Why travel hacking is dead

Travel hacking is dead, everyone is just paying full-price

You know the glamour and the luxury of travel bloggers? The ones that constantly bombard you with articles and encouragement that you can also travel like them if you follow a few pieces of their advice? Yeah that’s bullshit and as an avid traveller I can tell you why.

My experience

I started traveling the world around 2014/2015 when I discovered FlyerTalk. A community of travel enthusiasts and people who enjoyed using the system to their advantage. We would discuss the best hotels and airlines, but also things such as error fares or fuel dumping (I won’t explain the tactic, it’s complicated and you just need to know it’s a different kind of travel hack). People would also discuss mileage runs, a way to get tons of qualification or award miles to make elite status with the airline.

I travelled a decent number of times on error fares - 147$ Catania, 450$ Beijing business class, 1'200$ business class from Europe to South America. All of these were fun adventures, but most of the time I was doing it to get airline elite status and get to the next level of luxury. Probably my pinnacle was flying in Etihad’s First Apartment. An enclosed unit with a sofa-bed, lots of expensive champagne, and delicious food. All for 100'000 American Airlines miles.

Sounds great? It was. I travelled around the world five times over and managed to visit 28 countries during my peak travel years. I was away a month at one point, entirely unplanned.

Why is travel hacking dead?

The problem is that bloggers and subsequently the capitalistic system has turned those “hacks” into revenue streams. A lot of travel bloggers now make tons of money through credit card referrals and travel consultation, in addition to advertising on their website.

If you look around these days, they might offer you some advice but most of that advice is now well-known or spread throughout the internet, it isn’t really a travel hack. Skiplagging was a huge thing some would do, and now that’s just the name of a travel booking website. You won’t fly for free or in luxury that easy anymore because everyone knows the ins and outs quickly after being posted.

Airlines and credit cards know this issue exists. Airlines have clamped down on elite status programs - everything from fewer benefits to increasing the threshold for elite status. You now are required to spend money to attain elite status instead of the old way of flying a set amount of miles. These amounts aren’t cheap either, they’re thousands sometimes tens of thousands of dollars per year. Even if you get lucky to obtain elite status you’ll be met with crowded lounges, a huge standby or upgrade list, and expensive award mileage tickets.

Say you avoid everything the airline has and go right to a credit card, is that any better? Sadly no. You might get a better lounge, but it’s also crowded. American Express Centurion lounges are notorious for being crowded now and so are Delta Air Lines Skyclub lounges because if you can get the credit card, so can everyone else. They’ve had to put restrictions on the number of people and times you can use your lounge benefit too. So lounges are out of the question, what about boarding? Same deal- everyone has that credit card now, so everyone gets to board “early”.

We live in a time where information is at our fingertips, but that very resource has killed travel hacking. A secret doesn’t stay a secret when everyone knows, including the airlines.

What can one do now?

Well- not much, unless you plan on not flying. Not a viable option when you fly transatlantic or transpacific.

Your best bet is to get TSA Precheck or GlobalEntry, and grab a CLEAR membership. That way you can spend less time at the airport, less hassle through security. Additionally, consider not having layovers. Find routes or flights that might be more direct or shorter layover times. You might also want to consider packing light- either to check a bag at the gate for free or fit in the plane’s overhead bin/under the seat.

Finally, budget airport food and drink costs, and eat before your flight. When a lounge is full I will swing by a nearby bar and grab some wine and read a book, but often times now I eat prior to arriving at the airport and get through security closer to the boarding time.

This article might not be groundbreaking, but it’s the reality of travel these days and we can only control so much of it.

With wine and airline pretzels,
Kathryn