Pod Insights The Clark Howard Podcast 07.25.25 Clark Answers His Critics on Clark Stinks / Save On Airfares About this episode Friday - Clark Stinks day! Christa shares Clark Stinks posts with Clark. Submit yours at Clark.com/ClarkStinks. Also in this episode, Clark discusses some unusual developments happening with air travel right now, including lower fares to Europe, and explains how reshopping advance bookings can save frequent flyers big money. Clark Stinks: Segments 1 & 2 Airfares to Europe: Segment 3 Ask Clark: Segment 4 Mentioned on the show: 12 Things You Never Knew You Could Get From Your Local Library Transatlantic airfares slump as Europeans continue to shun travel to America Why It’s a Great Time To Get a Cheap Ticket to Europe It will soon be possible to fly for just $5, but with one condition, and it’s not something you’ll like. How To Save on Travel With Google Flights Should I Tip on a Cruise? / Tipping on a cruise. What to do, what to expect Cheapest Way to Rent a Car: Expert Tips How To Dispute a Charge on Your Credit Card The Secret Technology Rental Car Companies Are Using Against You 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.
0:31 Speaker 01 Low energy, unfocused, foggy? You might be dehydrated. Whether it's hot yoga, over 100 degree weather, or too much sun. Gator Light, with a specialized blend of five electrolytes, was scientifically designed to help move fluids into the body faster for rapid rehydration. Shop now at retailers nationwide. Gator Light hydrates faster than water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.
1:04 Speaker 02 It's my pleasure to welcome you here to the Clark Howard Show. You know, our mission is all about you. I want you to be empowered with knowledge so you make better financial decisions in your life. And one way we're here to help you is through our Team Clark Consumer Action Center, where we take your phone calls and answer your questions. See more at clark.com/cac. Now that I've talked about something helpful, I get to really hear something helpful from you as you help me do a better job in our Clark Stink segment.
1:47 Speaker 02 And later, airfares have been going down, and I've seen something lately.
1:55 Speaker 02 That I've never seen in summer in recent years. Empty seats around me. Not every seat full on flight after flight. How do you turn this to your advantage? I'm going to tell you how.
2:13 Speaker 03 And this is international fares too.
2:15 Speaker 02 International even more than domestic. And so we're going to talk about that. But first, we're going to talk about me doing a bad job serving you.
2:27 Speaker 04 I should have never encouraged you to speak. You must think I'm pretty stupid. You should be ashamed of yourself. Well, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong.
2:33 Speaker 03 Maybe you're right, pal. All right, Clark. It's easy to tell how much you can save with an EV versus an ICE vehicle. It's half price as determined by EPA and its MPGE rating. Maintenance and repairs are likewise more than half as established by empirical data. Vern.
2:55 Speaker 02 Vern, thank you. And you're talking one believer in electric vehicles to another, having driven one for 14 years now. But electric vehicles in the United States have remained, new ones, more expensive than the initial purchase of gas engines with greater depreciation than gas engine vehicles. So yeah, the cost of operating them, the cost of maintaining them is generally a lot lower than gas engine vehicles. But because the purchase prices have been higher and the resale values have been lower,
3:38 Speaker 02 it's not a slam dunk yet in the United States that electric vehicles are much cheaper to own for when you look at all expenses of ownership.
3:51 Speaker 03 When discussing contributing to a 401K, you stated if you've got X dollars in it, the Roth account, then you have X dollars to spend. If you're in a traditional 401K, you've got X minus 30% more or less, whatever your tax rates end up being later. You gave the impression that a person whose marginal tax rate was the same when working and then when retired would end up with more dollars if they contribute to a Roth account rather than the traditional option. Your statement is not correct when the person's pre-tax contribution amounts are the same. Both accounts would then have X minus 30% dollars to spend after retirement withdrawals. Paul?
4:29 Speaker 02 Paul, thank you, and I appreciate your post. I've got two things I'd say about that. One is that if people are really diligent savers in 401Ks, traditional 401Ks, traditional IRAs, you're going to get hit with additional premiums on Medicare in retirement because of withdrawing money from pre-tax accounts versus post-tax accounts like a Roth. But the other reason, and this is the sinister side of me, is that when people switch from
5:10 Speaker 02 doing a traditional 401K contribution to a Roth, or a traditional IRA to a Roth, they tend to keep their contribution totals the same, which means it's a hidden sinister, underhanded way for me to get you to effectively save more money for the future because the money, if you're putting the same amount in paycheck by paycheck, in a traditional or a Roth, you effectively end up with much more spending money in retirement in Roth versus traditional.
5:48 Speaker 03 You've mentioned when researching airline tickets to Europe, ding ding ding, we're going to talk about that later, you've said Europeans get better rates due to airline agencies charging us Americans higher rates than if we were searching in Europe. You have not mentioned specific sites, browsers, or any way to avoid getting these American citizen higher rates on flights. How can we accomplish this, Kevin?
6:09 Speaker 02 Kevin, thank you. What Americans do who travel a lot to Europe, let's say somebody has family or they have work a particular place in Europe and they're going a lot back and forth. What they do is they do an initial one-way ticket from the US to Europe and then in Europe they buy round trips originating in Europe coming to the United States and back over and over again. So they, you've got to sacrifice that initial one-way and then after that they're doing round trips originating in Europe. Now, it's not every European departure point will be cheaper. It's not every situation, but often it will
6:52 Speaker 02 be a lot cheaper for tickets originating from there. The other thing that came up, I think in a question, is that frequent flyer points are generally much lower redemptions for people originating in Europe than originating from the United States. There are specific reasons for that because of all these reward credit cards we have here and those are not available in a lot of other countries. So when you have your frequent flyer account domiciled at an address in Europe, mileage redemptions tend to be a lot, lot lower for
7:34 Speaker 02 the same flight for somebody with a European mailing address and a European domiciled account than they are from here.
7:43 Speaker 03 Nothing we can do about that, though, unless you want to go buy a place in Europe, right?
7:47 Speaker 02 No, you can have, I mean, you can have an address, it could be a friend's address or whatever in Europe for your account. I mean, there, people are doing all kinds of things to get around how the American airlines discriminate on frequent flyer mileage rewards going from here. And that happened to a friend of mine recently who had to come back from Europe for an emergency and was using points to get back in a hurry. And paid so little points to come back from Germany, I think. It was like nothing for a last minute one way ticket using points going that direction
8:30 Speaker 02 back versus what the points were from the US over.
8:35 Speaker 03 Clark doesn't stink, but did emit some pungent odors when replying to a person asking whether Walmart Pay is safe to use. Clark answered the question by saying that he sees no benefit to using Walmart Pay by comparing it to the discount one gets by using Amazon's and Target's store cards. Clark is a bit confused. Amazon and Target's store cards are payment accounts and debit cards. Walmart Pay, on the other hand, is a mobile wallet to which one can load payment cards such as third-party credit or debit cards. The benefit of using Walmart Pay is that it is the only way to pay with a mobile device at Walmart since unlike practically every other merchant nowadays, Walmart doesn't accept Apple, Google, or Samsung Pay. The listener was asking about the safety of Walmart Pay as a mobile wallet, not about
9:19 Speaker 03 discounts associated with Walmart's branded debit or credit cards. Max.
9:23 Speaker 02 Max, thank you, and you were right. My answer was really incomplete.
9:28 Speaker 03 I called my Schwab rep to make sure I was correct before writing this. You can't do a Roth within a SEP. You can do a Roth within a solo, or Schwab calls it, an individual 401K. I am self-employed and wanted to help others navigate these sometimes challenging financial waters. Another podcast mentioned that it is just a matter of time before Roths will be within a SEP, but just not yet. Beth.
9:51 Speaker 02 Beth, thank you. And so here's the deal. Roths are now legal. You can have a Roth SEP. But there are a lot of financial institutions that are not choosing to offer the Roth version for a SEP yet. And so that gives me a responsibility. We need to come up with, maybe next Clark stinks, we can allude to this or summarize this question and we can give people some ideas of who is now offering Roth versions of SEPs. Because just because the law says you can doesn't mean it's available. And I'll give you an example of this.
10:36 Speaker 02 When 401ks were first allowed to have Roth versions, almost no employers offered them. Today, I think it's somewhere around 90% of 401ks offer the option of doing the Roth version or the traditional. So it takes a while for the financial industry to catch up with what the law permits.
11:02 Speaker 03 Clark, you don't exactly stink, but I'm wondering if you're okay, or if you need any help, because you said to buy two subscriptions in one episode, which is not normal for you. I've been a Clarky for about three years, and I'm only 11 years old, and I don't think I've ever heard you tell us to buy more than one subscription in the same episode, Mason.
11:21 Speaker 02 Mason, what did I-
11:23 Speaker 03 I'm not sure what, when he's referring to, but probably maybe going, or, you know, one of the other ones that you recommend.
11:31 Speaker 02 Oh, for travel deals. What else would I say to subscribe to? Consumer Reports?
11:37 Speaker 03 Maybe, maybe so.
11:38 Speaker 02 I don't know. Mason, write back in and let me know what two things in one podcast I'd say were worthy of your money.
11:48 Speaker 03 But sometimes you think subscriptions are okay if they save you money.
11:51 Speaker 02 Sometimes subscriptions are okay.
11:52 Speaker 03 Okay. I don't think Clark stinks, but I do think he sometimes loses track of how regular people live. I was listening to the podcast and I was appalled. You advise your listener that if she reads a lot, a paid subscription to Kindle's upgraded service would make sense. I sat there shouting, "Don't Clark or Krista ever use a library?" I use the Libby app to check out eBooks from my local library all the time, and they don't cost me anything. Libraries also let you check out actual, physical books. What a concept. Victoria. And I just want to respond to Victoria, because I was a part of that one. The person who wrote in did say that her local library does not have many books, because that's what I use as well. I use the Libby app, and there are other apps as well that you can use with different e-readers with the library.
12:35 Speaker 02 And we heard from a lot of readers on this. And so, Victoria, you were representing a lot of people who were really unhappy with me that I didn't talk about all the ways you can get books for free, which-
12:53 Speaker 03 And we do have an article on that.
12:55 Speaker 02 -we have at Clark.com.
12:56 Speaker 03 We have an article at Clark.com on that.
12:57 Speaker 02 Yep. So, that was, that was my fail. And thank you. And that's why I love-
13:04 Speaker 02 Clark sings, "Look at the variety and look at the things where I was missing part of my brain cells that day. And you really made me think about things one after another that are things that either I didn't explain well, didn't know everything I should have said, or should have known about a topic. So we're all in this together. We all learn from each other and we can all empower each other. So thank you for taking the time to post. And coming up ahead, I want to tell you, deals are in the air.
13:46 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.
14:16 Speaker 05 Low energy, unfocused, foggy, you might be dehydrated. Gatorade Zero powders have been scientifically designed to help improve hydration balance in the body. With a clinically proven electrolyte blend and no artificial colors or flavors. Great tasting hydration, no matter where you're going. Shop now online or at retailers nationwide. Gatorade hydrates better than water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.
14:45 Speaker 02 All right. I travel about, I'm on a plane at least every eight to 10 days. I travel a lot by air.
14:56 Speaker 02 Far more than would be rational or reasonable, right? So I've seen something that is just not the way things have been for a long time. Sands the period during COVID. And that is seeing empty seats on airplanes. And obviously, a lot of flights are still full, but a lot of empty seats, and especially Europe. And airlines are pulling service all over the place. I just saw an article about how many flights Southwest has been actively reducing right in the middle of summer.
15:36 Speaker 02 Normally airlines don't reduce service till they hit. It's tradition in the industry that there's the fall schedule change. And then there's a spring schedule change with others sprinkled in through the year. But technology makes it possible, even within what is the absolute peak season to say, you know what? We're not going to fly that day. You know what? We're not going to fly that route anymore. Airlines are scrambling to get the supply of seats down because right now there's just too many seats in the air. And especially international is experiencing it. A lot of Europe flights.
16:20 Speaker 02 In preparation to talk about this today, I was looking at seat maps of available. Yeah, I'm still. I was looking at seat maps of various routes, popular routes to and from Europe for flights that were going tomorrow. And what I was looking at was I was looking at available seat maps for flights to London, from London, to Paris, back from Paris, and Rome, to Rome, back from Rome. And it is freaky weird to see where you used to see no seats available for assignment
17:03 Speaker 02 the day before a flight, seeing all these available seats. So it is absolutely a slump. And the airfares that are showing up for fall show some panic, particularly out of the bargain capital of America for flights to Europe, out of New York, there have been fares being published by airlines for fall in the 200s round trip out of New York, the 300s, and a big yawn are in the 400s to Europe in the fall. Now, these are low, low, low kind of winter kind of fares showing up for fall.
17:45 Speaker 02 It is an unusual time and the airlines will eventually pull planes out of service or put planes on different routes, but domestic is soft too. So I've been mentioning, starting back in the spring, that if you booked a ticket for in advance, re-shop that ticket because there's no penalty on most fares originating from the United States, even going to other countries. And if you find a lower fare, you can then rebook and get a credit towards future travel. And I have a trip coming up in September and the fare dropped by 37%
18:29 Speaker 02 from when I originally booked it. I just rebooked it just late June. I just re-shopped it and got this much lower fare. And you know what? I'm going to re-shop it again and again to see if the fare comes down some more. And then I've got this credit that I can use for other travel that I have, I'm trying to remember, it's from when I originally booked the ticket. So I've got until, I think it's March of next year, to use that credit for another trip. That's why you re-shop. Unusual for airfare. Completely routine for car rental, hotels,
19:14 Speaker 02 but now in this slump the airlines are in because of all the tariff wars, you have the opportunity potentially to get a lower fare to where you're going. Try it. Your wallet may like it. Speaking of your wallet. I know that people who've experienced it hate Ryanair, largest airline in Europe, incredibly well-run company, one that also at the same time is always trying to pick your pocket with other fees. But I know that this is something that a lot of people think I'm nuts about. But Ryanair wants to sell standing seats on shorter flights,
19:58 Speaker 02 flights up to 90 minutes. And they'll be able to put a lot more people on the plane, and it's a fully safe thing. You wear a harness and you kind of stand and lean against this thing, but they can get all these extra people on there. And I love it. I love the idea. Because, I mean, why not? If I'm on a flight for an hour or something like that, being able to save money? I'd love to stand. Those of you watch our YouTube show, you see I stand the whole time. I don't sit. And so, sitting on your rear end is not good for your health. So, standing, would you do that if you could get, let's say a fare, Krista,
20:40 Speaker 02 was on Ryanair, it was 114 euro for you to have a seat, but it was 25 euro to stand?
20:52 Speaker 03 For how long?
20:53 Speaker 02 For a 75-minute flight.
20:56 Speaker 03 I'd definitely stand. How do they strap you in? Do you have like a seatbelt?
20:59 Speaker 02 So, it's a harness like-
21:01 Speaker 03 Like you're on a roller coaster?
21:02 Speaker 02 Yes.
21:03 Speaker 03 Okay.
21:03 Speaker 02 Exactly. So, it's a very safe kind of harness.
21:07 Speaker 03 I wonder what happens if you fall asleep?
21:08 Speaker 02 You just slump over, like, probably drooling.
21:13 Speaker 03 Yeah. Alright, I've got travel questions, and I have a few of them, like, an extra one here. So, here we go. Cole in New York says, "My wife and I are going to Jamaica in January of 26. We're out of the Buffalo area, and we're trying to decide if we should fly out of Buffalo or travel up to Toronto. There is a direct flight from Toronto and one layover for the Buffalo flights. Toronto does look to be cheaper overall, but I did not know if we are still too far out from when we're traveling to really gauge that. I've been tracking with Google flights and would prefer to fly out of Buffalo because of the car travel that would need to be done is a much lower flying out of Buffalo. My question is, when should I book and should I just fly out of Toronto?"
21:51 Speaker 02 As long as you are not flying on King Day weekend, January is kind of the low fare part of the winter season because people have blown all their money on Christmas and all that. And there's a lull in travel. It's kind of the low of the high season for travel to warm weather destinations. Google has predictive things there, and you look at Hopper as well, to see if fares are higher than normal out of Buffalo for you to go to Jamaica, about normal or lower than normal. If they are higher than normal or even normal, I would hold off a little bit because we're
22:36 Speaker 02 a little early, particularly with all the economic uncertainty, for airlines to figure out what they're going to charge during the winter season. And I think probably more like September would be when you might start seeing a sail wave that might cover for when you're going in January. January, you don't face as much risk that far out of airlines being out of seats or feeling like, hey, we can really stick it to people. And, you know, it's not that far around the lake to Toronto. You also don't know what kind of weather you're going to have in January either to try to
23:21 Speaker 02 make that trip up to Buffalo and back. So I'd prefer, like you do, that you're able to fly out of Buffalo.
23:29 Speaker 03 Louis in California says-
23:30 Speaker 02 Go Bills.
23:31 Speaker 03 When you go on cruises, how much should I be tipping? I understand that I can prepay the gratuity for the room and waiters, but I'm talking about going to bars on the ship. It looks like they have a service charge at the bars included, but then they have another line for gratuity.
23:46 Speaker 02 So Louis, people who are regular drinkers on a cruise ship-
23:52 Speaker 02 Tend to bring cash and they leave a cash tip or hand a cash tip to the bartender each drink that are served on the cruise. Some people, if they're really dedicated drinkers and there's a particular bar they like going to on a cruise ship, they'll give maybe a 20 to their favorite bartender early on the cruise and then give them another tip at the end of the cruise. But doing the thing on the form, you don't know who that money is going to go to. And usually people who like to drink like their drinks made a particular way and they'll have their favorite bartenders.
24:36 Speaker 02 The good bartenders on a cruise ship get to know you and know your preferences and so you want to give them cash because cash, you know it's going in their pocket. That's the best thing to do. And you can go on Cruise Critic and other cruise message boards and your eyes will become bleary eyed pretty quickly with the endless arguing about how and what to tip on cruise ships for every phase of the cruise.
25:08 Speaker 03 That is annoying that there's a service charge on the bill too. Because you wonder, I mean, I would ask the bartenders, do you get any of this service?
25:15 Speaker 02 Don't ask them that, just give them cash.
25:17 Speaker 03 Okay, all right. Thomas in Georgia says-
25:19 Speaker 02 Cash is king here.
25:20 Speaker 03 A friend of mine who travels frequently and stays in hotels when he travels told me that he always takes his hotel room's card key with him when he checks out and he will cut it up and throw it in the trash when he gets home. He says that he does this because when the hotel makes your key and gives it to you, it has your personal information embedded in it by the hotel and he doesn't want the key to fall into the wrong hands and risk having his information stolen. Is this a good idea? We've always turned the room keys back in at the front desk or we just leave them in our room when we check out?
25:49 Speaker 02 So this is an urban legend or suburban legend, whatever you want to call it. And if there was ever a time, Thomas, that that was true, it's not true now based on, I did this on TV. And the data security experts we talked to said this is not going on. And so feel comfortable doing whatever you want to with the key. What I do is I like to turn them back into the desk. So they can wipe it and make a key for another guest and reduce the amount of plastic waste.
26:22 Speaker 03 Bob in Hawaii says, tip and kudos to Clark. I listen to your podcast regularly and just took a trip to Europe where I rented a car for five days in the room. I'm not going to say that the room area where Clark said vice. I took a video of the car on pickup and drop off to make sure I wouldn't be dinged for damages that I didn't caused. Cause when I returned the car to the office, there was a sign that said to park on the street and leave the keys in the drop box. Then 15 minutes later, an attendant showed up, opened the gate, but told me the same thing. That I should park on the street and leave the keys in the box. So I did just that. Two days after returning the car, they sent me an email, which indicated an extra day charge for returning the car late.
27:03 Speaker 03 I contacted them and they sent the invoice showing the return at 4:30 PM. So I sent them my video upon which they then asked for metadata, which I screenshot and sent to them. I'm waiting for their response, but if they don't yield, my next action is to contact my credit card company. I'm confident I will overcome this fraudulent action thanks to you and your team.
27:23 Speaker 02 So this is a common refrain with car rentals outside the United States, although it can happen here. It happened, that's happened to me twice over the years where I dropped a car at an after hours drop box. And they billed me for extra days. In one case I was billed two extra days. And in that circumstance, because I was flying out, I was able to prove that I had flown. And they gave me the credit. The other one took call after call after call. And finally I had to call corporate.
28:07 Speaker 02 At Not Normal Customer No Service, I called the main number to corporate and was able to get it resolved. But this is a problem anytime you return a vehicle at an unstaffed center. I love what you did by making sure you shot your video, it time stamped, you proved it. You can provide that same documentation to your credit card company and don't let a lot of time pass. Go ahead and notify your credit card company of what you're putting in dispute so that that is already on record and you've done that.
28:51 Speaker 02 And then later, if the car rental company gives you the proper credit back, you just release your dispute with your credit card company. But the car rental thing is getting tougher and tougher and that's why you have got to document everything. And I want to thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast. I hope that you've got incredibly great weekend plans in front of you. And depending on where you live in the country, this is so wild. If you have school age kids, do you know that next week is when schools go back into
29:35 Speaker 02 session in some parts of the United States? And then others, kids don't go back to school till after Labor Day and everywhere in between. So for some people, summer is slightly more than half over. For others, summer's over next week. Wow. So enjoy your weekend and know that my mission is always about you, empowering you so that you save more, spend less, and avoid getting ripped off.
Previous 07.23.25 Assignment: Save On Home Internet / A Big Bank Restart Next 07.28.25 Inflation & Retail Adaptation / Everyday Is Scam Awareness Day Page updated November 6, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
