Flying has gotten a bit “interesting” lately for many reasons. Great tips to help you fly prepared on your next trip flying in 2022 are detailed in this episode.
Preparing You For Flying in 2022
Have a Plan B (or C)
I am not saying your flights WILL be canceled or delayed but know what your options are. Are there other airports you could get to? Do you have the option to fly at a different time?
Give Yourself Buffer Time
With flight changing so much, tight layovers and inflexible schedules need to give a little bit. Book early morning flights so you have options for later in the day and give yourself plenty of time with any potential stops.
Stay In Touch With Airlines
Use the airlines apps (with notifications on during your travel), text alerts, and email services so you know immediately when plans need to be changed!
Purchase Travel Protection
Yes, you need it. Whether it is through the airline to cover flight issues or a comprehensive plan to cover all aspects of travel…it is essential now. My wife and I each have an annual plan that will cover all of our issues (and more)
If you use it for one trip it will be worth the cost!
We can even provide travel protection if we didn’t book the initial trip!
Question: What is your worst(ish) travel experiences when flying?
Please let us know in the All Things Travel Podcast Facebook group!
Start Making Your Magical Memories!
Ryan and Shayne are both Travel Advisers with Creating Magic Vacations, an authorized Disney Vacation Planner. Feel free to reach out to us for a free quote and to start making magical memories.
- Contact Ryan at DisneyTravelDad.Com.
- Contact Shayne at Shayne.fun.
Where in the World is All Things Travel?
- Manchester, New Hampshire
Check out the complete list of where in the world you’re located.
Never Miss a Thing!
Subscribe to All Things Travel Show on your favorite app so you never miss anything:
Please share it with some friends while you’re here.
Check out the complete list of episodes.
Episode 92 Transcripts
Episodes are transcribed with artificial intelligence so there are likely some highly amusing translations!
Ryan: Hello, and welcome to All Things Travel flying has gotten a bit interesting lately with itinerary changes, cancellations limited options. So today we’ll provide some tips to help you fly prepared on your next trip. You’re listening to all things travel episode 92 original air date, January 19th, 2022.
So Shayne, tell me about your worst experience with flying, whether it’s at the airport, whether it’s that they actual flight, whether it’s the experience with customer service or something like that. Flying gets a bad rap sometimes, but sometimes it’s justified. What’s your experience with this?
Shayne: I’ve always had great flights. I’ve had a few problems with. Delays. That’s probably been the only thing where I could complain
Ryan: Sure. Sure. Yeah.
Shayne: last coming back from Tampa and the flight just get kept, getting delayed more and more and more and ended up staying in the airport too long, getting home too late and just being worn out by the time we got home.
Ryan: Yeah. I’ve definitely had delays. We had a bad nine-hour delay in O’Hare going to a Hawaii a few years ago. I remember a flight for Munich being rerouted when I was taking college students. So we had to figure out how to get parents to everybody and all that kind of stuff. I think the worst though, I was flying by myself.
I was coming back from a conference I was in Toronto and the flight kept getting delayed and all of a sudden they come on and they say it is Canadian law. The international flights cannot leave after midnight. So therefore this flight is canceled and everybody’s kind of like, okay, and this gate agent comes out and says, everyone follow me and we’ll get you squared away.
And so we all start following her out and honest to God, Shayne, on in the hallway. This woman disappears. I don’t know where she went, but all of a sudden people in front of us just stopped. And they’re walking around and like, we come out of this doorway into a large atrium and nobody knows where to go.
Nobody knows what to do. And what we, one of our suggestions today, I had the air Canada app. So by that point, it had already rebooked me on the next day’s flight, but no one was there to help us with lodging. No one was there to help us with anything. It was just kind of, it’s not what you expected. Okay.
Where would that type of situation? And that was just, that was my first time ever feeling quote, unquote stranded when I came to a flight mishap.
Shayne: That is crazy. And I’ve heard stories too, of the gate agent telling travelers one thing. And then when they to a hotel, the
Ryan: Yeah.
Shayne: has no idea of what the flight of what the airline promised them.
Ryan: Yes. I know. I know. So we’re going to talk today about what travel is like right now and what are some ways that we can get ourselves prepared for that? What are some ways that we can work against these travel dilemmas, but first Shayne, you know what I’m going to ask. I want to know where in the world is,
all Things Travel
Shayne: where indeed Manchester, New Hampshire.
Ryan: Manchester New Hampshire. Welcome.
Shayne: It looks like one of those Christmas card towns that I’d
Ryan: Absolutely.
Shayne: We can hang out at the Strange Brew Tavern and
Ryan: Ooh,
Shayne: and drink and watch live local music. But also there’s a house there that the Zimmerman house, which is the only Frank Lloyd Wright home, that’s open to the public and
Ryan: very nice.
Shayne: go see that too.
Ryan: Yeah, very nice. Great. Well, thank you for listening, Manchester, New Hampshire. And we’ve got a favor to ask, reach out to Shayne or myself, either on the Facebook group or via email. We’ve got a thank you gift for being featured.
right, Shayne,. So this is a very timely topic for me
Shayne: no
Ryan: it was just this week, not the week that the show’s coming out, but the week that we’re recording this happened to me. Okay. So I have flown twice. In the last month and I’ve been shocked by the number of delays, cancellations changes and flight plans, crew being all over the place and having to fly in.
It’s just really been a zoo lately.
Shayne: There are a lot of things going on in the flight industry between crew getting
Ryan: Right, right.
Shayne: There are many members of the crew that are not allowed to fly because they’re not wanting to comply with the airline vaccine. Rules. So there’s just a lot going
Ryan: Yeah.
Shayne: to weather a lot of things going on to make flying
unpredictable.
Ryan: doesn’t bode well, going into winter when we’re like this. So we were going to fly back from Tampa. We were in Florida for a wedding and we were going to fly out about 9:00 AM that morning. So at 4:00 AM, my wife gets a 10. From Southwest that says our flight was canceled and she got up and started to look and the best option, the option that Southwest was giving her was for the next day.
And we couldn’t do that. The kids were already missing some school. She needed to get back from work. So we said, okay, we have a rental car. Where else can we fly? Out of the best for us was flying out that evening from Fort Myers, which was about two hours. So we scrambled a little bit and we paid a little extra to change our tickets.
We were able to extend our rental car and we were able to get a later checkout at our rental property. And we basically spend an extra day in Florida driving down to Fort Myers checking some stuff out, all that kind of stuff. And yeah. Obviously there could have been a lot worse situations cause we were able to get home about 12 hours late.
But we were able to get home, talking to folks there, some of them were on their second, third fight trying to get home. We actually left before some flights that were supposed to leave earlier that morning. And we’re talking about, you know, nighttime at this point,
Shayne: Wow.
Ryan: on another flight a few weeks ago, and there was not a flight on the board that wasn’t delayed or canceled or moved around.
I mean, it’s just really, really crazy, right.
Shayne: I think a lot of it is airlines are trying to book flights as though everything’s running at full
capacity
Ryan: think you’re exactly right.
Shayne: and they’re not running at full capacity.
Ryan: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So we have four suggestions for the next time you. To help you prepare for how flying is right now. Again, we’re not trying to talk you out of travel. We’re trying to make you a more intelligent, prepared traveler. So Shane what’s the first suggestion that we have.
Shayne: Have a backup plan, have.
a plan B maybe even a plan C because you don’t know that your flight’s going to be delayed or
Ryan: Absolutely.
Shayne: but even when times aren’t the way they are now, it’s always a possibility between weather and. A myriad of other things. Yeah. just always have be aware of what other airports are nearby.
else, what might you fly out enough to get back home and also be aware of some rental car options in case you have to get to one of those airports or in some cases, if you’re close enough, if you just end up having to drive home.
Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. So the second suggestion is you need to give yourself more buffer time now. Okay. So having tight layovers or having inflexible schedule. It’s really going to work against you with flying right now. So book early morning flights. So if things get delayed or things get changed, you have extra time.
And also give yourself plenty of time at potential stops, because you want to make sure that you’re able to travel as smoothly as possible. So plan for that longer time, that buffer time from the very beginning.
Shayne: No in 2018, we flew back from Europe and we flew back on a Sunday, arrived back home about four 15 or so in the evening Was scheduled to go back to work the
Ryan: Yeah,
Shayne: just because we wanted to get as much time out of the trip as we could.
Ryan: sure.
Shayne: now that there is no way we would plan a trip like that, we’d always get, we will always give ourselves at least bopper, if not more,
Ryan: Right.
Shayne: home and get settled
Ryan: Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. What’s our third camp Shayne?
Shayne: Stay in touch with the airline and right way to do that is to download and use whatever. You’re the airline that you’re flying on. You get notifications throughout the day. They’ll send, you can set up text alerts if you want, or notifications via the app. then there’s services within the app where you can communicate with an online chat or you can easily tap and dial a number to call and talk to an agent. yeah, stay in touch with the airlines, monitor the flight and see, keep aware of what’s going.
Ryan: So my experience in Canada, there were automatically rebooked me on next day flight. I didn’t have to talk to anybody, but because I had an account because I had the app, notified me right away. had a flight this summer. We were in Washington, DC. Our flight to Indianapolis was canceled. My wife was actually in line at the counter and through the app through the chat was able to move stuff around before she even got to the counter.
It’s worth it to have those, all those apps downloaded, ready to go. And what I say, what I do Shayne is I actually have a travel folder on my phone and whatever airline I use. I actually pull that button out so that it’s on my home screen directly. I don’t have to search for it necessarily on my phone.
Shayne: And stay in touch with your meteorologists too. Use a weather app. So you have an idea if there’s some inclement weather where you’re traveling, flying from or where you’re flying back home to.
Ryan: And our last tip and probably the most important one. And you’ve heard us say it before. Purchase travel protection, whether that’s through the air wine, whether that’s part of your trip, you need it. Okay. It’s essential. Now my wife and I, for instant chain, we each have a comprehensive travel protection plan for the year.
She travels a lot for work. I travel a lot for work. We traveled together. We travel separately. We have a policy that covers each of us. As far as medical, as far as trip insurance, baggage, all that stuff, flights, it is worth the cost. I promise you if you use it. You’re never fly or travel without travel protection again.
And here’s a shameless plug for us. We can help you with travel protection, even if you did not work with us to plan the trip and we can do travel protection up until the actual trip. So if you’re unsure or if this makes you think, yeah, we really need to add it. Reach out to us. We’d love to help.
Shayne: And what I like about the company that we use is they make it simple. Even I can understand these policies and you get
Ryan: It’s an a, B or C plan.
Shayne: and easy to understand.
Ryan: Yep, absolutely. Absolutely. And I can tell you every time I call and it’s not just because I’m a travel advisor, every time I call, I get a person on the line get them pretty darn quickly.
Shayne: You don’t get that with every company.
Ryan: Nope. Again, we are not trying to talk you out of traveling. We’re trying to help you be an educated, traveler.
We want you to what travels like right now. What my experiences with flying over the last month has been, I think you just need
Shayne: Yeah,
Ryan: these four tips in mind when it comes to travel.
Shayne: And we would love to help you plan your next vacation. We are both travel advisors with creating magic, vacations and authorized Disney planner. You can reach us at R Y A N at CreatingMagicVacations.com S H A Y N E at CreatingMagicVacations.com the most. Are confused and overwhelmed when they want to plan a vacation.
And we work with you to plan a trip perfect for your interests, which saves you time, money, and stress.