November 2016 - Rebel with a Plan

Month: November 2016

How To Fly Spirit Airlines

November 21, 2016

There are a bunch of ways to save money when flying: book on a certain day at a certain time, use reward points, pick a less popular time to fly, and so on. Another big way to save on airfare is to book with a low-cost budget airline.

Not too long ago, I started looking into flying with a low-cost airline. Let me tell you, it can be amazzzing (because of the whole saving $$ thing) or terrible due to…well, lots of things (bad customer service, non-existent leg room, etc).

Spirit is the most well-known budget airline in the U.S., for both good and bad. Spirit has had public relations chaos and dealt with a notable bout of hate from people who have flown on the airline. Never fear! There is a way to fly Spirit airlines and have it not suck (for the most part…).

Spirit has routes running all over America, the Caribbean, and Central America. When you first see their pricing, you’ll be blown away. The fares are very low when compared to other airlines. You’ll think you scored some massively awesome deal. You did! Sort of.

In an effort to provide the lowest of low airfare prices, Spirit cuts out everything you would normally expect when flying. The mission is simple: get you from point A to point B. If you want the traditional amenities you’ve been accustomed to when flying, you’ll have to pay up with additional fees.

Peanuts? That costs extra. Picking your seats? Costs extra. Reclining your seats? Hahaha, nope.

When I flew with Spirit on a trip from San Diego to Houston, the base fare for the flight only cost $61. Adding in some fees, I ended up having to pay $113 total. Still a way better deal than the other airlines, and the experience of flying with them was mostly okay.

BAG CHARGES

Spirit charges additional fees on everything you can probably think of. It really is a bare bones flight. Be aware of how you will be flight (how many bags, how big, etc) when booking so you can add on anything extra at the time of booking rather than paying more for it later on.

There is no free carry-on. You are allowed one personal item per person. For my flight from San Diego to Houston, I paid an additional $35 to bring one carry-on bag with me on the flight.

flying with spirit airlines — Only one personal item is allowed per person. A carry-on bag costs extra

BRING YOUR OWN SNACKS

Spirit doesn’t give out peanuts or even a small complimentary drink. For a person like me who orders ginger ale and sips it as I look out the window pretending to be in one of those cool alcohol commercials, it can be a bummer not to get anything.

Think ahead and bring some snacks and an empty water bottle with you to the airport. Fill up the water bottle after you get through security.

If you buy a snack and soda on the flight, it’s going to run you around $5-15. Although apparently Sprit’s on board alcoholic beverages are cheaper than other airlines. Maybe that’s something to be excited about? 🙂 (I wouldn’t know, not much of a drinker).

OTHER CHARGES

Seat selection. On default, Spirit will pick your seat for you. Not something that’s ideal if you’re flying with someone else or in a group and want to stay together.

Customer selected seats range from $1-50. The big front seats, which have more leg room and no middle seat, cost between $12-199.

On my flight from San Diego to Houston, I opted to let Spirit choose the seat for me. It would have cost $10 if I had wanted to pick a standard seat of my own and $50 if I had wanted one of the big front seats.

If you book over the phone or online (a.k.a. they way almost everyone books flights nowadays) you will be subject to a “passenger usage fee” which ranges from $8.99 to $17.99. I got charged $17.99. The fee is waived if you go directly to the airport and book at the clerk counter. So if you happen to live close to the airport, book there.

Getting your boarding pass from the clerk desk costs $10, so either print at home or at one of the airport kiosks (the kiosks are free!).

I remember another blogger mentioning how Spirit felt like a “greyhound bus in the air” because of how not great the flight was. Many people have mentioned how Spirit’s flights are frequently late on arrival.

My experience flying Spirit was positive and I didn’t have any problems. The seat was a little tight, given that I’m 6’2 and Spirit puts their seats closer together but it wasn’t too bad. I had snacks I brought on the flight and kept myself entertained with a book and my flight arrived on time.

Have you ever flown with Spirit or another low-cost budget airline? What has your experience been like?

Don’t Leave. Fight.

November 16, 2016

This past week has been a whirlwind with the election, even more so being abroad and hearing about it.

On the afternoon of Wednesday, November 9th, I sat at my desk, grading papers. My hands were tensed up and I could barely concentrate and kept making mistakes with the grading.

I had forgotten to top up my phone that day so I didn’t have mobile data to furiously check Twitter every five minutes. All of the teachers were banned from talking about the election in the office. Everything felt like it was halted in a slow motion. I did my work and continued to go on with my day. The lingering feeling still stayed. In the back of my mind, I knew madness was going on back in the U.S. and on social media, Twitter especially.

Everyone was on the edge of their seats to see what the outcome would be.

Then I heard the news. From one of the Filipino teachers. Then from one of my Thai teachers.

Not too long afterward, I started getting messages from friends about it, with some saying how lucky I was to not be in the U.S. during this time. This has been said to me a lot lately in the past few months, many of them coming from Americans. The…I bet you’re glad you’re not in the U.S. right now! comments.

Thinking back to the long lead-up to this election, I remember the constant comments of people saying they would leave the country if Trump was elected president. Some were said in jest while many contained an actionable tone. Celebrities continuously made their announcements to the public of fleeing abroad. My brother talked about moving to Ireland (he has citizenship there), and several travelers I have encountered these past few months talked about how they loved not being in America.

The traveler, with all the melodramatic-ness in their voice, would proclaim how they disliked America and dreamed of permanently moving abroad.

Fellow English teachers who, with a few months or years of English teaching experience behind them, would state that they would never return to America.

In these talks, the same general negatives about America would be spouted: the rising health insurance costs, gun violence, low stagnant salaries, seedy politicians, and rising costs of living. These would be contrasted by talking about how delightful it was to be in a low cost of living place like Thailand and how it was “so cheap” to travel Southeast Asia.

These people kept the conversations firmly veered in talking about the negatives of America and never about why it really was “so cheap” to live in Southeast Asia. They were the types of travelers who, while certainly in the minority, were ones I actively tried to avoid.

I moved from America to Thailand in March 2016. These past eight months living abroad, keeping up with the election cycle, and seeing America from an outside view has been interesting to experience. I’ve gotten to see how people around the world keep up with American news.

And it’s been disappointing.

Fellow Americans, who, while denouncing their own country, would travel abroad and spout messages of taking charge of one’s life and embracing change. It didn’t add up.

They visited countries, talked of the rich history via long Instragram captions, and extolled the virtues of travel and being a worldly citizen…all while ignoring their homeland of America. It looked like all they wanted to do was watch America from the sidelines. Not participating, not being involved, and not staying up to date on news.

The biggest discouraging moment to witness is seeing someone give up when faced with an obstacle. That person is in office!? I’m leaving the country! The course of action is to leave rather than stay and work to improve. To participate in change.

Somewhere along the way, people have forgotten to remember the small everyday wins. They’ve forgotten to push forward and push past adversity. The bench is warm and nobody wants to get up and go out.

When they do get up, it’s not always in the best way. Making slapstick jokes on Twitter, liking political-themed memes on Instagram, arguing with someone on Facebook about it, and signing an online petition every now and then shouldn’t be the course of action.

It’s about stepping up, making efforts to educate yourself on the different perspectives, contributing to causes you care about, and understanding that progress isn’t always linear.

Don’t leave. Stay and continue making change, however small it may seem at first.

Is The Millennial Bootstrapping Narrative a Good Thing?

November 1, 2016

Everyone loves a good rising of the ranks story. Individuals who have worked hard, put in the earlier mornings, caffeine-induced late nights and laborious 14 hour days. Success. We all want it in some way. We love reading tales and hearing anecdotes about it.

The stories of putting up with terrible bosses, dreaded working conditions, and fighting one’s way to the top (wherever that is). It’s inspiring. We feel connected to the stories because it feeds the scrappy bootstrapper mentality we crave but still seem to secretly hate.

Accepting responsibility of your personal situation, working hard, and not giving up no matter where you started from. Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, as the saying goes.

In a tough love kind of way, this mindset is great. It instills a mindset in people to work hard and not give endless excuses. Accepting the cards dealt. Working up from where you are, with what you have.

But is the millennial bootstrapping narrative always a good thing?

The well-intended millennial bootstrapping advice inadvertently has a negative side: people underestimate their worth.

I sometimes get myself into a long session of reading those ubiquitous “What I wish I had known when I was younger” pieces. Many of them are really good (I love Oprah’s!).

A lot of those “advice to younger self” pieces are also very similar.

I wish I hadn’t worked so hard when I was younger.

Time’s a precious commodity. People look back on their life and think, “Maybe working those 14-hour days and/or juggling those three jobs wasn’t worth that much after all”.

What other option do you have other than hustling hard? When you’re making an entry-level salary and faced with multiple savings goals (paying down debt, saving for a house down payment, wedding, life investments, kids,etc), you have to find some way to reach them and often it isn’t sufficient with just a singular job.

I should have negotiated the salary at my first career job

People are told this over and over yet many still don’t negotiate. They’re afraid. Afraid of looking greedy and overindulgent. The millennial bootstrapping narrative has made them (especially creative industry types) believe that struggle is somehow a prerequisite for success.

That unpaid internship? Gotta pay your dues. The shockingly low salary? Gotta start somewhere.

A funny thing happened when I graduated college. I, and several other people in my public relations program, talked about how salaries were either stagnant or falling for entry-level account coordinators. Employers were paying well below the typical rate for the job and adding “need 2-3 years experience, internships don’t count” to the job descriptions.

All of us discussed salary negotiation tips to make sure we were would be compensated fairly upon taking a job offer. You wanna know what happened? Several of us encountered older adults (and even some people our age!) saying we were greedy for trying to ask for more money and that we should have just taken what is offered because “every has to start somewhere and pay their dues” (there goes that infamous saying! 🙂 ).

I shouldn’t have worried so much about what other people thought

Did you read the bitter differing perspectives of starting out by a former Yelp employee and the rebuttal from another millennial? Millennials feel scared into not saying anything for fear of being judged or labeled as entitled and privileged.

They dismiss their self-worth and strictly follow the perspective with least resistance.

Dealing with hostile work conditions, accepting a pay rate without negotiating, and staying silent about your problems is all wrapped up with the idea of “paying your dues”.

With its negative side effects, the narrative is still rooted in a good-hearted manner.

The millennial bootstrapping narrative is a good mindset to have when you’re trying to avoid spending triggers and push away pesky distractions. I mean, do you really need to ‘keep up’ with the Kardashians or see who got the rose on The Bachelor? If that activity is disrupting a potential for further reaching your goals, then it needs to go. It can be good to flex your resourcefulness instead of just charging $300 to your credit card for a purchase you think might help you.

If everyone got their elusive dream jobs and picture-esque Carrie Bradshaw lifestyles right away then they wouldn’t ever have the chance to hone in on their tenacity and persistence.

Sitting at your desk, slowly eating saltines while you drudge through work in a soul-sucking job can show first-hand a lot about what you don’t want. The only real way to find out what life you want to live is by testing things out with experience.

It’s just sometimes the narrative can be taken too far.

What do you think of the millennial bootstrapping narrative? Is it a mindset good for instilling the value of hard work or something with serious negative side effects?