With summer right around the corner, Gen Z vacationers have begun touting their travel tips.
And among the top recommendations? “Buy now, pay later” services like Klarna, Afterpay and Affirm.
Those tools have slowly expanded across different platforms, giving consumers the option 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 become a popular — if concerning — trend.
“I didn’t want to drop the full price [straight away],” 29-year-old Najee Mcfarland-Drye told Thrillist of a recent vacation. By choosing to pay the entire fare in small installments, “I still got to do the fun stuff I wanted to do in the time beforehand instead of the normal ‘Oh, I spent $800 and now I have to lay low for a minute.’”
But Gen-Z’s travel spending habits have become a frequent source of online outrage — take Coachella’s shocking stats, for example.
A post-2025 festival study conducted by Billboard found that more than 60% of concertgoers used BNPL options to finance their tickets, compared to a minuscule 18% when the choice first became available in 2009.
While spending smaller increments of money may appear initially attractive to prospective travelers, experts advise against it, citing potential interest payments and credit repercussions as a result 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 the airlines offer some form of ‘buy now, pay later’ now, so they’re all getting in on the act. You know, this is free money for them.
“You’re much better off opening a credit card that’s going to give you a statement credit and a big signup bonus,” Henderson added.
If those tried-and-true signup bonuses and rewards aren’t a big enough incentive to avoid the BNPL method, rest assured knowing that 2025 flight prices for summer travel are down 7% year-over-year, according to a Kayak report.
Henderson agrees on that front.
“This is the first time in about five years that prices are actually down year over year for the peak summer travel season,” he said.
While Gen-Z may boast some occasional crafty tips and tricks to make navigating e-commerce a breeze, this “buy now, pay later” bonanza is a serious no-no, according to experts.
Instead, look to travel credit cards that offer rewards, like free miles or discounted hotel bookings, which benefit vacationers more in the long run.
The Points Guy Director of Travel Content Eric Rosen previously shared another 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 can cancel it (depending on which type of ticket you have), rebook and save some of that money as a credit towards a future reservation,” Rosen explained.
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