Almost every trip teaches me something about myself, the world and what not to do next time. Here are three hard-won travel lessons that may help you learn from my mistakes.
Cobbling together flights isn’t worth the savings Whenever possible, I book nonstop flights. Nonstops may cost a bit more, but they avoid the inconvenience of layovers and the stress of possibly missing a connection. Somehow, incredibly, we made our flight home, but my heart didn’t stop pounding until we were well over the Atlantic Ocean. Now I make sure to book through a single airline and its partners. Our luggage is checked through to our final destination, and flight delays become the airline’s problem to fix.
Sadly, he never recovered enough to make such a flight. But I realized how vulnerable I’d been, especially traveling in places with poor medical care. Now I make sure that whenever we’re away from home, we have travel insurance that includes medical evacuation. If we’re traveling outside the U.S., I ensure we have health insurance coverage as well.
This is a lesson I didn’t have to learn the hard way: The one time a rental car agency tried to bill me for a door ding, I notified my credit card company. I have no idea if the claim was paid or dropped; I just know that I didn’t have to deal with it after that.Beware third-party booking sites Many credit cards offer general travel rewards that you can transfer to the issuer’s airline and hotel partners. But some credit card companies also offer their own travel portals.