll give you your money back, however,
any prepaid fees back.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
However, there are restrictions.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
There are still restrictions, and a big one is that
say so, the good news is these days, if you
decide not to take a trip and you cancel your
air ticket, you say, okay, I'm telling the airline I'm
going to cancel my tenerary. The good news is they'll
give you a trip credit. They won't charge you this
two hundred dollars change fee that they used to charge everyone.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
They just is that a thing with all airlines at
all levels, even the cheap tickets.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Except basic Economy. With Basic Economy, you usually if you
cancel your ticket, you don't get your money back, or
you only get fifty percent back, depends on the airline
where you're going. For these cancel with any reason travel
insurance policies, they only kick in for money that you
have lost, that you prepaid for a trip that you
(02:27):
can't get back. And if you get back a trip
credit from an airline, they consider that, well, you didn't
lose anything, can you still the value of that ticket?
And so, as you know, Bradley, we've talked about this before,
and I actually written about your experience once. Didn't use
your name, but you can use mine. But no, actually,
but you decided not to go to like Greece. You
remember that you had a Basic because I wrote about
(02:48):
it because and you had a Basic Economy ticket and
you so you said, I did it, decided not to go.
You had bought the cancel for any Reason policy, and
you called the insurance company and they said, okay, we
just have to prove to us that you didn't get
a trip credit. Well, you can't prove a negative. It
was a Basic Economy fair there is no trip credit,
and it just it was a lot of hassle for you.
I think you did get your money back, but it
was a big hassle. It was interesting to get back.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
It was interesting because, first of all, the restrictions on
that are significant. In that particular policy, you had to
do this cancel for reason within forty eight hours of
departure right number one and two. You only get seventy
five percent of your money back, right.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
And another problem with these plans is that they are expensive.
You end up paying it's usually between fifteen to twenty
percent of the cost of the value of your trip.
So if it's a cruise and you paid five thousand dollars,
the travel insurance for that cruise could be like eight
hundred dollars. It depends on your age and where you're going,
because to me that much, well it can't be. You know,
(03:48):
as you're getting up in years, Bradley, your premiums are
going to go up for these plans because I might
drop that over there, or you just you get sick
before you go and you're canceling because you can't go
because you need surgery, or I had something happen, or
somebody your travel partner had something happen. So they're expensive.
They don't always cover the full cost to your trip.
But the good news is with these plans is they
(04:09):
don't have this long list of exclusions the stuff that
the airlines are, so this stuff the airlines are, Sonny
was dunk, please don't buy it. If I would say
that here's why you should buy travel insurance to cover
the costs of your trip, is that if it's a
unique trip, if you're booking a cruise and there's no
refunds allowed period, consider getting travel insurance. Although personally I
(04:29):
wouldn't buy it. If you're gonna take if you're like
doing some kind of group tour or package or something
like that in Europe, you have to pay up front.
I guess consider buying it, but just know it's expensive.
I alce took a trip to Alaska and I stayed
in this lodge and like the other side of Denali,
And it was one of those things where, uh, well,
my wife, is that.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
The one where there went farest fires?
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Well that was that was a different thing. It was
the same trip, but this place was like six hundred
dollars a night and I was going for like five nights,
and I was like, man, my mom hasn't been well.
I end up not buying the insurance, but I mean
I didn't feel good about it. Those are the types
of trips where if it's high risk, if you know, look,
something might happen, I might not be able to make
this trip and I have to prepay for a lot
of stuff, maybe it's worth buying the insurance, but even
(05:13):
then it's it's expensive for what it is. The other
type of plan that you should consider buying, though, are
medical plans. If you're going abroad and you're on Medicare
and you don't have a Medicare advantage plan, especially if
you're just on straight Medicare, you do not have coverage
for medical costs while you're abroad, it won't cover you,
and some private health insurance plans won't cover you either.
(05:33):
So if you have private insurance or Medicare advantage, check
to see what you get. Does it cover foreign medical care,
Especially if you're older, it's important that you might be
important to you have that coverage, especially going a part
of the world where the medical care isn't very good
and you might need to be kind of extracted or
ambulanced back, that's when it gets expensive. I had a
(05:55):
friend who was in Uganda and she got in this
really bad car accident, had this really add back injury,
had to be evacuated back to the US for like
emergency surgery. And let me guess, okay, well now I've
given you.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
You gave me the first numberty grand.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
No, it was like it was around two hundred thousand
dollars is what it cost her to get back.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
And fortunately somebody at her church stepped up and paid that,
because otherwise she's gonna be paralyzed for life.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I'm gonna go on to church. Yeah, joined the Church
of Latter day Saints. They'll take care of me.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
No, But so yeah, I think you know that's something
worth buying, is if you're going abroad, especially if you're
on Medicare, you don't have coverage for it. Uh, you
always say, and you should buy insurance to protect against
something against risks that if they happened, they would be
financially catastrophic to you. So you need to ensure your
home because if your house burns down, you're gonna lose
(06:50):
what for most of us is our biggest asset, right,
and even if you're renting, you're gonna lose all your belongings.
If you haven't sure, you need to ensure. If you
own a car, you need to have adequate vehicle insurance,
not just to protect the value of the car, but
in case you hurt somebody and get suited. Yeah, that's
the big one. That's a big one, a liability. These days,
everyone really needs healthcare insurance. Otherwise, you know, if you
(07:10):
get sick and you're not gonna be able before people
go bankrupt trying to pay medical bills. I don't think
you need to buy insurance to protect yourself for a
four hundred dollars round trip airfare or even a three
thousand dollars vacation. That's not gonna be funny. It might
be a disruptive and it might hurt, but I don't
think you should buy insurance for it. But you should
buy insurance against the risk of needing to be evacuated back.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Yeah, I'm on the same page as this is what
I did this time for the upcoming trip. I only
they said how much is your cost? I said fifty bucks.
And even though I'm only ensuring my trip with the
fifty bucks, all that medical stuff still counts. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
So the good news is that these plans. These days,
there's there's a couple of websites, ones like I don't
know It's at cover your Trip or travel insurance dot com.
These these websites have these comparison tools or for multiple policies.
You can click with you want, I do want medical
coverage and I want it at this you know limit
I do or don't want? Cancel for any reason. You
put in your age and where you're going and how
(08:08):
much your trip costs, and they spit up premiums and
you can kind of zero down to the company that's
going to charge you a lot.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
And if you don't want to do that online they
do have there's a company, at least one company that
is sort of an independent insurer. Way you can tell
them what you want and they will help you decide
on which policy is right for you. Say I need
this that, and they asked do you want do you
want waiver of pre existing condition, et cetera. Can we
go back to something you said? I want to make
(08:33):
sure I heard it correctly. If you are on Medicare
and you have medical original Medicare, you are not covered.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
If you just have Plan A and B or just
A for Medicare you do not have coverage for for medical.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
But most everybody has to have the what's it called
the supplemental and usually whin the supplemental.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Some do, some do. Medicare advantage plans tend to have
some coverage. Yeah, when you travel abroad, but it's you.
It could be a low limit. So it really does
depend on where are you going. You know, right, what
are the risks of having to get evacuated back? I mean,
that's the big risk I think in terms of, you know,
catastrophic financially to you. So it's maybe the other thing
(09:14):
is like with these plans, you can buy an annual plan.
So if you know you're going to take three trips
this year or whatever, you might take three trips, you
can just buy a plan that covers you anywhere for
the year. For these medical plans, not necessarily for the
cancel for any reason stuff, those may be worth considering
again the travel insurance overall, as with any insurance, you're
going to pay more in than you're than on average
(09:36):
you're going to get out. That's just the way they work,
that's the way they make money. With these trip cancelation
plans that the airlines offer, they're ridiculously profitable for the
companies that write those policies.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
So the takeaway from US is, according to Kevin our guests,
is he doesn't recommend you really buy insurance just to
protect your airfa or maybe airfare in a hotel. If
you're taking an exotic or unique vacation, you might want
to and you may want to just get do what
you have to do to get medical insurance and evacuation
(10:08):
insurance as well.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Yeah, and also the other thing is some of these
tour operators. I was looking at a trip today, I
probably won't do it. It's like a backpacking trip through
Switzerland or something. And part of the requirements for this
trip was you had to show them before you arrived.
You had to show proof that you bought traveling true. Well,
the reason is is because now it alleviates that company
(10:30):
from having to deal with people in terms of, well,
I can't make the trip and so now you're not
going to dispute the transaction with your credit card company
or something like that. The travel operators like, well, you
bought travel insurance, so just deal with them, not with us.
We don't have to even deal with this this emergency
issue that came up with you. We don't have to
accommodate you at all.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
All right, good stuff. More to come after this On WBZ, It's.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Night Side with.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Can with travel advice. By the way, we'd love to
hear from you. Do you plan a trip, because it's
fun to talk about planning a trip and have you
been on one recently? We want to hear about it.
Your friends don't really want to hear about it. They'll say,
how was your trip? They don't really want to hear
about it. Watch their eyes glaze over when you start
to get into the details. But we all want to
hear six one, seven, two, five, ten thirty. And we've
(11:23):
been talking about the strategies and all, let me see
where should we should we do? Now? Oh? Yes, set
up alerts so you get informed when real airfare deals
show up.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Yeah, I mean I often get asked, you know, what's
the best way to you know, find the best deals
on airfare on travel, And the answer is always look,
if you can be flexible, be flexible, if you can,
if you can plan, uh, you know, start booking your
airfare nine months out maybe for the best. And the
reason is that, look, okay, if you have kids, and
(11:57):
you know you're gonna want to go somewhere during break,
and you know when the spring break is, well, you're
kind of locked into the week you're traveling, right, But
if you can be flexible, if you can go to
you know, Europe in February or March, it's significantly less
expensive than it is during the summer months around the holidays,
and we're talking about half price. Instead of being eleven
(12:18):
hundred dollars per round trip ticket, it maybe only five
hundred dollars or six hundred dollars per round trip ticket.
So the more flexibility you can have the more the
better your chances will be of getting good deals and
also being flexible in terms of your destination. Like you know,
if you're locked into going to Paris, okay, start planning
your trip to Paris at least if you can't be
(12:39):
flexible on dates, you try to go on the shoulder
season when it's less expensive. But the more flexible overall
that you can be, the better. I mean, I've seen
differences in airfare, you know, hundreds and hundreds of dollars,
just a difference of one day right that, you know,
instead of leaving on a Saturday leaving on a Monday.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
It's weird dynamic.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
And so the good news is that my favorite booking
site for airfares, Kayak, it has the best filters I
can put in there. I can say, look, I don't
want basic economy fares. Uh, you know my wife's gonna
want to check a bag, so include that in your thing.
I don't want to connect through certain airports.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
It just overall which airports do you not want to
connect through? Heathrow?
Speaker 3 (13:20):
No, I'm fine with you. Throw The main thing is
that if I'm going to connect through well, pretty much
any airport in Europe, I want to make sure I
have at least two hours to make the next good
work through that well, because you got to go through
basically their customs and security all over again. And the
Heathrow you got to go from half an hour from
(13:40):
your midfield terminal to terminal five, then you have to
go through security, then you have to go back out
to some midfield terminal. It's going to take you an
hour and a half probably to do that. They've got
a lot better with security. It's a lot faster there now,
but at some other airports, and you can just take
forever and also if there's a delay, well, you know,
it's hard to know whether you're going to be doing
later or not. A track or whatever if you have
(14:01):
a European direction is minimum for me?
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Yeah? Sometimes, like I remember Swiss Air fifty five minutes
the whole trip over, you're worried, am I going to
be able to do it? Cause it's it's like a gauntlet.
You got to be the first off the plane. People
is standing around. Oh, that uses up ten minutes, and
then you do have to go through the passport thing
and rego through probably reo through security, take shoes off again,
(14:26):
and you're just pulling your hair out. Am I gonna
make it? Then you run out of breath and you
just barely make it. If your plane had been even
five minutes late, you wouldn't have made it. Some two
hours is minimum some of these. It's crazy to say
it's going to be an hour to fifteen minute.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Layover, but every flight gets boarded by a bus. Oh yeah,
that's not so you have to go to the gate,
and then you go to the gate and you're not
even at the plane yet. You get on a bus.
You're on the bus for twenty minutes before you get
to the plane. So the bus leaves long before the
plane actually takes off, and so I'd say two hours.
So again, the nice think about you know, Kayak especially
(15:02):
is it just has the most filters. The filters work
I think better than you know, Google has a good
flight search, but I just think Kayak works better than
the others. You do have to watch out though for
these kind of and it's another tip we have in
here is that if you can, it's I think it's
always better to book directly with the airline now with
(15:23):
a third party website, and not with one of these
discounters like there's like e Dreams and all these other things.
And the reason is when you book these kind of
consolidated airfare, these companies that specialize in these cheaper tickets,
you're the lowest person on the totem poll when it
comes to you your fair class. So we once booked
a ticket through one of those companies and it was
(15:43):
on British Air and you know, live in the DC area.
We wanted to leave out of Dulles, which is twenty
five minutes from where we live, and at the last
minute British Air was like, now you're gonna fly out
of Baltimore instead, and your connection is going to and
your flight's going to be different. Your connection is going
to be a seven hour wait and he throw and
there's nothing I could do about it because I had
booked like the lowest cost fair class. Yeah, I had
(16:07):
no control over this trip at this point. Never again, right.
And the other thing is again when you book direct,
and this goes for hotels and other things. If you
could save a lot of money, fine, But if you're
not saving that much money, it's better to book direct
with any travel operator because if there's a problem, you
know who to go to to complain or even to
get a refund. There's not this third party website between
(16:30):
you and that operator. You know who owes me money?
How I'm gonna get a refund? If I need to
change things, do I have to contact this travel booking
side or can I just contact the airline and deal
with it.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
You mentioned the buses that sometimes you have to get
off the plane and get on a bus. This is
just a little bit of trivia. Travel trivia in Zurich.
In the Zurich airport. When you get on that bus'll
hear You'll hear they have a cow mooing. He goes moo.
It's weird because I guess they's such a cheese place.
They have cow mooing sound effects on that bus. It's
(17:01):
quite shocking. And you mentioned we just talked a little
bit about the websites where you don't know what you're
getting and it's like hot wiring, is it price? I
kind of enjoy those, and I just wanted to point
this out. If you're really a sleuth, you can pretty
(17:21):
come pretty close to figuring out which it is because
you can look at the picture of the show with
the place, and then you can go to the actual
hotel and maybe you can recognize the same thing out
the window. I know that's a lot of work.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
No, the big the key for me is they'll some
of these websites, they'll say it's a four star hotel
in San Francisco on knob Hill. It wouldn't say nob hill,
would know, would say not Hill, neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Neighborhoods, Okay, give it in that neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
And then it would say and you know, in four
and a half stars out of five in terms of
user reviews, and that's based on threeenty four and eighteen
rating and you just go down. You see. Oh okay,
well the Mark Hopkins International in San Francisco also has
three thousand, four hundred and eighteen ratings, so you know
which one it is.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
I really think they want you.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Oh, they don't care anymore.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
They used to.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
It used to be a big mystery when you book
these this wheel would spin.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
It was like.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
And price Line. Originally you'd bid and it didn't work,
so you'd have to come back the next day and
bid again. And now it's just now they've given up
on that. It's just it's their way of offering you
a discounted room. And they're getting around these contracts. So
hotels and these big booking websites, we won't.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Say where it is. If you give it a better deal,
that's right, give you big.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Now they had. Now they can give you a real
discount because all right, so the hotels and price Line
and Expeding, all these companies, they have contracts that say, essentially,
we're all going to charge the same price for the
same hotel rooms across all these different platforms for the
same stay, so they don't have to compete on price.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Right.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
The only way you can get a discount off that
regular price that they have to charge everyone is to whatever.
You can be a costco member now they can only
now they're only showing those rates to Costo members. You
can do these Priceline mystery deals. A lot of these
websites say log in or create account to see lower prices.
They're doing that because they can now give you a
(19:21):
lower rate than what they have to offer the general public.
It's not going to be considerably lower. It's going to
be like eight percent lower. But with hot wire and
price Line, we found that the you know, sometimes it's
say forty percent off the prevailing rate. By using these
these mystery deals, selecting one of these things.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
And another thing they do if you've never been there
is show you we promise it will be one of
these three or four hotels, so that nars it down
and they say, I don't know why they say this,
The last person who booked got this hotel. But a
lot of times all of the hotels are beautiful, fun
and you can set a filter.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
You could say, look, I only want to stay at
a four star plus hotel. I only want to stay
a place that has user rates means that are you know,
eighty percent highly favorable or whatever, I only want to
be in this neighborhood. You can kind of narrow it down.
The only risk with these hot wire hot rate deals
Priceline Express is what they call them, is that you
(20:15):
have to prepay. So you say, okay, this is the
one I want. You put in your credit card number,
you hit book, and you're locked in. There's no backing
out at that point. If you're not happy, or you
change your mind, or you've done what I've done before,
which is I booked for the wrong days, then it
becomes a hassle. But I have found that the hotels,
they won't refund your money. But if you if you
(20:36):
need to change your travel plans to move your trip
to different you know, weekend or my case, like book
the wrong weekend entirely, I can usually call the hotel.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
And I mean, this.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Is the thing about travel providers, is it's their business
to accommodate people and good hotels, the highly rated ones
for example, or more likely than not to say, oh, yeah,
you screwed up, We'll go ahead and move your state.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
No, I would like to ask you this question should
have a brief answer. When you have an airline that
has partners, say is Delta and Delta and Swiss together.
Maybe it's like Delta air France, maybe Delta. Okay, let's
just say there is. Yeah, what if the flight you
(21:21):
choose as you gone one airline out and the other
one back, does that present risks?
Speaker 3 (21:28):
I don't worry about that. What I worry about is
change in airlines midstream, right. Uh. You know, I know
a lot of people they find out I found it
was cheaper to fly from Maui to la on the
last airlines and then to switch to Delta, so.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Buy another ticket.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Yeah, but then now they gotta you know, come out
of security, get their luggage if they have checked bags,
switch terminals, go back through security just takes a long time.
And also if there's a delay on one end of
their trip, well, you know the second and the second
half of the triple, Delta doesn't have to commodate you.
You're you're not late because of Delta, you're late because
of some other airline.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Yeah, So these people who do that, I always think
that's little nuts. Personally, I do think it's worth paying
attention to, especially with these mixed fares as you describe them. Yeah,
is there some kind of terminal change and my connection is.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Extra complications and if something goes wrong you call airline
one that you book through, Yeah, and they go, oh no,
now you're going to talk to airline too, even though
their partners you didn't book it.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
It's a little more competent. Yeah, I have you know,
I have booked often booked flights through American airlines website
that have me on British air and I haven't had
trouble at all, and they seem to be pretty synced up.
I think Air France, Kaleum Delta, they're very much synced
up because they're basically flying you across Europe and the
same tubes.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Right, there's another thing. You may be booking thinking and
going the whole way on airline one, say Delta, but
you didn't notice that. You can check, but the second
leg of your fly might be on some entirely different
airplane airline you thought was Delta. It's say it'll say
Delta flight one, two, three, four, operated by air small
(23:12):
Greek airline. Yeah, it's good to know ahead of the time.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
That's good to know, and it doesn't worry me so
much as long as again, you don't you know, you
have to like midstream change terminals and do something.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
You know, it's disconcerting. You're looking for that maybe a
little your brand, and you say, WHOA, I don't know
if I trust this airline, this weird airline stuck way
out in some sad little corner of the airport you
have to take the bus to. They're not a very
they're not very high on a totem pole here.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
My favorite is when I look for Airfair and I say, oh,
this looks like a good price, and in the the
itiner area is flying from DC to LaGuardia and then
from there having to make my way to jfk oh
All to Europe, and I'm like, no, nobody's doing this.
And then you have this shuttle so it's supposed to
be so I'm you know, okay, but you still gotta
go across Long Island. Basically you gotta go.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
It's a giant hassle when you're really tired and lugging
stuff around and maybe you have gets you can't. That
is a huge thing.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Got to collect your It's just too much.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
There's another thing to watch out for. When you're booking tickets.
You may forget to check the layover A lot of
times I'll say, oh wow, look at that airfare. Make
sure you read about the connection time before you.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Click twenty hours at Casa Blanca.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
For twenty four or thirty two hours, then maybe you
have time to go into the town. But you gotta
check all those little details. It is a lot of work,
isn't it. I'm surprised I even bother.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
I mean, some people they do it on purpose. They
want to spend twenty hours in Casablanca, they want to
have a meal there, and I don't know. But for me,
I know, I want to get to where I'm going.
I don't that that whole long layover thing. It's just
not for me, you know.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Okay. We have some more actionable, solid information and travel
tips coming up on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Right after this, It's Night Side with Dan Ray on
Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
More excellent travel tips with Kevin Bresla from checkbook dot org.
This is important. I'm surprised we let it go. This
long sell service your phone. I used to be I
use it. As you may know, I used to be
very frugal and cheap and buy everything cheap. And now
I'm not cheap. I'll play more, I'll pay more. And
(25:27):
I don't really have any more money. It's I don't
have the patience I used to. Maybe I'm just older.
I want a little more comfort, I want a little
more convenience. And before I would I didn't get any
cell service. I what did I do? I just would
use messenger but that way, but that way you can't.
I couldn't get directions, I couldn't use apps to find places.
(25:52):
So finally I decided on a cell plan, and I
wanted you to talk to us about well the ins
and outs of that.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
All right, So the good news is when you go abroad,
if you have you know, with if you're with T Mobile, Verizon,
AT and T and even some of these resellers, right,
your phone will work when you get abroad. Although if
you're like with a smaller company like Consumer Cellular or
Boost or Mint or whatever, you need to find out
in advance what you need to do to get your
phone to work abroad, or even if you can. But
with the three main carriers, your phone's gonna work when
(26:25):
you land abroad. That's the good news.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
You purchasel, No, it'll work, Oh, it'll work. What what's
in the play is how much.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
You want, how much you could pay for the privilege,
right because these companies they have partnerships with the cell
companies in Europe. But you you may pay extra, and
with some of these plans you may pay a lot
extra if you don't have a research in advance. So
so the best deal for international travel in terms of
US cell phone carriers is probably T Mobile because T Mobile,
(26:55):
if you're going to Europe most countries in Europe, you
don't pay anymore U to have Gervis in Europe, so
long as you have a conventional plan. If you have
these prepaid plans, it's a whole different topic, okay, But
if you have a regular plan with TEA Mobile, your
phone is going to work in Europe and you don't
have to pay more. That's a nice thing. With AT
and T, your phone will automatically switch over to its
(27:15):
international calling stuff. And it's ten bucks a day for
the first line, and I think five bucks a day
for the second line. And you can buy a monthly
plan if you're going to be there for a long
time to make it makes more financial sense. But just
you know, for for me in my family and the
family of four, you know, these costs start to add
up right ten dollars a day per line. Right with Verizon,
(27:38):
it's now twelve dollars a day per line. So a
family of four is gonna pay forty eight dollars a
day for the privilege of having a non bricked phone.
When abroad, Verizon finally started waving that extra and you
also had to enroll on that plan. You had to
know to enroll on Verizons per day plan before you go,
(27:58):
otherwise they're going to charge you per like megabyte of
data and stuff in the cost.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
If you send a video, you're going to get kids.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
I've talked to people who had thousands of dollars, you know,
came back home and a few days later got their
cell phone bill and it was four thousand dollars because
they didn't notice.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Is there any way out of that? Are they stuck?
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Not really pretty much stuck. So you have to know
any advanced with Verizon. Exfinity is another one. They have
a cell service for their their data home internet customers.
They're basically reselling Verizon stuff. They're charging ten dollars a
day per line. So for me, when I had Exfinity
for a while, Exfinity Mobile, we go abroad and I'd
tell my kids, you'd put your phone airplane mode for
(28:35):
this whole trip, because I'm not paying twenty dollars a
day for their lines.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
And if they sent a video to their friend.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Well they have to do it over Wi Fi, right,
and so you know before if they obeyed you, they
were they were annoyed. The good news is Verizon started
waving that twelve dollars a day fee or whatever, but
only if you're with its top top tier plan. And
so you know, you're you're paying hundreds of dollars a
(29:02):
month for the privilege of having Verizon top to your plan.
You may be saving something when you're fad, but I'm
not sure to worth that. I think the short answer
is the best deal is T Mobile. Another good deal
is you can buy a SIM. You can actually before
your trip or once you get there, you can switch
your phone over entirely to that foreign carriers network and
(29:23):
it's a lot cheaper. It's like, you know, a couple
of dollars a day and.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
You and you have a different phone number.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Right now, you have a different phone number, You're you're
you're old. If most new phones have dual SIM capacity,
So somebody from the US is trying to call or
text you, you'll get it. But yeah, it with with
older phones that don't have that. If switch back and forth,
people will not be able to touch with a little
bit of a pain is if you're going to be
abroad for three months, you definitely should get one of
(29:49):
these others because you just don't have to pay.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Some okay, and it is super imperative that you have data,
and you have really unlimited data because there's so much
stuff that you have to do online, uh where not
just get directions, but if you plan on going you
say I'd like to go on a side trip to
a town maybe an hour out of town, you have
(30:12):
to have the phone to book the.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Tickets right because they know what train to get on.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
And know what train right, what train to get on,
because if you don't, you have to go to the
station and there may not be tickets there and and
so you need to You've got to book stuff in advance.
And if you want to make a reservation at a restaurant,
perhaps it's really imperative.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
I mean there's there's Wi Fi abroad is way better
in Europe and in Asia is usually way better than here.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
But if you're in a building, it's you got to
find out their password, and if you're if you're on
the street, you got to go in some restaurant and
ask that password. You got enough on your mind.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
And the other thing is that, uh, you know, outside
the US, like the standard communication tool isn't texts and
phone calls, it's it's What's app. What's which is an
app that you know basically Facebook bought up a while back,
but that's their standard way of communicating. They generally don't text.
They use WhatsApp to send these texts. And it's Internet based,
(31:12):
and so if you don't have an Internet connection or
sell connection, then you're not gonna get messages. You need
to meet up with the host for your apartment or whatever.
You're just not gonna be able to communicate with people
in Europe. You know, you're not gonna be able to
tell a restaurant yes I can from a reservation kind
of stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
All right, we have only one more segment left here
with Kevin Wrestler, and then well I'll be out of here.
Dan Ray will be in tomorrow night on Nightside.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's
news radio.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Only a few more minutes left with Kevin Bresler. Check
book dot org. You might want to check that out.
Check book dot org some real solid travel tips. It
almost there's so many things that can go wrong, it's
almost would make folks go, never mind, I'm staying home.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Yeah. I've gotten back from some trips and said, that's it.
I'm not going anymore.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
We say it all the time, that's it. I'm done.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
I'm not worth the hassle.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
I'm done. I'm gonna. I always say I'm just gonna
go up to New Hampshire or maybe maybe Quebec, and
then it never happens. Yeah, okay, Uh, we haven't mentioned
the reminder to check out the plugs that you have
to use in your country. That.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
Yeah, I mean a lot of I know a lot
of people they just enjoy kind of you know, flying
by the seat of their pants, right, But I think
there's some things that are just worth checking in advance.
You know, what you know are if you're in really
anywhere outside the Europe, outside North America, the plugs you use,
what you plug in when you go abroad. There's different plugs.
You buy adapters. It's really easy to do, but just
you know, there's different types. Know which one to get.
(32:53):
You know, we mentioned WhatsApp, you know, just kind of
find out, you know, how to people mostly communicate in
the country.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Make sure to check out find out what app is
used to get transportation. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Yeah, And that's the weird thing.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Is we're in a lot of places not the case.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
Uber sometimes lifts, sometimes it doesn't. Some countries, like just
got back from Barcelona and there there aren't there is
an uber or lyft, but there are ten cabs every
block it seems like waiting to pick you up. And
it's good to know and advance. Hey, you know that
they're only going to charge me eleven euros or something
to get me mostly across town. It's pretty cheap to
get a cab. In Barcelona and some other cities it's
(33:28):
a lot more expensive to get a cab. And in
some cities the cab doesn't have to give you any
information on fares. They drop you off and can demand
fifty bucks.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Well that's not a genuine cab.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
It's not. But just in sometimes be careful.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
About getting a genuine gap.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
I think it's just it's good to know in advance
what the norms are how the cabs operate. Is it
a meter, Is there an app for it? Is there
an express train into the sea one some If it
doesn't have a meter, don't get in it. Yeah, it's
just so much easier now to research these things than
(34:03):
it used to be because of the Internet, obviously, but
I just think, you know, before you go, just take
those basic steps. The other thing I do is I check,
so I'm just not confused when I get on the ground.
You know, what's the tipping norms in that country? They
very tremendously from country to country in Europe and across
the world. In some some countries, you know, tipping is
(34:23):
just kind of unheard of, and so you know you
don't need to worry about it. In other countries like Spain,
it's not expected, but it's appreciated. If you tip five
ten percent of your restaurant bill. Cabs don't really expect
it at all. I mean, it's just kind of different.
Everything sure is quick story.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
And if folks know you're an American, they're going to expect
a tip because they know, yeah, you're used to tipping.
And in Istanbul, my brother and I ate to this
place and we I guess didn't leave what the guy
thought Americans were used to leaving or should leave, and
he yelled at us, actually physically yelled loudly in the
(35:02):
restaurant backsheesh, backsheesh, which I guess means it has to
it's about money. Yeah, And he, you know, yelled and
embarrassed us, and then we thought, what's going on? Are
people going to come after us? Backshish?
Speaker 3 (35:16):
I just in general, I find the tipping thing is
to me is it's always a little uncomfortable you no
matter where you are, right right, But if you know
and advance what the norms are and what they expect,
it just makes it a little bit smoother for me.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Isn't it difficult for you to not tip like a
little bit, especially say you're in France and they don't
expect it, but they've been so nice to you, Ben.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
Translate everything for the rest of the family or whatever, right,
and the kid doesn't want what's on the minute, she
wants pasta just with a little bit of butter, and
trying to explain that, and they're so welcoming tonight, and
then and then it's they don't expect any tip it
all because they because they get paid at a living wags.
Like a waiter's job in Paris, for example, is a
good job to have because you know, they have pretty
(35:58):
short hours and then they get paid wage.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
I like to tip, not as not twenty percent, because that's.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Like ooh this, that's like, yeah, you're it's like.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
You're a sucker American. But you give them something more
than they're used to, but not as much as we pay.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Somewhere in the countries that is normal, like it is
like tipping norms are more and as you said, in
some countries, like in the touristy areas which I kind
of try to avoid restaurants tours series, you know, so
in I think a good example is in like Prague
when I was there, and in Barcelona, tipping really isn't
expected at all. Most people don't tip, or they tip
me only like five or ten percent. But if you're
(36:33):
in like the more touristy restaurant, no, there's actually a
place on the uh you know, they bring you the
thing to your table to pay, right, they don't. They
don't take your credit card and come back with it.
They have a little wireless thing. A lot of US
restaurants are doing this now, and in those restaurants, it's
actually there's a place where you can add gratuity because
more Americans are there, and therefore you know, they're happy
to get the money, right, And so now it's uncomfortable again,
(36:54):
right like, well, normally people don't tip, but I guess
I'm gonna tip here because you're presenting with the option. Again,
it's just better to know in advance what the norms
are and what the the customs are, and so you're
you know, it's just a little bit easier. I find
a little more comfortable to know in advance what but
expects them.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Here's a good one. Watch lots of YouTube videos about
where you're gonna go. I don't know if you do.
I do that a lot. For Spain, there's this guy
named James Blick who's just fantastic. And then for France
there's live Frenchies, this husband and wife who just they
go to French restaurants and they talk about the place.
And that way, I found restaurants that I wanted to
(37:30):
go to and I don't. I don't feel bad if
I don't get there, but at least if you walking
by and say, hey, we saw that one on the
headline and you have some idea of what it's like
and it's kind of fun.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
Or you know what to expect. If you're renting a
car and you go through a toll plaza, Okay, god,
what do I which? Which one am I looking for?
You know which sign above which thing? And how am
I going to pay? It's just better to know in advance,
which is and that's why I said to do a
little bit of research and advance, because driving in Europe
can be very different than here in some countries. If
you're going from Germany, which really doesn't have many toll
(38:02):
roads at all, into you know, Slovakia or whatever, like
the toll roads. Oh no, you need to buy this
pass for your car. Basically, you need to register your
license plate to pay for the tolls in advance. It's
like plate passes here in the US, but you may
not know about that. You get all the way over
there and you have to register this thing and it again,
if you don't have a good cell service, kind of
(38:24):
go into panic mode. It's just better to know and
advance what you need to do so that once you
get there, you're just not trying on the fly figure
stuff out to me that's just it's just more comfortable
for me to know and advance what I need to
be doing before I get there.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
What do you have to offer on whether to drive
or take a train at your say.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
You're in Europe, I strongly prefer trains, but when I'm
traveling with my family, it just becomes a little It's
usually easier just let's just run a car because there's
four of us, we have a lot of luggage and right.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
And you'd have to pay four train.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Tickets for train tickets. And then also I always.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Feel and your kids would complain.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
I think they'd like to they'd like the trains. I
just feel now more responsible, Like in Europe sometimes you
only have like two minutes to change trains if there's
a transfer.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Yeah, and I just you know.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
If it's just me and I miss it or what,
I'm fine. But now I'm there, I'm like the travel dad,
and I'm like responsible for everyone, and there's a lot
more pressure there.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
What about tips on when you rent a car and.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
Well, I would say, first of all, be patient because
for some reason, renting a car in Europe often can
take an hour for them to get to you in
line and to pull the car around or tell you
where it is. And also in Europe they are far
more particular about every little nick and scratch on that
car than most US car companies are. So definitely before
(39:43):
you leave with your car, you take a video of
the whole car and note every little piece of damage
on there. The good news is they are less pushy
about insurance there because by law on the EU, for example,
the car insurance company, they have to carry a lot
of liability covering. And also if you're booking with a
travel where they have a credit card, you get some
(40:03):
protections there, so you're usually better covered in Europe by
default than you were in the US.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
I have one tip learned the hard way about train travel.
There's so many trains, even in smaller stations, that you
may know where you're going to go at what time.
So you go out to platform three and you generally
you see it's close to the time your train's coming.
(40:31):
Say it's one o'clock and you see a train pulling
it twelve fifty five, we would tend to think, oh,
it's got to be my train. Do not assume that
trains have numbers. Check the number on the ticket, because
that train could be would leave and then your train
could be coming one minute behind that. So I made
(40:52):
a mistake in some tiny place in Normandy and on
the wrong train we got We thought, this is our train.
Oh my god, it's you know, this has to be it.
We got on and it was the wrong train. Happily
we were able to get off, and there was a
connection that was had the same connection, so we were
(41:13):
able to It was all right, but it was a
close call and it would have been just a kind
of an expensive pain. Well, let's do it for tonight.
Thanks for being with us. You flew all the way
from DC to be with us, and it's really helpful.
Checkbook dot org does have a lot of information on services,
including all this travel stuff, and this is a good article.
If there's something that we touched on that you want
(41:36):
to know more about, you want the whole article. It's
called sixty Strategies for finding the best travel deals and
avoiding trouble and that's checkbook dot org and uh I
kind of recommend it. Kevin. We really appreciate you coming
by here in person. It's always so great to have
someone in the studio and you know you have a happy,
(41:58):
happy trip to wherever you're going next, where.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
You go next, I'm not sure. I mean, we just
got back from Spain and you take a breather, all right.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
So thanks to Troy, thanks to Rob Brooks for working
the wheel back there and Master Control, and to all
of you. Thank you for your support and being with
us on night side for the past few days. I
appreciate it. Dan Ray will be in tomorrow.
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