Pod Insights The Clark Howard Podcast 01.14.26 Travel Buyer Beware / Clarkonomics: The 2026 Growth Recession About this episode Today Clark shares an important warning about booking travel - info that could save you from becoming stranded or banned from a major airline. Also - Taking into account our current K-shaped economy, a softening job market, and inflation projections, Clark explains the potential for a “growth recession”, and gives you the classic playbook for an uncertain economy. Travel Booking Alert: Segment 1 Ask Clark: Segment 2 Survive The Growth Recession: Segment 3 Ask Clark: Segment 4 Mentioned on the show: Warning: The Hidden Danger of Cheap Flights How To Plan a Trip: Clark's Best Travel Tips To Save Money Travel Archives - Clark Howard / Today's Top Travel Deals Will TSA PreCheck® Still Be Worth It After New Rule Change? Clark Howard’s Economy Predictions in 2026 Emergency Fund: Everything You Need to Know How To Save Money: Spend Less & Build Your Savings 17 Extreme Money-Saving Tips How Many Bank Accounts Should You Have? - Clark Howard Clark.com resources: Episode transcripts Community. Clark.com / Ask Clark Clark.com daily money newsletter Consumer Action Center Free Helpline: 636-492-5275 Learn more about your ad choices: megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.
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1:04 Speaker 02 I'm so glad you're with us here on The Clark Howard Show. Our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you to make better financial decisions in your life. And I'm going to start out today's show with a warning about one of my favorite things: booking travel. And this is an important warning for you to know. And later, I'm going to put my Clarkonomics hat on and tell you why the country is in what's referred to, as this is an unofficial term, potentially a growth recession. What does that mean? What does it mean you need to be on the alert for, for your own wallet?
1:49 Speaker 02 So, story making the rounds is a guy shows up for his flight on Alaska Airlines just recently and is refused boarding by Alaska Airlines and is banned from Alaska Airlines for life.
2:07 Speaker 02 It's not just Alaska Airlines, it's not just this guy. I'm seeing this in news reports and on travel sites over and over again, where people are ending up not being able to travel, in many cases, being stranded at their destination and not being allowed to fly back home, and also being treated potentially as a criminal. You're not going to believe what I'm about to share with you. There's an enormous problem now in the travel industry, especially for airline tickets,
2:48 Speaker 02 where criminals are stealing credit card numbers or stealing people's points out of their frequent flyer accounts. And then on various shopping sites or on social media, the Alaska Airlines passenger found this great deal to fly on social media and can't believe their luck. They found this great fare. And it's hard to know when a fare you're seeing promoted on social media or on a comparison shopping site is a criminal enterprise or just a deal, because fares go up and down all the time.
3:29 Speaker 02 So the poor Alaska Airlines passenger buys this ticket. Turns out it was purchased by a thief with the stolen credit card number who sold him the ticket at a special price, pocketed all the money because it was a stolen credit card. And the Alaska Airlines traveler is the one who's on the hot seat, having essentially received what the police interpret is stolen property, a ticket paid for with a stolen credit card number. So why am I telling you this news of the weird thing? Because this is not isolated. This is happening with increasing frequency.
4:11 Speaker 02 And know that when you go to compare fares at any of the shopping sites for airfares, you're going to see a lot of UFO booking sources, just like you see now when you go to book a hotel and you see these UFO booking sites that you've never heard of, and they'll have this crazy low price on a hotel room. Buyer beware, almost certainly you're stepping into trouble. With the hotels, what happens often is you get to the hotel that you already paid for and they say, "We don't know who you are." And you're the one who got scammed where the crook just stole your money and there was
4:55 Speaker 02 never any hotel booking. Now, you could say the comparison sites and all that should be doing a better job policing what hotel booking sites they allow on there with the airline comparison, same thing. The reality is that goes against the market forces that the comparison sites are just looking for people, they're going to pay them to be listed in the comparisons. So it can either be your money being stolen or you buying something stolen from someone else, particularly with the airlines. What does that mean? You need to know who you're buying from. You don't know who you're buying from? Don't do it.
5:37 Speaker 02 If it's not a well-known and recognized booking source like the hotel brand itself or a third-party site, some of them have not the greatest customer, no service, but you know, Priceline Booking, Expedia Hotels.com, ones that are well-known and recognized booking sources. You want to book with them? Fine, you're safe in terms of not being involved in anybody stealing your number, stealing your money, whatever. With the airlines, be very, very cautious. You see a fare listed? I can pull up a comparison site right now and I'll see all these sources supposedly to book a ticket.
6:21 Speaker 02 And as much as I travel, 80% of them I've never heard of. Not safe to do. Now, this moves into a gray area I'm going to talk about. There are a lot of people advertising on social media that they can get you front of the plane tickets across an ocean at 80% off. And what they're doing is they're doing mileage brokering and many times not stealing the points, they're paying somebody for their points to book you. Let me tell you, that does not work out well in most cases because most airlines do not allow the sale of their points in this way.
7:03 Speaker 02 Points are supposed to be used by you or by a family member or friend that you booked to use your points. They're not to be sold to strangers. Very few airlines don't consider that to be a no-no. But anytime you see a fare that is way lower than what it would be booking, let's say, direct with an airline, know that there's a good possibility that you're going to be in trouble and all you tried to do was buy a deal.
7:37 Speaker 03 Okay, Cal in Georgia says, "We fly to Taiwan and Asia about once a year using the Clark Howard Cheap Approach. However, this year at check-in, the price to upgrade to business class was too good to pass up. What is normally a grueling 20 to 30 hour trip was an absolute breeze. And now we don't want to go back to economy for those super long haul flights. Yes, the cliche is true."
8:05 Speaker 02 You can't unsee it.
8:07 Speaker 03 Once you go business, you can't go back. "I'm searching Google Flights in February, March, and April and typical price is around $7,500 to $8,000 per person round trip. Spending the 16K just on flights for the two of us is just too much. There are some cheaper options on UFO sites and my credit card portal, but you've advised to avoid those. Do you have any tips for finding cheaper business class prices and deals? My wife said we could try using a VPN to search from Taiwan, but I think if I'm choosing Atlanta as a departure airport, then the booking software will still give us US prices. I'm also curious about airlines not on Google Flights or the business class only airlines. I think Starlux is one, but I've read bad things."
8:49 Speaker 02 Right, so this is a newer development in the airline industry. Let me deal with the last thing first. There are these boutique airlines, one that's been around, I think 11 years, La Compagnie, that flies out of Newark Airport to Milan and Paris, and I think seasonally to Nice, that offers business class fares at one-fourth usually what they are from a big European airline or Delta, American, United. And I've flown La Compagnie when they had Valentine's Day special, and we went round trip business class for, I think it was $1,499 round trip.
9:31 Speaker 03 It's two for one Valentine's Day. So cute, you and Lane.
9:35 Speaker 02 It was a great deal to Paris. And for the time we went in the summer, it was only a couple of hundred dollars more than what regular old crunch class would have been. So there are deals that happen, and in Asia, there are a couple of, you mentioned Starlux, they're not the only one, there are a couple of these airlines that sell really discounted business class. I forgot to mention Condor, that goes from certain US gateways to Europe at about a third of what other airlines charge for business class, lie flat bed kind of thing. So that is an opportunity. The hazard is, they have so few flights, that if a flight
10:19 Speaker 02 has a mechanical, then you're stuck a day or two or three till you get to your destination. Okay, UFO sites, don't do it. Credit card portal, that's okay. Certain credit card programs have negotiated deals with airlines for private sale fares in the front of the plane. This is something American Express has done for a long time. Now others are doing so as well. And that's okay. The cheapest way, though, is you take your chances like you did, Deja, where you bought that last minute upgrade at a great price. And a lot of airlines do auctions,
11:02 Speaker 02 where you, like, I've done, I've seen this before with airlines in Australia, New Zealand, where they have this meter and you choose how much. I never bid enough. I never get the upgrade because I'm too cheap. I don't, they tell you the possibilities based on the price.
11:21 Speaker 03 Your possibility is zero.
11:23 Speaker 02 Yeah, close, close to zero. But I only want to do it if I, on a flight under four hours, if I steal a deal.
11:31 Speaker 03 Remember in the great days of bidding on Priceline, it used to tell you what your chances were of getting your hotel bid accepted or whatever? That was so awesome.
11:39 Speaker 02 Yeah, and I, I saved a lot of money in those bidding days.
11:43 Speaker 03 Oh, miss it. All right. Mitch in Minnesota says, my wife and I are planning a trip for the end of May, I'm not sure if it says, to Brigenz, Austria.
11:52 Speaker 02 Okay, I've been to Austria many times. I have no idea where that is.
11:56 Speaker 03 And would like to know when to order tickets. Is it best to buy first class at time of booking or upgrade later? Which airport to fly into? Munich or Zurich? Or any airlines to avoid? We currently have a VRBO reserved. Any other advice is also welcome.
12:11 Speaker 02 Okay, so you just stepped right into what I was talking about before. First of all, very few airlines have first class anymore internationally. They have business class, which is the life lap bed and...
12:24 Speaker 03 First is like you're chartering a jet these days.
12:27 Speaker 02 Well, I mean, I mean, airlines might have four first class seats, unless you look at the Asian airlines or the Middle Eastern airlines that offer very opulent.
12:38 Speaker 03 Sure. Price of a nice car to fly.
12:41 Speaker 02 Yeah, including the residence on Etihad where you have your own apartment.
12:46 Speaker 03 It's insane.
12:47 Speaker 02 On the airplane with your own shower and bathroom on the plane.
12:51 Speaker 03 Talk about if you had to go from that, say you've got that so like complete chance like one time and then you have to fly economy like in the back of the plane, you would, I would not want to even experience that ever because I don't want to, you know, know what's going on up there.
13:07 Speaker 02 So you know, you just took me way off track because I gotta tell you a funny thing. There's this YouTuber who does videos on what it's like on really, really long international flights, flying in coach. And he'll show at the beginning of the video, what it's like on that airline in business class using file video. And then he shows where he is in coach and he flies all over the place in coach. And there is a big difference in coach from one airline to another, no doubt from watching his videos. That's irrelevant to what you were asking Mitch. So that brings me back to your question, Munich Zurich. If you're looking for a real deal, then again, we're talking about Condor.
13:51 Speaker 02 Condor flies to Germany from various US airports at very good prices. You might have to, the best deal for you out of Minnesota might be to go to New York, spend the night, whatever, and then go over on Condor and you'll lower the price by a huge amount of that trip. You didn't mention going to France, but that would bring up the compagnie. These airlines are not even close to the cost even of sale fares from the big carriers going to and from Europe.
14:27 Speaker 03 And Jeff from Rhode Island says, I received an email about renewing my TSA pre-check and noted the three payment options at this link. It puts the link in for TSA.gov pre-check renew. I'm not familiar with any of them. Does Clark have any info or opinions on them?
14:41 Speaker 02 Yeah, so basically the feds have privatized the screening of you for TSA pre-check and the renewal for TSA pre-check. And it's free market pricing. So you go there and there's the three organizations. That the TSA is essentially contracted with to manage the enrollment and renewal of pre-check and the prices are different one to another and they move around. You also might have a credit card that will make renewal free from one of the three outfits. So if you have any premium travel cards, Jeff, you may be able to renew with their
15:26 Speaker 02 chosen provider for nothing and nothing is a really good price. But if you do have to renew of the three of them, the day you go on to the site to renew, whichever one of the three is cheapest for your renewal, do it because I've heard no complaints about any of the three providers. Coming up ahead, growth recession. What does that mean anyway?
15:54 Speaker 00 This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.
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17:23 Speaker 02 So the economy has been just befuddling to read. There are so many cross-currents involving what's happening with jobs, what's happening with inflation, what's happening because of tariffs. All of these things have led to a very confusing mishmash economically. The job market stalls out, then it gets a little life to it. Then it kind of stalls again. And the data proves one thing. The job market has shifted into a lower gear.
18:02 Speaker 02 It's always hazardous to predict what is going to happen forward. But if you look back, the economy kind of shifted overall into a lower gear last year. This year is a question mark. But the job market, I can answer this. The job market does not have the extreme strength that it had for years. And the pay raises people were getting have really softened. And a lot of people now face uncertainty about keeping their jobs.
18:43 Speaker 02 Inflation is still with us and has been stubborn. Inflation, I'm an optimist on that. I think we've seen the worst of inflation, and I hope I'm right. But it's really an educated guess. It's not fact. So how do you prepare in your own life for what may be what is referred to and formally in economics as a growth recession? And what is a growth recession? Growth recession is where the economy still continues to grow. It's not shrinking, which would be a classic recession.
19:25 Speaker 02 But it's not growing fast enough to provide security for people in the job market, to provide an increasing standard of living for people. And we are in the K right now, the K economy, where people at the higher end of the income brackets are doing very well. Their stock market portfolios doing screamingly well. Their home values, even though they've softened now, have they've been a homeowner for a good while. They've seen big increases in value. People who've owned stuff or stocks are sitting really pretty. The rest are having a really hard struggle.
20:11 Speaker 02 So in a growth recession, you have the economy showing growth, but not enough to create that security for people as you move down the economic line or in jobs where they're worried they're going to be declared surplus and let go or laid off. So I'm going to tell you the classic playbook for an uncertain economy is absolutely that you build up a reserve of money. That this is one of those times with so many question marks
20:50 Speaker 02 that you reducing your debt obligations and building reserves, having a decent rainy day fund that can carry you if your job ends up being one that gets right sized. I mean, whoever comes up with corporate doublespeak, telling somebody who got laid off, they got right sized. Really, that's cruel. Anyway.
21:18 Speaker 02 Again, I'm not saying there's doom and gloom coming. Nobody knows. And you have to prepare for the unexpected. And the way you do that is by building up financial security in your life.
21:36 Speaker 03 All right. If you have a question, by the way, submit it at Clark.com/ask and you could submit for Clark. Or if you want to specify the questions for Wes for our Tuesday Ask an Advisor show, please just write that in when you submit a question. This one came in for you, Clark. This is from Elsie in Washington. We are trying to make a decision about moving closer to elderly parents who are in assisted living, one with dementia. We are 70 and 65 ourselves. We are thinking of selling our home and renting in a 55 plus community near them. However, we're afraid of wasting money on rent and long-term impact on our finances we might need for our own long-term care. We have a 100-year-old home and we are also worried about expensive maintenance.
22:19 Speaker 02 For sure.
22:19 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm. We've been here for 30 years, but it's a paid-off house. We will net about $600,000 when we sell it. Do you think it's okay to rent a home in the other state for a few years without impacting our long-term retirement security? Or should we just continue flying down to support them monthly and we stayed in Airbnb one week a month? We may come back to this area in four to five years. We have $1.8 million now exclusive of the house and we don't want to be long-distance landlords. Thank you, Clark. And P.S., we cannot move the parents closer to us because I can't find the medical specialists they require in our current town.
22:57 Speaker 02 Well, also, any kind of assisted living in the Washington DC metro area is crazy expensive. You haven't said-
23:06 Speaker 03 I'm not sure if this is the state of Washington or Washington DC.
23:09 Speaker 02 Oh.
23:10 Speaker 03 It said in Washington, so I assume it's Washington state.
23:12 Speaker 02 All right. Also, though, the same would be true on the West Coast. Long-term care is very expensive on the West Coast. So I like the idea of you selling the home, having the time your elderly parents have left with you nearby and not having to do the commuting unless you have very tight connections to people in the community you live in now and you'd feel lonely moving to near your elderly parents. If you just ask me this question financially, I'd say you sell that home, go live nearby
23:54 Speaker 02 the elderly parents, rent in a 55-plus community, and don't look at that as a net expense to you because you have taxes you pay on the home you have. You have with a 100-year-old home, you've got all the maintenance and repairs you're going to have to do. So the net cost to you of renting in a 55-plus community versus continuing to live in this paid-for home is less than you might imagine because remember the 600 grand you're going to clear will be almost all tax-free to you. And you'll be able to have that money earning for you either in a combination of savings
24:36 Speaker 02 and investments, or just savings or just investments, whatever works for you, whatever seems best. So then unfortunately, when the time comes and the elderly parents are no longer with us, then you can assess where you want to live, where you'd like to be. But again, the human factor, if you'd suffer from loneliness by breaking your bonds of friendships with people where you live right now, I would say you continue to do what you're doing, shuttling once a month in the Airbnb.
25:14 Speaker 03 Mitch in Ohio says, Clark, my spouse and I have used a local credit union for over a decade, and we also have a Navy Federal account. Neither offer the ability to set up a separate account just for auto pay debits. I'd been using a T-Mobile money account for this because it had no fees. We dropped T-Mobile when they raised our plan costs, and I think money is headed for the same fate as Bluebird. I reviewed the bank guide at Clark.com, but I didn't see any info about this separate debit account feature. Your checking account comparison also doesn't mention Navy Federal or Schwab Bank, whom you've said you use. How do I find a credit union that allows a separate debit account? And why do you use Navy Federal and Schwab?
25:55 Speaker 02 Well, you know, having served in the military, coming from a military family, it's natural that I'm with both USAA and Navy Federal. They both do different things, but they've both been great for me. I also use Schwab, as you said, but I don't use Schwab Bank. I use Schwab Brokerage.
26:15 Speaker 03 Oh, I use the bank, too.
26:17 Speaker 02 Use the bank. So, the financial institutions, you're not protecting yourself if you're trying to protect money from ACH withdrawal by setting up a separate account at a financial institution just for that purpose, because all their accounts have, for lack of a better term, have cross default clauses. If somebody's taking money out of one and it overdrived it, the bank or credit union will go in and grab money from other accounts you have. The way you do this is what you were doing with T-Mobile Money that's no longer relevant in your life. You open a separate account, maybe with an online bank, no monthly fees,
26:58 Speaker 02 no minimums, and you transfer money to it to cover your drafts that would be coming out, your auto pays or ACHs coming out, and then the money you have
27:12 Speaker 02 At Navy Federal or Schwab are not at risk because you're the one controlling moving money over manually when you need to fund that month's ACHs or auto pays.
27:25 Speaker 03 And Yemi in Florida says, my mortgage was sold to Rocket Mortgage. I'm trying to obtain my tax documents and since it's a new carrier, the website is asking for me to verify my information. The information requested includes my social security number, date of birth and phone number. Shouldn't they have all this information when they bought the mortgage? I have not put my information in so far because I'm skeptical.
27:46 Speaker 02 Okay, so Yemi, is that?
27:48 Speaker 03 Yes.
27:49 Speaker 02 Yemi, so the story is that the banking industry has a legitimate business reason to be able to ask that information. And this is a case where they're trying to verify that you are who you say you are, which is funny because with all the data breaches, a criminal impersonating you could have all that information already. I'm not that worried about something happening to you from giving that information to Rocket Mortgage to verify identity. I'm more worried about all the data breaches that happen where somebody could pretend to be you and do terrible things potentially with that information. But in
28:31 Speaker 02 terms of giving it to Rocket Mortgage to verify you are who you say you are, that's their procedure and I'd be comfortable doing it. They're not normally the ones instigating problems. It's others that are instigating problems for you. And I wish there were better ways for us to verify identity than what we have right now. Otherwise, if there were, we wouldn't be having all these problems with identity theft and what people do with the stolen information. And I want to thank you so much for joining us today. And you know what's coming up on Friday? Clark stinks.
29:14 Speaker 02 And look forward to being with you for that on Friday. And if you have a question about your wallet you're trying to answer, you're looking for the best deal on something, we got that for you at Clark.com and Clarkdeals.com. And it's all part of what we do is reaching you in whatever way you want to be reached, on social media, on YouTube, this podcast, in markets where I'm on television or radio, to serve you with advice and information that gives you power in your life. More knowledge equals more power. So you can save more, spend less, and avoid getting ripped off. And we'll see you on Friday.
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