Am I the only one who yearns for the days when the most deceiving online airline advice was to dress up so that you can score a free upgrade?
I can’t with all of these dishonest, garbage travel tips
As you’d expect, those magical internet algorithms serve me a lot of airline content on platforms like Instagram. Look, I don’t want to be a jerk, but it just blows my mind with what frequency we see advice that’s downright horrible. And that’s being polite — it’s horrible and unhelpful at best, and an outright lie at worst. I’m not meaning to call out any particular person here, but here are a few I’ve seen this morning alone…
For example, take the below guy who has nearly 400K followers on Instagram, who shares a video that starts with another influencer saying “I learned this tip from a friend who is also a traveler, and I’m gonna share it with you guys, because it just changed the game.” Then the video pans over the dude with all the knowledge,.
“I didn’t realize that nobody knew this. You don’t need travel credit cards to access airport lounges. If you don’t want to pay those ridiculous $700 fees for travel credit cards, then Priority Pass is going to be your best friend. Priority Pass will get you access to almost every single airport lounge, for a one-time price of just $74, which gives you access for an entire year.”
Right, the reason “nobody knew this” is because it’s just not true. Yes, you can buy the $74 Priority Pass membership, which gives you zero complimentary lounge visits per year. Then that gives you the privilege of paying $35 per person for each lounge visit. What a detail to leave out, eh? And Priority Pass gets you access to “almost every single airport lounge,” really?
So paying $74 plus $35 per visit is better than picking up a credit card with an annual fee of under $400 per year, which offers automatic credits and miles that basically offset the annual fee, along with a Priority Pass membership with unlimited visits?
This same dude has another video where his friend opens with “there’s nothing you can do to convince me that this isn’t the most fire hack of all time.” Then it pans over to the dude with all the secrets.
“So apparently it’s not common knowledge, you can access every single one of Delta’s airport lounges without needing a Delta credit card. It’s actually through this airline that you probably never even thought about. Kenya Airways is offering a status match by going to this link where they will match your status for basically every single airline out there. And if you have Gold status, you get unlimited access to every single SkyTeam lounge, that includes Delta.”
Right, so that’s great, except for the fact that it ignores some major points. The status match costs $99, and you get access to Delta’s lounges if you’re traveling internationally the same day. That’s kind of an important detail to leave out, no?
Or there’s the below guy, who has some different airport lounge access tips.
“Airports actually let all passengers into lounges, but only if they know how to ask. Most people think that fancy airport lounges are just for business travelers or people flying first class, but what 99% of people don’t know is that you can get in for the price of a sandwich if you know where to look. Here’s what you do. You go to the airport’s website and see if they accept something called day pass, which 95% of all airports do. Then follow the link over to day pass, and purchase a ticket for as little as $20. This will get you and one other person you’re traveling with full access to all the airport lounges. So instead of spending $18 on a dry sandwich and $6 on a water, you now get to sit in a lounge, eat, charge your phone, and chill, for the same price.”
Yeah… no, none of that.
I could go on and on, but this is as much as I’m going to subject y’all to. The problem is that I’d say that every second post I’m served is of that quality. I dunno, maybe the algorithm has decided that I like fake travel news, and that’s why I get it, but it’s certainly a little problematic.
The evolving way media is consumed is concerning
I get that short form video content is very popular nowadays, as it’s how a lot of (especially young) people consume media. Fair enough. I think the challenge is the type of content this encourages, especially with platforms like TikTok, where everything can go viral.
Essentially, every piece of advice online has to be an “elevator pitch” of sorts, and immediately captivate people. Nobody wants to hear “here are five tips that could make your travels better.” They want to hear “here are the tricks airlines don’t want you to know,” or “I can’t believe no one else knows these travel hacks,” or “there’s nothing you can do to convince me that this isn’t the most fire hack of all time,” because of course people are going to click on those things.
Between the proliferation of this type of content, plus the increasing use of AI, it certainly causes some concerns about the level of knowledge people have about things. Admittedly this goes way beyond the travel industry, and probably explains a large part of our bigger societal issues.
Look, don’t get me wrong, all forms of media have their downsides and imperfection. Like, I’m far from perfect, and I make mistakes. But I actually try my best to give decent advice, and have a lot of experience in the things I’m talking about.
Bottom line
It just seems like there’s a huge increase lately in the amount of social media content with “secrets airlines don’t want you to know.” All too often, the only thing that’s true about this content is that airlines do in fact not want you to know, because people learning totally false information doesn’t benefit anyone.
Can anyone make sense of all of this?
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