With summer right across the corner, Gen Z vacationers have begun touting their travel suggestions.
And among the many top recommendations? “Buy now, pay later” services like Klarna, Afterpay and Affirm.
Those tools have slowly expanded across different platforms, giving consumers the choice to schedule out incremental payments for practically anything: sneakers, burritos — and now, even airplane tickets.
For young, single or financially-limited Gen-Z travelers, covering airfare and other travel expenses with BNPL methods has turn into a preferred — if concerning — trend.
“I didn’t wish to drop the total price [straight away],” 29-year-old Najee Mcfarland-Drye told Thrillist of a recent vacation. By selecting to pay your complete fare in small installments, “I still got to do the fun stuff I desired to do within the time beforehand as a substitute of the conventional ‘Oh, I spent $800 and now I even have to put low for a minute.’”
But Gen-Z’s travel spending habits have turn into a frequent source of online outrage — take Coachella’s shocking stats, for instance.
A post-2025 festival study conducted by Billboard found that greater than 60% of concertgoers used BNPL options to finance their tickets, in comparison with a minuscule 18% when the selection first became available in 2009.
While spending smaller increments of cash may appear initially attractive to prospective travelers, experts advise against it, citing potential interest payments and credit repercussions because of this of constant loans.
“The short answer is, don’t do it,” Clint Henderson, a travel expert at The Points Guy, recently told NBC10 Boston. “All of the airlines offer some type of ‘buy now, pay later’ now, so that they’re all getting in on the act. You recognize, that is free money for them.
“You’re a lot better off opening a bank card that’s going to provide you an announcement credit and a giant signup bonus,” Henderson added.
If those tried-and-true signup bonuses and rewards aren’t a large enough incentive to avoid the BNPL method, rest assured knowing that 2025 flight prices for summer travel are down 7% year-over-year, in response to a Kayak report.
Henderson agrees on that front.
“That is the primary time in about five years that prices are literally down yr over yr for the height summer travel season,” he said.
While Gen-Z may boast some occasional crafty suggestions and tricks to make navigating e-commerce a breeze, this “buy now, pay later” bonanza is a serious no-no, in response to experts.
As an alternative, look to travel bank cards that provide rewards, like free miles or discounted hotel bookings, which profit vacationers more in the long term.
The Points Guy Director of Travel Content Eric Rosen previously shared one other helpful travel tip with The Post: Tourists should “garden their reservations” and check in weekly regarding arrangements for a flight or hotel.
“If that airfare drops between the time you book it and the time you fly, you possibly can cancel it (depending on which kind of ticket you might have), rebook and avoid wasting of that cash as a credit towards a future reservation,” Rosen explained.
