This week, we want to talk about some amazing deals that we are starting to see pop up for travel between now and early next year. We have been hearing for a few weeks now that airlines are going to be dropping some amazing deals, and we want you to be prepared to jump in on them when they become available.
I'm Scott.
And I'm Melissa. And we're the Sunshine Travelers. Our passion is travel and sharing our experiences with those who enjoyed as much as we do, or those who want to learn more about travel, or even those who just want to live vicariously through our travel stories. No matter where you fall along that journey, get ready to hear about our firsthand experiences as we visit some of the most interesting and amazing places on earth.
And so I want to apologize first for my voice in this episode because I've had a cold and it's just kind of raspy, but I'm going to try to make it through.
Scott, I think we're going to have to start watching some of these fairs out of Orlando. I've seen some amazing deals from Orlando to various places, especially in Europe over the past couple of weeks. And lots have come through on my deal alerts today. I keep getting pinged on my phone. Yeah, every day she's coming to
every day she's coming to me. Oh, did you see this one? Did you see this one? So we actually just need like endless amount of time to travel, I think. So I wanted to do a quick Google flight search just to see some of the other
to do a quick Google flight search just to see some of the other deals besides the specific ones that pop up. And so, for example, I'm seeing and in no particular date, for example, but I'm seeing flights to London from Orlando for $330, to Dublin for like $390, to Lisbon, Portugal for like $400, same for Barcelona. So some really good deals. I mean, this is why a few episodes back, we talked about like why we want to travel international because we're seeing higher prices than that just to fly across the country or even, you know, a few states over.
Yeah, so at Christmas, we're looking at some flights to Phoenix. And right now, they're as expensive as trying to fly to Barcelona.
Yeah, if not more. So that's a lot of times why we, you know, look at that and plan those trips.
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article on what consumers can expect over the next few months regarding airfares, and it's really good news for some of you that, you know, maybe you wished you had jumped on a deal earlier this year. And it's important to remember that's not necessarily true across the board. So like I said, we're looking at those flights from Jacksonville to Phoenix, and those aren't really great deals. I mean, they're not bad, but they're not great deals like what we're seeing, that you can fly from Orlando to Dublin, Ireland for $389, right? And so that's why we always recommend that you have a travel bucket list that you keep up to date, you know, things that you really want to do. And then when a deal becomes available, prioritize experience over the location, becomes prioritize experience over the Because when those deals jump up, available, location. you can be Iceland? like, I want to Yes. go to Reykjavik. I want to see the Northern Lights.
Lights. Yeah. And so this is really going to allow you to get the best deal possible is for when you see something pop up. And then we're going to talk in a second about then how you go look for dates that might work for you. But when you see that pop up to certain cities, that's when you want to jump on it. And so, Scott, you mentioned Iceland. And so one of the things that we want to experience is the Northern Lights. And the best time of year to try and see the Northern Lights in Iceland, for example, is from September through April. September through April. And so right now we're seeing that we could get that deal to Rickovic for as low as like $410 round
trip, which is crazy. That's amazing flight costs. I will say though, you got to keep in mind is this is only the flight cost. So once you get there, you still have all of the other costs that are associated with it. And I don't know that we're seeing crazy deals on like car rentals and hotels and stuff like that that we're seeing in the airfare. But, you know, this one thing that used to be the most expensive part, which was the airfare, is a really good deal right now.
Yeah. And in some of the episodes, I mean, we've talked about using points for both flights and hotels. So if you can get a flight deal that's better than using points, and then maybe you can use that for your hotel. But as we've also talked about lots of times is that hotels and accommodations in other countries can end up being way more affordable. And so it just depends on the season that you're looking in. And the thing is about that is there's a lot more options, right? So with accommodations, you can go from very budget friendly to super luxury, whereas you don't really have that. I mean, you have economy and business class basically, but you don't really have that with the flights.
And maybe you don't want to travel overseas and you've been dying to see the fall colors in North America. I know for us, that's something that we really enjoy. And we kind of miss a little bit being here in Florida now because we don't have that change of colors and stuff like that, that we had when, like when we had our cabin up in North Georgia and you could go up there and you could see the leaves changing and look out over the mountainside and just see those beautiful colors. So if you want to do that, you got to hurry though, because the colors have already started changing. They were a little bit early this year. But if you act right now, you could get a flight from Atlanta to Banff for as little as $230 round trip. And, you know, they're saying the peak colors are predicted to be somewhere between September 18th or this week and October 1st.
Yeah. And if you think about it, I mean, there's tons of places like Boston is a good place to fly into because it is like a hub city. So you could fly there and, you know, rent a car, go all the way up to, you know, Maine as well. So lots of options that you could look for there.
Well, I was just looking at that Atlanta to Banff for $230 round trip.
Oh, wow. Yeah, that's crazy.
Yeah. And I mean, it's not just Atlanta. I mean, I'm seeing great deals out of Austin, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Nashville, Orlando, Palm Springs. Like there's a lot of really good deals right now. If you'll jump out there and get on them right now.
Yeah, Scott. So let's talk a little bit about how you guys can go and find some of these deals. So there's a few different options. So if you have somewhere very specific that you want to go, we would recommend that you go to the Google Flights. And you just go to the flights and go ahead and put in, like, what is your departure city?
Is that on the Google machine?
I guess so.
She said the Google Flights.
Oh, okay. Sorry. I'll start over. Okay. So go to Google Flights. And you'll put in your departure city and your arrival city. And you don't even have to pick dates. I mean, you can if you have something that you want to look around. And then you're going to want to go and click on the grid view. And it does work best. It's easiest to see it on a desktop or a laptop or something like that. And go to that grid view. And then that allows you to see like in like almost a month view what the prices would be like. And so the way it's laid out is like, I guess like on the horizontal axis, it's like when you would leave and on the vertical axis when you would return back and you can actually see the prices. And then down below, you can just click on those and then it will populate those. And so that's basically what some of these email services and stuff like that you get. They're going to show you like the best deal that they're seeing, you know, within that period of time. So, but back to the Google flights real quick is that then you can set an alert. So pick certain dates to do that alert. You can, you know, if you're logged into your Google account, pick certain dates and then it will send you alerts when that price goes up, when that price goes down. So if you have something very specific that you want to watch, that's a good way to do that. And then the second way that I like to do it, and you know that I like to, I really like to test things out. And I like to test things out for you guys and for us too. And so we have used some of the flight alert services for a while now. The first one being Scotch Cheap Flights, which they changed their name to Going. And that one does have a free service. Okay, so you can sign up for that. It has a free and then you get a little bit of, you know, availability, some alerts, that kind of thing. But then they have a couple of premium services. So if you want more and you want it to be more specific, and then if you want it with points and then business class and what they call unicorn fares or fares that they never see, you can upgrade that. So I'll put a link to that one. The second one is Thrifty Traveler. And that one is a paid service, but that paid service basically gets you like everything, like everything they offer. So they call it Thrifty Traveler Premium. And so that gets you, you know, any of the deals they come across, including points deals and things like that. So that one can be a really good one as well. And I'll put a link to that one as well. And then Nate and Kara have come up with one that FairDrop. And so that one also, same thing. I think with that one, they use a little bit different technology. So I don't really see a ton of overlap, you know, necessarily in the same deals. But so we'll put a link to that one. And so you can just kind of see, play around with it, read about it and see. So if you are looking to really try to check off some of your bucket list destinations and you don't have like super specific dates, but you just kind of want to see, I would choose one of those and start looking at that. And this can also be really good for a couple of things. Let's say that you're not super big into the points and miles or having a lot of transferable miles and you would rather, you know, pay cash for these airline deals when they are good deals like that. This would be really good for you. But if you do have points, then I would prioritize one of the ones that gives you the points deals. And so, for example, what we've seen on some of those, and this is funny because Scott tends to send me the points deals. And for so, example, what we've seen on some of those, and this is funny because Scott tends to send me the points deals one. But let's say, I think you sent me one, Scott, recently that was like San Francisco to Tokyo. One way in economy for 25,000 points. I mean, that's really good to get to Japan.
Yeah. And that's on Korean air.
Yeah. And just a variety of airlines too. And so then Chicago to Nice, France. So not Paris, but all the way to Nice for 17,000 points. And that's on Air France. And so for points peoples, Air France can be a really good redemption if you can transfer to points to Air France and be able to redeem those. A lot of good deals on Air France. And let us tell
let us tell you, is Nice, France? We would highly recommend that.
Oh, yes. You
yes. You know, Paris is great and everyone should go to Paris, but Nice, wonderful.
Yeah, and that just gives you access to, you know, that whole French Riviera and Provence. And so that's a great. And then, of course, one of our favorite ones, New York to London for 40,000 points on Virgin Atlantic, which
which that's a really good redemption. So instead of transferring at a one-to-one rate, maybe you transfer at a 30% bonus.
And you follow a lot and read the emails from Daily Drop as well. And they kind of keep up with those as well. So you'll know. The thing about those is they do have expiration periods. And one of the kind of the rules and the points is you don't want to transfer it until you have something to book. But yeah, you sent me a thing the other day that a lot of them have like 20 and 30% bonuses to British Airways and Flying Blue and Iberia and things like that. So those bonuses can really like, especially if it's 30%, that can really boost the amount of points that you have. So that really gives you a lot of options to watch both the cash prices, but then also the points prices. And so like we say, and we've been hearing a lot of news and chatter that these prices are going to continue to drop for the rest of the year. You
know, we don't get into political things, but I think the airlines are seeing the economic impact. They're starting to see travel slow down a little bit. And so they're putting these fares out there. They don't want to see this market go away. So they would rather sell these tickets at a lower fare price or at a discount than to, you know, lose some of these flights. Yeah, for
for sure. And so that can just be a great way for you to take advantage of stretching your vacation dollars. Because as you as you know, we would say, you know, vacation and taking time off and then experiencing new places can be such an important part of your life and your health and your wellness. And so taking that, those vacation dollars that you have and just being able to stretch them. And so hopefully that gives you some strategies to be able to do that as well. You know, talking about Thrifty Traveler
about Thrifty Traveler earlier, you had shared with me some of the alerts that you've gotten from Thrifty Traveler. And so if you're looking to go maybe to Turks and Caicos, you know, this fall, hey, there's some really good deals out there under $29,000 to Turks and Caicos.
Thousand points.
Yeah.
But unfortunately, it might cost you $29,000 to stay there because I actually did look at that for our Christmas trip because I saw those great point deals, but not so much. And we have a big group of people going, but not so much on staying. So that might be, unfortunately, it might be expensive to stay there. And that actually brings me to a really good point that I wanted to point out. One of the rules with booking flights is that all flights are cancelable for 24 hours. Okay. So what you're going to want to do is if you see a really great deal, definitely don't sleep on it, but book it as soon as you can. Because sometimes deals are, you know, intentional price reductions, but once they fill up a bunch of those are, you know, intentional price reductions. But once they fill up a bunch of those seats, they may jack that price up. And sometimes these fares are actually what they call mistake fares. And so as soon as they realize that, they will go away. And so you have 24 hours to cancel a flight once you book it. So a good rule of thumb is go ahead and book it and then see what you can find out about, you know, hotels. Are there things available? Is it going to be within your budget? And then if not, you know, just cancel that. And that's not that will be a cancelable like cashback. Within that first 24 hours, the airlines have to give you that in cash, not in e-credits or anything like that. Now, after 24 hours, you have to go by the airline's policy. But just wanted to point that out there. That's kind of another rule of thumb for booking these flights is that book now, do your research, see if you can make the other pieces work. And that's kind of how we've always said, unless it's something specific where you are booking, you know, for a specific reason, like, for example, for the safari. Yes, we book that first and then the airfare. But typically we book airfare first and then we look at hotels and then we book everything else. So just wanted to point that out.
And I'd say finally, for our American Express membership rewards customers, we don't do a lot on American Express. We do have a Delta MX, but some people really love MX. And so for those customers right now through the end of September, there are some incredible bonuses. Melissa kind of mentioned it a little bit ago, but if you transfer points from membership rewards to a partner, they've got some great bonuses. So right now, a 30% bonus from membership rewards to British Airways. And that ends on September 30th. Matter of fact, all the rest of these end on September 30th. So you'd have to jump on them and go ahead and transfer those points right now. But 30% to Iberia from membership rewards, 30% to Aer Lingus, 30% to Aer Lingus and then also 30% to Hilton. So, you know, there's a way to get points from your American Express into Hilton to handle the hotel once you get there. But I would always say is make sure when you're booking a hotel with points, make sure it's a good redemption because a lot of times we've seen that that point redemption doesn't make sense. Yeah. And the one that I like
Yeah. And the one that I like to check is I like to go to the points guy and just put in like you can just Google the points guy redemption calculator or points calculator or something like that and it'll pop up and it's just it's a free tool that you can use. It asks for the points price and the cash price and it tells you, you know, if that's a free tool that you can use. It asks for the points price and the cash price, and it tells you if that's a good redemption or not. But yeah, so for example, I mean, you said that one on Aer Lingus. So if you can find, you know, you're wanting to go to Dublin, for example, and you can find a really good points redemption and then get 30% on top of that, we would highly recommend Dublin. We have a podcast episode. We've got an itinerary right there for Ireland. And so absolutely love visiting there. So
Melissa, how else could our listeners get more details about great deals?
Yeah. So I think just, you know, choosing one of those, if you think that that is something that you want to start watching. So I'll put links to all those in the show notes. So if you want to see, you know, exactly how to get to those, and I would say just I would say just sign up for one of those that fits your needs the best. Go into that Google Flights and check in that. Subscribe into that Daily Drop newsletter that you like to subscribe to because they're always putting out great deals. I would say
I would say also go look at the resources on our website at sunshinetravelers.com. And we've got a number of resources that are out there with links that'll take you straight to some of these things that we're talking about.
Yeah, that's true. And then so that way they're available all the time, not just in the show notes. And that might be an easy place for you to go and find those as well.
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We thought some of these deals were just too good not to share with our listeners right now. We're on the lookout for some great deals to Australia next year. I know that kind of goes against what we've been saying about watching for deals across a large range of experiences on your bucket list. But we definitely want to be able to cross off Australia in 2025 before we head to Antarctica in January of 2026. We're actively working on the details of that trip and hope to be able to share it with you all very soon. For now, go ahead and pencil it in on your calendar so that you can keep space available to join us. Do you have somewhere specific you want to travel in the next few months and have an incredible deal? If so, let us know at scott at sunshontravelers.com. We're always inspired by your travel stories. We hope you enjoyed this episode and found some inspiration to help you with your travel
you enjoyed this episode and found some inspiration to help you with your travel journeys. If you could take a moment to leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform, it would be greatly appreciated. Your five-star reviews help us get discovered by others and possibly featured on your favorite platform. Don't forget to follow or subscribe to our podcast to get notified of new episodes as they are released. You can also find us on Instagram and Facebook at Sunshine Travelers Podcast. Remember that as travelers with one L, most most importantly please share it with your friends to help them catch the travel bug you never know they may become your greatest travel companion
