pay them off. that said you won t earn more points than pay in interest carrying a balance so make sure that s tip number one. the second resolution is open a credit card this year even if it s an airline that you fly, get the sign-up bonus and use the points for next holiday season so that s resolution number two. get that sign-up bonus if you don t carry a balance. also book the trips using a credit card that has travel protection. we saw no better reason for this than the southwest meltdown. those folks can get paid back for the expenses they incurred even if southwest doesn t. but they will protect you even if it s a weather cancelations. those are a couple tips and most importantly don t carry a balance. so how do i determine what s
cheryl: we don t know more than that, to be clear, this is upon haing in realtime. i will tell you, i think the transportation secretary, took him too long to address the issue. you have senators saying they are going to investigate. problem at southwest airlines go beyond weather, the committee will be looking into the cause of disruption and impact to consumers. 71% of schedule has been cancelled. why southwest? they have newark and chicago, large-scale operation out of california. well, southwest doesn t have that, it is a spoke operation, you have crews stranded and no central location to get on track. that probably needs to change at southwest airlines.
you think? yeah. thanks for having me this morning. and what we re really seeing is a winter weather storm that came across much of the u.s. unprecedented on many levels, but southwest is the one that s having the hardest time recovering. so weather is airline agnostic. it happens all airlines experience it similarly. southwest exposed primarily in denver and chicago, but it s the recovery that southwest is botching up here. we ve heard, of course, a lot of it has to do with staffing issues and the crew scheduling system that s broke down in the fact that people, the staffers are calling up. the crews, the pilots. waiting hours on hold to try to get replacement flight schedules, but it s also southwest s unique route system. southwest doesn t operate like many of the larger, bigger airlines, the big three in that they have major hubs where crews leave the hub and return to that hub. possibly later in the day, or end of their trip.
the same fault. reporter: how far is that from the san andreas? quite a ways. it is over 100 miles from san andreas from this location. the other fault is a lot closer. the garlock fault is another long fault. if we were going to be triggering something really big, that could be a source for it. this is like when we said, if we are going to shut off something bigger, of course, it didn t happen. but it was a possibility. a low probability possibility. but luckily it runs through some of the most isolated parts of california. reporter: making this l pattern, and of the top part, that is the part that the southwest doesn t seem to have had more earthquakes. reporter: is that a surprise at all to you? that this faulty system is
counter. buying a ticket on the telephone. united and others charge for that. southwest doesn t. that s one market approach. in other words, favor the airline that is responsive. the second is that existing legislation it s now being drafted by people like senator richard blumenthal of connecticut. passengers rights bills have been floating around congress going nowhere for years. i think this tragedy with dr. dao is going to build up grassroots support for passenger bill of rights. because the existing contract, which nobody can read. we re all told we ve agreed to it there s that fine print always, right? yeah. it s like 64 pages single-spaced the united airlines contract of carriage with 37,000 words. that s a one-sided contract. that has to be changed by a passenger bill of rights in