Here’s a terrible thing that happens: Thieves pretend they’re you, file a tax return in your name very early in the year, claim a fat refund and run away with the money. When you try to file your own return, the Internal Revenue Service rejects it. After all, according to the agency’s system, your taxes have already been filed. Months, and sometimes years, of hellish red tape ensues. The I.R.S. has a tool called an identity protection PIN, or IP PIN, that can prevent this nightmare in most instances. You register and hand over some personal information so the government can verify you. Then you get a six-digit IP PIN to use when filing your taxes each year. Easy enough, right? But my inbox is filled these days with deep wariness. For weeks now, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency has deployed individuals inside the I.R.S. to poke at its computer systems. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Readers worried about the possibility of those people breaking something and exposing data accidentally to wider numbers of people. Or that they would inadvertently create vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit. They also said they were worried that Elon Musk or others on his team could use the I.R.S. data for nefarious purposes. I’ve gone ahead and gotten my IP PIN anyway. So has James E. Lee, president of the Identity Theft Resource Center, a former cybersecurity executive who is on an I.R.S. advisory panel. In these highly uncertain times, we can’t be sure who will do what to whom next. But we can know what has already happened to data that the federal government stores. In 2015, the White House revealed that hackers had stolen vast troves of sensitive information about 21.5 million people from the federal Office of Personnel Management. Last year, a former I.R.S. contractor was sentenced to five years in jail for leaking data on thousands of wealthy citizens, including President Trump, to The New York Times and ProPublica. “Any place that stores your personal information, whether the U.S. government or the corner grocery store, is at risk — period,” Mr. Lee said. So if DOGE represents added risk, why not add protection? It’s not a rhetorical question to plenty of readers, so let’s start with an explainer on how the I.R.S.’s IP PIN system works. The Road Trips That Changed Their Lives To begin, you’ll need an online account with the agency if you don’t have one already and complete a brief identity verification process. During that process, you’ll hand over information that the federal government most likely already has — and thus, like any such data, is already there for the taking if thieves or bad internal actors want to put it to nefarious uses. Once you’re registered, generating the IP PIN is quick and easy. You don’t need to save or remember it, either; you can log back in to get it when you need it. (This PIN is different from the five-digit PIN that some people use to file their taxes electronically, and you can have both types.) Then you submit the IP PIN when filing your taxes. The IP PIN will change once per year. The I.R.S. has a thorough F.A.Q. about the IP PIN system on its website. Now consider the downside of not protecting yourself. If thieves file a return in your name — and it has happened to hundreds of thousands of people — you won’t get any tax refund owed to you for a good long while. And to get that money, you’ll spend a lot of unquality time with the I.R.S. re-establishing yourself. And then there’s this: My colleague Andrew Duehren recently reported that the I.R.S. is preparing to reduce its work force by as much as 50 percent. Good luck to anyone trying to fix an identity theft problem if that happens. It could easily take a couple of years. I worry more about the risk of tax-refund fraud than I do about DOGE employees’ work inside the I.R.S. Most of my personal data is already out there somewhere on the dark web or hackable in various places anyway. As the former I.R.S. taxpayer advocate Nina E. Olson, now the executive director of the nonprofit Center for Taxpayer Rights, told me via email this week, there are still laws about disclosure of taxpayer data. That’s why that I.R.S. contractor went to jail. If DOGE employees or Mr. Musk himself breaks those laws, there will be consequences. And if there aren’t, we will be in a great deal more existential trouble as a country. Ms. Olson said she was going to get her own IP PIN. I wondered if Danny Werfel, the last I.R.S. commissioner under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., had already done so. He didn’t want to say when we talked this week. He has a longstanding practice of not getting too personal, lest he look like he’s endorsing a piece of tax-filing software, say. “But I’m a very cautious taxpayer,” he said. “I’ll put it that way.”

House prices are stubbornly high, and mortgage rates remain substantially above their prepandemic level. Now, with the spring home buying season looming, shoppers have a new worry: A major federal consumer watchdog has been hobbled. Without the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency responsible for overseeing most aspects of the home buying process, consumer advocates say home buyers need to be their own watchdogs. “Now, when you buy a house, you are much more vulnerable to being misled,” said Sharon Cornelissen, housing director with the Consumer Federation of America. “It’s important to be on guard, because guardrails are being taken away.” Buying a home is the biggest financial decision most Americans will make in their lives. The typical home price is about $397,000, according to the National Association of Realtors, but prices are far higher in some parts of the country. In several California counties, for instance, the median price at the end of last year was over $1.5 million, with monthly mortgage payments over $8,000. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT What role has the consumer bureau played in home buying? The consumer bureau was created after the financial and housing crisis in 2007-8 to streamline oversight of lenders and financial companies serving consumers. Over the years, the bureau has moved to ease the mortgage shopping process by offering simplified forms and educational tools, and has taken action against an array of banks and lenders. In 2022, for instance, the bureau ordered Wells Fargo to pay $3.7 billion for mishandling a variety of customer accounts, including improperly denying thousands of requests for mortgage loan modifications that in some cases led borrowers to lose their homes to “wrongful” foreclosures. On Jan. 17, in the final days of the Biden administration, the bureau reached a settlement with Draper and Kramer Mortgage Corporation for discouraging borrowers from applying for loans to buy homes in majority Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Chicago and Boston. In an email, the lender’s lawyers said Draper and Kramer “considers the matter closed and denies” the bureau’s claims, but chose to settle in part to avoid “protracted legal costs.” What has changed under the Trump administration? Since President Trump took office on Jan. 20, the consumer bureau has taken a hands-off approach. Last month, it dropped legal action against Rocket Homes Real Estate, which had been accused in December of illegally steering prospective borrowers to an affiliate, Rocket Mortgage. In an emailed statement, Rocket Homes said it “has always connected buyers with top-performing agents based only on objective criteria like how well they helped home buyers achieve their dream of homeownership.” The bureau also dropped a suit against Vanderbilt Mortgage and Finance, owned by Berkshire Hathaway, for making loans to buyers of manufactured homes who it knew could not afford to repay them. A rule requiring mortgage lenders to verify that borrowers are able to pay was a key aspect of changes put in place after the financial crisis, when many people lost their homes because they couldn’t make their loan payments. In a prior statement, Vanderbilt said the lawsuit was “unfounded and untrue, and is the latest example of politically motivated, regulatory overreach.” Vanderbilt also said it exceeds legal requirements for assessing a borrower’s ability to pay. Alys Cohen, a senior attorney with the National Consumer Law Center, said the bureau had effectively stopped overseeing if lenders were complying with consumer protection laws. Other federal regulators oversee banks, she said, but their main focus is an institution’s overall safety and soundness, rather than its treatment of consumers. States also regulate banks and other lenders. “People may be exposed to high prices and hidden relationships they may not know about,” she said. (The center has joined a lawsuit opposing the administration’s efforts to dismantle the consumer bureau.) The consumer bureau didn’t respond to an email seeking comment on its activities. The relaxed oversight comes as buyers navigate what has been a challenging housing market. Lawrence Yun, chief economist with the National Association of Realtors, said in a statement that “it’s evident that elevated home prices and higher mortgage rates strained affordability” in January, when pending home sales fell almost 5 percent. Mortgage rates have dipped recently, with the average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate home loan falling to 6.63 percent as of Thursday, down from 6.76 percent a week earlier, the mortgage financing giant Freddie Mac reported. How can home buyers manage costs and reduce risks? Research by the consumer bureau found that only about half of borrowers shop for better terms and interest rates when taking out a new home loan or refinancing a mortgage. That may be because getting quotes takes time, and consumers may get confused when comparing complex choices, leading them to rely on a loan officer they already know or a single referral from a real estate agent or friend. Yet shopping around with different lenders to compare costs can save borrowers thousands of dollars, according to research from Freddie Mac. Getting two rate quotes could save as much as $600 annually, and getting at least four quotes could save more than $1,200 a year, Freddie Mac said. Home buyers use referrals from their real estate agents for providers like title insurers and home inspectors, but borrowers should shop around for these providers as well, housing advocates say. The consumer bureau found last year that home loan closing costs had risen significantly, in part because rising interest rates were leading more borrowers to pay upfront for “discount points,” to reduce the rate on their loans. Ms. Cohen, of the consumer law center, also suggested taking a home buyer education course, particularly if you are a first-time buyer. (Lenders may require the courses in some cases, such as if you seek help with a down payment.) The courses, offered in person or online, help shoppers understand what’s involved in finding, financing and owning a home, including how to select a lender. To find a course approved by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, check the agency’s website. What if I run into a problem with my mortgage or my home lender? You can file a complaint with the consumer bureau, although it’s unclear if complaints are being processed. “The law stands,” Ms. Cornelissen said. “It’s just harder to enforce” without the bureau. In a court filing this week, the chief of staff for the bureau’s office of consumer response said that many people “are not receiving timely responses to their complaints” and that for those facing urgent situations, like losing their home to an imminent foreclosure, “there is simply no one at the C.F.P.B. to help.” Christopher Peterson, a professor at the University of Utah’s Quinney College of Law and an expert in consumer law, said, “I still think it’s worth complaining.” It’s not yet clear, he said, how legal fights over efforts to “de-staff” the consumer bureau will be resolved, but the law requires the bureau to maintain a complaint process. After showing an error message for weeks, the consumer bureau’s website now opens directly onto its complaint portal. You can also complain to the consumer protection arm of your state attorney general’s consumer office, Mr. Peterson said. State regulators may not always have the same resources and expertise as federal agencies, he said, but they may take on a larger enforcement role if the consumer bureau is diminished. Ms. Cohen also noted that if you had certain types of government-backed mortgages, like one insured by the Federal Housing Administration, you could contact HUD’s national servicing center, which works with borrowers to prevent foreclosure. Cuts to HUD’s budget may curtail the servicing center’s functions, she said, but as of now it remains an option. Can I take my mortgage lender to court? Some consumer loans require private arbitration of disputes outside the courts, but that’s not the case with mortgages, Mr. Peterson said. If you believe you were overcharged or otherwise mistreated, you can bring legal action yourself. Such claims can be complicated, he said, but because a home purchase “can affect your financial destiny for a long period of time,” a lawsuit may be worth it. One way to find a lawyer who specializes in consumer rights law is to search the website of the National Association of Consumer Advocates.

These days, airlines are happy to shower you with sign-up bonuses and juicy earning multipliers to get you to spend on their credit cards. It’s supposed to be a mutually beneficial relationship: You get award travel, and the airlines get record profits. Delta Air Lines, for example, earned nearly $2 billion from its American Express partnership in just the last three months of 2024 — up 14 percent from the previous year. The problem, though, is that the points and miles you earn are buying less travel than they used to. Just look at British Airways, which increased some partner award prices by 60 percent in under a year, or Air France-KLM’s Flying Blue, which recently raised the number of points needed for awards between 14 and 25 percent. What’s behind this wave of devaluations, and more important, what can you do about it? The answer lies in understanding how dramatically airline loyalty programs have evolved — and knowing where to look for remaining sweet spots before they vanish. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Airline miles feel inflation, too The fundamental problem is simple: too many points chasing too few seats. “What we’ve seen over time is a lot of miles being printed, and we haven’t seen a concomitant increase in the number of unsold airline seats available for redemption,” said Gary Leff, an airline industry expert who writes about airlines and loyalty programs on his blog, View From the Wing. When frequent-flier programs began, planes averaged only about 65 percent full. Once a flight took off, those empty seats could never be sold, so airlines used points and miles to fill them. Today, planes run closer to 85 percent capacity or higher. Simultaneously, credit card partnerships have airlines issuing more points than ever, and most airlines have switched to dynamic award pricing that fluctuates with demand. “For almost any other business in the world, marketing is an expensive line item. For airlines, it’s a massive profit center,” Mr. Leff said. “They’re able to take the currency they’ve created and lend it to other businesses for a fee because people want it so much,” he added, referring to the way that airlines sell their points to credit card companies and other businesses, which use them as consumer incentives. The result? For most Americans, who hold the bulk of their points in major U.S. airline programs, award prices are soaring. “When you’re booking with domestic airlines — think United, American Airlines or Delta — the points-to-actual-cash value that you find is not that big,” said Tim Qin, co-founder of the award travel search engine Roame. United’s MileagePlus program, for instance, now routinely charges up to one million miles for business-class tickets that once cost 150,000 miles. Why traditional sweet spots are vanishing Even when seats are available, the patterns for booking them have shifted significantly. Airlines used to reliably release award seats at two key times: when schedules first opened (usually 330 to 360 days before departure) and one to two weeks before the flight. The time window is now often even shorter. Airlines are also restricting partner bookings. Airline alliances — including OneWorld (where American is a member), SkyTeam (Delta) and Star Alliance (United) — allow you to use one airline’s miles to book flights on partner carriers. For example, you can use United miles to book flights on Singapore Airlines, or American miles to book on Qantas Airways. Some carriers now restrict their best awards to their own rewards program members, rather than making them available to alliance partners. That forces travelers to navigate an increasingly complex web of programs and rules. “Lufthansa used to release their first-class seats to Air Canada Aeroplan within two weeks of departure,” Mr. Qin said. “They first narrowed it down to one week, and now I believe they’re close to three days.” The changes extend beyond timing, too. British Airways, which had long offered some of the best rates for short American Airlines flights within the United States, raised those award prices twice in seven months. A domestic U.S. flight that cost 7,500 Avios (British Airways’ points currency) in late 2023 now requires 12,000 Avios — if you can find space at all. Yet value still exists if you know where to look. “Iberia’s program is lesser known,” Mr. Qin said. “You can fly Iberia from the U.S. to Europe for about 42,000 points in business class.” You can also book on Qatar Airways, a sought-after long-haul carrier, using Iberia’s program, he added. “Most people in the U.S. don’t really think about Iberia. It’s not one of those talked-about programs like Air France or British Airways.” Your 2025 strategy So how can travelers navigate this shifting landscape? Start by focusing on transferable credit card points rather than airline-specific miles. This allows you to redeem your earned points with multiple frequent-flier programs. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “Rely less on the airline to just offer you a good deal,” Mr. Leff said. “Often you want two cards: one that earns multiple points in the category where you spend the most, and one that pairs in the same ecosystem from the same bank that earns 1.5 or two points per dollar.” This means using two cards from the same bank — for example, pairing Chase’s Sapphire Preferred with its Freedom Unlimited card to pool their earned points. This flexibility proves crucial as sweet spots move between programs. Virgin Atlantic, for instance, charges just 90,000 miles for ANA first-class flights to Japan. That same seat would cost 220,000 United miles. Even Flying Blue, Air France-KLM’s program, still offers business class to Europe for 60,000 points — notably less than what many U.S. carriers charge. Premium Amex and Chase credit cards allow points transfers to multiple airline programs — meaning cardholders aren’t tethered to one airline’s availability. For families seeking multiple premium seats, timing becomes crucial. “If you’re going to Europe, you may be pleasantly surprised with Flying Blue because they offer multiseat availability even at their saver rates,” Mr. Qin said, referring to the lowest-priced award tickets airlines offer. Some carriers, like Japan Airlines, often release blocks of award seats within two weeks of departure. Mr. Leff recommends booking what’s available on your primary airline, and then watching for better options. Since most programs now waive change fees on award tickets, you can switch if partner space opens up. Just note that once you transfer flexible points to an airline, you can’t transfer them back. Perhaps most important: Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of good. “Remember, the best points are what’s best for you. If you need to book an economy-fare flight because that makes sense, do it,” Mr. Qin said. “Don’t always shoot for the perfect or the ideal, because you’ll just never use your points and they’re going to devalue.”

With the government seemingly stepping back from regulatory duties, consumers may have to act as their own financial watchdogs. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the independent federal agency created after the 2008 financial crisis to shield people from fraud and abuse by lenders and financial firms, has been muzzled, at least temporarily. “Everything is on pause right now,” said Delicia Hand, senior director of digital marketplace with Consumer Reports. “So it’s back on consumers to be extra diligent.” Ms. Hand previously spent nearly a decade in a variety of roles at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, including overseeing complaints and consumer education, before departing in 2022. In early February, the Trump administration ordered the consumer bureau to mostly cease operations. It closed its Washington headquarters, fired some employees and put most of the rest of the staff on administrative leave, and opted not to seek funding for its activities. Several lawsuits are challenging the administration’s actions. On Feb. 14, a federal judge in Washington ordered the bureau to halt firing workers and not to delete data, pending a hearing scheduled for Monday. The administration, however, has already dialed back enforcement — dropping, for instance, a suit accusing an online lender of promoting free loans that actually carried high interest rates. On Thursday, the bureau dismissed a lawsuit that it had brought in January accusing Capital One of cheating customers out of some $2 billion in interest. It’s a stark change for an agency that had been energetic in adopting rules and filing lawsuits aimed at aiding consumers. Under the Biden administration, the bureau moved to reduce or eliminate various fees charged by banks and other financial firms and to remove unpaid medical debt from credit reports, and it fined a major credit reporting bureau for misleading consumers about credit freezes. Where does this leave consumers? Jennifer Tescher, chief executive of the Financial Health Network, a nonprofit that helps people make sound financial decisions, said laws protecting consumers remained in place, so people shouldn’t fear that financial firms would immediately start behaving badly. The financial firms, she noted, rely on consumers for their business. Even so, consumers need to be “asking questions and verifying the fine print before opening a new account or taking out a loan,” she said, and they should carefully check their financial statements. Here are some areas to pay attention to, according to consumer experts. (The consumer bureau didn’t respond to emails sent to its press office seeking comment.) In December, the consumer bureau finished a rule that generally limited overdraft fees charged by big banks and credit unions to $5. But banking groups have challenged the rule in court, and Republicans in Congress have proposed legislation to overturn it. Banks charge overdraft fees when customers overspend their accounts. The bank covers the shortfall, but charges a fee. The average overdraft fee last year was about $27, but ranged as high as $38, according to Bankrate. Some big banks have already reduced or eliminated overdraft fees, in part because of competition from digital payment start-ups. If you occasionally need the service to cover cash shortages, consider if it may be worth changing to a bank with lower or no fees. Review bank customer satisfaction rankings, like those published by J.D. Power, to see if you can find better treatment elsewhere, Ms. Tescher said. Lauren Saunders, associate director of the National Consumer Law Center, said consumers should double-check to see if they had authorized their bank to cover payments when they overspend. If you don’t want to run the risk of incurring a fee, you should opt out. That way, if you make a purchase with your debit card that would overdraw your balance, the bank will simply decline the purchase. (Banks, however, can still charge a fee if you overspend using a check or recurring electronic payments. You can’t opt out of those fees.) The consumer bureau also moved last year to limit late fees on credit cards to $8. The average late fee is around $30, but can be as high as $41, according to Wallet Hub. That rule is on hold, after banking and business groups sued. You could consider switching to a card with low or no late fees. The Citi Simplicity credit card charges no late fees, and the Discover It Cash Back card allows one fee-free late payment. (It charges up to $41 thereafter.) What about payment apps and other digital tools? Pay particularly close attention when using financial technology, or “fintech,” products, said Adam Rust, director of financial services at the Consumer Federation of America, including peer-to-peer payment apps. Such “nonbank” firms are generally less closely regulated at the federal level than traditional banks, he said. The consumer bureau completed a rule in November allowing it to supervise large payment firms. That rule is being contested in court and is now under review by the bureau. Ms. Hand at Consumer Reports said that while some payment apps had significantly improved their fraud protections, some types of scams remained a concern, particularly a variety where criminals trick someone into transferring money to them. Because the user “authorized” the transaction, she said, it can be difficult to recover the stolen funds. If you’re paying someone new with an app and something doesn’t feel right, hold off and pay with another method, like a credit card, which carries robust fraud protections, she said. Consumer Reports also suggests promptly moving cash balances out of payment apps to a federally insured bank account. Many people accumulate funds in the apps and treat the apps as if they were checking accounts. But it may not always be clear if the money is as protected as in a standard bank account. Penny Lee, chief executive of the Financial Technology Association, which represents fintech companies including payment apps, said in an emailed statement that the industry was regulated “by a variety of consumer protection laws and agencies at the federal and state levels, including but not limited to the C.F.P.B.” Regardless of the change in administrations, she said, “those facts do not change.” Do I have to worry about medical debt hurting my credit score? In January, the consumer bureau completed a rule to remove unpaid medical debts from credit reports, saying such debt doesn’t accurately reflect a person’s creditworthiness and, because of the complexities of medical billing, is often reported incorrectly. (Hospitals and doctors typically don’t report unpaid bills to credit bureaus, but they may send them to collection agencies, which then report to the credit bureaus.) The rule was scheduled to take effect on March 17, but industry groups sued to stop it, and the bureau effectively agreed this month to delay the rule. Some improvements, however, have already occurred. The major credit bureaus — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — in 2022 voluntarily agreed to exclude medical debts that had been paid, as well as those that were less than a year old. That allowed consumers more time to clarify what was owed. And as of April 2023, the credit bureaus stopped including any medical debts for amounts under $500. About 5 percent of Americans had unpaid medical debt as of June 2023, down from 14 percent in March 2022, the consumer bureau said. If you are having trouble paying a medical bill, consumer experts recommend first confirming that the amount is accurate and, if it’s not, contesting it with your provider or insurer. If it is valid, see if your doctor or hospital will allow you to negotiate a lower amount by paying in full up front. If not, ask about payment plans or special assistance programs that can help cover the cost. Where can I complain if I have a problem? People “need to speak up about losing money in an unfair way,” said Nadine Chabrier, senior policy and litigation counsel with the nonprofit Center for Responsible Lending, a consumer advocacy group. Start by complaining directly to the company you are having a problem with, whether online or by phone. You can also still submit a complaint to the consumer bureau. Although the bureau’s homepage displayed an “error” message this week, the online portal for accepting complaints was still available. Ms. Tescher noted, however, that “it’s not exactly clear” if someone is reviewing complaints. You can also complain to the bureau by phone, at 855-411-2372. You can also contact the attorney general’s office in your state, Ms. Tescher said. Most have consumer protection arms.

Federal student loan borrowers are temporarily unable to apply to income-driven repayment plans, a decades-old safety net that ties their monthly loan payment size to household income levels, as the U.S. Education Department reviews a recent federal court ruling. The department closed applications to the repayment plans last week after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld and expanded a temporary suspension of the Saving on a Valuable Education plan, known as SAVE. That income-driven program, a centerpiece of the Biden administration’s policy agenda with eight million enrolled borrowers, generated lower payments than previous plans. Given its high cost, SAVE became the target of two separate legal challenges last spring by two groups of Republican-led states, which argued that the Biden administration had overstepped its authority. The SAVE plan has been in legal limbo ever since, and participants’ payments have been on hold since last summer. But last week, applications to the three other income-driven plans were also taken down — older programs that hadn’t been subject to any litigation. That effectively shut the door to more affordable plans for borrowers in financial distress, and eliminated a crucial component needed to participate in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program — at least temporarily. “The department is reviewing repayment applications to conform with the Eighth Circuit’s ruling,” a spokesman for the Education Department said Thursday, adding that it updated information for borrowers on StudentAid.gov, including on a page about court actions related to SAVE. Here’s what we know now. The situation is fluid, so we’ll update as circumstances change. What just happened? The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld a temporary ban on a portion of the SAVE plan issued by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. The appeals court sent the case back to the District Court with instructions to expand the preliminary injunction to the entire SAVE rule (though other legal rulings had already temporarily suspended the program). But the appellate court didn’t stop there: The judges also said the secretary of the Department of Education lacked the explicit authority to grant loan forgiveness in any Income-Contingent Repayment plans, even though it has been done for more than three decades. (Borrowers make monthly payments equal to a percentage of their discretionary income, which varies across income-driven plans. But after a set number of years, usually 20 to 25, any remaining balance is canceled.) “This is a radical departure from how this statute has been interpreted and administered for nearly 30 years,” said Michele Zampini, senior director of college affordability at the Institute for College Access and Success, a research and advocacy group. The Education Department posted a banner on its website that said the injunction prevented it from administering SAVE and parts of other income-driven plans — and, as a result, applications for those plans and online loan consolidations were unavailable. It is important to remember that the decision is not final and that litigation is continuing, said Abby Shafroth, director of the National Consumer Law Center’s Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project. “But the decision is very worrying for borrowers who depend on the SAVE plan to manage their payments and work toward being debt free,” she said. What’s likely to happen next? Scott Buchanan, the executive director of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, an industry group, said he would expect that applications for at least one of the income-driven plans, known as Income-Based Repayment, would become available again “as soon as practical.” The reasons are complicated: That’s because the Income-Based Repayment plan was created as part of a July 2009 law, which explicitly permits loan cancellation at the end of the repayment term, whereas SAVE was a regulation established by the department using authority established under a 1993 law. The states that initially brought the lawsuit argued that loan cancellation wasn’t explicitly permitted under the 1993 law, and the appellate court sided with that interpretation. But the department has relied on that authority to create three other income-driven programs, all before SAVE, each of which incrementally improved on the plans before it. They were Income-Contingent Repayment, introduced in 1994; Pay as You Earn (PAYE), introduced in 2012; and Revised Pay as You Earn (REPAYE), which became available in 2015 and was replaced by SAVE. Are income-driven loan applications being processed now? No, all applications have been temporarily halted, according to Mr. Buchanan, of the alliance. He said that the servicers had received instructions to stop processing the income-driven and loan consolidation applications for three months, but that he expected they would receive additional guidance in the coming weeks. Monthly payments are still being collected on the other existing income-driven plans (Income-Based Repayment, Pay as You Earn and Income-Contingent Repayment) while SAVE borrowers remain in an interest-free forbearance while the litigation continues. Is the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program still available? Yes, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program is still open to government and nonprofit employees such as public schoolteachers, librarians and public defenders. After 120 qualifying payments are made, any remaining balance is wiped out. But there is currently one major obstruction: Most borrowers need to be enrolled in an income-driven repayment plan to be eligible for loan cancellation, and it’s not possible to apply to any of those plans right now. If you’re already in a qualifying repayment plan, however, and you become newly eligible for the public service program (because of a new job, for example), you can still enroll. But if you’re in the SAVE plan, where payments have been halted because of the ongoing litigation, your qualifying payments have also been put on hold — and you can’t make any progress toward forgiveness. The public service program, which President George W. Bush signed into law in 2007, is not at risk right now, and student loan experts say there isn’t a broad appetite to dismantle the popular program, which would require Congress to pass a bill. What if I’m close to making all of my payments in the public service program, but I am stuck in the SAVE plan? More than two million people are enrolled in the public service program, and hundreds of thousands of them are approaching the finish line: 21,700 borrowers have made enough payments to qualify for cancellation, while 330,100 had made 97 to 119 qualifying payments as of Dec. 31, according to data from the Education Department’s Federal Student Aid office. Borrowers who are enrolled in the SAVE plan and have nearly enough qualifying payments currently have few good options. “Borrowers stuck in SAVE can either wait for the I.D.R. applications to open back up and switch to another I.D.R. plan,” said Betsy Mayotte, president of the Institute of Student Loan Advisors, a group that provides free guidance to borrowers. “Or ride out the SAVE forbearance and plan on using what’s called ‘buy back’ to get credit for those months once they have certified 120 months of eligible employment.” Using the so-called buy back option, borrowers would need to make payments for the months their payments were paused in forbearance. Given the history of the complex program and the fact that many borrowers had found themselves in nightmarish situations and unable to receive forgiveness, be sure to document and keep copies or snapshots of everything — your work history with your eligible employer, all qualifying payments, recertification applications, all of it. What are my options if I can’t afford payments (because I lost my job or some other reason)? There are other options besides income-driven repayment plans that can generally be requested through your loan servicer or the company that manages your payments. Borrowers can temporarily pause payments through deferments or forbearance, but those programs have different eligibility requirements and consequences, largely because of the way interest is treated. “Borrowers can receive deferments for things such as economic hardship or being unemployed,” said Ms. Mayotte of the Institute of Student Loan Advisors. “Forbearances are generally applied in cases of less specific financial hardship.” There are other repayment plans that can lower your monthly obligation: graduated repayment, where payments start lower and rise over time, and extended repayment, which lowers the monthly payment by lengthening the loan term. Simply consolidating your loans can also lower your monthly payments by extending the repayment period, but there are drawbacks. You may have a higher interest rate on all of your debt, and you’ll end up paying more overall. And Ms. Shafroth, of the law center, said she would be wary of consolidating until it was clear whether the latest legal development would block all income-driven repayment regulations introduced in 2023. Those rules included a provision that protected borrowers from losing all of their payments that counted toward cancellation of income-driven loans. Before the rule, loan consolidation restarted that clock. Will I be penalized if I cannot recertify my loans? Each year, borrowers enrolled in income-driven repayment plans must recertify their income or face negative consequences, including being kicked out of the repayment plan. But those applications are also not available right now. For now, it’s not something you need to worry about, Mr. Buchanan said. The loan servicers have been instructed to push back those deadlines on a month-by-month basis, and will be in touch with borrowers when they receive more clarity from the Education Department. The Trump administration is focused on cutting programs. Won’t it stop defending the SAVE plan in court? It would seem logical. But several student loan experts said the administration might have strategic reasons to keep SAVE alive, at least for a while. Republicans may be able to make changes to the program through the enormous budget package that Congress will attempt to pass using a process known as reconciliation. That may enable Republicans to capture and cut the projected spending from SAVE to fund other initiatives. “There is interplay between this and reconciliation, where I think they are trying to legislate SAVE off the books to pay for tax cuts for billionaires, instead of ending the program through the courts,” said Persis Yu, deputy executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, an advocacy group. The Education Department did not immediately comment. If I’m in a plan like SAVE that may close, will I be grandfathered in? It’s hard to know exactly what will happen. When the Biden administration replaced the REPAYE income-driven repayment plan with the SAVE program, REPAYE enrollees were automatically transferred into the new plan. But in that case, they were receiving improved terms. Still, it may be more difficult to take something away. “It’s too soon to say for sure,” said Ms. Shafroth, of the law center. “Existing borrowers may have contractual rights to the key benefits in these programs, regardless of whether they’re currently enrolled in them.” That may be why proposals to streamline income-driven programs have typically grandfathered in existing borrowers, she added, and eliminated the plans only for new borrowers.

It’s a tax season unlike any other: As millions of Americans dutifully file their returns, the Trump administration is calling for the abolition of the Internal Revenue Service and plans to fire as many as 7,000 workers — all while Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is seeking access to detailed taxpayer information. It is not surprising that many taxpayers are wondering how this may affect their returns and refunds. But despite the uncertainty, tax experts say individuals shouldn’t change their behavior — the sooner you file, the better. There are also several things that taxpayers can do to try to prevent their return from being entangled in the system and avoid potential delays. “There is no possible way there won’t be a reduction in service, given the I.R.S. has been trying to hire employees and they haven’t even filled all of their openings,” said Tom O’Saben, director of tax content and government relations at the National Association of Tax Professionals. Many of the fired employees were part of the agency’s compliance teams, which deal with auditing and collections, though some were also reportedly at call centers, too. More than 160 million individual returns are expected to be filed this year. Those that have already been filed are winding their way through the system as usual, though taxpayers appear to be taking a bit longer to file: More than 33 million federal returns were filed as of Feb. 14, down about 5 percent from a year earlier, according to the I.R.S. website. And about 32.8 million of them had been processed, also down roughly 5 percent. The average refund amount was $2,169, down 32 percent from $3,207 last year. The numbers tend to even out as more returns come in, the agency said on its website. But refunds are also lower, in part, because they don’t include the first wave of returns claiming the earned-income tax credit and the additional child tax credit, which cannot be issued before mid-February. Here are some questions to consider. Is there anything I can do to avoid delays? Roughly 91 percent of taxpayers file their returns electronically, according to the agency. If you are among the 10 percent who don’t, now is a great time to start, whether that means working with a professional or using tax software or the agency’s free Direct File system, if you’re eligible. That’s the most important step you can take to avoid delays; also be sure to use direct deposit for your refund, and verify your routing and bank account numbers. Could my refund be delayed? At the moment, things are moving along as usual. It usually takes about 21 days to process a return and for a refund to be processed, according to the agency’s website. “Every filing season for the vast majority of taxpayers, their returns go through swimmingly,” said Nina E. Olson, executive director of the Center for Taxpayer Rights, an advocacy organization, and a former taxpayer advocate at the I.R.S. Each return goes through a set of electronic filters, but it can get stuck or rejected if an issue is flagged — if someone has filed a return with your Social Security number, for example, or your children have already been claimed by a former spouse. Returns may also be flagged when people forget to attach a specific schedule or claim credits they are ineligible for, or the system detects a math error, which is common. Those returns are set aside to be reviewed or even audited before a refund is issued, which may delay it. “Some of those potential issues are within your control, so make sure you have all of the required forms on your return so it doesn’t get slowed up,” Ms. Olson said. “Be really careful of how you are entering data if you are using software — check it, double-check it and triple-check it so you don’t encounter a delay here.”

Bolton Valley Resort, about 30 minutes east of Burlington, Vt., has long been overshadowed by larger, more famous neighbors. The family-owned ski area is halfway between Stowe Mountain Resort and Sugarbush, both owned by ski conglomerates that rely on multimountain passes. Stowe takes Epic and Sugarbush takes Ikon, and each resort has more than 100 trails, a vertical drop of over 2,000 feet, a dozen or more lifts, and luxury slope-side lodging. Bolton Valley is comparatively humble, with six lifts, 71 trails, a vertical drop of 1,700 feet and a 60-room hotel. It is one of the most popular ski areas on the Indy Pass, which features smaller independent mountains, and among the few resorts to offer night skiing. A lift ticket at Bolton costs under $100 most days and nights, half the price of Stowe and Sugarbush. “We are the littlest of the big ski areas,” Bolton Valley President Lindsay DesLauriers said to me when I visited the resort last month. “We have Formica in the bathrooms, not marble.” What Bolton lacks in glam it more than makes up for with its terrain and friendly vibe. It has cultivated a niche among Eastern ski areas as a hybrid downhill and backcountry resort, leaning into demand for backcountry skiing with its fabled 1,200-acre powder preserve, known as the Bolton Backcountry. Bolton Valley reinvented itself, because it almost didn’t survive. The one-stop shop that offered gear, guides and unique terrain — enabling snow seekers to glide seamlessly between groomed, lift-served trails and powdery backcountry glades — was brought back from the brink by devoted skiers and a new generation of a famous skiing family. The renaissance of Bolton Ralph DesLauriers, 90, and his father opened Bolton Valley in 1966, with a mission to build a “working man’s resort,” said Ms. DesLauriers, Ralph’s daughter. “Skiing was a luxury sport for out-of-staters,” she said. “He wanted it to be accessible to Vermonters.” Night skiing was featured to enable locals to ski after work, and on most afternoons in winter, yellow buses disgorged scores of local students, who took over the mountain. “I think we’ve taught over 50,000 local kids to ski,” Mr. DesLauriers said at his home near the Bolton base lodge. “In the end, that probably saved the ski area.” By the 1990s, Mr. DesLauriers’s vision of a ski area for common people was a faint anachronism. Neighboring ski resorts were spending tens of millions on luxurious makeovers and marketing themselves to a more affluent clientele. The prospects of a small, independent ski area like Bolton Valley seemed bleak. Mr. DesLauriers lost Bolton Valley to the bank in 1997, and the resort went through several owners and even closed for a season. Locals moved to save it. Backcountry skiers, who had flocked to Bolton for the beloved glades that surround it, learned in 2011 that the heart of the backcountry trail network was going to be sold. They worked with the Vermont Land Trust to raise $1.8 million to purchase nearly 1,200 acres, which were then donated to the state and are now part of Mount Mansfield State Forest. In 2017, Mr. DesLauriers surprised the ski world when he repurchased Bolton Valley for little more than it cost him to build the resort a half-century earlier. This time, he asked his children to run it. So began the renaissance of Bolton Valley, with Lindsay, 45, at the helm. She is aided by her brothers Evan; Adam, who runs Bolton’s backcountry center; and Eric, the head of mountain operations. Another brother, Rob, works as a hotel developer in Jackson, Wyo., and as a quiet adviser to Lindsay. Rob, Eric and Adam achieved renown in the 1990s as extreme skiers and were featured in more than 20 films. Running a ski area was not in Ms. DesLauriers’s life plan. She had just received a master’s degree in literature and taken a job as an advocate in Montpelier, leading a statewide campaign for progressive workplace policies like paid sick leave. “My brothers were the skiers. I was into literature and other things,” she said. (She is also, in fact, an expert skier, as I quickly learned when later skiing with her.) But when her father repurchased the ski area, Ms. DesLauriers reluctantly agreed to take charge. The ski area “was an extension of our home,” she said. But if she was going to move back, she knew Bolton Valley needed an update. She tapped her political connections and raised $2 million in investments to fund improvements, build mountain biking trails and a wedding venue. With Adam, she strove to make backcountry skiing a core part of Bolton Valley’s new identity. They hired guides, invested in backcountry ski and snowboard equipment to rent, and started backcountry clinics. ‘If you don’t mind trees’ Learning how to backcountry ski is what drew Steve and Ryan Rogers, a father and son from Weymouth, Mass., to Bolton Valley on a recent January morning. They had come to take an instructional backcountry tour. I tagged along. Steve, 56, who works in the affordable housing field in Boston, researched online and determined that Bolton Valley was the only place in New England that offered backcountry ski and snowboard rental, instruction, and ski terrain all in one place. After an hour of orientation inside a warm ski center, the pair (and I) followed the guide Scott Meyer into Bolton’s backcountry. “If you can Alpine ski, you can probably pull this off — if you don’t mind trees,” Mr. Meyer said. We skinned up to Bryant Camp, an old cabin built by Edward Bryant, a conservationist and forester who bought the land around Bolton Mountain a century ago. We reached the top of a birch glade, where we removed our climbing skins. At the sight of the beautiful low-angle glade covered in undulating powder, the Rogers duo looked equally excited and apprehensive. Mr. Meyer gently encouraged them to take their time and focus on the spaces between the trees, not the trees themselves. They pushed off and were soon gliding through the powder. A few turns in, they were smiling. Ryan, 24, let out a delighted whoop. “It was beautiful,” said Steve, at the bottom of the run. “Seeing trees come at me a little faster — that was a little eye-opening or adrenaline-pumping, but great.” Later that day, I found Ms. DesLauriers in her office overlooking the ski area. She told me that since she took the helm in 2018, the resort’s gross revenue has nearly tripled, season pass sales have increased 30 percent and the resort is profitable for the first time in years. She said she relishes taking on the titans of the ski industry. The neighboring resorts on the Epic and Ikon passes, she said, “have left gaps in the market that we’re happy to fill.” Multimountain passes fundamentally changed the nature of skiing in the United States — while bringing hefty profits to the resort conglomerates that introduced them. The passes prompted crowds of skiers, yet exacerbated traffic jams, long lines and housing shortages in small resort communities. Skiers overall welcomed the savings and flexibility brought by Epic and Ikon, but the cost of single-day lift tickets rose dramatically at participating resorts, now topping $300 at Vail and Park City and over $200 at Stowe.A lift ticket for around $100 “might sound like a pretty freaking good deal,” Ms. DesLauriers said, “for a powder day with five-minute lift lines and 1,700 vertical feet.”

If you sold personal items like concert tickets or used clothing online last year or received money for services through payment apps, you may get an unfamiliar tax form this year. A tax law change means most online marketplaces and payment apps must send the Internal Revenue Service a form called a 1099-K, with a copy to you, if you received more than $5,000 in payments for “goods or services” in 2024. That’s down from a threshold of $20,000 in payments and more than 200 transactions. (Starting in 2024, the number of transactions no longer matters.) “As the threshold keeps going down, it catches more people,” said Melanie Lauridsen, vice president for tax policy and advocacy at the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Under the old cutoff, the forms mostly went to people running active businesses rather than to occasional or small-time sellers. “This substantial drop in the reporting thresholds could result in millions more taxpayers receiving Forms 1099 this filing season than in prior years,” according to a blog post by Erin M. Collins, the national taxpayer advocate, who leads a group within the I.R.S. that works on behalf of taxpayers. Who’s eligible to receive Form 1099-K? If you bought several concert tickets, for example, and resold them online at a markup, you could potentially meet the 2024 threshold for getting the form, Ms. Collins said in an interview. Tickets for big-name concerts, she said, such as performances by Taylor Swift, have reportedly sold for more than $1,000 per ticket. If the seller made money, the gain is taxable. The rule doesn’t apply to personal payments, like gifts or transfers of money to friends and family, the I.R.S. says. If you and a friend go to a concert, and your friend pays you for the ticket using a payment app, “you should not receive a Form 1099-K for the reimbursement and, generally, it would not be taxable,” according to “common situations” described on the agency’s website. Similarly, if you dine out with friends and pay with a credit card, then have the others reimburse you for their share of the meal via Venmo or another app, that transaction doesn’t count toward the reporting requirement, the I.R.S. says. It’s possible that you could receive a form for such transactions in error — for instance, if someone mistakenly tagged payments to you as purchases rather than personal payments. With both Venmo and its parent, PayPal, for instance, transactions between consumer accounts are “friends and family” by default unless the person paying designates them as goods and services. To help avoid a mix-up, the I.R.S. advises, “be sure to note these types of payments as nonbusiness in the payment apps when possible.” CashApp says on its website that only users with designated business accounts who exceed the federal threshold will get 1099-K forms. You can check the website of your payment app or marketplace for information about its specific tax policies. If you get a Form 1099-K this year, “the No. 1 thing is, do not ignore it,” said Tom O’Saben, director of tax content and government relations with the National Association of Tax Professionals. “Think about, why did you get it?” Just because you receive a form doesn’t necessarily mean the full amount it shows is taxable, said Lisa Greene-Lewis, a certified public accountant and a spokeswoman for TurboTax. “Don’t panic when you see that amount on a 1099-K,” she said. If the amount reflects business income, you can deduct expenses for marketing, supplies, advertising and the like, she said. (Gig workers, freelancers and other self-employed people typically report income and expenses on Schedule C.) If you get a form because you sold used clothes on eBay or Poshmark, but sold them for less than you paid, you generally don’t have to pay taxes on the payments you received. (Since you didn’t make money on the sale, the amount isn’t taxable.) In an attempt to simplify such situations when you file your 2024 tax return, the I.R.S. has included a new space at the top of Form 1040’s Schedule 1 for reporting “additional income and adjustments to income.” There, you can include amounts reported in error on a 1099-K or report personal items sold at a loss. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT As of Thursday, the I.R.S. had not updated all of its online information to reflect this change, but details can be found in the instructions for Schedule 1. If you expected to get a 1099-K but haven’t yet, check on your provider’s website to see if electronic versions are available. Forms should have been made available to users of online payment systems and marketplaces by Jan. 31, the I.R.S. says. What if I sold the goods for a loss? As with any information submitted on a tax form, it’s wise to keep receipts and other documentation showing the amount you originally paid for the item — sometimes known as its “basis,” said Andy Phillips, vice president of H&R Block’s Tax Institute. Say you paid $6,000 for concert tickets and resold them online for $5,500, according to an example in Ms. Collins’s blog. You’ll get a Form 1099-K reporting gross payments of $5,500. But because you didn’t make money on the tickets, you’ll report the amount of $5,500 in the new space, and won’t owe tax on that amount. Why is this change taking effect now? The change had been scheduled to take effect in 2022 at a threshold of just $600 as part of a plan to better track income from the gig economy that may not be reported to the I.R.S. The change was included in the American Rescue Plan legislation that Congress passed in 2021. The I.R.S., however, delayed the change by two years. A lobbying group representing payment apps like Venmo and CashApp and marketplaces including eBay and StubHub had opposed the change, and a government watchdog agency said the much lower threshold could confuse gig workers. Then, in November, the I.R.S. announced that it would stagger the arrival of the lower threshold over a few years, giving businesses and sellers time to adjust. For 2024 — the year covered by the tax return you are filing this year — it’s $5,000. For 2025, the threshold will drop to $2,500. And in 2026 and years after, it will fall to $600. “I think the I.R.S. listened, and that was appreciated,” said Ms. Collins, the taxpayer advocate. Do some states have lower reporting thresholds for 2024? Yes. At least five states set lower limits for receiving the form, according to PayPal. They are Maryland, Massachusetts, Vermont and Virginia, where it’s $600, and Illinois, where it’s more than $1,000 and four or more transactions. If you live in one of those states, or others with different rules, you may get a Form 1099-K even if you didn’t exceed the federal threshold for 2024. In those cases, companies send the forms to state tax authorities, not to the I.R.S., according to PayPal. What if I had income from online sales but didn’t get a 1099-K? Income of any type — even if it’s beneath the threshold for getting a 1099-K form — should be reported on your tax return, Mr. O’Saben said. The 1099-K, and other similar forms, are intended to make the I.R.S. aware of the income, he said. But it’s incorrect to assume that if a form isn’t received, the income isn’t taxable. Could the threshold for 1099-Ks be changed again? Modifying the federal thresholds would require action by Congress, Ms. Lauridsen said.

Last August, a hotel room in Europe priced at 200 euros was about $224. Today, travelers spending American dollars would pay only $208. On the rise since last autumn, the dollar is strong compared with a number of foreign currencies, including the euro, the Japanese yen and the Canadian dollar. And President Trump’s tariff threat is only making it stronger. For travelers, the exchange rate bonus makes trips abroad extra appealing. “We’ve seen an increase in international bookings as travelers look to maximize the value of their dollar abroad,” said Michael Johnson, the president of Ensemble, a travel agency consortium. “The strength of the U.S. dollar has made destinations in Europe, Asia and South America more attractive, as travelers can get more for their money.” In these dynamic and unpredictable times, whether the dollar will remain strong is anyone’s guess. To understand the fluctuations of the foreign exchange market and how and where to take advantage of it, we asked travel and financial experts to weigh in. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Strong present, uncertain future A number of factors influence the value of the dollar. Among them, said Michael Melvin, the executive director of the master of quantitative finance program at the University of California San Diego, are economic growth and geopolitical risk. In recent years, “The U.S. has had exceptional economic growth relative to other countries,” Mr. Melvin said, noting the higher interest rates imposed by the Federal Reserve to combat inflation only made the dollar more attractive to investors. International conflicts such as those in Ukraine and the Middle East also lead to investments in U.S. Treasury bonds. “The U.S. dollar has a safe-haven role to play in uncertain times,” Mr. Melvin said. Talk of tariffs has created more volatility. When 25 percent tariffs were recently threatened against Canada and Mexico, their currencies initially plunged against the dollar. They have since recovered after postponements were announced, but still offer good value. Alex Cohen, a senior foreign exchange strategist for Bank of America, expects the dollar to remain strong for the first half of the year as the new administration’s policies take effect. The outlook for travelers The exchange rate benefit largely affects foreign travel purchases like food, gifts and hotel bills, rather than airfare, particularly for those flying on American carriers, where pricing is in dollars. Travelers are noticing the potential for savings. Since November, bookings have been up 65 percent compared with the same period last year at Luxe Voyage Travel, based in Clermont, Fla., according to its owner, Cristina Cunha, a member of the Envoyage global network of advisers. “Clients are feeling more confident about traveling abroad, thanks to the strengthening U.S. dollar and post-election stability,” Ms. Cunha said. For those who have already booked foreign trips, the dollar bonus is an invitation to indulge, said Peter Vlitas, executive vice president of partner relations for Internova Travel Group, a travel services company with more than 100,000 travel advisers. “Historically, when the dollar is strong, we have seen travelers who are already committed to their trips try to ‘buy up’ and get better value for their dollar,” Mr. Vlitas wrote in an email. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Adrian Mooney, the director of sales at the hotel and golf club Kilkea Castle in County Kildare, Ireland, said that for American guests, the exchange benefit is going to extras like spa services and horseback riding. “The strong dollar is giving guests more spending power on the ground,” Mr. Mooney said. How to take advantage of the exchange rate Before leaving home, make sure your credit card does not charge a fee for transactions in foreign currencies, advised Kathy McCabe, the host of two public television shows “Dream of Europe” and “Dream of Italy.” When using the card, pay in the local currency when vendors ask if you want to purchase the transaction in dollars or in foreign currency. “Always choose the local currency,” Ms. McCabe said. “This will avoid dynamic currency conversion, which is a service that converts the purchase to your home currency at a marked-up exchange rate.” She pointed to a warning by the European Consumer Organization that called the practice a “scam,” noting that studies had found the practice raised prices between 2.6 and 12 percent for those who opted for the converted currency. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT When you need foreign cash, withdraw it from a bank-owned A.T.M., said Laura Lindsay, the global travel trends expert with Skyscanner, a flight comparison site, because bank A.T.M.s offer a better exchange rate and lower fees than private ones. Where to stretch your budget Among countries where the U.S. dollar goes further, Japan is a particularly good value as the yen — currently going for 152 yen to the dollar — has been declining against the dollar for the past four years, according to Mr. Melvin of U.C.S.D. “Japan has been on sale for U.S. visitors,” he said. “It costs a third less to go to Japan than just a few years ago.” Expedia found Osaka to be among the cheapest hotel destinations for April travel, averaging about 26,878 yen a night, or $175. The dollar doesn’t buy quite as many euros as it did in the fall of 2022 when it was slightly ahead of the European currency, but it’s not far-off today, at 0.96 euros to the dollar. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Last year at this time, a dollar bought about 17 Mexican pesos. Today, it buys more than 20. Hotels in popular beach destinations often get around the exchange rate slide by stating their rates in dollars. But that’s less common at small hotels such as Mesones Sacristía, in Puebla, which offers antique-furnished rooms from 2,300 pesos ($113). The dollar has also been gaining on the Canadian dollar in the past year, going from 1.35 Canadian to 1.42 for $1. And it’s not just the exchange rate that benefits Americans heading north. Kayak found that airfare is down 18 percent compared with 2023 based on recent searches for travel through April. Keep an eye out for sales. For example, through March 3, the houseboat rental company Le Boat is offering a deal that saves travelers the normal 13 percent tax on weeklong rentals on the Trent-Severn Waterway in Ontario, a 52 Places to Go pick this year. Seven-night trips start at 3,359 dollars ($2,359).

In January, my family and I arrived at Pomerelle Mountain Resort in southern Idaho to find fresh powder, inexpensive lift tickets, no lines and bargain burgers grilling at the base. What more could a skier ask for? Perhaps a faster chair, but we chalked that up to vintage charm. Last fall when I purchased the Indy Pass — the small-resort answer to the Epic and Ikon passes — I’d never heard of Pomerelle, one of the resorts I now had access to. But the Indy Pass, established in 2019 with 34 members, exists to introduce skiers to the independent, often family-owned resorts — now more than 230 of them — that individually lack the marketing power to compete with Vail Resorts and Alterra Mountain Company, issuers of Epic and Ikon. Skiing is an expensive sport. Large resorts often command more than $200 for a same-day lift ticket, offering access to extensive terrain and high-speed chairlifts to maximize your run time. In contrast, small ski resorts offer cheaper prices on everything from lift tickets to lunches, which is especially appealing to families and novices. Parking is usually free. Designed for skiers seeking variety as well as affordability, Indy offers two days each at member resorts on three continents (the majority are in the United States). To test the payoff, I bought the Indy+ Pass for $469 last spring (this upgrade on the $349 base pass is exempt from blackout dates) and studied the Indy Pass map. Clusters of resorts in the East, Midwest and Rocky Mountains offered intriguing opportunities for ski-centric road trips. Last month, with my husband and son, we drove roughly 1,200 miles between Salt Lake City and Missoula, Mont., skiing seven days at five resorts in Utah, Idaho and Montana. We came out ahead financially — individual tickets would have cost $547 per person for this ski trip alone — while exploring throwback lodges and learning to embrace family time on slow chairlifts. Vail Resorts had just settled a strike at nearby Park City Mountain Resort when we set out from Salt Lake City for Beaver Mountain, an Indy member near Logan, Utah, about 110 miles north. The Seeholzer family has been operating Beaver, considered the oldest, continuously run family-owned resort in the country, since 1939 (regular lift tickets cost $70). “Our unofficial catchphrase is ‘Skiing the way it used to be,’” said Travis Seeholzer, the resort’s third-generation general manager. “There’s not a bunch of fast lifts and glitzy lodges, but relaxing days of skiing away from the hustle and bustle.” Midday on a snowy Saturday, Beaver was relatively busy with cars parked down the forested approach road. Still, it was less than a five-minute walk to Harry’s Dream Lift, a triple chair that took us to the 8,860-foot summit. Small resorts tend to have shorter runs; compare Beaver’s 1,700-foot vertical drop with Park City’s 3,200 feet. But we appreciated the variety — most of the runs were rated intermediate or advanced — and being part of a laid-back ski scene where B.Y.O. snacks stuffed the lodge cubbies. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “We thought Epic and Ikon were a death knell. We found the complete opposite,” Mr. Seeholzer said. “A lot of people are just looking for that different experience and a little slower pace.”