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Travel Tips

June 8, 2024

As academics, we travel a lot. (If you haven't, trust me, there's comes a point where you will.) It's for sure fun some of the time, but it creates friction in your life, so it's nice to master some components that makes it all a lot easier. A friend's mom once overheard my Whatsapp voice message to her with some of my travel advice and thought it was a podcast, so, those are my credentials here. Plus ~8 years of airline status, and living a fairly nomadic lifestyle in graduate school involving a lot of travel.

Index


Cellular Data: Airalo:

When traveling outside of your home country/region, you may want to purchase a way to still have cellular data. The old fashioned route is to find a mobile store and purchase a local SIM card (like $10-30), or to pay some ridiculous price for a travel package from your home cellular service (like $10-20 per day).

The alternative that I recommend is to purchase an eSIM. You can do this purely online without finding a physical store or making annoying phone calls, and it's dirt cheap.

The service that I use is called Airalo (or download the app). You buy an eSIM for a specific location, for an amount of time (e.g., 7 days, 30 days, whatever), and for a specific amount of data (e.g., 2 gigs). Crucially, you do not get a real phone number, but you do get a lot of data for very cheap (approximately $5 for 1 gig over 7 days and cheaper for larger packages). Pricing varies by country, length of package, amount of data, etc. You also have the option to buy for a single country vs. continent vs. global depending on your needs, where of course it's cheaper for a more restricted plan. It's also very easy to set up through the app. The code WELCOME30 should give you 30% off your first time using it, but if that doesn't work, you can try my referral code of KIRA9090 to give $3 of your first purchase. (Or trade around with the people you're traveling with so you all get $3 off!)

Compatibility: Basically any phone from the last 5-6 years should be eSIM compatible. That is, smart phones don't require physical SIM cards anymore. You can buy an electronic (hence the 'e') SIM card through an app or website and set it up on your phone without every going to a store or dealing with any physical product, and top it up as you need. For reference, my 2019 iPhone 11 did this just fine. It works across operating systems, so long as your phone is from about 2018 or later.

No Phone Number: Like I said, you don't get a cell phone number, but your phone can actually operate multiple eSIMs at once, which means if you play with your settings, you can leave your primary (home-country's) phone number on without using its data. Then (at least for most US cell plans, definitely for Verizon) you can still receive calls and texts without getting charged, and you can place calls and texts over wifi on your primary number for free, all while using the cheap eSIM data in the foreign country.

Setting It Up: I can only walk through it for iPhone, but, after installing the eSIM (just follow Airalo's instructions for that), settings are under "cellular"—you can see how I have my phone set in the photos. It allows you to continue to receive texts on your primary line and even make calls/send texts over wifi without incurring charges.

  

Cellular Data selects the airalo eSIM "secondary" but my default voice line is still "Primary" so I can receive/make calls over wifi (or if I really need, incur a charge). Cellular Data Switching and Data Roaming are both off to prevent it from using my primary's data.

Note: I haven't yet figured out how to get it not to mess up my iMessaging. You can still iMessage from your AppleID (usually your email address), but it starts new conversations instead of the ones that were previously from your primary phone number. This happens with a local SIM/phone number too. The only way to avoid this, as far as I'm aware, is with the super expensive travel package.

Good-for-Travel Credit Cards:

This is only really relevant for people living in the US, and you need to already have good credit to get approved for these cards, but as any economist will tell you, if you're using a debit card or a low-quality credit card, you're leaving money on the table. There are several credit cards optimized for people spending their money on dining and travel, which as academics we do a good chunk of the time. Some credit cards can get you as high as 4.5 cents back for every dollar spent on travel and dining (but in a much more roundabout way), as opposed to basic cards which are only 1 cent per dollar. If your concern is more not fronting any of your own money, see the section on institutional credit cards. These cards have extremely high annual fees, but if you do the analysis beforehand and are vigilant about using it properly, then you will come out on top. The best pick for optimizing rewards on travel and dining: the Chase Sapphire Reward.

For a more general breakdown on credit cards, check out The Points Guy (overall best cards, best for travel).

Chase Sapphire Reserve

Your annual fee is effectively $250: it is actually $550 per year, but then you get $300 back in a travel credit immediately (after you spend money on travel, it's immediately reimbursed on your statement from the annual fee for the first $300).

You also can effectively earn 4.5% back on travel and dining, but this is more complicated. You actually earn 3% back on purchases for travel and dining (incredibly generously classified: flights, Airbnb's, taxis, restaurants, delivery, subway, parking, whatever) and 1% back on everything else. Now you could take this as just a credit back on your statement; however, if you redeem it through the chase portal, you can redeem it at a higher rate making it worth more. Your options are: (1) redeem it through "pay yourself back" at a rate of 1.25x for 3.75% back on travel and dining and 1.25% on anything else actually redeemed as a statement credit. This is your best option. Alternatively (2) redeem it through the chase travel portal for flights or hotels or rental cars or whatever at a rate of 1.5x, making it effectively 4.5% on travel and dining and 1.5% on anything else—but you're not earning new points for these transactions because you're paying with points for them.

The card also has amazing perks and protections for travel related things: Other perks: They rotate the other perks, but they currently include Chase perks: If you have multiple Chase cards, you can move all your chase points from other cards to the Sapphire and redeem at that higher 1.5x through Sapphire.

Sign-up bonus: You get a sign-up bonus of 60k points ($600) if you spend $4000 in the first three months, which when redeemed through the portal is $750 in statement credits or $900 on travel, so this covers the effective annual fee for 3.6 years.

When is it worth it: Ignoring all of the other perks (which are worth quite a lot), assuming a gain over a standard 1% back card, you need to spend only $7150 on travel and dining and nothing else to make up for the 250 in annual fee. So if you're fronting money for one conference a year, you're probably meeting this. Comparison with Sapphire Preferred: The Sapphire Preferred is the lower tier of the card. The annual fee is only $95, only earns 2% on travel, and only converts at 1.25x instead of 1.5x through the portal (and pay yourself back is only at 1x). It would be a very strange case where this card would be worth it.

Referral: Along the lines of not leaving money on the table, always use a friend's referral link. If you don't have someone else's, feel free to use mine.

How to use your credit card points: First, if you have other Chase cards, transfer all of your balance to Sapphire:
  1. Click on your other non-Sapphire card (assuming the balance isn't 0).
  2. At the top, it should say "Reward details" with a down arrow. Click the down arrow.
  3. When the menu opens, find and click on "Combine Points."
  4. On the left, click on the current account (e.g. "Flex") and on the right click on "Sapphire." Then click on "Combine."
  5. In the upper right, click on your account name, and it should give you options to switch to your Sapphire account.
Now, to use your points:
  1. At the top, where it says "Convert to cash" with a down arrow, click the down arrow.
  2. When the menu opens, find and click on "Pay Yourself Back."
  3. There should be a list of eligible purchases for which you'll get the best exchange rate from newest to soonest-to-expire. Scroll all the way down, checking off the lowest transactions marked as the higher exchange rate until you've used up all of your points. Then click "continue" and redeem, and you'll get a giant statement credit!
Booking travel:
  1. At the top, where it says "Travel" with a down arrow, click the down arrow.
  2. When the menu opens, find and click on "Book travel."
  3. This works just like expedia. Click on the "hotels" or "flights" or "cars" tab depending on what you're looking for.
  4. BE CAREFUL! For some reason, some of the rates are inflated some times, so cross-check with another platform.
  5. For hotel: Put in the destination and dates, and you can click on "advanced search" and also put in the hotel name if you're looking for a specific hotel in a specific place.
Airline Credit Cards

Disclaimer: A year ago, I initially wrote a very different section about when airline credit cards are useful. In the past year, Delta Airlines has completely revamped its status, and now pursuing status even with a credit card is pretty much a useless feat. I do not recommend this.

Airline credit cards are helpful for earning status, but they're actually very bad at earning dollars, so it depends how much you value status. See the loyalty programs section about airline status in general. I'll talk about the Delta credit cards, because that's the airline status and credit card that I've had.

The way this card used to work was that it was worth it if you spent $25k on it per year, waiving the monetary requirement of spending on the airline with via spending on the credit card, and it would also grant you lounge access, all for a hefty annual fee of $550. Now, that is no longer true. The annual fee has gone up, the perks have gone down, and the ability to earn status has gone down. Unless you spend something like $150k on a credit card easily in a year and have no value for the, $4k+ back you could easily earn with intelligent credit card usage (like described above), then this card won't make a dent in your status-earning anymore. I am dropping mine.

Institutional Credit Cards:

Many institutions have credit cards that they give to faculty/researchers to charge their travel expenses. If you're a student/postdoc without one and fronting the money for an academic trip is a major obstacle for you, it's quite possible that someone at your institution may be able to pay for the expenses on one of these cards so that you can avoid the reimbursement delay. If not, the institution can often book things directly for you to also avoid you fronting your money. Obviously you lose out on the point-hunting above, but you gain in avoiding the reimbursement nightmare.

Loyalty Programs:

My general belief is that it doesn't hurt to lean loyal. I've had Delta airline status for something like 8 years now, Platinum for around 5. I did not do this by sinking my own money into anything. Generally, these companies, especially airlines, have monopolies, and if you give into the monopoly, you will naturally benefit from loyalty. If you go out of your way to be loyal, that is when you will be disadvantaged (e.g., paying ridiculous amounts for a flight).

Loyalty status is wonderful: I get perpetually upgraded to Economy+, and usually First Class domestically—I have never paid for one of these tickets. I get free checked bags, free same day changes, and I have ample award miles to use for my leisure flights. That being said, I only recommend it if it means picking one of nearly identical options. And, as mentioned above, airline loyalty is being redesigned these days to focus solely on dollars spent, which will not work out for us economy-ticket travelers.

I personally have never found any benefit to trying to use the same hotels, especially since we are often told where to book (conference or workshop hotel, etc). The only loyalty I recommend there is something like an account on booking.com or hotels.com.

Essentials:

If you're going to be traveling a lot, I recommend having travel-versions of everything ready to go, and certain comforts that will help you feel well no matter where you are. Some examples follow.

Travel food: For a while, I traveled with soylent powder and a blender bottle after running into too many times where I was trapped somewhere without food, without nutritious food, or was otherwise feeling sick.

Sleep aids: A comfortable sleep mask, ear plugs, a white noise app, melatonin (bring it with you because you can't find it in all countries!) are crucial. Without sleep, what are we?

Toiletries: Travel-size versions and/or duplicates so you don't have to tear apart your daily life/rituals every time you go on a trip, but just throw your travel stuff in the bag.

Toothbrush: This is an odd one, but I'm really obsessed with my Sonicare Diamondclean toothbrush, which can hold a charge for a few weeks, has a traveling case, and can recharge the toothbrush through the traveling case. It's nice to not mess with certain routines when traveling.

Plane bag: Another ready-to-go thing is to have a bag that you always use on the plane, and I don't mean your backpack or purse. I use the bag that my trtl (travel) pillow comes in, since I only use my trtl on planes. I also keep a pair of earplugs, a USB-A to iPhone charger and wired headphones (both plane essentials), and a few other things.

Packing list: It's hard to thing about what's the minimum you can bring with you. I adopted a practice of my brilliant brother, which is a typed up all-purpose packing list, and I just cross out whatever isn't needed for this trip. It has warm weather clothing, beach sections, etc, all on it.

Bare minimum: I think carefully about what the bare minimum means for each trip, which bag it might be, if I can get away with just my 9.7" iPad and keyboard (highly recommend for short trips).


Shout out to Rachel Cummings and Jamie Morgenstern, as they're the ones who first taught me who to travel, back in the day.

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