We skied at Badger Pass in Yosemite National Park earlier this season instead of taking our usual Tahoe trip - find out why it may just be NorCal's best kept ski secret for families tripswithtykes.com/skiing-yosem...
Disney Credit Cards Get a Glow-Up: Meet the New Inspire (+ Disney Card Comparison Guide) tripswithtykes.com/disney-credi...
NEW POST! -- Southwest seat assignments are here - don't book a flight until you understand these strategies first! tripswithtykes.com/southwest-se...
I love that "how long does it actually take" creator on TikTok, and her voice is ringing in my head as I have like 37 Chrome tabs open right now covering the @biltrewards.bsky.social 2.0 changes. How long does it actually take to read & digest all the minutiae about the new Bilt cards?
5 Big Changes in U.S. Travel in 2026 You Need to Know About tripswithtykes.com/travel-chang...
How Californians Can Visit Disneyland for 3 Days for Less than the Price of 1 Day tripswithtykes.com/disneyland-c...
For a decade plus, my brain was trained to look at the far right on this page. I feel discombobulated daily now having to look in another place for Southwest's cheapest fares. This might actually irk me more than bag fees and devaluations and everything else.
NEW POST! 17 Tips for Your First Trip to Europe with Kids tripswithtykes.com/first-time-t... via @tripswithtykes
I know who I'm coming to to compare notes! ;-)
I haven't really made significant changes to our family's credit card points & miles strategy since before the pandemic - got lazy, went for low hanging fruit. With today's Chase Sapphire Reserve announcements, I think a complete overhaul will now finally be in order.
You lie in the seats, but you lay the seats down flat when you recline them? So, potentially both? (I say lie-flat though)
Often confused and misused terms in the travel world that even frequent travelers get wrong:
1) direct vs. non-stop flights
2) adapters vs. converters
3) customs vs. immigration
What others have I missed?
NEW POST! Cheat Sheet to Disneyland's 70th Anniversary Celebration tripswithtykes.com/disneyland-7... #Disneyland70
That too of course!
I might have gone a little overboard analyzing the new Southwest Airlines fare bundles, but if want to understand the insanity that led to this graphic, read this post: tripswithtykes.com/southwest-ai...
TPG has the full story and a confirmation from the airline that this change took place (and a quote from yours truly with what I'm seeing): thepointsguy.com/news/southwe...
The low has gotten lower after many additional searches (1.05 cpp) but the high has not gotten higher. Indeed, the 1.64 cpp flight I've found appears to be a pretty big outlier - nothing else has been in the 1.4/1.5cpp range so far. Back to my spreadsheet...
Quick clarification - I've only been pricing out flights at the Wanna Get Away level so far. Have not yet dug into the other three fares where it looks like the points may go farther in some instances, potentially making purchasing up more appealing.
Pausing for now to continue my investigation but will pick this thread back up as I see more. Bottom line - this is a devaluation on average, I think. Southwest points used to be worth more like 1.3-1.4 cents per point and I'm not seeing that price hold as the middle anymore.
Hawaii flights are definitely almost always on the low end - most are 1.1 cents per point or lower. Granted, open schedule includes a lot of summer flights (a peak season), but I also suspect Hawaii flights are a place where Southwest is really testing variable demand.
I've seen points now worth as low as 1.084 cents per point and as high as 1.645 cents per point on about 25 test searches so far. Most redemptions appear to be about 1.2 cents per point on average.
I've been testing out a number of routes and doing the math to compare the cash price (minus the 5.60 tax on the cash side) and the points required to now book that fare.
It's easy to spot that something different happened because all points redemptions are now a round number. Here's what a points search result looks like now on the Southwest site.
So, it looks like Southwest has changed its Rapid Rewards points pricing overnight. Is it a devaluation? What are points now worth? Follow this thread for my very preliminary assessment....
Oh no! LOL.
NEW POST! How to Use a Split Stay to Hack Your Disney World Vacation tripswithtykes.com/split-stay-w...
I keep thinking about how Disney World began charging for parking at on-property hotels in 2018 only to roll that back in 2023 after it was deeply unpopular. Anyone want to place a wager on whether Southwest will find and do the same with its bag fee experiment - & how quickly?
Full story with commentary is out on the blog now! tripswithtykes.com/changes-sout...
4) I assumed when I first read the announcements that credit card holders would get a free bag for themselves + everyone booked on the same reservation (like w. AA, Delta, United's CCs). Reading the language again, that actually isn't spelled out. Might this just be 1 bag per card?!?!?
I thought the days of 2 bags flying free were numbered, but I always thought the move would be to 1 flying free for the differentiation factor and branding tagline. Just floored.
