Brian Kelly, AKA “The Points Guy,” explained why business class travel is becoming more popular and offered a couple of tips for flyers on this week’s episode of the Rapid Response podcast.
He said airfares have fallen significantly since the travel disruptions of 2022 as airlines have ramped up capacity and streamlined operations.
“In 2019 dollars, fares are lower now, even with record numbers of travelers,” Kelly said, noting that a flight to Europe booked this summer would be three times as expensive by mid-2022.
Experts on airline rewards programs noted that airlines have been lowering prices for premium cabins since the pandemic began as people have cut back on business travel in favor of working from home and Zoom meetings.
The cheaper fares have attracted leisure travelers who are more sensitive to price increases than those who pay for trips with company credit cards.
“Once consumers get used to buying a $4,000 round-trip business class ticket all summer long pretty easily, it becomes very difficult to suddenly increase that to the previous $7,000 because they’re locked in and say, ‘Well, I’m not going to go,'” Kelly said.
Meanwhile, passengers paid more for premium economy or business class during the pandemic to avoid being “packed like sardines”, he said, especially as fares plummeted as people stopped flying during lockdowns.
“So consumers really started to get a taste of life in the front of the plane and realized that economy class was the worst,” Kelly said. “Once you start flying first class, it’s really hard to go back.”
Beating the System
Kelly shared two travel tips: First, accumulate transferable multi-airline credit card points. When it’s time to fly, you can use those points to back up a reservation on another airline, allowing you to cancel at the last minute without penalty.
“If your original flight gets canceled, you can cancel and get the full amount of your miles back with no fees,” Kelly says. “Using your points as insurance ensures you can get where you want to go.”
The second is to take advantage of cheaper rewards programs in other countries, such as exchanging your credit card points for Air France points instead of Delta points.
“In France, they don’t have the 100,000-points giveaways that we have in the U.S.,” Kelly said. As a result, the prices of international award tickets haven’t risen as sharply as they have in the U.S.
“If we did that in France there would be riots because our French members don’t earn points like we do,” Kelly said.
