Bin Space Wars, BofA Transfers Coming & Why Giant Suitcases & Rewards Debit Cards Are Taking Over!

Shawn Coomer (0:00)

Giant suitcases in Lisbon, European gate announcements suck, Alaska is getting a debit card, and Bank of America's blockbuster new transfer partner. All of that coming up right now on MTM Travel.

Mark Ostermann (0:13)

Yeah, these suitcases, man, it's like 1980s. I don't know what was happening.

Shawn Coomer (0:24)

So happy Monday, everyone. And this is our travel show. So we have some travel gripes and fun things to talk about.

I'm getting ready for my big trip to Asia. Going to have some Macau stuff, China, all that good stuff coming up in the next few weeks. And just getting ready for my big Starlux award. My other flight fell through. I had a different plan, but that fell through back to Starlux and going through Taiwan. But I'm looking forward to that in a few weeks. So good times.

Mark Ostermann (0:50)

Oh, did you get canceled? The flight get canceled?

Shawn Coomer (0:53)

Yeah, I got canceled. But I got my Starlux award. So I was always meant to fly Starlux, I suppose. And yeah, super happy about that. And it's still the best. I've been searching and nothing better has come up other than I found a deal that fell through that got canceled. So good times there. But we had this discussion this week, Mark, about European gates. I think when you were there, I think you texted something in Slack about, why can't the Europeans assign gates ahead of time? And it is something that I have always wondered, why in America can we have gate assignments well in advance? You know, they do change them once in a while. It's not a big deal to get your gate changed. But in many airports, not just in Europe, I think elsewhere in the world I've seen, where they don't assign the gate until, like, I don't know, right before boarding.

Mark Ostermann (1:40)

Yeah, it's not like the airplane gets there within five minutes. It's already there or whatever. You could do a better job with this. But it is frustrating. And Lisbon's a little bit confusing when you go in. Like, when you look at the main board, the first board, it says A1 to 30 or whatever. And you're like, OK, I was thinking, that must be like the gate. OK, cool. Like, it's going to be in that section. They haven't announced exactly the gate, but I'm going to be in the A gates.

And come to find out that is not what that's about. That's about check-ins.

Shawn Coomer (2:12)

Yeah, and they have all these different.

Mark Ostermann (2:13)

Yeah, that's all the check-in desks. So they have all these check-in areas. And I'm like, well, I don't need check-in. I'm carrying my luggage. But there's lines everywhere. They have like 200 check-in gates, desks or whatever. And there's lines everywhere with huge suitcases, like massive.

I don't even know that they still sold these type of suitcases, big suitcases, and people are just lining up hundreds people deep to get into each airline. And I'm like, what is going on? When did Europe change? I always thought they were like more of a backpack, small suitcase that always make fun of us Americans for overpacking. Maybe there was a ton of Americans there, which would have been weird for the time of year and everything.

But I don't know, man. Have you noticed that when you've been in Europe lately, that they have more big suitcases or is this just a one-off thing?

Shawn Coomer (3:00)

I mean, I do notice big suitcases around. I actually think Americans are the smallest packers. I think that the whole carry-on only thing is caught on here a lot because of the internet.

It is interesting how detached we are as carry-on only people. When you see like normal people or I even talk to like just normal travelers in my life or people in my life who travel once a year or whatever and what they do. But like I just picked up my cousin who's not a big traveler. Like he goes on a cruise once a year and just normal vacation stuff. I took him to the airport the other day and they had like a couple of smaller bags with them, but their main things were carry-ons.

I think when they were going on a week-long trip, I think more Americans are probably catching on to that. I do wonder like, I mean, those suitcases where you could fit an entire body inside of them, what are we packing here? You know what, Mark, you don't see this, but on cruise ships, I see them all the time because people pack their entire home to come on a cruise ship because of dinners, and they're changing all the time, and they want to be fancy and all of that, and it's probably a legitimate reason, but you do see on cruise ships these giant suitcases all the time.