Frequent Miler on the Air - Free checked bags via credit cards | Frequent Miler on the Air Ep353 | 4-10-26

Episode Date: April 10, 2026

In this podcast episode, we'll talk about how Rakuten doubles select credit card signup bonuses, JetBlue polishes its previously lackluster Premier card, and how to avoid paying those increasing checked bag fees. Giant Mailbag(00:58) - Rick asks about EU regulation 261Read our post, "$700 richer: My easy UK261 claim experience with United Airlines" hereCard News(04:09) - JetBlue Premier Mastercard ($499)Read more about the JetBlue Premiere Mastercard hereAwards, Points, and More(07:04) - Rakuten offering bonuses on select Bank of America cardsLearn more about the Rakuten bonus hereOr learn about the Rakuten referral here(11:33) - Rove adds Virgin Atlantic (and changes url to rove.com)Main Event: Free checked bags via credit cards(13:15) - Learn more about free checked bags via credit card here(14:35) - General info about free checked bags(16:34) - Strategy for infrequent flyers of a particular airline. Example: you don't usually fly Delta, but you have one flight coming up...(22:15) - Which airlines require paying with a specific card to get free checked bags?(24:20) - How many travel companions get free checked bags?(27:08) - Do you get free checked bags on international trips?(29:42) - Cheapest card for free checked bags by airline(31:48) - Other ways to get free checked bags(40:21) - Carry-on insteadQuestion of the Week(44:55) - Turbotax has a higher fee for paying with a credit card. Is there a better way to pay with a credit card when filing with Turbotax?Read more about paying taxes with a credit card here: https://frequentmiler.com/pay-taxes-via-credit-card/Subscribe and FollowVisit https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/ to get updated on in-depth points and miles content like this, and don’t forget to like and follow us on social media.Music Credit – “Ocean Deep” by Annie YoderMentioned in this episode:Visit FrequentMiler.com Did you know that Frequent Miller is also a website? At frequentMiller.com, you'll find all the latest deals, news about points, miles, and rewarding credit cards, the single best, Best Credit Cards page on the web, guides to all popular rewards programs, and many other terrific resources. If you'd like to get our posts sent to your email, go to frequentMiller.com/subscribe and sign up for free. https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/Check out all of our other travel podcasts from around the worldThis podcast is part of Voyascape, a podcast network that brings together the world's best travel podcasts. You can find all of our podcasts from around the world at Voyascape.com. If you are interested in advertising or sponsored content on any of our shows you can find out more at the link below.Voyascape Podcast Network

This is a Voyescape podcast. You can find all of our travel podcasts from around the world at voyscape.com. On today's show, Rackettin doubles select credit card sign-up bonuses. JetBlue polishes its previously lackluster Premier card. And we discuss how to avoid paying those increasing check bag fees. Frequent Milo on the air starts now. Today's main event. free check bags via credit cards.

Check bag fees are going up, up, up. We don't like it, but you don't have to pay those check bag fees. We're going to show you on today's show how to avoid them. That's right, because my favorite price is free 99. So let's figure out how we can get those bags for free today. And remember, if you want to jump ahead to that or you want to come back and listen to a segment later on, you can always find the timestamps in the show notes, wherever you're watching. listening, don't forget to like this, give us a thumbs up, leave us a review with some stars.

We love to hear from you. Thank you very much for that. Let's drag out this week's giant mailbag. Today's giant mail comes from Rick. Rick says, about a month ago, Nick shared his experience getting compensation from EU Regulation 261. I had a similar experience with Iceland Air. We were flying to Prague from Raleigh, North Carolina on Iceland Air, and our plane departed an hour late. We missed our connecting flight to Prague and ended up needing to stay overnight in Iceland. Icelandair took care of lodging and food, but another traveler mentioned the compensation possibility. So I submitted through Icelandair's site when we returned. It was easy. They have a dedicated page, and I was able to enter my confirmation number, select the person for whom I was submitting,

and the flight that had the issue. I did this twice, once for my wife and me. Within a couple weeks, I got confirmation we qualified for 600 euros, just over $700 each. Not bad for a flight that only cost us $400 each round trip. They asked for a card number for the payment, and within a couple of days I had the credits on my card account, totally worth the five minutes to submit. So that's awesome, and I just want to add one additional thing that's related is that Stephen Pepper just posted on the blog,

his own experience with something very similar, which is UK 261. So the United Kingdom has a very similar thing to what the EU has for delayed or canceled flights, where you can get money back. And so check out his Stephen Pepper's post called $700 richer, my easy UK 261 claim experience with United Airlines. Yeah, you know, I think the key here is you just have to know. know that you are eligible to submit for one of these things, right? Because there are plenty of situations where people are,

but it's not as though the airline screams it from the rooftops and says, hey, you're eligible for an extra $600 in compensation. They'll try and give you the room and the food and hope that you're happy and not come looking for the rest of the money if you just don't know about it. So it's great that this worked out for you. I'm glad that it inspired you to take the few minutes to give it a show. And, you know, hopefully more readers will when the situation warrants. You know, the protections there, I think it's really important because there are a lot of expenses you might incur by having to stay an extra day or getting your trip delayed.

So I'm glad that you're able to get the compensation for that. Yeah, absolutely. And props to United Airlines on Stevens flight, this was flying from the UK. If he was on United going the other direction to the UK, this regulation wouldn't have applied, but coming from the UK. even before his flight was canceled, it was just delayed. The flight attendants actually passed out a piece of paper showing what their rights were with this regulation. So even with just a delay, you could get some money, not as much as Stephen got, because this flight ended up getting canceled. But anyway, that's awesome.

Most airlines don't do that. So you just need to know to look for that kind of thing. That's right. That's right. Very good. All right. Let's talk about this week's card news. In card news this week, the JetBlue Premier Man.

Master card has come out with some enhancements. And I say that word, but this time around, they actually enhanced the card, didn't they? They really did. Now, that's a very low bar because when this $499 card first came out, it was a stinker. I mean, its greatest perk for $499 was unlimited access to JetBlue lounges, but at the time, there weren't any JetBlue lounges. So now there's one at JFK, and they're supposed to open another one in Boston this year, I believe. And but they also made some good other enhancements to the card. We will probably cover this in depth in a future, maybe a coffee break episode, but for now,

let me just say that the card includes, and this was true before, Priority Pass plus one guest, and I'm pretty sure that includes restaurants at Priority Pass restaurants. But what's new is it now offers companion certificates that you can get from Big Spend. It offers a 15% award rebate. So you get 15% of your points back. And unlike the 10% back you get from the lesser cards, this one includes partner flights. So if you book one of JetBlue's partners with JetBlue points, you get that rebate, which is great. You get 25 tiles each year towards elite status.

and you get $300 back on purchases through JetBlue travel. You get $300 back each year. There are no sort of minimums and restrictions like they had before on that. So it should be pretty easy to get that $300 back. So some really good enhancements to that card. It made a true, obvious stinker into something definitely worth considering if you're a frequent JetBlue flyer or fly out of. JFK. Yeah, you know, with my, my, my, my points from JetBlue's 25 for 25, my mosaic status,

and my kind of hunt for a higher level of mosaic status this year, this has me sort of regretting that I got the JetBlue Plus card and intended to spend on it to get the tiles when I could have just gotten this, I've gotten 25 tiles right off the bat. So definitely some, some interesting enhancements there that I think make the card, like you said, much more compelling for somebody who flies JetBlue a lot. I still think it probably won't draw. in folks who aren't primarily interested in JetBlue or pretty loyal to JetBlue, but the 15% back on even Partner Awards. I mean, pretty cool there.

So nice to see some improvements on that card because I think it really needed some, and I don't think we expected much to come for a while, but glad to see that it has. Let's talk about awards points and more next. So first up, we got Racketon offering bonuses on Select Bank of America credit cards. You wrote a post this week about earning lots of built points from things like this. So what are the cards out that you can get bonuses on? And are they worthwhile? Are they interesting?

Yeah. So the Racketon shopping portal, we've talked many times before about how it lets you earn either cashback or points. And the points you could earn are either Amex membership rewards or built points. If you opt to earn bill points, it's a little complicated because Racketon pays out once per quarter. And after next quarter, as we're recording this, after the May 15th, 2026 quarter, you're going to need to have built elite status in order to get one-to-one payouts. And so if you don't have build elite status and you're thinking of getting points from Rackettin, after May, you're going to want to switch to membership rewards points. Anyway, with that background,

what's new or new again, I guess, is that Racketon now lists some credit cards with pretty big-sized payouts through the portal. So there are two, as we are recording this, and this could change at any time. There are two Bank of America consumer cards available through the Racketon portal. each of which are listed in the portal as getting $150 cash back. And what that means is with Rackadin, if you're getting points, let's talk membership rewards points because of the confusion over billed points. With membership rewards points, that means 15,000 bonus Amex points. But you also can qualify for the sign-up offer from Bank of America. So each of those Bank of America cards have a welcome offer that, you know, says once you apply and are approved, if you spend $1,000 on the card within, I think, 90 days, then you get one card is offering $250 back, the other one $200 back.

And that's on top of the $150 or $15,000 points from Rackadin. And so they're getting close to doubling your sign-up bonus, basically, especially if you value membership rewards points or, in the case that you have built elite status, built points a lot more than pennies, than you can do really well with that. Yeah, it's interesting to see that. That was something we saw last year with a couple of chase cards, and those kind of came and went a couple of times later on

and mostly have been not available, I think, through Rackton. Now we've got a couple of Bank of America cards available through Rackton. So that definitely is interesting to see, particularly because, like you said, you could be earning like MX points while applying for a Bank of America card or something of that sort. So kind of cool. Yeah, one other thing I want to say about it,

Rackenden has once again extended their $50 friend referral deal, which is amazing for every friend you refer. who I think you have, that friend has to spend like $50 through the portal. You both get $50 or $5,000 or $5,000, depending on how you're getting rewards. And so that could be really rewarding. We'll have a link in the show notes to our post about that referral offer because that that's a great deal as well. Yeah. And that's something that, you know, even within family, if a family member, we're doing something and we're all buying something for whether it's a trip sometimes.

you were renting a couple of cars or something of that sort. I'll make sure that everybody has signed up for Rackton and does whatever it is that they need to do through their own Rackton account in order to trigger that type of bonus. I think at this point, almost everybody in my family has an account. But certainly it's worth looking for opportunities to get the people around you into it because it's a great deal for them getting $50 back, even if they just take the cash back on a $50 purchase. and obviously a great deal for you if you value the 5,000 points at more than that. Yeah. Speaking of points becoming more valuable, Roeve Miles has added Virgin Atlantic. And so we'll talk about that.

And also, I just said Roe Miles because they previously had their site kind of coded that way, but they've switched over and now it's rove.com. So that's a great, I think, enhancement for Roeve. It's a lot easier, I think, for people to remember. So awesome that they've moved to rove.com. And again, added Virgin Atlantic as a partner. Are you excited about the addition of Virgin Atlantic? I'm, yeah, I mean, you can get Virgin Atlantic points from any transferable points currency, pretty much.

And now finally, Rove gets added in. The irony here is when we recorded a show about Rove a few weeks ago, we originally had a segment about, we thought that you could transfer to Virgin Atlantic then. And so we had part of that show, we talked about, you know, why that's useful. And then after the fact we realized, oh, wait, you can't transfer it to Virgin Atlantic. And so after it was already published, Kerry edited the podcast and took out that part. So now the current episode no longer has the information about Virgin Atlantic. There was nothing, you know, mind-blowing there.

So let's just say there are some good, there are some very good uses for Virgin Atlantic Miles. You could get them from anywhere. And it's good that if you have Rove points, you can also get them from Rove. Absolutely. Totally agreed. All right. We'll be right back after this with our main event. We hope you're enjoying the Frequent Miler on the air podcast.

Did you know that Frequent Miler is also a website? At frequentmiler.com, you'll find all the latest deals, news about points, miles, and rewarding credit cards. the single best best credit cards page on the web guides to all popular rewards programs and many other terrific resources. If you'd like to get our posts sent to your email, go to frequentmiler.com forward slash subscribe and sign up for free.

And we're back with today's main event, free check bags via credit cards. All right, if you've watched the news at all, you know that check bag fees are going up and up and up and up. It seems like every year we hear about more, but there's been a slew of airlines raising fees just recently in the news. Delta United, JetBlue, Southwest have all raised fees. Most of them have gone up to $45 for your first check bag. JetBlue, similar, but they have more of a scale that depends on whether the flight is peak or off peak and other stuff.

But at that $45 level, you're talking about like, let's say you're traveling with a family of four and you're all checking one bag and you're doing a round-trip flight. You're talking about $360 just for the bags. And so obviously, you know, that's going to be increasing the cost of travel a lot if you're paying those fees. But we're going to get into some details about how you can avoid them. Yeah, you know, I happen to be on a family trip. as we're recording this. And there were actually seven of us on this trip. So we did have four total checked bags.

And yeah, I mean, that would be so expensive to pay the fees for that. So, of course, we didn't. And we'll talk about the different ways today. So general information about your free check bags. And it's a little difficult to generalize because there are some exceptions here. But most airline credit cards offer free check bags as a park. And we'll talk about how many people that applies to and all that sort of. of stuff in a little bit, but most airline credit cards offer that. And in many cases,

you don't have to pay with the card, the airline credit card, in order to get the free check bag. Again, more detail on that later, but in most cases, you just need to be a cardholder. Free check bags are only available to primary cardholders, not to authorize users. And I say only to primary cardholders. Again, we'll get into how many people on your itinerary it might apply to, but again, if you have an authorized user and they're traveling without you, they're not going to get free checked bags. That won't do it. Most credit cards allow one free check bag per person, and they again usually cover a free check bag for some number of travel companions, varies by card, and we'll get into specifics there. When you get bags through other means,

like if you have elite status, and so you get free check bags for your elite status, usually the check baggage allowance is not cumulative, so you're not going to get an extra bag for being a cardholder in most cases. And baggage fee waivers usually only apply to standard bag fees. Usually they don't include oversized bags or pets. You have to check for one reason or another. I don't know I say check. You know, there's a way in order to, that's not the right term. But Stephen Pepper would know better than I,

although I think his dog usually comes in the cabin. At any rate, the credit card is not going to cover any of those types of fees, pet fees, or oversized bag fees in most cases. So those are all things to know about the free check bag stuff we're talking about. Although I guess Frontier with their elite status, there's a way to waive the pet fee to bring a pet on board. Yeah. All right. So if you're a regular flyer of a particular airline, probably getting a credit card that gives you free check bags and other perks, it just makes sense. But what if you're not a regular flyer and you're just, you know, occasionally going to fly a particular airline and you want free check bags?

One strategy, I'm going to discuss one strategy that involves getting a credit card even just for one flight. So let's say, just for example, you don't fly delta often enough to want to pay a regular annual fee on a delta card, but you do have a delta flight coming up. You can, you know, before the flight, apply for the Delta gold card, either the personal or business. And the cool thing is, as we're recording this, this could change at any time. But the $150 annual fee for the Delta cards, Delta gold cards, is waived for the first year. So you could sign up for one of those cards if you get approved, not pay any annual fee for the first year, just by being a card member, you get a free check bag, the first free check bag for yourself, plus up to eight companions that are on the same ticket.

So, I mean, that's potentially waiving a huge amount of fees. And you don't have to pay with that Delta card for the flight in order to get that benefit. You just have to have the card and it be associated with your Delta Sky Miles number. So obviously, you have to be a Delta SkyMiles number. Sky Miles member and that number has to be attached to your reservation. And the strategy is, remember this scenario is that you don't fly Delta enough to want to pay an annual fee, is that you keep the card until the second year annual fee comes due, and then downgrade to a free-free card, if available.

So from the gold personal card, for example, you could downgrade to the fee-free blue card, which does not give you free check bags, but it preserved. that account. The business card, you can't do that. So that's not really an option there, but there is a cheaper card on the business side you could do that with. And then you just keep that card around. And next time you have another Delta flight coming up, call Amex and ask if you can upgrade back to the gold card. And then you'll just pay a prorated annual fee based on how much time is left in the membership year, you'll pay some portion of $150 for that. And that could be very well worth it if you're waiving check bag fees for multiple people. Yeah, I mean, my example

that I gave before with at least four people on my reservation that needed a checked bag, even if you upgraded near the early part of the year where you pay a significant chunk of that $150, it'd still come out well ahead by doing that overpaying for the bag fees. So I think that can be a really interesting strategy. But when you're talking about opening the card before your upcoming flight, I had to ask myself, well, how soon before your flight do you need to be a cardholder? Like if I'm flying tomorrow, can I open the card today and get my free check bag? How does that work?

Yeah. The timing does matter with this. Some cards, not all of them, have terms that say that the card has to be open for, let's say, seven days, before travel. So before you, you know, sign up for a card last minute, check the detailed terms. You know, I could totally imagine that you just packed for like tomorrow's flight and realized, oh, no, I'm going to have to check bags. And then you might like go to sign up for a card.

But check that fine print first to make sure that doesn't say anything about needing some number of days of being a cardholder before that perk applies. Also, pay attention to whether or not you have to pay for the flight with that card. With Delta, you don't, but we're going to talk about next, which cards you have to pay with in order to get free checkbacks. Yeah, and before we do that, let me also mention it might also be worth looking for some data points as to the specific card that you're working on, or considering opening rather. You might want to ask in our Frequemiler Insiders Facebook group how people have had it work for their situations. In other words, get some data points from people.

How far in advance of their flight did they apply for the card and actually get the check bags? Because we all know that terms in real life experience don't always line up. Of course, you have to count on the terms. But you may find that it's available even sooner. I know, for instance, when I opened my Jet Blue card, it said you needed a minimum of seven days. before the flight in order to get the free check bags. And I don't know whether it would have taken seven days or not, but about two days later, my JetBlue account reflected the fact that I was a cardholder,

so I would assume that it probably would have worked. Yeah, and we have a guide to free check bags, and we'll have a link to that in the show notes. And in some cases where we report on that seven-day requirement, we also report, oh, but commenters have said that it works last minute it as well, for example. So check that out too if you do see those terms and they don't work for you. All right. Let's talk about which airlines do require you to pay for the flight with your card in order to get free check bags. And luckily, it's a pretty short list. You have both Alaska

and Hawaiian require it. You have Frontier and United. Now, United is in. You know, United is interesting because even though they have that requirement, they have an exception. The exception says that if your flight is completed in the 90 days following your account open date, then this requirement is waived. So in other words, if your flight is within 90 days, less than 90 days away when you sign up for the card new, then you don't have to pay for the flight with the card. And so they're really, United seems to be supporting this idea of the strategy of like, oh, I have a flight coming up in a month or so. Let's sign up for the card now. So I get free check bag. It's kind of funny that they are specifically making that possible. But I get it.

They want to sell those credit cards to people, and they understand that probably their best customers are ones that are getting ready to fly and realize they have to pay check bag fees and would rather not. And so that's a great opportunity for United to get some new credit card customers. Yeah, absolutely. It makes a lot of sense. I wonder if there's any sort of reminder during the process of booking your flight or checking your business. bags it tells you, hey, you didn't pay with the United card this time. And that's cool for now. But in the future, you're going to have to pay with the United card. Because I could totally see as a new card holder being kind of surprised the first time that I find out I don't get checked bags because I used a different card to buy my flight. If United doesn't warn you at all there. Right, right. They might warn you. I have no idea. Yeah.

Anyway. So how many travel companions get a free checked bag? Because if you're flying with other people, and you're a card holder, you might wonder, well, does everybody get a check bag? Do just I get a check bag? And I think that varies by airline, right? Varies by airline, in some cases, by the type of card you have. So three airlines don't give check bags, free check bags to any companions. Frontier, Hawaiian, and Spirit are all that way. United is the next worst in that most United cards only allow one companion to get a free check bag. But if you get one of the more expensive United cards, the United Quest card or higher like a club card or the old presidential card, then you get two companions. So it's still pretty miserly compared to what most of the other airlines offer.

So with United, if you want a whole family to get free check bags, I mean, you're probably looking at, you know, two parents getting cards, something along those lines, depending on how many kids you have. You might have to do more than that. JetBlue allows three companions, so that at least means that a family of four could get in with one card. Four companions. So most American Airlines cards give you four companions, their executive card, and their new globe card will give you eight companions.

Alaska cards give you six companions. So if you've been paying attention, I mentioned Hawaiian is one that doesn't give you any. Alaska cards give you six companions. Both cards let you get free check bags on Hawaiian or Alaska flights because they're owned by the same. company. So Alaska credit cards have a clear edge over Hawaiian credit cards for free check bags. You can get eight companions with any Delta card that offers a free check bag and with any Southwest card that offers a free check bag. So I really think Delta and Southwest are really the shining ones for those with very large families or travel in large groups. Yeah, yeah, it needs to check a lot of bags.

is definitely the kind of the way to go there. So up to eight companions, that really is convenient. We've taken advantage of the fact that the entire family can get check bags on Southwest more than once, thanks to our credit cards. So that's great, even though Southwest only launched those check bag fees, what, less than a year ago, I think, but we've already taken advantage of that several times. So that's nice. All right, what about when you're flying internationally? So if I'm traveling to Europe or Asia or something or even South America, perhaps,

Do I get free check bags then? Usually, most of the cards, the free check bag waiver works for all flights. There are exceptions, though. Hawaiian Airlines, it looks like an exception because in the terms it says international flights are free if you're flying Alaska, but free on Hawaiian only within North America. But then if you elsewhere look at what their bag fees are, you find out that Hawaiian doesn't charge for the first check bag on international flights. So, you know, that's one of those lawyerly things, I think, where they, you know, the legal

people made them put it in that way and it just confuses customers instead. Basically, with Hawaiian, just forget it. It doesn't matter on international flights, you get a free checkback. American Airlines is really the one that you got to watch out for. They do explicitly exclude international flights from the benefit from their credit card. They do offer a free check bag to most international flights, well, most long haul, international flights. They offer a free check bag anyway, so it doesn't matter in those cases. But exceptions where you will have to pay, even if you're a cardholder, are any international flight where you booked basic economy.

or regional international flights, like flying to Canada, flying to Mexico, flying to the Caribbean. There's exceptions in the Caribbean where you are covered. But things like that, so the medium haul, I guess, short to medium hall, international flights, you may have to pay if your only way out of it is your credit card. So that's unfortunate that American Airlines has those exceptions. Yeah, elite status, I suppose, would come in handy in those cases. But yeah, it's definitely a bummer.

And I ran into that at some point. I can't even remember where we were going or when, where I was surprised. I didn't realize that my card would not provide a free check bag in that type of situation. It must have been something in the Caribbean, something not very far away. And I thought, oh, that was surprising. I didn't realize it wouldn't cover a checked bag in that case. So it's good to know that that exists. All right.

So if I just want cheap, free checked bags, I know I'm going to be traveling with checked bags, and it doesn't really matter who I travel on, I just don't want to pay a lot for it. What are my cheapest ways out here? Yeah, yeah. Let me first say it. So American Airlines, Delta and United, their cheapest options are also, as things stand as we're recording it, have the first year fee waived. So that's really the cheapest.

But let me go over each one individually. So American Airlines, you have the $99 advantage platinum select or the $99 advantage business card, first year annual fee waived. That's a great option for American Airlines. When flying Alaska or Hawaiian, you want, as we talked about before, you want the Alaska card. So either the $95 Atmos Ascent or the Atmos Business card will get you in. That's the best deal you can get there. Delta, you've got to go up to the $150 gold or gold business card. As I said, first year annual fee is waived.

JetBlue, you've got the $99 plus card or the business card. So $99 is the starting point there. Southwest, $99 for the plus card. And United, $150 for the Explorer card. first year fee is waived, or $150 for the business card where the first year annual fee is not waived. So those are your best options for each of the major airlines that we want to cover here. There you go. So even in cases where you have to pay the first year annual fee,

if you've got a couple of passengers on a round trip itinerary that each need a checked bag, probably I think all of these will more than pay for themselves in just one trip for two passengers in cases where it covers a companion anyway. So there's some cheap enough deals there anyway. And then obviously the cards that waive the annual fee for the first year are a better deal yet. All right. Are there any other ways for me to get free checked bags? There's a lot of options.

So one is you can pay with a card that reimburses airline incidental fees. Like if you have an Amex platinum card, if you have the Chase Ritz-Carlton card, there's different cards that have airline fee waivers or just airline fare waivers that also are not waiver is the wrong word. It's more of a rebate really. Another option is to try to get elite status. Now that if you're if you're a frequent flyer enough with an airline to get elite status, you probably also can benefit from that that airline's credit card. So that may sound like a dumb idea. But in many cases, you can do. a status challenge that gives you temporary elite status, especially if you have elite status with at least one airline. Let's say you're a regular delta flyer and you just want to,

and you've got one big flight on United coming up where you'd like free check bags. One option is to ask United for a status match challenge and that will typically give you status for 90 days. So if you time it right, you get, you have that elite status during your travel and it doesn't even matter whether you meet the status challenge requirements because you have that elite status during the challenge and lead status with most airlines means free check bag at least for you but usually for your travel companions as well. Another option for regarding elite status is in some cases it's possible to get elite status for a day or for a particular trip. So for example, an American Airlines elite member is sometimes able to redeem points to gift status for a day to somebody else.

So if you know someone who, so I did this for my niece once, she was flying American Airlines, could use free check bags. So I redeemed some points to gift her silver or gold status. I forget. Well, gold is their first level for American. I gift her her gold status. And I didn't read the terms and conditions. And it turns out that she would have had to apply that gold status, something like, I can't remember the details, but something like two weeks before the flight for it to take effect. And it was too soon in. So she wasn't even able to use that status for a day.

But it would have worked if only I hadn't been foiled by those stupid terms and conditions, which are enforced in that case. Another example with the same thing, with getting American Airlines status for a day is if you have Hyatt elite status, I think it's explorist or more. You can redeem Hyatt points to get American Airlines status for a day. And so that could be worth it in some situations. All right. So aside from elite status, another way is you could book premium cabin. And usually when you book first class, you know, like domestic first class or international

premium economy or business class, usually if that check bags are included. So that's another option. And another option is carry on everything except for your kids car seat or car seats, plural. And if you have a – because most airlines – not all of them, I think, but most airlines will let you check a car seat for free. And if you have a nice car seat cover, you might be able to slide some other stuff that's not the car seat into that car seat cover along with your car seat. You can slide plenty of stuff in there with a car seat bag. Ask me how I know. Even Spirit allowed for free car seat, you know, free checked car seat. I think all the U.S. airlines do, and most international ones,

I think, as well, will allow for a car seat to be checked for free. And yeah, you, you want to, if you're a new parent, you don't know this, you want to get, if you're going to bring your car seat with you, which is a whole rig and moral that you may or may not want. But yeah, if you want to bring your car seat with you, you definitely want to get the car seat bag. Number one, because it's going to get banged around when you check it and we lost cop holders and got different things snagged and whatnot when we didn't have a bag for it. So totally get the car seat bag just to keep it kind of protected. But then, yeah, you could fit plenty of diapers and white. and all sorts of stuff in that bag. So when we put laundry in there, I mean, we really packed that bag full because they don't open it when you go to the checking counter. Does anyone sell a car seat that's really a suitcase that looks like a car seat but has openings that where you can stuff stuff inside? You could probably take all the stuff off of the car seat and just have like the bit. You get one of those like high back booster seats and put it in one of those car seat. I mean, there are probably ways around that.

But I'm not speaking from experience on that part of it. I did pack it full of stuff, but I didn't try to get around it quite that well. A couple things that you mentioned there, like flying a premium cabin might seem like, oh, yeah, well, you know, sure, you got free check bags, which you're paying more. But it's worth looking because sometimes domestically, particularly the difference between an economy flight and a premium cabin might not be all that much. So, you know, you may find, there's times I've looked at it where even the premium cabin is less sometimes than economy. That's rare, but occasionally it is. So I always try and check and see because, you know, that might actually work out pretty well. And the Ritz card for me, the Chase Ritz card works out really well for low-cost carriers.

When we fly Spirit or Allegiant, which we do from time to time, I almost always use the Ritz card and just file a claim for all of the incidental fees after the fact. because I say file a claim, you just send a secure message and let them know how much of the cost of that ticket was in baggage and seat fees or whatever, and that's that. It's pretty simple to get reimbursed. Yeah, yeah, really good point. Also, sometimes when paying with miles for a flight, it can be cheaper or cheaper to book the like regional first class or business class seat than economy because sometimes saver level seats are available in that premium cabin that aren't available in economy. And in those cases, you get actually save points and save on check bags. Then there are also some mileage options where it's so cheap anyway. It might cost

more than economy, but it's so cheap that you might as well just go up. So for example, short haul American Airlines flights using Alaska miles. They cost, what, 4,500 points one way in economy or I think 9,000 points one way in first class. So you're only paying 4,500 more points, but getting, you know, free check bag. And so it's a decent tradeoff. Plus, of course, you're getting to fly in first class. similar in if you're flying Air France or KLM around Europe, Virgin Atlantic has great prices for flying those short haul flights around Europe.

And so, you know, paying the few extra points, a few thousand extra points to get into business class there can be a good deal. And also, sometimes I find that business class on Air France and KLM is much more readily available to their partners than economy is. So you might really have no choice if you want to use points to book a particular flight. And then you get free check bags. So all reasons to consider that. Very good. All right. Now, this entire time we've been talking about free check bags, I can't help but notice that there are some bags behind you. But those don't look like check bag size bags. What's up with that? Yeah. Well, you know, mostly it's a prop for the show.

if you're listening to the podcast, I have a stack of small suitcases piled up behind me. Yeah, all of the, all of the luggage I have in my household are all carry-on size. We long ago stopped, stopped, you know, flying with any bigger bags. And so most of the time, we just carry on. Usually it's free to carry on. it does obviously require packing light in order to do that. So if you have small kids, probably not an option because small kids come with lots of requirements, like huge things of diapers and other things.

But if you don't have that situation, then, you know, most airlines do allow at least a single free carry-on for each passenger. So if you can make that work, which is how, again, my wife and I do almost all. or travel that way. That's a way to avoid those fees. Also has other advantages, like it minimizes a chance of the airline losing your bags, which does happen. It helps with irregular operations. So let's say your flight is delayed, so you're going to miss your connection. The airline might be able to put you at the last minute on some other flight, for example, but maybe they wouldn't be able to get you onto that flight in time if you've checked your bag on that. first flight. And so just having the bags with you can help. That's happened to me a couple

times where they're like, oh, you have your bags with you. Yeah, you can go this way. So that's great. And you know, you might wonder, well, if I don't have a credit card, I'm going to have like boarding zone 19. So by the time I get on, I won't be able to fit my carry-on bag. That's true. but most airlines will let you gate-check the bag for free. And in most cases, not all, that makes it less likely you'd lose the bag because you just pick up the bag after disembarking wherever you arrive, as opposed to it getting sort of checked through. Now, in some cases, they actually move the bags to actually be checked,

and so that loses that benefit. But still. And it also, by always doing carry-on, being team carry-on, you will avoid over-buying stuff when you're traveling. Because you're going to be shopping and realize, oh, wait, we can't fit this in our luggage. And so whether that's a plus or minus probably depends on how you feel about tourists shopping. But I kind of hate it. So I love that excuse to not have to get all that stuff. you know i i would i would say that that's true except there are times when we have just bought a bag

and so it kind of defease that purpose uh although for the most part yeah we don't we don't tend to buy very much anymore christmas markets are the exception and we've gone to christmas markets in europe the last couple of years and and there we have overbought but but generally speaking i agree with you that having less luggage has helped us stop doing that and that's i think been net positive, actually, not buying as much stuff. We just rarely buy stuff when we're traveling, unless it's stuff that we're kind of intentional that we want from a particular area. We don't, we don't tend to buy as much. And that's, I think, a benefit of trying to pack lighter. We're not team carry on yet in my household, but we've definitely been pairing down. We were

like, team check three bags for a bit. And then, you know, we got down to check two bags. And Now we're down to check one bag and we're pretty close. We're pretty close. Yeah, we are. And the kids like rolling carry-ons of their own now. So that's, you know, that's good too. We're making progress. We'll get there one day.

It'll help once the war on liquids ends. Yeah. You know, the, in England, they've stopped requiring you to have only liquids under a certain size. They allow you through, at least through Heathrow, I think. I think some other airports do allow you to take any size liquid. So hopefully that will spread to the rest of the world soon. Hopefully. Hopefully.

That would be incredibly helpful for us. We have a son who still has to have these kind of protein shakes that we have to check because they're too big to bring on board with us. So that's part of the reason we have to always check a bag. So anyway, I look forward to that day when that changes. All right. That brings us, I think, to just about the end of the show. so it brings us to this week's question of the week. This week's question of the week comes in via email from Dana.

So Dana has a tax-related question. Not a tax question, Greg, but a tax payment question. So Dana says we did turbotax and have a tax bill to pay. I got player two on board with the pay taxes by credit card train, did the calculations to use pay 1040, and was all set to go. However, TurboTax has an option to pay with card. So pay with your card directly through TurboTax, apparently, whereby they e-file for you at the same time. However, the fee going through TurboTax is 2.49%.

Now, side note, if you're familiar with Pay 1040, you know that for most consumer cards, I think it's 1.75% fee that way. So the TurboTax fee is more expensive. A Google search told me that I could select pay by check and then go to the IRS website and pay directly. But selecting that option on TurboTax said it would also print a voucher that we would need to mail in with the check. This was a bit confusing. And so we ended up paying the higher fee because it wasn't all that much in relation to our bill. But wondering if you or other listeners had a step-by-step-by-step on the best way to pay by $1040 or I'm sorry, what is it? Pay-1040.com, I guess is the...

the site when filing via turbotax or some other types of tax software. So what's up there, Greg? Yeah, yeah. So that is really confusing, and I've been confused about that in the past as well. When using turbotax, just tell it you're going to pay by check and just don't worry about the sending in any kind of slip with your taxes. Just tell it you're paying by check and then switch over to pay $1040. or the other tax payment processor, which I'm blanking on the name right now.

And if you want to pay by credit card, you can pay by, you know, if it's a consumer card, less than a 2% fee with either of those services and just make the payment. And that's it. That's all you have to do. Yeah. Yeah. And it's the same thing for the estimated payments, right? Because if you decide you're going to make estimated payments for the next year,

I don't use TurboTex, but whatever you use, because I do use something else similar, it does tell you that there are these vouchers to mail in with your checks. Have you ever worried about those vouchers at all? Yeah, no, I mean, it's always confusing. Like, until you get used to it, you get these vouchers and you say, oh, how am I going to do that and pay online with my credit card? How does that work? Just forget about the vouchers.

Think of them maybe as reminders to do this every quarter in that case, but they're not necessary. Yeah, and I've even paid via check with plastic or plastic, however it's pronounced numerous times before. And when you do go to pay taxes with them, they do, I think at some point in the process, kind of remind you that you should have, like, you know, name and birthday and at least the last four social security number or maybe need the whole social security number. I can't recall. But I think it does advise you during the process at some point what you should include for like the memo section on the check. And that's been. enough that they've always always ended up where they need to be. And there's a site,

there's somewhere on the IRS site where you have an account, you can check your payment history. So you can see and verify the payments there and been received. So, you know, if you're doing that further in advance, there's an easy way to make sure that everything has calculated or at least hit the accounts and been credited to you properly. So you're not going to wonder whether or not they've gotten it. It's pretty easy to verify that they have. Yeah. And We'll have a link in the show notes to our post about how to pay taxes by credit card. And in there, there's also details about how to look up your payment history that the IRS has received. So that's all there in that post.

Very good. All right. If you've enjoyed today's episode and you'd like to get more of this stuff in your email inbox each day or each week, go to frequent myler.com slash subscribe to join our email list. follow us on all the various social media. Join our Frequent Myler Insiders Facebook group where you can ask and answer questions like that one anytime you'd like. And wherever you're watching or listening,

don't forget to give this a like or a thumbs up. If you have a question that you'd like to be considered for a future question of the week or a piece of feedback that you'd like to be considered for our giant mailbag, you can send that to. Send it to a mailbag at Frequentmyler.com. Bye everybody. If you love travel but don't always have time to plan, we've got a podcast for you.

It's called Travel in 10. And in every episode, in about 10 minutes, we give you a smart, practical overview of destinations all around the world. We cover what to see, where to stay, where to eat, what actually matters when you're planning out a truck. It's designed for real life. Listen on the way to the airport, in the car, or while you're thinking about your next getaway. So if you want expert advice, zero fluff, and travel inspiration that you can actually use, Search for Travelin'N10 wherever you listen to podcasts, or you can also find us at voyscape.com. Hi, I'm Mike Siegel, host to the Travel Tales podcast, and I'm a stand-up comedian who's been touring the world for years,

and when I'm not traveling for work, I'm traveling for fun. And when I'm not traveling at all, I'm talking with friends, influencers, expats, and other people from all walks of life about the thing I'm most passionate about, travel. So if you want to hear a fun conversation about travel and maybe even learn a few things along the way, Check out the Travel Tales Podcast with Mike Siegel, wherever you get your podcasts.