AmeriServ Presents: Bank Chats

Travel Tips — Money Edition

• AmeriServ Financial, Inc. • Episode 20

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The summer travel season is upon us, so Drew and Jeff decided to share some tips and tricks to hopefully help you save some money on vacation, and keep the money you do bring with you safe.

Resources:
Timely Tips - Vacation and Travel Security

AmeriServ Bank

Credits:
An AmeriServ Financial, Inc. Production 
Music by Rattlesnake and Millo
Hosted by Drew Thomas and Jeffrey Matevish

Thanks for listening! You can find out more about AmeriServ by visiting ameriserv.com. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

DISCLAIMER
This podcast focuses on having valuable conversations on various topics related to banking and financial health. The podcast is grounded in having open conversations with professionals and experts, with the goal of helping to take some of the mystery out of financial and related topics; as learning about financial products and services can help you make more informed financial decisions. Please keep in mind that the information contained within this podcast, and any resources available for download from our website or other resources relating to Bank Chats is not intended, and should not be understood or interpreted to be, financial advice. The hosts, guests, and production staff of Bank Chats expressly recommend that you seek advice from a trusted financial professional before making financial decisions. The hosts of Bank Chats are not attorneys, accountants, or financial advisors, and the program is simply intended as one source of information. The podcast is not a substitute for a financial professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation. AmeriServ Presents: Bank Chats is produced and distributed by AmeriServ Financial, Incorporated.

Drew Thomas:

Oh, yeah, so I again, I'm gonna start making you introduce these episodes.

Jeff Matevish:

Okay.

Drew Thomas:

Because I never know exactly how to start this out.

Jeff Matevish:

Let's try. Welcome to 2 Cents, a shorter version of Bank Chats where we find something interesting, or at least to us, in the news.

Drew Thomas:

I'd say, interesting to us.

Jeff Matevish:

Yeah, yeah, tied to something financial and let you guys enjoy, yeah.

Drew Thomas:

So, what are we talking about today?

Jeff Matevish:

So, today we're talking about traveling, specifically, keeping your money safe while traveling, and how to save a little bit of money if you're gonna go on vacation this year.

Drew Thomas:

Well, that makes sense. Yeah. I, I constantly catch grief from the other folks that we work with, because I hardly ever go anywhere on vacation. I'm always doing staycations.

Jeff Matevish:

I don't. I don't go to a lot of places either, though.

Drew Thomas:

Yeah, well, you guys don't, don't you guys go down to like, South Carolina or something?

Jeff Matevish:

Recently, like the last couple, just a couple years, but that's like a new thing. Yeah, we go camping. We used to do a lot of camping. Yeah, more local. We, I have, like, a radius, you know, I, I like to stay within a couple of hours, yeah.

Drew Thomas:

Yeah, I can't blame you there. I, I used to go on, my parents go to the beach every year. So, when I grew up, we always, we would go. We always went to the same beach. We always went to a beach in North Carolina, and it was wonderful. Absolutely loved it, but that was sort of the standard thing. We didn't do the typical family like, get in the car and drive across the country and see Mount Rushmore, yeah, back, or anything that, yeah, thing, you know.

Jeff Matevish:

We used to go to, we go to Florida every year, but that was to visit family, and that was kind of like a home away from home, because you left your home to go to a, you know, even nicer home in a warmer place, yeah? And, you know, year after year, it kind of gets, you know, like very comfortable.

Drew Thomas:

Yeah, I was, I was going to say, the comfort level, because I can tell you that, you know where we, were my family vacations, I can drive down there, I don't need a map. I know exactly where to go. And once I'm there, I know where all the hot spots are. I know where all the little restaurants are. And these aren't like the tourist trap restaurants like these are the restaurants that we have found over the course of two decades of vacationing in that area. So, you kind of feel like a quasi-local in a weird way.

Jeff Matevish:

I know, yeah, you do it enough, yeah, yeah.

Drew Thomas:

But I am going on a, on a trip this year. They, yeah, my, my wife's nephew is getting married, so we're actually going to travel out to Kansas later this summer.

Jeff Matevish:

Oh, cool.

Drew Thomas:

And I've never been to Kansas, and I've heard it's very flat, everything's very straight.

Jeff Matevish:

Yeah, watch for those, you know, tornadoes and all that.

Drew Thomas:

Yeah, I get the impression that they really hate the Wizard of Oz out there.

Jeff Matevish:

I would think so. I would think.

Drew Thomas:

I think they're about done with the Wizard of Oz. Yeah. I bet they sell a lot of touristy stuff, that's related to wizards. But I think the locals are a bit tired of Wizard of Oz. I think after 100 years of that, they're about done, yeah. So, yeah, so, so what, so what are some of the tips that you have, like, so you said we're gonna talk about, how do you typically save money whenever you travel? Like, do you...

Jeff Matevish:

I try to book pretty far in advance, if I can, if I know it's, you know, it's not a sporadic, you know, spur-of-the-moment, spur-of-the-moment trip, yeah, I'll try to book a little bit in advance. Usually you can get a little bit cheaper flights or, but some, some airlines, you know, you book last minute, and they're trying to fill the seats, so they'll give you a good deal too. So, I guess it's, you know, kind of what kind of trip you want to go on.

Drew Thomas:

Yeah, I read, and I don't know if this is true, but because we were booking flights for the, the trip out to Kansas, I read that the best time to typically book a flight is about eight weeks before you want to fly. Okay. So, before that, the prices are all over the place. And then as you get closer to the flight, unless you want to try to get, like, a standby ticket, yeah, you get kind of one of those things where you don't want to book too late, because then they can up, they can up-charge you. Say, well, hey, look, I only got two seats left. Whole supply and demand thing, sure. But they say, like, eight weeks out. Now, I don't know if that's really true or not. Yeah, that's, that's what they say.

Jeff Matevish:

Probably depends on the airline too. You get some budget airlines you can, you can book a little closer to the trip and still not be as expensive as some of the bigger, you know, bigger airlines.

Drew Thomas:

Yeah, now that's the thing that's big in the news right now, is how Southwest Airlines is no longer going to be doing the bags fly free thing. In the matter of fact, as, I think that by the time this airs, that will be done, okay, so unless you, unless you buy a certain class of ticket or something like that. But that was a big deal. I mean, that was, that was, like, their big catch, I don't say catchphrase, but it was their...

Jeff Matevish:

Their selling point.

Drew Thomas:

Their big selling point, yeah, yeah.

Jeff Matevish:

Well, that's one of the tips was, you know, travel light. If you, if it's an, in-case-I-need clothing item, probably, you know, leave that at home.

Drew Thomas:

Especially if you're flying you mean, right?

Jeff Matevish:

Yeah. I know when, when, when we travel even down to the beach, down to Myrtle, we, we try to just do our normal carry on. Granted, we're not going for, you know, two weeks at a time. But, you know, if you don't need five

Drew Thomas:

That, I mean, that makes sense to me, like whenever pairs of socks to go for a three day trip, leave those few pair at home, you know? we, if we do go someplace, and especially if they have, if you rent a house like on the beach, if you rent a house on the beach, lot of times, they'll have a washer and dryer. I don't care if I wear the same T-shirt every day. That's, who am I there to impress, go and sit on the beach and maybe go out to a couple of, so you're right. I don't need to take five different shirts. I can take 2 T-shirts, and I can throw one in the wash and wear the other one. It doesn't matter to me.

Jeff Matevish:

And if you're staying with family, and you know, you can leave some stuff there for next year if you're planning on going back, yeah, you know you could do that. I know we did that whenever we went up to Alaska, we left some stuff. We left fishing supplies and stuff, instead of tracking that back home to Pennsylvania, we just left it up in Alaska.

Drew Thomas:

Yeah, yeah. No live bait, though I would imagine. Yeah, I'll leave the worms here. It'll be fine. Yeah, I don't think, you probably don't use worms whenever sea, you're, because you're sea fishing, right?

Jeff Matevish:

Yeah, yeah mostly. You do river fishing for salmon and stuff too.

Drew Thomas:

But, oh yeah, fly fishing or?

Jeff Matevish:

Yeah.

Drew Thomas:

Yeah, nice. So, so, yeah, so, so, how often do you fly versus, I guess that's another thing you could actually try to price out, is whether it's cheaper to fly, or whether it's cheaper to drive, oh, yeah, to your destination, because that was another thing we considered. So, it's about an 18 hour drive from here to the town in Kansas where we're going. Okay? So, at one point when we looked at flights, the first time in this was maybe about four months ago, there was no flight that we could find that was less than about $800-$900 for round-trip flight.

Jeff Matevish:

I can believe it.

Drew Thomas:

And we actually ended up finding one that was way, way, way cheaper eight weeks out or so. But we were starting to seriously consider, like, should we drive? Yeah? And the thing is, you know, it's an 18-hour drive. That's a long drive, and that's like straight through. So, that's, as Google tells you, is 18 hours, yeah. So, if you stop to eat, if you stop for gas, if you stop because you got to use the restroom, or whatever it is, you're, you're really going to turn that 18 hours into probably 20-22 hours, maybe, depending on, so it's about a full day's drive. And then you still got to account for gas, right? So, you're buying gas, you're going to account for wear and tear on your car, brakes, tires, all that kind of stuff. So, you got to price all that kind of stuff in. And it started to get to the point where it's like, wow, it's actually more like $500 just to drive, you know? Yeah. And then there's the inconvenience of it all on top of it. So, we ended up actually choosing to fly.

Jeff Matevish:

Oh, and then sometimes airlines, you know you're not going to get a direct flight anyway, so even though driving, could take you 18 hours, that hour and a half two- hour flight still may take you 18 hours away from your house, away from your you know, your destination.

Drew Thomas:

It's possible, depending on if you have to drive to the airport. Yeah. And, and then there's, there's layovers. Well, layovers, yeah, plus then you got to consider, okay, if I'm going to be gone for six days, I probably have to pay for parking, because I got to drive to the airport and I got to pay to park now, unless, unless it's a small airport where you can get parking for free, but if you're going to a major international airport, you're probably going to pay for parking. Oh, yeah, every day. So, those are all kinds of things you want to consider for sure. Yeah, what about like, what about where you stay? Do you stay? Do you camp? Do you stay in hotels? Like, how do you...

Jeff Matevish:

We stay in hotels. We do a little bit of research to see you know when the hotel was most recently renovated, and how many stars it's got. But we're not too terribly picky on hotels. Camping, we've never, we've never done we used to go camping a lot, but then that was the vacation, was camping. It was not, you know, go camping...

Drew Thomas:

You weren't using the tent as a place to stay. You were, that was, that was, yeah, that was the destination. Yeah, gotcha right.

Jeff Matevish:

How about you guys?

Drew Thomas:

Usually hotels. We used to camp a lot whenever I was a little kid. My parents had a camper, and we would go camping. And we spent a lot of Memorial Days in campgrounds when it was 50 degrees and raining, and so we were playing cards in the camper, and like, we could be doing this for free at home.

Jeff Matevish:

Yeah? Well it brings you closer together.

Drew Thomas:

It did. Yeah, you gotta, you gotta keep an eye on

Jeff Matevish:

Good to know.

Drew Thomas:

But all right, at the time they had, there was a the hotels, though you really do. Because, like, you said, hotel that my wife had found, and she thought it was a good like, I don't need a five-star hotel. I don't need a Ritz deal. And there's, those kind of touristy places, there's a lot of non-name brand hotels, sure, right? And so she found this Carlton or whatever, but, boy, you gotta, we, there was a story I've related to you before, but I'll relate it here that we hotel, and we're looking at it online. It looked really great. So, we go ahead and book it. We get there, and I'm telling you, the photos from that hotel must have been taken 30 years prior, were, we were traveling for a different wedding, and we went and if...

Jeff Matevish:

You got catfished.

Drew Thomas:

It was, yeah, awful. We walked into the room and my stepdaughter goes, half the TV stand is missing. Oh to, it was going to Virginia Beach. And the full disclosure, geez. The term missing, it wasn't broken, it wasn't off, it was just gone. Oh, wow, nothing there. And we, yeah, I ended up trying to get us that we got out of there, like it was like two I'm gonna, I don't remember the name of the hotel, but I can o'clock in the morning, I'm next door trying to get us into a Hampton Inn. And I have always had a soft spot for Hilton Hotels ever since then, because they helped get us out of a very, very, very bad Hotel. That hotel was so bad that when I tell you, it is no longer this hotel. Okay, so if you, if you went to check us out the next morning, I had to be I had to be put on hold, like the desk attendant was like, I'm sorry, I can't do this for you right now. And then one of the assistants comes running out of the back room holding a fire extinguisher. The dumpster out back was literally on fire. as a listener or a viewer, are going to Virginia Beach, you

Jeff Matevish:

A true dumpster fire.

Drew Thomas:

It's a true dumpster fire. It was awful. So, so, yeah, you can try to save money a little bit on hotels, but be aware of, especially like the, the ones that aren't a don't have to worry about this hotel, because it doesn't exist anymore. chain. Yeah, I think that in that, that's one of the few things that I can honestly probably say that I try to stick with a chain because you, you have a reasonable expectation that that company wants to put forth a good impression.

Jeff Matevish:

Yeah, and usually you can build some points up with, with chain hotels. And sometimes you can use those to book, you know, an extra day and not get charged, you know, those, those hidden fees that hotels like to charge you.

Drew Thomas:

Yeah, there are well, and that's another thing. So, when you're, when you're booking this stuff, I would say, make sure that when you're looking at the rate, whatever it is, you understand that the rate they're, they're showing you, is the rate for the room, not the taxes, not the fees, not everything else. So, just kind of understand that. I think when

Jeff Matevish:

That's the minimum you're gonna pay, yeah. you're comparing...

Drew Thomas:

Right. That is, that is the least you're going to pay. You're going to pay more than that, right? And the same thing, I think, goes for, for things like airlines and booking flights and so forth. Rental cars. There's always like, oh, you can rent a car for $250 with$150 in fees, right? But they're not charging you that. It's the state, it's the county, it's whatever. But yeah, your cell phones the same, we can get into cell phone stuff. I mean, my God, oh, the same way. Yeah. So, I don't know when you were doing your reading, like, when it comes to, like, booking hotels and stuff, do those, do those sorts of conglomerate sites like Trivago and hotels.com and stuff, do they really save you any money?

Jeff Matevish:

I don't know, I didn't, I, the research I was doing, it didn't really talk about those sites, but yeah, you see those flashy commercials all the time, and yeah, I'm curious too, do they actually save you money? Or is it more of a scam?

Drew Thomas:

I don't, I don't know that I would necessarily call it a scam, okay, but what I will say is that my personal experience, and that's all this is my personal experience. I don't believe I've ever found a better rate using one of those sites than I could if I just did the research myself and went directly to the hotel. Okay? Now I'm not, now I don't I don't do a lot of travel, and I certainly don't do a lot of travel into big cities. So, if you were traveling to Chicago or New York City or San Francisco or something, maybe they do make a difference. But in my personal experience, I've never really come across a deal where I got a better price by going through one of those Kayak, yeah, whatever they are, sites.

Jeff Matevish:

I think, I think you have to be a little bit more, not as picky, too if you are using one of those sites. Like, because I think how they work is these hotels sell the extra rooms that they have to the, the rates to these sites, and then they, they, I'm, you know, I'm sure that the sites have an upcharge, but you're like getting, if you're going to the beach and you really want a balcony, and an ocean view, you may not get that with one of these third parties.

Drew Thomas:

Oh, got it.

Jeff Matevish:

Yeah, yeah, you're gonna get, like, you know, an interior room on the basement floor, but, but it's gonna be $100 less than...

Drew Thomas:

The dumpster fire, right?

Jeff Matevish:

You know, so, I mean, it depends on how picky are with a room.

Drew Thomas:

Yeah, you're probably right. I mean, it's probably the same, because I would imagine they probably do the same thing with airline flights. You know, I can look for, you know, they'll find me the cheapest airline flight. But if I'm traveling, for example, with my, my family, maybe the three seats on that plane are not together. Maybe they're all middle seats, which nobody wants to sit in, yeah. So, yeah, you're right. I mean, you're right. I mean, you're gonna get a, it depends on whether it's more important to you to have what you're looking for, or whether you want something just cheap. Yeah. So, let's talk, so what else? What else do you...

Jeff Matevish:

Food was another big one, I saw. A lot, a lot of these websites are saying, yeah, if you can get a hotel room with a little dinette or something like that, and you can make your own food or bring your own snacks, you'll save a lot of money, yeah, especially during the tourist season, where restaurants kind of upcharge things.

Drew Thomas:

Yeah, plus convenience I think a lot of times when you're traveling, you end up getting your snacks and stuff at convenience stores. Compared to a big box store, a Slim Jim is going to cost you a lot more at a convenience store. Yeah, right. So, you're right. I think that's a good point. I don't know. I've done that, though, when I've traveled, even for, even traveling for business, there are times, especially if I'm driving, I will go to, you know, Giant Eagle or Walmart or whatever, and I'll buy myself, like, some, you know, bottles of tea or whatever, and take them with me, because I can throw them in the little mini fridge, and that way I don't have to use a vending machine. I don't have to, first of all, in a hotel these days, good luck finding a vending machine.

Jeff Matevish:

It's right next to the ice machine that doesn't work. Yeah.

Drew Thomas:

Yeah, or, oh, I've seen some horrible, horrible things about hotel ice machines. I will never eat ice out of a hotel ice machine.

Jeff Matevish:

Oh, well don't tell me, don't tell me.

Drew Thomas:

If you want to put your cool, your drink in there to cool it down, that's fine, but don't put that ice in your drink. Yeah, a lot of hotels have that little vending, vending area near the front desk now. Yeah. And you can get stuff there, but again, you're probably going to pay three times what you would if it was at a regular store.

Jeff Matevish:

Oh sure. The final one that I had was the big, obvious one, if you can travel during the off season, travel during the off season. Yeah, that's always a, always a good one.

Drew Thomas:

Yeah, I would agree with that. There's, I mean, sometimes it's a third of the price. Sometimes it's even less than that, yeah, because nobody wants to go to the beach in February, so...

Jeff Matevish:

Or, you know, September. We found that out last year. We got, my wife and I got stuck in a tropical storm. We had a long weekend at the beach, and it was spent in the hotel room because of the storm.

Drew Thomas:

Waiting out a tropical storm. Yeah, my parents got chased off the beach, I think, three years ago by a

Jeff Matevish:

That or I know now credit card companies are hurricane, and thankfully, they had travel insurance. Oh, good, which is another thing to keep in mind, travel insurance. Now I will say, if you ask my mom, how, if you, so if you ask my mom her opinion of the travel insurance and my dad his opinion, they're two different stories. Okay. Because my mom offering that too. was the one that had to call the insurance company to actually get the insurance activated, to get the money back, okay, and the amount of paperwork and proof and rigmarole and phone calls that she had to make, and depending on the type, depending on who issues the insurance, your mileage may vary on that

Drew Thomas:

Yeah, sometimes you can get it through your credit point, yeah, but she did eventually get the money back, but it was a lot of headache. It was a lot of hassle, but it was worth it, because she got probably $2,000 reimbursed. So, while it may be a headache, I think most of the time those kinds of things are probably worthwhile, especially if you can get it through your existing insurance company. card. That's a really good point. A lot of people do not really know every benefit that their credit card offers, so there's a lot of that, that happens where you get, you get a new credit card, and you, all you really kind of look at is, understandably things like the interest rate and things like that. But you don't realize some of those cards really do have some nice perks.

Jeff Matevish:

Yeah, and those, those points may be more useful to you while you're on vacation than, you know, at home, so take that card with you maybe.

Drew Thomas:

Yeah. So, that kind of goes into the whole safety thing too. So, as far as how to pay for things when you're, when you're traveling. Now, I'm old enough to remember travelers checks. I don't know if you are?

Jeff Matevish:

I've heard of those, yeah.

Drew Thomas:

Well, I mean, you're not, I mean, you're not super young, but you're not, you're not old like me either. I mean, like, so I didn't know if travelers checks were still a thing for you or not.

Jeff Matevish:

My family didn't use them whenever we traveled. My dad was like me. He was a cash guy. If he, if he could take a bunch of cash with him, he would take a bunch of cash with him, which probably was not 100% safe either. But he also was not the guy that you know, would take all of it with him to the beach, you know, if, if we had a safe in the room, you know, sure, put most of the money in the safe, you know, I'll take a couple dollars with you in case, you know, the kids want ice cream or whatever. But, yeah, yeah, utilize those, those safes in your room.

Drew Thomas:

Yeah that's, that's, I mean, and obviously, just, you know, full disclosure those hotels, they know how to get into those safes if they have to. Yeah. So, you know, hopefully the, the staff that comes through to do room service or housekeeping or whatever, hopefully they don't have the codes to those safes. You know most of the time, you know, your safe is, is designed to keep those kinds of folks out of your business and out of your stuff. But ultimately, you know people, they forget what they keyed in for the code and whatnot, so they're not 100% impenetrable. No, no, by hotel staff. So, just, you know something to keep in mind but, but, yeah, that's, that's a good point.

Jeff Matevish:

safe with the safe, yeah, I'll put everything in my, my suitcase and lock it up and keep the key with me then. Yeah. I mean, you know, some, anybody can walk off with your suitcase, I guess. But it probably deters people more than just having your wallet sitting out on the dresser.

Drew Thomas:

It keeps honest people, honest.

Jeff Matevish:

Yeah, right. Out of sight, out of mind, yeah, don't, don't, you know, don't go looking for it type thing.

Drew Thomas:

you can, especially these days, if you have the ability to use a credit card while you're, while you're traveling, do that. Even if you intend to pay cash, quote, unquote, for everything, use the credit card pay it off when you get home, because you're then not sharing your debit card information with everybody out of state that you normally would never frequent. Yeah, you know certain, certain stores or restaurants, whatnot. You don't know in some of these places where they get a lot of tourists, if you have an honest waiter or waitress when they take your card, they might write down the number, and then you end up with fraud or something else on the card. And so if you use a credit card, it's generally a lot easier to fight those fraudulent transactions. Yeah, possibly.

Jeff Matevish:

Now, what about, I mean, Apple Pay. So, you could probably use Apple Pay with your debit card to be a little safer than using your debit card in general, because that, that encrypts it and you have a specific key on your, on your phone, or some identifier that your, your numbers aren't getting leaked out ever.

Drew Thomas:

Yeah, your, your your, number is never shared with Apple Pay, yeah, so that's not necessarily endorsing it, but I'm kind of endorsing it like Apple Pay right now is probably one of the most secure ways that you can conduct a transaction. I get very frustrated with a lot of companies who do not have Apple Pay set up the way it was intended to be used, because I go and I use Apple Pay at the grocery store, at the gas[station], and a lot of times I'll still be prompted for my PIN or something like, yeah, you're not even supposed to have to do that. The idea is that your thumbprint, your face, your biometrics, are securing that transaction, but yet, stores, they don't always have it set. Hey, yeah, at least that's not being shared with but it but you're right. You're not sharing. So, even if it, because there was a story now, I'm going back probably six, seven years now, but there was a story where one of the big one of the big box stores, I think, and then there was a fast food joint that got hacked and they stole the, the stored credit card and debit card information that that company had on file. So, it wasn't even like you got hacked, per se, it was that you had used your card at that store, that store got hacked, and then you're, so with Apple Pay, your, none of that stuff's ever shared. Gotcha, yeah, but if you're using your debit card on vacation and that card gets hacked, they could clean out your checking account, right? They could take every dime you have, and that's a lot harder to recover from than to be able to call your credit card company and say, hey, I'm disputing every transaction from this date on. I'm going to report my card stolen, and at least they're not liquidating your, your, your, your checking account that you pay your bills out of most likely, right?

Jeff Matevish:

And make sure if you are traveling with a credit card or a debit card, or anything like that, if you have an RFID wallet, probably be safest to use one of those because you're out in public with, you know, a large group of people. It's nothing for someone to use a credit card skimmer and just walk by. Yeah, you know, and steal your information, especially in those large crowds.

Drew Thomas:

Yeah, that's a very good point. Those are increasingly common, those, those RFID card, like touchless, basically any card that has the little Wi Fi symbol on it, yeah, that's what we're talking about. So, if you're, if your card doesn't require you to insert it into the machine or swipe the card through the machine, if you could just tap your card on the machine that has an RFID chip in it, you should probably, like Jeff said, probably have one of those protectors that helps to block that signal. Yeah. Now, to be fair, somebody can't stand across the room and grab that signal from you, but they can be standing right behind you in line, right, and potentially grab that signal, right, so.

Jeff Matevish:

The digital pickpocketing now. It's no longer, you know, hand in the pocket grabbing your wallet. It's, you know, just Yeah, it's breeze past you and stealing a number, yeah, yeah.

Drew Thomas:

I mean, I remember the days, you know, going back to the cash conversation, that when we would go on vacation, I had to go to the bank and I would take out x number of dollars in cash and take that with me. I had to remember to do that. Nowadays, you don't have to even think about it, because you can get access to your cash through an ATM or whatever. Yeah, but ATMs are another thing you want to be careful of, especially in areas where there's a lot of tourists, because, you know, you'll find skimmers on ATMs. You know, you're on the boardwalk. It's, you're not, you're not in a secure location, you're not in a bank, not in a store. So, that ATM that is just kind of hanging out there on the beach boardwalk, check it, make sure there's no skimmers on it. Make sure there's nothing there that's going to steal your card information when you go to use it. Yeah, that's a good one. Those are definitely things to keep in mind for sure. What else? What was the other thing that you had? Yeah, yeah. And if you do have apps, like you said,

Jeff Matevish:

Notify your bank if you're going to be traveling overseas, just so any transactions that you have don't like, a lot of credit cards have, have the ability to turn get flagged as fraudulent. Yeah, yeah, it's a good point. Some the card off in the app. We have an app that we use at our bank. apps allow you to do that now like our Card Suite Lite that Even though we're a relatively small community bank, we use we, we use you can say, hey, I'm traveling from, you know, from this person, this place to this place, so it will allow it's called Card Suite Lite, where you can it's for your transactions, you know, in between the two destinations. debit card. You can turn your card off if you can't find it, But, yeah, yeah. Make sure your bank kind of knows that you're so that nobody can use it. Like you said. You can set up borders gonna be traveling or, you know, your credit card company, whoever you use. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, you know. where you can use it geographically, you can, you can even set up different things in there where you're only allowed to use it at, say, restaurants, but not at an airport, yeah, or something along those lines. So, if your card or your bank offers that, take advantage of it, you know, because it's a really, really cool thing to have the ability to do and to have some control over it on yourself, yeah. The other thing I would say is, don't have only one form of payment, because if you do have to turn your card off, or your card gets stolen, or, God forbid, your, your cash gets stolen, or something like that, you don't want to be stuck somewhere where you have literally no access to money. Yeah, so always have a second or third form of payment available, even if you don't intend to use it, per se, yeah, have it available with you so that if something happens, and keep it separate. Keep, you know, keep that emergency card in a different suitcase, in case you're, you know, keep it in your carry on. In case your luggage gets lost on the plane or gets diverted to Dallas when you're going to San Francisco, keep it with you. Keep it, you know, somewhere where you, you always have that other way to pay.

Drew Thomas:

But yeah, so, I mean, I think, I mean traveling is fun, and if you can do, and if you can find ways to do it a little less expensively than what, why not? I mean, you really should, you know, if you can.

Jeff Matevish:

Everything's going up in price now, so save a buck where you can.

Drew Thomas:

Yeah, for sure. All right, in that case, Jeff, travel safe.

Jeff Matevish:

Yep, safe travels, happy travels, yeah, thanks.

Drew Thomas:

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