Pod Insights The Clark Howard Podcast 12.02.24 SAVE On Domestic Airfare / Amazon Health Services About this episode Clark has new advice for booking domestic flights and the new airline rule on refunds figures into the way you should now search for fares. Also in this episode, Amazon is expanding their medical offerings. Clark has some experience using Amazon health services and shares his insights into this option. One Way Flight Search: Segment 1 Ask Clark: Segment 2 Amazon Medical Care: Segment 3 Ask Clark: Segment 4 Mentioned on the show: How To Save Money With Google Flights The Best Day and Time to Book a Cheap Flight What's the Best Way To Send Money Overseas? Best Credit Cards With No Foreign Transaction Fees in 2024 The No Surprises Act's Prohibitions on Balancing Billing Clark's Christmas Kids 2024 Clark.com resources Episode transcripts Community. Clark.com 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 UKG is the workforce operating platform with unified HR, payroll and workforce management. Built to solve the unique challenges of frontline work. Powered by People First AI and decades of labor data. UKG turns workforce intelligence into real time decisions around staffing, pay, compliance, and productivity, enabling every worker to confidently take action as work happens. Because when work works, everything works. Learn more at ukg.com/work. UKG, HR, Pay and Workforce Management.
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1:05 Speaker 01 It's great to have you here on the Clark Howard Show. You know, our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you so you make better financial decisions in your life. And in today's episode, I'm going to start with some travel advice. I'm going to tell you why you need to know the power of one-way airline tickets. And later, Amazon is nosing more and more into various facets of medical care. I want to tell you about a new way they're trying to get you into Amazon for medical care. And I also want to talk about a company they bought, One Medical.
1:49 Speaker 01 I've been trying them out. I'll tell you what it's been like. So.
1:55 Speaker 02 Something that about zero people ever do outside of people who work in the travel industry, who know what I'm about to tell you. But when you are shopping for airfare, for what most of us do most of the time overwhelmingly, people are buying domestic travel, travel within or between the 50 states. So when you shop, it's going to take you a little bit longer, but the savings can be enormous. If you are a free agent, if you're not a captive to one particular airline, well, I only fly blah, blah, blah, which will be American, United, or Delta, the three full fare
2:38 Speaker 02 airlines. But if you are someone who you're looking for the best deal, what you want to do is do your fare searches one way. The reason you want to do one way, there's actually more than one reason now, including a new development involving a federal rule that the airlines have interpreted a really weird way. But when you buy a fare one way, when you shop one way, you're going to see lower prices than if you look round trip. And here's the reason why. So you do an airfare search and you pick a flight and you're even on a multi-search site like
3:21 Speaker 02 Google Flights or something like that, and you pick one, when you go to search the return, almost always whatever search you're using on whatever site will only show you will default on the return to only showing you that airline, whoever that first choice was you made. But you know, often the fare may be cheapest one way on American and cheapest the other way on Southwest, or maybe cheapest on United one way and Delta the other, or JetBlue one way and on and on and on. Could be Alaska one way and another the other way. In fact, that happened with my middle
4:06 Speaker 02 child and my youngest, when they went to California, it was cheapest one way on one airline, cheapest the other on another. Saved them a lot of money. So one way is really smart, but now there's another reason you want to do one-way searches. And by the way, this does not necessarily apply outside the United States. Because a lot of fares outside the United States are set where round-trip tickets are cheaper each direction than two one-ways. There are odd circumstances, though, with Europe where sometimes it is cheaper, even with Europe buying one-ways. But I digress on that.
4:51 Speaker 02 The other thing is, there's a new refund rule that airlines have interpreted to the disadvantage of you as a passenger. So if an airline has a big schedule change on one of your flights, the airline will refund your whole ticket and say, "We're really sorry, we had this big schedule change, you've got to start over." Well, what happens if they do that and you had a really great fare and you've now lost it? Rule number one, do not ignore an airline email from you about a schedule change. Because if it falls in their criteria of what they consider to be major, bam, you don't
5:32 Speaker 02 contact them and accept a schedule change, or talk to them and come up with one that works for you, they'll refund that ultra-cheap ticket and you're starting all over. Well, let's say you bought a round-trip and only one of the flights had a schedule change. They refund the whole thing and you lose the cheap fare you had either going or returning. One-way is the ticket now. You buy those one-way fares. And the airlines hate me for saying this, and it's more for you to keep up with if you're going one way on one airline, one way on another. But it's your money and I want you to save it.
6:11 Speaker 03 Okay, Fran in Florida says, "Are airline ticket consolidators worth looking into for international flights? And if so, who do you recommend?"
6:20 Speaker 02 I don't recommend any consolidators because it's kind of like buying a junk bond. You may get a better deal, but it comes with heightened risk. Consolidators...
6:32 Speaker 02 Are used to be a really, really big part of international travel because international airfares, even way after we deregulated domestic airfares, international airfares were set by a cartel setting organization called IATA, International Air Transport Association. They're just a lobbying and trade association now, but long ago, they would set these fares. And so consolidators were people who had the airline ticket stock and had a under the table deal with an airline, they could write them at cheaper fares. None of that exists anymore.
7:12 Speaker 02 So a consolidator is someone who has some kind of crazy, under the table thing where supposedly they can write cheaper tickets. But a lot of times, the worst problems people have is when they use one of these organizations. You've got to really know who you're dealing with and be comfortable with the risks associated with them. Which brings me to what happens when you're looking at fares like on a kayak search or many times on a Google search. You'll see on an international fare search, these prices listed with who knows who those people are, and often they come under that umbrella of consolidators.
7:52 Speaker 02 And I'll tell you, the consumer problems people have, customer no-service problems, using those UFOs, to me, they are not worth the savings.
8:03 Speaker 03 Yeah, and you like to save money.
8:05 Speaker 02 I do like to save.
8:06 Speaker 03 No way. Alex in Florida says, "I usually go to Europe once a year and have been exchanging US dollars to euros with an app called Revolut. Exchanging at the airport is the worst, and local banks tend to make a big, take a big cut. I keep an eye on the exchange rates throughout the year and try to exchange when the US dollar is strong to get the most value. I know there are many other apps out there, but I would like to know which is best with the lowest international transfer fees. I do like that I can have my Revolut digital cash card in my Google Wallet. Other than that, I don't need any of the other stuff."
8:39 Speaker 02 So Revolut, as I've mentioned in the past, and people who have Revolut accounts like I do as well, received a very confusing notice about Revolut changing who they work with in the United States. As best I can tell, it's of no significance to those of us with Revolut accounts. You get extremely favorable, fantastic exchange rates using Revolut or carrying the Revolut card that works like a stored value card and you can get ATM money with it and stuff like that. And their big competitor for money transfer is Wise, Wise
9:21 Speaker 02 Money Transfer. Any of these work so vastly superior to anybody ever going into any bank in the United States and ever getting any foreign currency. It's like the bankers get up in the morning and say, "How can we cheat Americans more?" And I don't think they cheat us any more than they do on foreign currency exchange in the United States. So the best thing to do, other than Revolut or something like Wise, when you're traveling overseas, have a credit card that doesn't charge foreign currency junk fees. We have an extensive list at Clark.com. They're very common today. Or use an ATM card that doesn't charge you
10:05 Speaker 02 junk fees. My favorite for that, that's worked so well for years, is the Charles Schwab card. Those of you, USAA, have had great success with their card for getting money from ATMs. So there are ways you don't necessarily have to get ripped off when you're outside the United States and you need foreign currency, or you need to buy things in a foreign country. But there are a lot of people out there trying to rip you off. The beauty of Revolut is their entire architecture from the ground up is about not ripping you off.
10:41 Speaker 03 Jacqueline in Texas says, "I have a question about buying a car. I am a teacher who transitioned to teaching privately from home as a tutor and have been self-employed for about three years now. My current car, a 2013 Hyundai Accent with 130,500 miles."
10:56 Speaker 02 All right, good for you. You got a car that's now 12 model years old and way past the century mark on miles. You got to feel great about that.
11:06 Speaker 03 Yep. She says, it's starting to show signs of wear, problems with starting, shaking, inconsistent air conditioning, et cetera. Clark, should I use my business credit or personal credit to buy this car? I guess you want to buy a new car. I have an EIN and an LLC registration.
11:22 Speaker 02 Okay. So there's no advantage in particular to you buying it through business credit because with any kind of business credit, as a small business person, they're piercing the corporate veil. You're liable personally and corporately. So there's no specific advantage unless the credit that's available to you as a business owner is at a lower cost than the credit you would have as an individual. The place you may find an advantage is there, a number of automakers have specials available for business purchases of a vehicle that are
12:04 Speaker 02 not available for consumer purchases of a vehicle. So if you qualify having your EIN, having an LLC, all that, if you're eligible for a lower purchase price on a vehicle as a business entity, that's where the real savings is, not necessarily on whether you're paying for it using personal credit or business credit. And a good job on taking a vehicle that was ultra cheap to start with, a 2013 Accent, driving it for so many years and so many miles, you've been basically driving for a long time for almost free. It's great.
12:48 Speaker 02 Coming up ahead, Amazon has hit a lot of dead ends over time trying to break into healthcare. They have a new initiative that may not make them money, but could be useful to you that I want to talk about.
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15:32 Speaker 02 I want to tell a personal story first about Amazon. Amazon bought a provider of healthcare called One Medical. And I travel so much around the United States and overseas, but I'm gone all the time. Like, where do I live? And so, there'll be times I get sick, who knows where in the United States. So, I'd been reading about One Medical a long time, and I have Amazon Prime. So, through Amazon Prime, I was able to pay an annual membership fee that I think was
16:12 Speaker 02 109 for me, and much cheaper for family members. And so, we all have these One Medical memberships. And you're assigned to a physician who is your physician of record, or to a PA or NP. And everything is done through an app, the One Medical app. So, you make an appointment on the app, you see your lab results on the app, you can ask your provider a question on the app. You can have a, as my son did off at school, he needed, he was not feeling well, he needed
16:52 Speaker 02 an appointment, and he was able to get an immediate video call with a doctor through the app on his iPhone, and was able to have that. I mean, it's not the same as in-person having, sitting there with a medical provider, and them being able to examine you. But there's a lot that a medical provider may be able to do in a video meeting, or not as well with. Some kind of chat kind of thing where they're not seeing you, they're not assessing you.
17:32 Speaker 02 But this is something that has worked amazingly well for one of my daughters, my son, it's worked well for me. My wife is, I don't think ever used it, and I think I'm paying 49 or 59 a year for it for her. But what's really been fantastic for me is I've used it when I've been traveling and I've been able to go on the app, tell them where I am, or it knows geolocation, and make an appointment right there. And I was able to get a same-day appointment and go into an office and see a provider who had already looked at my electronic record that they have, knew my backstory.
18:15 Speaker 02 It was a very useful appointment. So is it the solution for me for long-term? I don't know. I don't know. I think I'm kind of out of the age demo that they're really focused on. But I've been very happy with my provider and the experience I've had. And I had an annual physical recently. It was not as involved as I remember with physicals in the past, which is why I think it was geared towards younger people. But I had all the lab work and learned stuff from it that was useful. And it's really, really thinking in the modern way with everything being electronic and the
19:00 Speaker 02 ability to use it all over the place. Well, now, Amazon's come up with a thing because I guess they don't have enough, the number of enrollments they'd like in one medical. So now they're giving people the chance to take it for a test drive. And what it's for is if you need an urgent visit with a doctor or medical provider, again, it could be an NP or PA. You're able for 29 bucks to do a chat or $49 do a video meeting with a medical provider. And it's pretty much on demand. If somebody's available, you get it right away.
19:40 Speaker 02 And this again, for Amazon people, you're able to do this and it all ties in with Amazon looking for industries that have max inefficiency. And I was talking with a medical researcher, he and I were at dinner the other night. We were talking about how it just blows my mind that medicine is still using blizzards of paper. And you go to a medical provider and they hand you a stupid clipboard like it's 1926 and with a pencil or a pen, you're filling out paperwork. And with me, it is really stupid because nobody can read my handwriting anyway.
20:22 Speaker 02 So the idea of making things modern and electronic where think about when I went to another city and that provider, that doctor was able already to see my medical history and what had been going on with me and all that electronically and was across the country. So Amazon gets that, that they've got to squeeze inefficiencies out of the medical system. If they're going to be an effective clinical provider, that'll be time telling us that.
21:00 Speaker 03 Okay, Jake in Utah wrote in, "My seven-year-old daughter recently experienced a medical emergency and was transported via ground ambulance to our local ER."
21:09 Speaker 02 I hope she's okay.
21:10 Speaker 03 "Where the doctors, she is, where the doctors determined that it would be necessary to fly her via helicopter to a well-known children's hospital."
21:17 Speaker 02 Wow.
21:18 Speaker 03 "They were able to save her life. We will be forever grateful for the first responders and medical professionals. I began listening to Clark in the mid 2000s, first on radio and later on the very early days of podcasting. I've always tried to follow his advice and it has greatly blessed my family." I've been funding my Roth 401k and have a 10K plus emergency fund and 20K plus in CDs, which was supposed to be a trip fund. I have high deductible health insurance plan through my work, but unfortunately only a meager 1K in an HSA. This was something we were actively working on improving. The claim for the helicopter service alone is over $30,000 and is currently marked as out of network with our portion TBD. What do we do?
22:00 Speaker 02 Okay, first of all, the really great news that your child is okay and that Quick Work and, and the Children's Hospital, your child was medevac to was able to save your child's life. So this helicopter medevac is covered by the No Surprises Act. And the reason it's marked as out of network and then TBD for your portion, they can only bill you for that helicopter, what would be in-network in your plan. A lot of people don't know that. A lot of people have never heard of the No Surprises Act. If you just go to whatever search engine, Google or whatever
22:44 Speaker 02 you use, and put in No Surprises Act, medevac, or air ambulance, or something like that, you'll see all the briefings that explain, because we've had your question before, where people are being billed a full out-of-network price, in your case, the 30 grand. It won't be anywhere near that. It'll be based on what in-network would be considered to be in your high deductible health plan. And I hope that that helps you get that bill down to a reasonable amount of money.
23:18 Speaker 03 And hopefully your trip fund can remain your trip fund.
23:21 Speaker 02 Right.
23:21 Speaker 03 Judy in Kentucky says, how do consumers navigate the routine versus diagnostic billing nightmare of the medical industry? I went in for a routine mammogram and bone density test. For the bone density test, since the radiologist determined I have osteopenia, they said that it shifted the coding from routine, which would be 100% covered by insurance as preventative, to diagnostic. I have to pay. Is this really the intent of the Affordable Care Act?
23:47 Speaker 02 Absolutely not.
23:49 Speaker 03 I didn't go to the radiology center to diagnose any problem, only to have my routine annual physical scans done as part of my annual physical. It would seem the bill should reflect the initial reason for the visit, not the outcome of the testing. Can I challenge this? Thanks for all you and your team do.
24:04 Speaker 02 Yes, polite persistence pays in a case like this, and you'll need to work hard with the practice to get them to recode. I don't know if they somehow make more money by the recode or not. It's possible they make a lot more from it, and they say, oh, well, as a courtesy, we will relieve you of your copay on this, because it's possible that the amount they made from the recoding is so much larger that that's why they did that. But no, you should not suffer when you went in for a routine test, just to make sure you were
24:45 Speaker 02 okay, to suddenly have it recoded, and the joke's on you with you having to pay out of pocket.
24:52 Speaker 03 Michelangelo in Ohio says, recently I was going through my financial transactions and noticed that I paid my doctor over $70 back in May. After doing some research, I found out that it was for my annual primary care visit, but then it occurred to me that that that should have been covered by my work insurance, and I don't know why I didn't question the bill at the time. After contacting customer service, it appears that weight, height, blood pressure, etc. are covered, but that I also asked my doctor about my shoulder making a popping sound, and then about some eczema, etc. And that is what I got charged for, even though it was my annual once a year doctor visit. Is this even legal? What about ethical? Again, like same thing. This is a pattern.
25:36 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah. That sounds really not right at all. I would love to see, if you go to the doctor's website, see how they describe what you get in an annual physical or annual checkup. And see if they say that it only covers blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and that anything else will be billed optionally. From the way you describe it, it sounds like it is not ethical, what happened in your case. And I think you could also have somebody call up and say, hey, I was interested, what do you do in an annual physical? And have
26:19 Speaker 02 somebody describe to you. It may be that they say, well, we do this, but we don't do that, whatever.
26:25 Speaker 03 Are you not supposed to ask questions of a doctor?
26:28 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's completely normal that if you're there for an annual physical, the doctor is there to see, he or she is checking you out to see if you're okay, if there's any points of concern. It seems completely normal. You say, yeah, I'm doing pretty well, except this, this shoulder of mine is really, I'm having trouble raising my arm really well. Oh, this one. I mean, this one too. You know, it's like, whatever. That seems normal to me, is normal course of business, and would not be an extra bill. And I'm sure that we will hear from doctors, some feedback on their perspective on that. But it seems to
27:10 Speaker 02 me it would be reasonable that that should have been covered in your annual physical. What do you think?
27:17 Speaker 03 I totally agree. I think that's crazy.
27:20 Speaker 02 All right, docs, let's hear your perspective. And thank you so much for joining us today. And appreciate you joining us on our first show of December.
27:33 Speaker 02 As we are closing in on Christmas, and I want to mention to you that we are in the midst of our 34th Annual Clark's Christmas Kids, where we ask for your donations for children in foster care who state what they would like for Christmas and hope that you'll step up and make it possible for them to have those gifts Christmas morning. These are kids who are not with their families this Christmas because for whatever reason, the adults in their lives are not able right now to take care of them, and they're either
28:12 Speaker 02 in a foster group home with a foster family, foster parent right now, and it's great that these resources are available, but it's really tough. Think about not being with your family this Christmas. If you can help us out and bring the wishes for a child true this Christmas morning coming up, please go to Clark'sChristmasKids.com. And it's all self-explanatory there. You can pick out an individual child you'd like to buy a gift or gifts for, or just give us a donation and we'll take care of buying gifts for a child this Christmas. And have a great rest of your day, and we'll be with you tomorrow.
29:02 Speaker 00 UKG is the workforce operating platform with unified HR, payroll, and workforce management. Built to solve the unique challenges of frontline work. Powered by People First AI and decades of labor data, UKG turns workforce intelligence into real-time decisions around staffing, pay, compliance, and productivity, enabling every worker to confidently take action as work happens. Because when work works, everything works. Learn more at ukg.com/work. UKG, HR, Pay, and Workforce Management.
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