April 23, 2025 • 54 mins
Who doesn’t wish that they were currently listening to this episode while lounging at the beach, on a European adventure, or even completely off the grid hiking somewhere amazing?! Of course we all want to do that but c’mon, it’s too expensive! That is the unfortunate excuse that we give ourselves for why we don’t travel as much as we’d like, but our guest is here to set the record straight. Scott Keyes is the founder of Going, the travel platform that was formerly known as Scott’s Cheap Flights. Over at Going, Scott is all about helping travelers snag the absolute best flight deals- from mistake fares, to the best time to book flights, to specific travel recommendations… listen as we have a wide-ranging conversation that will get you excited to plan your next excursion.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Today we're talking the cheap travel truth with Scott Kay's.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yeah, who doesn't wish that they were currently listening to
this episode while lounging on the beach, or like maybe
on a European adventure, maybe even completely off the grid
hiking somewhere. Amazing Joe. It makes me think of like
the old show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? It's
like Who wants to be a World Traveler, except that
this is something that people actually have a shot at
(00:45):
doing because of who we're talking with. Our guest today
is no stranger to How to Money. Scott Kay's. He's
the founder of Going. It's the travel platform that was
formerly known as Scott's Cheap Flights and over at Going,
Scott is all about helping travelers snag the absolute best
flight deals. They've got over two million subscribers there, which
is just incredible. He was just talking about how busy
(01:07):
he's been. He was just on Good Morning America. And
even though you may not be a subscriber yourself, I
think you're gonna get a lot out of our conversation today,
especially if you are interested in doing a little more traveling. Scott,
thank you for coming back on How to Money.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Ah, so good to be back.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Thanks to the both of you, of course, glad to
have you. Scott.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
The question we asked you a couple of years ago
when you were on, and we're gonna ask you again
is what do you like to sporge on? What's your
craft beer equivalent? We know you're smart, you're saving for
your future, but you got sporge on something too, right?
Speaker 4 (01:35):
What is it?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
I'm gonna throw you a curveball here my personal splurge
credit card fees. I look back and over the past year,
I think I've spent over two thousand dollars in credit
card fees. Now you're probably hearing that, like Scott, what
is wrong with you? But the thing is what that
(01:56):
two thousand dollars bought me is somewhere between one and
two million frequent flyers.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
And those frequent flyer miles is how I'm able to
travel with my family of four to you know, we're
going to Japan this summer, going to Montana in a
few weeks. Be able to get these flights for basically
next to nothing using those frequent flyer miles. So for me,
that's a those credit card fees for those sign up
bonuses are well worth it because it lets us travel
(02:26):
in a way that's much more affordable than it would
be otherwise.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
The fees are worth. The Squeeze says, as.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Long as you're candling it responsible as I could spend
you know, ten hour us.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
That's that's what we spend all the rest of our
episodes doing.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Scott, how much money in flights do you think two
thousand dollars annually in credit card fee saves you?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Oh? Goodness? So, I mean a million points would probably
get us. I mean, if we're flying domestically, let's say
that would get us twenty five thousand points per person.
That'd be one hundred thousand points per family trip, ten flights.
Let's say each one costs usually I don't call it
five hundred dollars, So that'd be saving at least three
(03:13):
or four thousand dollars on flights, probably more because the
more you travel use those for international travel, the higher
the savings, and frankly, the more you use them for
that front of the plane redemptions if you're ever traveling
in business class or something like that, that's where the real
savings are. You know, I'll let you guys in on
a hidden secret in air travel. Most people who are
(03:34):
traveling at the front of the plane, if they're not
you know, multimillionaires ninety five percent of the time, and
they're not traveling on business, they're using frequent Flyer miles
to sit fairly. And that's how people get access to
those seats.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
They're not just they're not just risch, they're just they're savvy.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
They're savvy exactly if they're not uber wealthy, they're just
using miles to get up there. That is the secret
kind of access point to those those live flap business
class seat that everybody fawns over on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Very cool, all right, got to keep that in mind.
Let's talk about before we go full on into the
travel Scott, can you talk about the relationship between the economy,
just like as a whole and airfare prices, Like does
stock market volatility, does tariff policy? Have you seen that
impact travel demand and the prices that we pay for travel.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I'm so glad you guys start off on such a
simple soft questions, just.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
A really easy I figured about the third time you're
on the show. We can kind of we can go ahead,
load up right.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Seriously, No, it's look, it's a complicated question. And here's what.
Here's from a high level, what happens, uh when there
are economic downturns. Historically you do see travelers pull back
in their spending. You know, people consider travel as largely
a quote unquote discretionary purchase, and so when they're tightening
their belts, you can't always, you know, scrimp on rent
(04:56):
or food, and so you scrimp instead on travel plans.
What is a little bit different I think right now
in this this you know, fears of economic downturn today
versus previous ones, is that over the past few years,
coming out of the pandemic, there's been a huge rush
towards more premium travel, a lot of people spending more
(05:17):
to sit towards the front of the plane, to fly more,
you know, international NonStop, just spending more on travel on
sort of more pampered flights and travel in the first place.
And so what I could foresee happening this time is
a lot of those people who had been sitting purchasing
a premium economy or business class flights tightening their belt
(05:39):
doesn't necessarily mean not vacationing. It just might mean coming
back into economy rather than sitting up towards the front
of the plane. Now, there will be some people who
fly economy today who might be canceling vacations. But you
actually might see basically a level amount, you know, no
real drop off in demand for economy seats going forward,
(06:02):
even if there's an economic downturn, just the compositional shift
of who is purchasing those, So you might see flight
prices actually not get cheap, significantly cheaper the way they
have in previous economic downturns, because there are a lot
of people who are coming up from higher and sort
of downgrading themselves into the back of the plane. That's
(06:24):
my that's my guess coming into this. The good news,
I think there's going to be a lot more availability
for people who do have the money to purchase premium
economy or business class, and certainly for people with those
miles to be able to get more award availability.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
How does like the way other countries view us impact
our travel economy?
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Right?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Like there have been stories about Canadians reacting to tarists
and they're like, I'm not going to vacation in the
United States, Yeah, boycoty, which makes sense to me, Like,
that's totally understandable. What sort of impact does that have
on airlines and airfare quite.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
A bit, you know, by by by some estimates, anywhere
from ten or somewhere around ten percent of the worldwide
economy is based on is travel or travel related, you know,
and that includes everything from hotels and airlines and stuff
to also like restaurants and and things that tourists tend
to engage in. So this is not a small part
(07:20):
of the worldwide economy. It is substantial. And so when
you see a lot of Canadians or Mexicans or Europeans
who otherwise were planning to visit the US to pull
back from that because they just you know, whether negative
sentiment or whatever about the United States, that is that's
something that is very directly felt by a lot of
(07:41):
hotel proprietors, restaurateurs, like different parts of the economy. Now,
we are a large enough country that it doesn't have
quite the same impact that if you know, if we
were a small, largely tourism based economy and you saw
pull back, that would be devastating. But it definitely hurts
(08:03):
at the margin and especially if you're in this situation
where there's already economic anxiety about you know, you see
the stock market down ten to fifteen percent. If then
also sales at your restaurant are are going down, sales
at your hotel are going down, that is, that's that's
not good. So for folks who do work in tours
(08:24):
and related industries, I would be pretty concerned about the
lack of about a significantly fewer international arrivals. I think
for most other folks who are working, it probably is
a little bit orthogonal. It's not necessarily something that they're
going to feel a direct impact in their day to
day life.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Okay, let's take a step back. Let's boom out slightly
from the day by day or maybe week by week
tariff policy and by minute mission. Yes, it just depends
on how blessly you watch it. But let's step back,
zoom out a little bit. Because airfare prices they have
outpaced inflation over the past past few years. Like I'm
thinking about how revenge travel was a thing a couple
(09:03):
of years ago or a few years ago, but like
in a segment with lots of choice and a fair
amount of competition, was it just the fact that we
could not see the airlines respond quickly enough to the
increase in demand do to maybe perhaps the stimulus money,
the excess cash that we saw that folks had on hand.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
So airfare is something that is is I call it
the most volatile thing that people purchase. It is it's always,
you know, bopping up and down. It's not like even
something else that changes frequently, like gas prices. You know,
usually that's changing just a little bit here and there,
and you tend to see it. You know, if gas
prices go up from three dollars to call it three thirty,
(09:45):
it's usually going to hit three ten, and then three
twenty and then three thirty, and it's kind of gradually
creeping up. Where's airfare? You know? I talked about this
flight I was watching once from Atlanta to Amsterdam. I
searched it on Monday. It was eight hundred dollar dollars
round trip. Searched it again the next day on Tuesday,
three hundred dollars round trip, searched the flight again on Wednesday,
(10:07):
thirteen hundred dollars round you're talking about the exact same flight,
I mean.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Nothing else as much as the price of eggs.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Other than eggs, nothing else quite
behaves the way airfare does. And so that type of
volatility is not sort of accidental to airfare. It's sort
of inherent in the way that it behaves. And there's
really complicated reasons why that's the case, but suffice to
say that kind of topsy turviness is just essential to
(10:39):
what airfare is now. When you look at airfare over
the past, basically coming out of the pandemic, so let's
say for the past five years, what you saw is,
of course, it crash immediately in March twenty twenty, and
then really in spring and summer of twenty twenty two
really sergeificantly higher than where it was pre pandemic. But
(11:03):
after summer twenty twenty two, and this doesn't get quite
as much eyeballer attention, it actually really came down substantially,
where to the point that airfare today is actually cheaper
than it was in February twenty twenty. It's one percent
lower than it was, and that's without even adjusting for inflation.
(11:23):
So everything economy wide, you know, it's somewhere twenty twenty
five percent more expensive than it was in February twenty
twenty airfare one percent cheaper than it was. It's seventeen
percent cheaper than it's peak in June twenty twenty two,
and if you adjust for overall inflation, it's around it's
around record lows right now. It's kind of this remarkable,
(11:47):
untold story that even as most things in our lives
are getting more and more expensive, airfare is actually getting cheaper.
But I think it's hard to explain. It's hard to
tell because again I go to that volatility. When you're
searching for flights, you might see one that is low,
and then you know, you search it again, it gets high,
and you search it again, it stays in the middle.
(12:09):
It's hard to kind of get a good grasp of
the way we can with gas prices, where every time
we're driving down the road we see what it costs
and it's pretty consistent.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
So yeah, one of the things the volatility is this
a case in which folks who aren't paying attention are
essentially subsidizing the folks who are the people you talked
about people sitting at the front of the plane. They're
often not the rich people, they're the savvy people. Is
the people who save the most money on airfare. Are
they the ones who don't just say I got to
go to this place on this date by the ticket.
They're the ones who are doing the research and taking
(12:40):
the extra time.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Yeah, I think it's partly doing the research, but I
think it's also the people who are savvy enough to
pull the trigger when the price is right. So, if
you think of an airplane, you know, two hundred seats
on it, it is very likely that if it has
two hundred passengers, that they paid two hundred different prices
to there. I mean, you know, slightly exaggery. It's probably
(13:02):
like one hundred or one hundred and twenty five different prices.
But for argument's sake, let's say it's two hundred different prices.
You are having the exact same experience as the person
sitting next to you on that airplane, but one of
you may have paid double to be there than the
other person. And it's obviously our job, Like the whole
reason I started going in the first place was to
(13:23):
make sure that our members are the ones who are
paying half the price of the person sitting next to them.
But the way that folks tend to get that is
again by pulling the trigger when the price is right,
and you never know exactly when it's going to be cheapest.
If you did, you know airline, nobody would ever overpay airlines.
The whole airline pricing model would be broken. And so instead,
(13:47):
what you have to do is kind of have a
sense on when cheap flights are most likely to pop up,
but then when they do, make sure you book it
because you know. I'll give you an example. My wife
is flying out to Boston from Portland on the West
Coast to Boston to visit her nephew, and flights usually
(14:09):
would cost three hundred, three hundred and fifty bucks for
round trip for that route, if you're talking about a
NonStop flight, but a couple about a week or two ago,
you know, I got an alert from the from the
app that hey, flight prices from Portland to Boston just
dropped down to one hundred and seventeen dollars round trip.
So went in just booked it really quick because I knew, hey, look,
(14:31):
this is an amazing price. It's way better than normal,
and it's unlikely to go any lower. Let's just book
this now and lo and behold after you know, a
day after we booked it, it bopped back up to
two hundred and fifty dollars. So the thing about flight
prices is you don't it doesn't have to stay at
one hundred and seventeen. You just have to catch it
when it's at that low price, because when it goes
(14:52):
back up, no big deal. You've already locked in the
low price.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Can't sit on your hands.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
You got to be ready to pounce. You got to
exactly pull that trick exactly. So why we're talking about
just some of the services y'all offer, we got to
talk about mistake fares. And one of your airfare predictions
for this year, for twenty twenty five was that we'd
see something like three to seven of these mistake fares.
How many have popped up so far? And I guess,
(15:16):
like maybe explained to listeners how these things actually come about,
And yeah, maybe what steps we need to be that
we need to take ahead of time to be able
to take advantage of these mistake fairs.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Someone came about fired behind the scenes publishing that mistake fair.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
There are definitely times when people have gotten fired at
airlines as a result of mistake fairs. I like to
think it's pretty uncommon, Like to I like to hope
that management is charitable. We all make mistakes in our lives,
and hopefully most of us aren't losing their jobs over that.
But what a mistake fairy is at its core is
when an airline accidentally sells a ticket for ninety ninety
(15:51):
five percent less than it intended to. You know, back
about a decade ago, I personally got a deal from
New York City to Milan for a one hundred and
thirty dollars round trip. There's a NonStop flight on United,
bags included the whole the works. Uh, And that was
a ticket that they probably meant to sell for thirteen
hundred dollars, but they forgot a zero at the end.
(16:12):
But you know, if you if you just book it happen,
jump on it before they fix the mistake, then you
are the proud owner of the probably the best deal
you've ever gotten in your life. Those are mistake fairs.
They're the holy grail of the cheap of the cheap
flight world. That's what we're kind of waking up every
morning hoping to find. So, yeah, you're right, I predicted,
you know, yeah, I think it was three to six,
(16:34):
three to seven mistake fares this year which is about
in line with what we've seen over the past few years.
I think my team might you know, I've got it's
not just me at going, it's we've got a team
of fifty five people. I think some of the flight
experts whose job it is to find in these deals
every day, they're out to embarrass me because they've already
(16:54):
found three mistake fares and it's not even you know,
we're a quarter of the way through twenty twenty five.
So there was one over to premium economy flight over
to Spain usually cost you know, closer to two thousand dollars.
It was a mistake fair for as little as six
hundred and three dollars round trip. A flight down to
Brazil for two hundred and eighty seven dollars round trip.
(17:17):
I mean, these types of deals are will My favorite
one was in recent memory was one in the middle
of twenty twenty four flight over to Dublin for one
hundred and fourteen dollars round trip Delta and Air France.
This is not some bomb airline you've never heard of
or anything. These types of deals, you know, they're they're
(17:39):
totally random, they're unpredictable, and they don't tend to last long.
It's the other thing. You've got to book them really,
you know, in a matter of hours usually, And so
that's why finding out about it as early as possible
gives you as much time to decide if you're going
to take.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Advantage just the kind of trip that even if I
wasn't planning to travel, Scott like you ability to show
a little bit of flexibility. I mean, that's that's certainly
where we're.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
A one hundred percent. I mean that one hundred and
thirty dollars Milan flight. I woke up that morning with
zero intention of booking a flight to Italy was the
furthest thing from my mind. But when I stumbled across that,
fer didn't take a whole lot of convinced.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
I tell you that, you're like, well, I guess I
got to do that now.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
So yeah, exactly, I guess I'm going to Milan. I'm
not a fashionable guy, am I even welcome there?
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Like, I'm sure you up your wardrobe while you were
while you were there, white white T shirt and black jeans.
I think you could pull that off.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
I definitely splurged on some like, you know, skiing in
the Alps, went to an ac Milan soccer game, went
hiking in Chinquitara, like some of the took some of
those flight savings and just reallocated it to other parts
of the trip.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
That's awesome. I think what you're what you're getting at
too here is flexibility. One flexibility and being able to
just like purchase something really quickly, but also flexibility on
where you're going. Like you you didn't wake up wanting
to go to Milan, but she ended up going there
because the deal was so good. So talk about the
importance of flexibility when we're booking cheap airfare, like when
you fly the airline you fly, and even the destination absolutely.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
So look, I think you know, when I'm asked for
the best cheap flights tip, uh that I can offer.
There are two types of trips. The type of trip
where you've got specific dates and place you want to
go and you're hoping to get the best deal. That's
got a whole different set of recommendations. But when you've
got that uh, you know you're talking about a vacation. Oh,
(19:27):
I'm just hoping to get away, go somewhere with my
significant other and my family, whatever it is. Those are
the types of vacations where flexibility is by far the
most important thing that you can do to get a
cheap flight. So the way that most people and and
and and tell me, Matt and Joel, if this sounds familiar,
the way that most people plan their vacations is a
(19:50):
three step process. They say, step one, you decide where
you want to go, Step two, you decide when you
want to go there, and then step three you look, well,
what are the flights called? What's what's the airfare look like?
Does that sound familiar?
Speaker 2 (20:02):
The only I might swap one in two and I
might say the dates sometimes supersede the destination.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
With kids on the school calendar, man, yeah, you're locked in.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
That academic calendar is non totally totally, So step one
and two, when and where? Step three what are the
flights cost? Understandable? It's the traditional way of planning a vacation.
But what I like to tell folks is that, look,
if you if cheap flights are a priority, if you're
really hoping to get a good deal, take that same
(20:32):
three step process and flip it on its head. Don't
make cheap don't make the price of airfare the last priority.
Make it the first priority. Step one, what cheap flights
are available from my home airport? Understanding that this is
something that changes every single day. Oh, you know there's
a let's say you live in New York. Oh, there's
a flight right now over to Greece for three hundred
(20:53):
and fifty two dollars, you know, round trip. That's a
real deal that we found this week, by the way.
Or it could go to Barcelona for four fifty or
I could go down to Bermuda for two eighty five. Okay.
Step two, you know of those places that are cheap,
which one interests you the most? Oh, I'd love to
go to Athens. You know, I've never been there, and
I've been big classical history buff. Step three, what dates
(21:16):
work for my schedule?
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (21:17):
You know, we could go in late May. The weather
seems great, good time to get away. So by setting
price as the top priority rather than the last priority,
that's how you end up getting really cheap flights and
being able to take three or four vacations for the
same price you used to pay for one. I think
a lot of us just kind of by inertia or
(21:38):
without thinking, sacrifice that flexibility that we inherently have on
those vacations without even realizing it, and then we're surprised
that why the Hecker flights so expensive? Every time I search,
it seems like they're you know, one thousand or two
thousand dollars without realizing that. In some ways, we've kind
of done it to ourselves and by setting by by
(21:59):
by not taking a way that flexibility, at least being
able to compare what a destinations cost on different dates
and then decide which one seems like the best for
you and your situation. That's what I advocate for folks,
so that you know, you wouldn't walk into a restaurant
and you know, just wave off the waiter bringing you
the menu and be like, I'll have the surloin and
(22:20):
then be shocked, and you know, when it's a sixty
dollars seventy dollars bill or something, be like, I actually
want to see.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Some people do it and be able to compare the
joels of the world, no matter what I'm getting, the
stake no object to me just going there.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Well, that bring me your finest meat gar song.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Yeah, that is a certain type of traveler. Of course,
market price, I can afford that, but what about. I mean,
you did mention like it's a different set of criteria
or a different strategy if you do have specific dates.
So for instance, like your wife, you mentioned her going
to Boston. It sounds like one of the strategies you
employed was just to is it to regularly check in
in order to sort of snag it. As as the
pendulum is swinging and you're trying to nail it, like
(22:55):
right in the middle. I picture some sort of like
Chuck E Cheese game where you have to like, is
that what you're doing?
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Basically, So the way that when you've got a specific
trip in mind, you know specific dates you're hoping to
go over spring break, there's you'll still benefit from flexibility.
So even if you're only going you know, you only
have some break free if you only look at Miami
might be pretty expensive. You're like, well, I'll keep an
eye in Miami and Charleston, in Houston, in LA and
(23:22):
see you know where it pops up. You're going to
have a lot higher odds of cheap flights. But let's
say you're going to Nashville in September for your sister's wedding.
You know you can't negotiate with her on the on
when the wedding is going to be so you can
get a better flight deal. You just gotta go. The
best way to get cheap flights, or to at least
avoid overpaying for those real kind of inflexible travel plans,
(23:48):
is to get the timing of your booking right. And
getting the timing right is not you know, you'll see,
you'll read online. Sometimes they'll say, oh, you got a book,
you know, sixty three days in advance, You've got a
book Tuesdays at one pm. None of those are good advice.
Those are terrible pieces of advice. Instead, the best way
to do it is to think about it in terms
(24:09):
of what I call it Goldilocks window. Not too early,
not too late, just right in the middle. And during
these Goldilocks windows is when cheap flights are at their
I have the best odds of popping up. You've got
the best the highest likelihood of seeing a cheap flight.
It's still is low odds, but you know you might
see a five percent chance every day during a Goldilocks
(24:32):
window of a cheap flight popping up on your route,
versus maybe only a one percent chance outside of a
Goldilocks window. So it depends if you're flying peak or
off peak travel dates, and it depends if you're flying
domestic or international. For off peak domestic flights, about one
to three months in advance, that's when you're most likely
to see those cheap flights popping up. For peak traveling,
(24:53):
you know, spring break, Summer, Christmas, New Year, you're most
likely to see it three to six months in advance.
It's a little bit further out, but if you're hoping
to travel internationally, a couple months added to each of those,
so you know, two to eight months for off peak,
four to ten months in advance for peak travel dates. Again,
it's not a guarantee. Not every flight is cheap during
(25:17):
a Goldilocks window, but it's when you're at the best odds.
I like to say that, you know, look, think about
Lebron James. Every time he steps on a basketball court,
he's favored to win, but it doesn't mean he never
loses a game. Like this is when your odds are good,
but it doesn't mean you're always going to see it
during those so you'll never see it outside a Goldilocks window.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
This is where Scott announceds his fan dual endorsement.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Yeah, well, I'm an Ohio boy growing up, so I
gotta I have to maintain my Lebron loyalty even as
a Trailblazers fan these days.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Yes, all right, Scott, We've got more to get to
with you, including we want to talk more about fair alerts,
and also I want to run a travel scenario by you.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
We'll get through that and more right after this.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
We're back.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
We're still talking with Scott. Kay's talking about cheap travel
and Scott, I think you know when people fly irregularly, right,
I think you were hinting at this earlier too.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
With the price of gas.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
We fill up on gas unless we're electric vehicle owners
all the time, like once a week, and so the
price of gas is in the forefront of our mind.
How do people know if the price they're seeing is
a deal, if they should book, or if they should
wait because they're in the goldilocks window. Hey, this looks solid,
but I don't know, Like I don't fly to Richmond,
(26:38):
Virginia on the rig, so I don't even know if
that's a good deal.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
You've basically got two options. You can study this stuff
really kind of become an expert and try to really
monitor what flights cost on your specific routes and how
that fluctuates not only month to month, but also with
the economy and changes in the travel industry. For a
lot of people, myself included, that's their idea of fun.
(27:04):
They love getting to into the thick of how airfare
behaves and whatnot. For most people, buying flights is the
worst part of travel. They hate, you know, it's just
a means to an end. They think about the vacation,
they think about sipping the cocktails on the beach, not
the purchasing the flight over there, and that's like just
a dreaded but necessary task there. And so for those people,
(27:27):
that's where the going app is trying to make sure
that they're not overpaying. So we like to say, you know,
you give us your home airport, we will let you
know when cheap flights pop up from your home airport,
so you don't have to be monitoring constantly. And for
those specific trips you're hoping for, you can set up
a price alert and we can help guide you to
(27:47):
make sure that you know when the goldilocks window is.
You know when prices are dropping on that or when
there's a good deal or bad deal, because you know, frankly,
there's just there's too many options to be able to
have any confidence if you're not an expert in this stuff.
You know, there's thousands of different routes, airlines constantly changing
(28:08):
their prices. I don't begrudge anybody who feels overwhelmed by
air for it. That was me ten fifteen years ago,
before I became stuff to pinch myself a professional cheap
flight Earth, But that was me. I felt like every
time I would search for flights, it seemed like they
were so expensive.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
It makes me feel like going to the grocery store,
where like you are just inundated with options and there's
no shortage of information out there, especially when it comes
to all the different destinations, all the different airlines.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
It's a paradox of choice, and it's one that you know,
is allow me to nerd out for just a moment.
You know, the way that we purchase flights has undergone
these historical transformations. So before call it two thousand, the
way that you would purchase flights was you would go
to an in person travel agent. I remember going with
(28:57):
my parents and sitting down with the travel agent would
help you know, book the flights for US and hotels
and everything else. And then sometime around two thousand, people
started instead of doing that, booking their own airfare and
hotels and while not online, and so you have more choice,
you have more autonomy. You don't have to pay the
fees of travel agents. But what is expected of you
(29:21):
is it's sort of level of expertise. You've got this
fire hose of millions of airfares and no idea what
to do with it. It's like having, you know, an
entire novel of war and peace, but it's all written
in Vietnamese, like good luck if you don't actually understand
the language. And so that's where that's kind of why
we started doing this, to help try to decipher and
(29:42):
decode and help be a sort of trusted expert for
travelers so that they're not feeling like they're alone in
this in this hunt for a good.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Deal, you mentioned kind of antiquated ways of booking travel,
and I feel like travel agents are kind of on
the comeback.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
And I also have seen is.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
That because they're now just called influencers, Like maybe I
mean is that no like you could literally find full
circle travel agents who will book your travel for you,
and people are sourcing. I mean, like I have a
friend who does this and we talked about a trip
I'm taking this summer, and I'm like, I don't know,
maybe she can help me out here, But what do
you think about travel agents? I also saw something I'm
not on TikTok, but someone sent me a TikTok video
(30:22):
about going to the airport to book your airfare and
how you could potentially save money by going to the
physical airport in order to snag your tickets for an
upcoming trip.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Is that true?
Speaker 2 (30:32):
I mean those seem like both like kind of wild things.
They feel like a relic of the past.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
I'll take the travel agent one first. So what I
think is, like, what is driving this comeback is you know,
we talked a little bit earlier about the rise in
sort of premium travel, people with more money in their
bank accounts coming out of the pandemic and more willing
to spend it on premium economy, business class and nice
or hotels things like that. And so I think, to
(30:57):
the extent you see a comeback and travel agent, the
days it's geared towards a more luxury travel set, rather
than a sort of mass market travel the way you
saw call it pre two thousand. They can be beneficient.
You can actually get savings for or especially if you've
got complex itineraries you're hoping to go places that are
(31:20):
really far flung, they can absolutely be beneficial. But I
think for most you know, you're just flying out to
Chicago for the weekend, you're going to visit your sister
in Fort Lauderdale. I think most in most of those situations,
a travelation would definitely be overkill for what you can
just self service in terms of buying flights at the airport.
(31:45):
It is. It's not a myth per se, but without
having seen the specific TikTok, I would say it's probably overstated.
How a common that is. Okay, So there are a
few budgets airlines, you know, everybody knows that the big
what's the big drawback with Matt Joel with with budget airlines.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
I gotta pay for everything. Yeah, you're gonna get nigged in, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Exactly, it's the fees. You gotta look at all. There's
so many fees now. One of the way that they
without getting too far into the weeds of the federal
tax code. One of the ways that the budget airlines.
One of the reasons why they do so many of
these fees is because they're actually tax advantage when there's
(32:28):
an optional fee. If there's something that's mandatory, it gets
taxed at a higher rate. They have to pay seven
point five percent excess tax. But if there's an optional fee,
then all of a sudden they don't have to and
it gets it just it gets taxed at a lower rate.
So you have you know, there's this delightful term of
a convenience fee that you'll see some budget airlines, so
(32:53):
I believe Frontier is one of them. They will sometimes
add a convenience fee for booking it online. It's not
it's not something like massive. I think it's somewhere on
the order of twenty dollars, but they will add on
this fee for booking online. But in order to make
it optional, there has to be a way around it. Now,
what's the way around it? You if you go book
(33:14):
in person at the airport. You know, that's where Frontiers
agents are, and so theoretically you could maybe save you know,
twenty bucks or something on a Frontier ticket if you
book your flight at the airport rather than online. But
this is not something that is widespread with all airlines.
It's something that is basically just a few budget airlines,
(33:38):
and it's I would say it's closer to a rounding
error in terms of the amount than a significant portion
of the overall flight.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Okay, that makes sense, and it makes sense to that.
I would apply more to the budget airlines who are
breaking out those additional fees. Speaking of and you just
mentioned Frontier as well, But I would love to get
your thoughts on Southwest. Is this a part of why
they carved out that's check bag because now it's an
optional charge and if you opt for that now they
don't have to pay tax on that without you being
(34:09):
a part of the Southwest board call or anything like that.
The Hertings report, I would love to hear how you
think Southwest dropping those free check bags is going to
impact their business.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
It definitely makes the decision a little bit easier when
you know changing the fee structure is going to right
off the bat give you a seven point five percent
boost to the bottom line, you know, and we're talking
about an airline with billions of dollars in revenue, so
you know, many many millions dollars in savings just right
off the bat. That is I think a small but
(34:40):
not not a negligible part of why Southwest made this,
you know, the really substantial overhauls. The biggest My issue
is like why do you fly Southwest now?
Speaker 4 (34:54):
Right?
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Like who's buying Southwest tickets? If there's nothing different about
them from American or Delta United, and you know the
like what's the benefit they There are ways in which
they're noticeably worse. They don't have those sort of long
haul international flights, they don't have a lot of partnership,
their miles are not all nearly as lucrative. Like, there's
(35:17):
all sorts of reasons why Southwest is worse than these
full service airlines, But now, like, I don't see many benefits,
So I don't want to fully predict that it's not
going to work. I know there's sock prices up since
announcing the changes. I just I'm skeptical. If I had
any better ideas though, I would be CEO rather than
(35:38):
just a commentator from the sidelines.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Yeah, it's hard to know what their identity is now,
and they had an identity before that they were able
to communicate to customers really really well, totally. I thought
it was fascinating that Frontier kind of clap back. You
were talking about Frontier they made free bag checks for
free for a limited time. Do you think I think one?
Do you think that this just shows how much competition
(36:00):
there is still in the airline space? And then too,
do you think like trolling is going to be the
new reality in the discount airlines space.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
It's so weird that trolling has become like a legitimate
marketing channel these days, but you know, we live in
a weird time. My sense is that Frontier is sort
of feeling its oats right now, where you have this
budget sector of the airline industry that has been struggling
(36:30):
frankly a coming out of the pandemic. You know. Southwest
we talked about their struggles. Spirit obviously went into bankruptcy
after being one of the fastest growing I think the
fastest growing airline in the country over the past twenty years,
and so Frontiers looking around and saying, well, maybe we
can be the premiere budget airline in the US and
(36:53):
trying to figure out what is going to be the
sort of identity that we want to have going forward.
They've tried on a lot of different hats. It's almost like,
you know, my kids aren't teenagers yet, but from what
I understand about teenagers, remember having been one, You're you're
testing out a bunch of different identities. You know, you
have your goth phase, You've got your emo phase, like
(37:13):
you've got your different ones. And I almost feel like
Frontier is is testing out and seeing what what what
different phase is right for them as they sort of
enter adulthood. Because they actually started out not as a
budget airline, but as a more premium one. You know,
I was still old heads like me remember flying Frontier,
and their whole stick was that they would serve you
(37:33):
warm chocolate chip cookies on board. It was dope. They
were really good, And obviously that's not you know, the
the joke on Frontier and south and Spirit now is like,
oh you gotta you know they'll charge you for water,
They'll charge you for using the bathroom. Not based in truth,
but getting to an element of that nickel and diming.
But I think Frontier now, with Southwest having abandoned this
(37:55):
sort of call it nice budget airlines, like like like
a humane and treat you well budgetline, Frontier might be
looking saying, well, maybe that could be work for us.
Maybe we could kind of enter that space and be
both a low fair but also well regarded budget airline.
(38:17):
So I think of this as them sort of doing
a little bit of sampling, testing out and seeing what
might work.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
It'll be interesting to see where they lay. And I remember, like,
I think the four of us flew Somergol and we
flew Frontier and it was nice, the seats were nice,
like it was a newer plane. I was like, this,
this is not the budget experience that I was expecting.
Saved a couple hundred bucks on our airfare too.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Yes, I have a theory that, you know, because I
had a very similar experience a year or two backflying
Spirit over to Las Vegas. I have a theory that
Frontier Spirit, you know, these airlines that are the butt
of late night jokes, that they get some sort of
benefit from people's low expectations. You know, tomorrow a phrase
the soft bigotry of low expectations that everybody I'm saying thinking,
(39:01):
this Spirit fright, this one tier flight is going to
be the worst experience I've ever had traveling. And then
when as it is most of the time, it's basically fine.
You come out of it being like that was fine. Yeah,
nothing bad happened. There were no brawls on the flight, like,
you know, I made it to my destination.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Fine, they didn't like late night at waffle house or
something like that.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
It's interesting too, man. It makes me wonder if some
of these airlines are going to kind of capitalize on
the market share that they have now and then if
you continue to like step up what it is that
you're providing, Man, you can take it in its higher
population through just yeah, a lifetime of having upgraded. I
guess like you start off when you're younger and you're
(39:42):
flying maybe, but then with the airline you're able to
increase your budget a little bit and at the same
time they are providing the kind of service that you're
You're like, okay, great, no reason, why would I hop
why would I get with somebody else.
Speaker 4 (39:53):
It's like when I'm eighteen, I'm willing to fly Spirit,
but if Spirit moves with movies with me.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah, it's like like a almost like a life cycle
sort of airline, as opposed to it sticking with a
certain segment of the market and staying pinned to that,
but talk about let's talk about some specific location scott
because we haven't. You've mentioned some I guess anecdotes and
places where you've gotten some deals. What other parts of
the world do you see are underrated or undervisited, just
(40:18):
routinely less expensive to visit, And we're talking anything from
countries to specific cities in general.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
One of the things that I think is one of
like the best fringe benefits of cheap flights is the
way that they let you explore places further down your
bucket list. So you imagine somebody who pays, you know,
they've got maybe a travel budget, a flight budget for
a year fifteen hundred dollars, and if they spend all
(40:46):
fifteen hundred on one flight because they just didn't do
best practices to get a good deal whatever, then where
are they going to choose. They're not going to take
a risk on somewhere further down their their list. They're
going to choose somewhere that's kind of a more traditional,
sort of average tourist favorite. Paris, Tokyo, you know, Australia.
(41:08):
Nothing wrong with these places, they're great, but no, you know,
you're not the average tourist. You've got your own your
own personalities, your own likes and dislikes. And so the
cool thing about being able to split that fifteen hundred
dollars up and take you know, three or four different
flights because you've got good deals, you know, three or
four Indred bucks each to Europe or South America or wherever,
(41:30):
is that it gives you permission to try places further
down your list, and then you can see you can
actually sample them and see which one feel, which one
you like the best, and which one which ones are
kind of forgettable, not going to go back and visit there.
And so you know, for me, the places that I've
visited that are not the sort of traditional tourist favorites
(41:50):
but have been the some of my best trips. Places
I've most enjoyed Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. You know,
it's not it doesn't get hype though way Bahamas or
or even like a Aruba or you know, Dominican Republic gets,
But man, that's an incredible country. The food there, this
blend of like Caribbean and African and Indian cuisines is
(42:16):
just incredibly delicious. Going over to Lithuania in Eastern Europe,
you know, real East meets West. Great, you know, I
know you guys are into craft beer. The craft beer
culture there was incredible in Vilnius. The architecture but also
super duper affordable. Just another great city. My wife actually
(42:38):
recommended it because she was, like, I heard everybody is
beautiful there. It gets like wins Awards is like some
of the most beautiful people in North All Right, I've
heard worse reasons to go visit a country, so let's go.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Let's just people watch.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Yeah, exactly. We had a great time. Taiwan another like
just standout place that doesn't you know, it's rarely in
the sort of like, oh you gotta go to Wan
before you die type of list, but we've just found
it to be totally totally engaging. The like Tarroco Gorge.
Think of a place like the Grand Canyon, but instead
(43:11):
of being like red and dusty, it's like green and lush,
and you can like ride motor scooters through the base
of it, and they're like Buddhist temples up in the mountain.
Just an incredibly cool place. So it's those places that
I really think of when I'm like, oh, man, why
cheap the way cheap flights have really I think benefited
by a giving permission to test, to take a risk
(43:35):
on a place, whereas if you're only taking one or
two vacations, it's hard to justify taking a risk. What
if you go somewhere and it sucks. You know what
if you're like, oh, well, I just wasted my whole vacation,
I can't travel somewhere, get now for another year, and
you know it whears If you take a risk on
somewhere and it doesn't work out, but you only spent
a quarter of your travel budget, then you're like, no
(43:57):
big deal, I'll be able to go take another trip
in a couple months rather than a whole year.
Speaker 4 (44:01):
I love it all right.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
We got a few more questions to get to with you, Scott,
including you believe you have a recipe for the perfect vacation.
I'm want to hold you to that and figure out
what that is.
Speaker 4 (44:10):
We're talking about that and more right for this, we're
back for the break.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Talking with Scott Keys and Scott, let's talk about I
guess one aspect of taking flights and flying places the
airport and if booking the flight is a lot of
people's worst part of travel. I feel like the airport's
got to be a close sish because I mean, come on,
it's it's not a whole lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
The choice rounded overpriced and just kind of men most
of the time.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Do you have any do you have any tips for
folks about getting through an airport unscathed, whether it's like
with some of the different services that allow you to
pre check, or you know, basically cut the line.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
You know, I'm annoyed because my tip used to be
get one of the credit cards that gives you a
priority pass so you can get into the lounge and
be a to really kind of kill time in this
much more chills and oasis. And then everybody took that tip,
and so all of a sudden you can't get into
the lounges anymore because their lines out the door.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
That's not where I want to go and anymore.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
Now for me, it's like I'm in that weird subset
of people that enjoys being at the airport. I think
it's a fun place to be with interesting people, to
you know, to people watch and get to see all
the airplanes and stuff. So you have to take my
advice with a little bit of a grain of salt.
But I what I found is that a lot of
especially if you're traveling like with with with kids, there's
(45:36):
a lot of airports that have really focused on putting
in amenities that most of us don't really realize are
necessarily there. So everything from indoor playgrounds and airports to
art galleries to uh, you know, in my home airport
of Portland, there's actually a little mini free movie theater.
They are all sorts of these things in airports that
(45:57):
I think they do a really poor job of actually promoting.
But next time you're at an airport, I would just
go and google, you know, like like that airport and
amenities or see what sort of uh stuff. Just do
a quick Google search, because it might, you know, you
might have to walk a few gates down, it might
be in a slightly different section of the terminal. But
there are a lot of times there are cool stuff
that actually helps pass the time, especially if you're somebody
(46:20):
like me who doesn't like airport theory, who likes to
actually get to the airport with a reasonable amount of
buffer time and not worry about missing my flight.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Portland's calling card for a while was the carpet changed
the car.
Speaker 3 (46:32):
Yeah, so there's a new there's a new version of it.
It's very polarizing which one is better? But yeah, there's
a I could I could go on and on about
my love for PDX. Don't get me started.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
I still remember carpet Gate, oh man, A lot of
consternation over that decision. I want to hear your recipe
for the perfect vacation. You you made it sound. You've
made it sound like there's a scientific underpinnings behind what
makes the perfect vacation.
Speaker 3 (46:59):
When is Yeah, so you think of fun and enjoy
something that is, you know, just totally unpredictable. Bull and
serendipitous researchers have actually studied this. They've actually, you know,
spent a lot of time looking into the way that
people enjoy their vacations, and they found a few surprising things.
One is that, you know, we think of vacations as
(47:21):
something that we only enjoyed during the trip itself, when
we're on the beach, when we're in that you know,
Parisian cafe, that that just being just those seven, ten,
fourteen days when we're on a trip is the only
joy from it. But when you look at studies. They
actually find that people get more joy from a vacation
(47:41):
in the weeks and months leading up to the vacation
than they do on the trip itself, and they get
more joy in the weeks and months and years after
a vacation looking back on it than they did on
the trip itself. It's not that we don't enjoy ourselves
when we're on vacation. It's just that the antica a
patient and the sort of memories of a trip are
(48:04):
even better. So this is, you know, rather than this
the sort of romantic Hollywood idea of showing up at
the airport and booking, you know, buying a ticket on
the spot. I actually think that most people should be
booking their trips way further in advance, because what you're
doing is giving yourself today much more joy of being
(48:25):
able to anticipate that trip, you know, four or five,
six months from now, because it's locked in when you
book the flight. That's the sort of underpinning that that
you know, a trip is happening, rather than just something
ephemeral or oh, maybe we'll go to Paris in the summer,
maybe we'll go to you know, Hawaii next year or something.
If you actually book the flight. It's happening, it's real.
(48:47):
So booking your flights further in advance something I strongly recommend.
The other one other thing is there is a this
one researcher looked at like, how do we actually joy
What are the memories of a trip that we find
a joy from? And what he found is that you
get them. What a trip boils down to in the
(49:10):
end are the feeling that you have at the peak
of your trip, like the peak emotion, and especially the
feeling that you have at the end of a trip.
So he calls it the peak end rule. And one
of the ways that he'll take advantage then that I've
tried to incorporate into my travels as well is to
always end on something on a high note and put
(49:32):
on the last you know, the last day, the last dinner,
some big event, some really fancy dinner. You know, if
you're gonna splurge, splurge on the last day, because that
will create a sort of memory and impression of the
entire trip that's much more lasting and exciting and continues
to pay dividends for years to come from that trip.
(49:54):
So those are some of the ways that I like
to structure my trips to make sure that I'm getting
I know, I try to have to too prescriptive about
it because it's still vacation. You still want to leave
some room for you know, serendipity, but to try to
make them as enjoyable as possible.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
I think that's that's smart. Yeah, there's a way to
structure it to where you're able to gain the most
enjoyment from that trip. Totally. Man, thank you so much
for taking the time to speak with us. Of course
we'll link to Going. Are there anything Is there anything
in particular that you want to highlight over there, like
any special features or so.
Speaker 3 (50:24):
The biggest thing is are the Going Travel app, where
we've largely transformed from an email based subscription historically to
an app right now on an app on iOS or Android,
and the benefits there again those push notifications, so when
a good deal pops up from your home airport, being
able to know about it instantly, when those mistake fares
(50:45):
pop up, being able to book it before it disappears,
and being able to set price alerts for those specific
trips you're looking at to make sure you know when
the price drops and help guide you on when and
when not to book those flights?
Speaker 1 (50:58):
Perfect awesome. We will link to all that. Scott, thanks
for speaking with us today.
Speaker 3 (51:04):
A pleasure as always, Thanks you to all.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
Right, Matt, gotta love good old Scott. Yeah, he's a
a fount of knowledge.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
Well, I gotta mention that him and a famil are
going to Supporo. So we always, like, we always end
up talking to folks and I so wanted to ask
him about Japan and uh, yeah, he's excited to get
back there with his family. I tried just in case
anybody else was wondering where he was going to go.
Speaker 2 (51:22):
I try to ask personal questions of the guests afterwards,
like we're talking about investing, how would you invest my money?
Like I don't ask something like that, But with Scott,
I did have to ask him a particular travel pleasure.
Speaker 4 (51:33):
For our family at least.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
Yeah, you just subjugate all of our listeners hearing your
so specific details. I want to go here on these dates, Scott.
Speaker 4 (51:41):
Yeah, No, I don't want to do.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
That, but of course, So we had a fantastic conversation
for sure, for everyone. I think there are takeaways for
all types of travelers out there. For you, did you
have a specific big takeaway from a conversation.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
I love that he said pull the trigger when the
price is right, yeah, And I think that's so smart.
I think it's with how quickly price shifts take place
in the travels base specifically. I mean it's happening in
more and more industries, kind of that dynamic pricing. But
when you see a price that seems pretty good, and
they're like on a site like Google Flights, they are
indicators right telling you, oh, this is like in the green,
(52:11):
or this is in the yello, or this is in
the red. If you see it in the green, like yeah,
there might be a lower price that comes along, but
I wouldn't think on that. And so go ahead and
get when they getting's good, don't necessarily. I think maybe
perfect can be the enemy good in this situation.
Speaker 4 (52:26):
So so true.
Speaker 2 (52:27):
Be ready to book when you see a good deal,
something like a mistake fair or an incredibly ridiculous cheap,
cheap fair. Matt even, I remember when you and I
were booking to go to Scotland and we waited just
a little bit of time, and I think the prices
rose by like forty fifty bucks a ticket, and we
were just like ah, so annoyed because if we had
just booked when we said we were going to, we
would have saved money.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
That's true, all right, I love it. My big techaway
is going to be a more philosophical one, which is
that by not prioritizing these top of the list bucket
list destinations, and this is what he said, it gives
you permission to test and take risks when it comes
to how it is that you travel. And I think
that that is just a great way to think about
traveling generally speaking.
Speaker 2 (53:06):
But Lithuania and Taiwan, we're not on my list and
now they are.
Speaker 1 (53:09):
Yeah, it makes me want to consider some of those
secondary cities that are not in countries as well that
I would not have otherwise ever considered the beer Joel
that you and I enjoyed it today was is it
just called Kolsh? Doesn't have a name on it. I
think it's just Kolsh by Altstad. This is a brewery
out of Texas, Texas Hill Country. This is born in Fredericksburg.
(53:31):
What do you think about this one? So born in Frederick, Fredericksburg, Texas,
immersed in German history, you know, of course this is
a German beer.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
What do they say on the side that they brew
this according to German purity laws, which is no more
than four ingredients.
Speaker 4 (53:43):
I liked it.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
I thought it was It was clean, crisp and smooth,
and I am normally down for something a little more
abrasive than this, but especially as the weather it gets hotter,
something clean and crisp, like that's what you need. It
moves up my value meter. I care more about those
metrics and a beer these days.
Speaker 1 (53:58):
So you're trying to stay hydrated, that's what we're gonna
recommend here on the podcast. Derehydrates you folks. But yeah,
this is a great one. Glad you and I got
to enjoy. You can find our show notes up on
the website at howtomoney dot com and Buddy, that's gonna
be it. So until next time, best friends Out, Best
Friends Out.
Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Today we're talking the cheap travel truth with Scott Kay's.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yeah, who doesn't wish that they were currently listening to
this episode while lounging on the beach, or like maybe
on a European adventure, maybe even completely off the grid
hiking somewhere. Amazing Joe. It makes me think of like
the old show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? It's
like Who wants to be a World Traveler, except that
this is something that people actually have a shot at
(00:45):
doing because of who we're talking with. Our guest today
is no stranger to How to Money. Scott Kay's. He's
the founder of Going. It's the travel platform that was
formerly known as Scott's Cheap Flights and over at Going,
Scott is all about helping travelers snag the absolute best
flight deals. They've got over two million subscribers there, which
is just incredible. He was just talking about how busy
(01:07):
he's been. He was just on Good Morning America. And
even though you may not be a subscriber yourself, I
think you're gonna get a lot out of our conversation today,
especially if you are interested in doing a little more traveling. Scott,
thank you for coming back on How to Money.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Ah, so good to be back.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Thanks to the both of you, of course, glad to
have you. Scott.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
The question we asked you a couple of years ago
when you were on, and we're gonna ask you again
is what do you like to sporge on? What's your
craft beer equivalent? We know you're smart, you're saving for
your future, but you got sporge on something too, right?
Speaker 4 (01:35):
What is it?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
I'm gonna throw you a curveball here my personal splurge
credit card fees. I look back and over the past year,
I think I've spent over two thousand dollars in credit
card fees. Now you're probably hearing that, like Scott, what
is wrong with you? But the thing is what that
(01:56):
two thousand dollars bought me is somewhere between one and
two million frequent flyers.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
And those frequent flyer miles is how I'm able to
travel with my family of four to you know, we're
going to Japan this summer, going to Montana in a
few weeks. Be able to get these flights for basically
next to nothing using those frequent flyer miles. So for me,
that's a those credit card fees for those sign up
bonuses are well worth it because it lets us travel
(02:26):
in a way that's much more affordable than it would
be otherwise.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
The fees are worth. The Squeeze says, as.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Long as you're candling it responsible as I could spend
you know, ten hour us.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
That's that's what we spend all the rest of our
episodes doing.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Scott, how much money in flights do you think two
thousand dollars annually in credit card fee saves you?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Oh? Goodness? So, I mean a million points would probably
get us. I mean, if we're flying domestically, let's say
that would get us twenty five thousand points per person.
That'd be one hundred thousand points per family trip, ten flights.
Let's say each one costs usually I don't call it
five hundred dollars, So that'd be saving at least three
(03:13):
or four thousand dollars on flights, probably more because the
more you travel use those for international travel, the higher
the savings, and frankly, the more you use them for
that front of the plane redemptions if you're ever traveling
in business class or something like that, that's where the real
savings are. You know, I'll let you guys in on
a hidden secret in air travel. Most people who are
(03:34):
traveling at the front of the plane, if they're not
you know, multimillionaires ninety five percent of the time, and
they're not traveling on business, they're using frequent Flyer miles
to sit fairly. And that's how people get access to
those seats.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
They're not just they're not just risch, they're just they're savvy.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
They're savvy exactly if they're not uber wealthy, they're just
using miles to get up there. That is the secret
kind of access point to those those live flap business
class seat that everybody fawns over on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Very cool, all right, got to keep that in mind.
Let's talk about before we go full on into the
travel Scott, can you talk about the relationship between the economy,
just like as a whole and airfare prices, Like does
stock market volatility, does tariff policy? Have you seen that
impact travel demand and the prices that we pay for travel.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I'm so glad you guys start off on such a
simple soft questions, just.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
A really easy I figured about the third time you're
on the show. We can kind of we can go ahead,
load up right.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Seriously, No, it's look, it's a complicated question. And here's what.
Here's from a high level, what happens, uh when there
are economic downturns. Historically you do see travelers pull back
in their spending. You know, people consider travel as largely
a quote unquote discretionary purchase, and so when they're tightening
their belts, you can't always, you know, scrimp on rent
(04:56):
or food, and so you scrimp instead on travel plans.
What is a little bit different I think right now
in this this you know, fears of economic downturn today
versus previous ones, is that over the past few years,
coming out of the pandemic, there's been a huge rush
towards more premium travel, a lot of people spending more
(05:17):
to sit towards the front of the plane, to fly more,
you know, international NonStop, just spending more on travel on
sort of more pampered flights and travel in the first place.
And so what I could foresee happening this time is
a lot of those people who had been sitting purchasing
a premium economy or business class flights tightening their belt
(05:39):
doesn't necessarily mean not vacationing. It just might mean coming
back into economy rather than sitting up towards the front
of the plane. Now, there will be some people who
fly economy today who might be canceling vacations. But you
actually might see basically a level amount, you know, no
real drop off in demand for economy seats going forward,
(06:02):
even if there's an economic downturn, just the compositional shift
of who is purchasing those, So you might see flight
prices actually not get cheap, significantly cheaper the way they
have in previous economic downturns, because there are a lot
of people who are coming up from higher and sort
of downgrading themselves into the back of the plane. That's
(06:24):
my that's my guess coming into this. The good news,
I think there's going to be a lot more availability
for people who do have the money to purchase premium
economy or business class, and certainly for people with those
miles to be able to get more award availability.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
How does like the way other countries view us impact
our travel economy?
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Right?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Like there have been stories about Canadians reacting to tarists
and they're like, I'm not going to vacation in the
United States, Yeah, boycoty, which makes sense to me, Like,
that's totally understandable. What sort of impact does that have
on airlines and airfare quite.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
A bit, you know, by by by some estimates, anywhere
from ten or somewhere around ten percent of the worldwide
economy is based on is travel or travel related, you know,
and that includes everything from hotels and airlines and stuff
to also like restaurants and and things that tourists tend
to engage in. So this is not a small part
(07:20):
of the worldwide economy. It is substantial. And so when
you see a lot of Canadians or Mexicans or Europeans
who otherwise were planning to visit the US to pull
back from that because they just you know, whether negative
sentiment or whatever about the United States, that is that's
something that is very directly felt by a lot of
(07:41):
hotel proprietors, restaurateurs, like different parts of the economy. Now,
we are a large enough country that it doesn't have
quite the same impact that if you know, if we
were a small, largely tourism based economy and you saw
pull back, that would be devastating. But it definitely hurts
(08:03):
at the margin and especially if you're in this situation
where there's already economic anxiety about you know, you see
the stock market down ten to fifteen percent. If then
also sales at your restaurant are are going down, sales
at your hotel are going down, that is, that's that's
not good. So for folks who do work in tours
(08:24):
and related industries, I would be pretty concerned about the
lack of about a significantly fewer international arrivals. I think
for most other folks who are working, it probably is
a little bit orthogonal. It's not necessarily something that they're
going to feel a direct impact in their day to
day life.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Okay, let's take a step back. Let's boom out slightly
from the day by day or maybe week by week
tariff policy and by minute mission. Yes, it just depends
on how blessly you watch it. But let's step back,
zoom out a little bit. Because airfare prices they have
outpaced inflation over the past past few years. Like I'm
thinking about how revenge travel was a thing a couple
(09:03):
of years ago or a few years ago, but like
in a segment with lots of choice and a fair
amount of competition, was it just the fact that we
could not see the airlines respond quickly enough to the
increase in demand do to maybe perhaps the stimulus money,
the excess cash that we saw that folks had on hand.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
So airfare is something that is is I call it
the most volatile thing that people purchase. It is it's always,
you know, bopping up and down. It's not like even
something else that changes frequently, like gas prices. You know,
usually that's changing just a little bit here and there,
and you tend to see it. You know, if gas
prices go up from three dollars to call it three thirty,
(09:45):
it's usually going to hit three ten, and then three
twenty and then three thirty, and it's kind of gradually
creeping up. Where's airfare? You know? I talked about this
flight I was watching once from Atlanta to Amsterdam. I
searched it on Monday. It was eight hundred dollar dollars
round trip. Searched it again the next day on Tuesday,
three hundred dollars round trip, searched the flight again on Wednesday,
(10:07):
thirteen hundred dollars round you're talking about the exact same flight,
I mean.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Nothing else as much as the price of eggs.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Other than eggs, nothing else quite
behaves the way airfare does. And so that type of
volatility is not sort of accidental to airfare. It's sort
of inherent in the way that it behaves. And there's
really complicated reasons why that's the case, but suffice to
say that kind of topsy turviness is just essential to
(10:39):
what airfare is now. When you look at airfare over
the past, basically coming out of the pandemic, so let's
say for the past five years, what you saw is,
of course, it crash immediately in March twenty twenty, and
then really in spring and summer of twenty twenty two
really sergeificantly higher than where it was pre pandemic. But
(11:03):
after summer twenty twenty two, and this doesn't get quite
as much eyeballer attention, it actually really came down substantially,
where to the point that airfare today is actually cheaper
than it was in February twenty twenty. It's one percent
lower than it was, and that's without even adjusting for inflation.
(11:23):
So everything economy wide, you know, it's somewhere twenty twenty
five percent more expensive than it was in February twenty
twenty airfare one percent cheaper than it was. It's seventeen
percent cheaper than it's peak in June twenty twenty two,
and if you adjust for overall inflation, it's around it's
around record lows right now. It's kind of this remarkable,
(11:47):
untold story that even as most things in our lives
are getting more and more expensive, airfare is actually getting cheaper.
But I think it's hard to explain. It's hard to
tell because again I go to that volatility. When you're
searching for flights, you might see one that is low,
and then you know, you search it again, it gets high,
and you search it again, it stays in the middle.
(12:09):
It's hard to kind of get a good grasp of
the way we can with gas prices, where every time
we're driving down the road we see what it costs
and it's pretty consistent.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
So yeah, one of the things the volatility is this
a case in which folks who aren't paying attention are
essentially subsidizing the folks who are the people you talked
about people sitting at the front of the plane. They're
often not the rich people, they're the savvy people. Is
the people who save the most money on airfare. Are
they the ones who don't just say I got to
go to this place on this date by the ticket.
They're the ones who are doing the research and taking
(12:40):
the extra time.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Yeah, I think it's partly doing the research, but I
think it's also the people who are savvy enough to
pull the trigger when the price is right. So, if
you think of an airplane, you know, two hundred seats
on it, it is very likely that if it has
two hundred passengers, that they paid two hundred different prices
to there. I mean, you know, slightly exaggery. It's probably
(13:02):
like one hundred or one hundred and twenty five different prices.
But for argument's sake, let's say it's two hundred different prices.
You are having the exact same experience as the person
sitting next to you on that airplane, but one of
you may have paid double to be there than the
other person. And it's obviously our job, Like the whole
reason I started going in the first place was to
(13:23):
make sure that our members are the ones who are
paying half the price of the person sitting next to them.
But the way that folks tend to get that is
again by pulling the trigger when the price is right,
and you never know exactly when it's going to be cheapest.
If you did, you know airline, nobody would ever overpay airlines.
The whole airline pricing model would be broken. And so instead,
(13:47):
what you have to do is kind of have a
sense on when cheap flights are most likely to pop up,
but then when they do, make sure you book it
because you know. I'll give you an example. My wife
is flying out to Boston from Portland on the West
Coast to Boston to visit her nephew, and flights usually
(14:09):
would cost three hundred, three hundred and fifty bucks for
round trip for that route, if you're talking about a
NonStop flight, but a couple about a week or two ago,
you know, I got an alert from the from the
app that hey, flight prices from Portland to Boston just
dropped down to one hundred and seventeen dollars round trip.
So went in just booked it really quick because I knew, hey, look,
(14:31):
this is an amazing price. It's way better than normal,
and it's unlikely to go any lower. Let's just book
this now and lo and behold after you know, a
day after we booked it, it bopped back up to
two hundred and fifty dollars. So the thing about flight
prices is you don't it doesn't have to stay at
one hundred and seventeen. You just have to catch it
when it's at that low price, because when it goes
(14:52):
back up, no big deal. You've already locked in the
low price.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Can't sit on your hands.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
You got to be ready to pounce. You got to
exactly pull that trick exactly. So why we're talking about
just some of the services y'all offer, we got to
talk about mistake fares. And one of your airfare predictions
for this year, for twenty twenty five was that we'd
see something like three to seven of these mistake fares.
How many have popped up so far? And I guess,
(15:16):
like maybe explained to listeners how these things actually come about,
And yeah, maybe what steps we need to be that
we need to take ahead of time to be able
to take advantage of these mistake fairs.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Someone came about fired behind the scenes publishing that mistake fair.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
There are definitely times when people have gotten fired at
airlines as a result of mistake fairs. I like to
think it's pretty uncommon, Like to I like to hope
that management is charitable. We all make mistakes in our lives,
and hopefully most of us aren't losing their jobs over that.
But what a mistake fairy is at its core is
when an airline accidentally sells a ticket for ninety ninety
(15:51):
five percent less than it intended to. You know, back
about a decade ago, I personally got a deal from
New York City to Milan for a one hundred and
thirty dollars round trip. There's a NonStop flight on United,
bags included the whole the works. Uh, And that was
a ticket that they probably meant to sell for thirteen
hundred dollars, but they forgot a zero at the end.
(16:12):
But you know, if you if you just book it happen,
jump on it before they fix the mistake, then you
are the proud owner of the probably the best deal
you've ever gotten in your life. Those are mistake fairs.
They're the holy grail of the cheap of the cheap
flight world. That's what we're kind of waking up every
morning hoping to find. So, yeah, you're right, I predicted,
you know, yeah, I think it was three to six,
(16:34):
three to seven mistake fares this year which is about
in line with what we've seen over the past few years.
I think my team might you know, I've got it's
not just me at going, it's we've got a team
of fifty five people. I think some of the flight
experts whose job it is to find in these deals
every day, they're out to embarrass me because they've already
(16:54):
found three mistake fares and it's not even you know,
we're a quarter of the way through twenty twenty five.
So there was one over to premium economy flight over
to Spain usually cost you know, closer to two thousand dollars.
It was a mistake fair for as little as six
hundred and three dollars round trip. A flight down to
Brazil for two hundred and eighty seven dollars round trip.
(17:17):
I mean, these types of deals are will My favorite
one was in recent memory was one in the middle
of twenty twenty four flight over to Dublin for one
hundred and fourteen dollars round trip Delta and Air France.
This is not some bomb airline you've never heard of
or anything. These types of deals, you know, they're they're
(17:39):
totally random, they're unpredictable, and they don't tend to last long.
It's the other thing. You've got to book them really,
you know, in a matter of hours usually, And so
that's why finding out about it as early as possible
gives you as much time to decide if you're going
to take.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Advantage just the kind of trip that even if I
wasn't planning to travel, Scott like you ability to show
a little bit of flexibility. I mean, that's that's certainly
where we're.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
A one hundred percent. I mean that one hundred and
thirty dollars Milan flight. I woke up that morning with
zero intention of booking a flight to Italy was the
furthest thing from my mind. But when I stumbled across that,
fer didn't take a whole lot of convinced.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
I tell you that, you're like, well, I guess I
got to do that now.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
So yeah, exactly, I guess I'm going to Milan. I'm
not a fashionable guy, am I even welcome there?
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Like, I'm sure you up your wardrobe while you were
while you were there, white white T shirt and black jeans.
I think you could pull that off.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
I definitely splurged on some like, you know, skiing in
the Alps, went to an ac Milan soccer game, went
hiking in Chinquitara, like some of the took some of
those flight savings and just reallocated it to other parts
of the trip.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
That's awesome. I think what you're what you're getting at
too here is flexibility. One flexibility and being able to
just like purchase something really quickly, but also flexibility on
where you're going. Like you you didn't wake up wanting
to go to Milan, but she ended up going there
because the deal was so good. So talk about the
importance of flexibility when we're booking cheap airfare, like when
you fly the airline you fly, and even the destination absolutely.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
So look, I think you know, when I'm asked for
the best cheap flights tip, uh that I can offer.
There are two types of trips. The type of trip
where you've got specific dates and place you want to
go and you're hoping to get the best deal. That's
got a whole different set of recommendations. But when you've
got that uh, you know you're talking about a vacation. Oh,
(19:27):
I'm just hoping to get away, go somewhere with my
significant other and my family, whatever it is. Those are
the types of vacations where flexibility is by far the
most important thing that you can do to get a
cheap flight. So the way that most people and and
and and tell me, Matt and Joel, if this sounds familiar,
the way that most people plan their vacations is a
(19:50):
three step process. They say, step one, you decide where
you want to go, Step two, you decide when you
want to go there, and then step three you look, well,
what are the flights called? What's what's the airfare look like?
Does that sound familiar?
Speaker 2 (20:02):
The only I might swap one in two and I
might say the dates sometimes supersede the destination.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
With kids on the school calendar, man, yeah, you're locked in.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
That academic calendar is non totally totally, So step one
and two, when and where? Step three what are the
flights cost? Understandable? It's the traditional way of planning a vacation.
But what I like to tell folks is that, look,
if you if cheap flights are a priority, if you're
really hoping to get a good deal, take that same
(20:32):
three step process and flip it on its head. Don't
make cheap don't make the price of airfare the last priority.
Make it the first priority. Step one, what cheap flights
are available from my home airport? Understanding that this is
something that changes every single day. Oh, you know there's
a let's say you live in New York. Oh, there's
a flight right now over to Greece for three hundred
(20:53):
and fifty two dollars, you know, round trip. That's a
real deal that we found this week, by the way.
Or it could go to Barcelona for four fifty or
I could go down to Bermuda for two eighty five. Okay.
Step two, you know of those places that are cheap,
which one interests you the most? Oh, I'd love to
go to Athens. You know, I've never been there, and
I've been big classical history buff. Step three, what dates
(21:16):
work for my schedule?
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (21:17):
You know, we could go in late May. The weather
seems great, good time to get away. So by setting
price as the top priority rather than the last priority,
that's how you end up getting really cheap flights and
being able to take three or four vacations for the
same price you used to pay for one. I think
a lot of us just kind of by inertia or
(21:38):
without thinking, sacrifice that flexibility that we inherently have on
those vacations without even realizing it, and then we're surprised
that why the Hecker flights so expensive? Every time I search,
it seems like they're you know, one thousand or two
thousand dollars without realizing that. In some ways, we've kind
of done it to ourselves and by setting by by
(21:59):
by not taking a way that flexibility, at least being
able to compare what a destinations cost on different dates
and then decide which one seems like the best for
you and your situation. That's what I advocate for folks,
so that you know, you wouldn't walk into a restaurant
and you know, just wave off the waiter bringing you
the menu and be like, I'll have the surloin and
(22:20):
then be shocked, and you know, when it's a sixty
dollars seventy dollars bill or something, be like, I actually
want to see.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Some people do it and be able to compare the
joels of the world, no matter what I'm getting, the
stake no object to me just going there.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Well, that bring me your finest meat gar song.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Yeah, that is a certain type of traveler. Of course,
market price, I can afford that, but what about. I mean,
you did mention like it's a different set of criteria
or a different strategy if you do have specific dates.
So for instance, like your wife, you mentioned her going
to Boston. It sounds like one of the strategies you
employed was just to is it to regularly check in
in order to sort of snag it. As as the
pendulum is swinging and you're trying to nail it, like
(22:55):
right in the middle. I picture some sort of like
Chuck E Cheese game where you have to like, is
that what you're doing?
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Basically, So the way that when you've got a specific
trip in mind, you know specific dates you're hoping to
go over spring break, there's you'll still benefit from flexibility.
So even if you're only going you know, you only
have some break free if you only look at Miami
might be pretty expensive. You're like, well, I'll keep an
eye in Miami and Charleston, in Houston, in LA and
(23:22):
see you know where it pops up. You're going to
have a lot higher odds of cheap flights. But let's
say you're going to Nashville in September for your sister's wedding.
You know you can't negotiate with her on the on
when the wedding is going to be so you can
get a better flight deal. You just gotta go. The
best way to get cheap flights, or to at least
avoid overpaying for those real kind of inflexible travel plans,
(23:48):
is to get the timing of your booking right. And
getting the timing right is not you know, you'll see,
you'll read online. Sometimes they'll say, oh, you got a book,
you know, sixty three days in advance, You've got a
book Tuesdays at one pm. None of those are good advice.
Those are terrible pieces of advice. Instead, the best way
to do it is to think about it in terms
(24:09):
of what I call it Goldilocks window. Not too early,
not too late, just right in the middle. And during
these Goldilocks windows is when cheap flights are at their
I have the best odds of popping up. You've got
the best the highest likelihood of seeing a cheap flight.
It's still is low odds, but you know you might
see a five percent chance every day during a Goldilocks
(24:32):
window of a cheap flight popping up on your route,
versus maybe only a one percent chance outside of a
Goldilocks window. So it depends if you're flying peak or
off peak travel dates, and it depends if you're flying
domestic or international. For off peak domestic flights, about one
to three months in advance, that's when you're most likely
to see those cheap flights popping up. For peak traveling,
(24:53):
you know, spring break, Summer, Christmas, New Year, you're most
likely to see it three to six months in advance.
It's a little bit further out, but if you're hoping
to travel internationally, a couple months added to each of those,
so you know, two to eight months for off peak,
four to ten months in advance for peak travel dates. Again,
it's not a guarantee. Not every flight is cheap during
(25:17):
a Goldilocks window, but it's when you're at the best odds.
I like to say that, you know, look, think about
Lebron James. Every time he steps on a basketball court,
he's favored to win, but it doesn't mean he never
loses a game. Like this is when your odds are good,
but it doesn't mean you're always going to see it
during those so you'll never see it outside a Goldilocks window.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
This is where Scott announceds his fan dual endorsement.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Yeah, well, I'm an Ohio boy growing up, so I
gotta I have to maintain my Lebron loyalty even as
a Trailblazers fan these days.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Yes, all right, Scott, We've got more to get to
with you, including we want to talk more about fair alerts,
and also I want to run a travel scenario by you.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
We'll get through that and more right after this.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
We're back.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
We're still talking with Scott. Kay's talking about cheap travel
and Scott, I think you know when people fly irregularly, right,
I think you were hinting at this earlier too.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
With the price of gas.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
We fill up on gas unless we're electric vehicle owners
all the time, like once a week, and so the
price of gas is in the forefront of our mind.
How do people know if the price they're seeing is
a deal, if they should book, or if they should
wait because they're in the goldilocks window. Hey, this looks solid,
but I don't know, Like I don't fly to Richmond,
(26:38):
Virginia on the rig, so I don't even know if
that's a good deal.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
You've basically got two options. You can study this stuff
really kind of become an expert and try to really
monitor what flights cost on your specific routes and how
that fluctuates not only month to month, but also with
the economy and changes in the travel industry. For a
lot of people, myself included, that's their idea of fun.
(27:04):
They love getting to into the thick of how airfare
behaves and whatnot. For most people, buying flights is the
worst part of travel. They hate, you know, it's just
a means to an end. They think about the vacation,
they think about sipping the cocktails on the beach, not
the purchasing the flight over there, and that's like just
a dreaded but necessary task there. And so for those people,
(27:27):
that's where the going app is trying to make sure
that they're not overpaying. So we like to say, you know,
you give us your home airport, we will let you
know when cheap flights pop up from your home airport,
so you don't have to be monitoring constantly. And for
those specific trips you're hoping for, you can set up
a price alert and we can help guide you to
(27:47):
make sure that you know when the goldilocks window is.
You know when prices are dropping on that or when
there's a good deal or bad deal, because you know, frankly,
there's just there's too many options to be able to
have any confidence if you're not an expert in this stuff.
You know, there's thousands of different routes, airlines constantly changing
(28:08):
their prices. I don't begrudge anybody who feels overwhelmed by
air for it. That was me ten fifteen years ago,
before I became stuff to pinch myself a professional cheap
flight Earth, But that was me. I felt like every
time I would search for flights, it seemed like they
were so expensive.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
It makes me feel like going to the grocery store,
where like you are just inundated with options and there's
no shortage of information out there, especially when it comes
to all the different destinations, all the different airlines.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
It's a paradox of choice, and it's one that you know,
is allow me to nerd out for just a moment.
You know, the way that we purchase flights has undergone
these historical transformations. So before call it two thousand, the
way that you would purchase flights was you would go
to an in person travel agent. I remember going with
(28:57):
my parents and sitting down with the travel agent would
help you know, book the flights for US and hotels
and everything else. And then sometime around two thousand, people
started instead of doing that, booking their own airfare and
hotels and while not online, and so you have more choice,
you have more autonomy. You don't have to pay the
fees of travel agents. But what is expected of you
(29:21):
is it's sort of level of expertise. You've got this
fire hose of millions of airfares and no idea what
to do with it. It's like having, you know, an
entire novel of war and peace, but it's all written
in Vietnamese, like good luck if you don't actually understand
the language. And so that's where that's kind of why
we started doing this, to help try to decipher and
(29:42):
decode and help be a sort of trusted expert for
travelers so that they're not feeling like they're alone in
this in this hunt for a good.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Deal, you mentioned kind of antiquated ways of booking travel,
and I feel like travel agents are kind of on
the comeback.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
And I also have seen is.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
That because they're now just called influencers, Like maybe I
mean is that no like you could literally find full
circle travel agents who will book your travel for you,
and people are sourcing. I mean, like I have a
friend who does this and we talked about a trip
I'm taking this summer, and I'm like, I don't know,
maybe she can help me out here, But what do
you think about travel agents? I also saw something I'm
not on TikTok, but someone sent me a TikTok video
(30:22):
about going to the airport to book your airfare and
how you could potentially save money by going to the
physical airport in order to snag your tickets for an
upcoming trip.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Is that true?
Speaker 2 (30:32):
I mean those seem like both like kind of wild things.
They feel like a relic of the past.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
I'll take the travel agent one first. So what I
think is, like, what is driving this comeback is you know,
we talked a little bit earlier about the rise in
sort of premium travel, people with more money in their
bank accounts coming out of the pandemic and more willing
to spend it on premium economy, business class and nice
or hotels things like that. And so I think, to
(30:57):
the extent you see a comeback and travel agent, the
days it's geared towards a more luxury travel set, rather
than a sort of mass market travel the way you
saw call it pre two thousand. They can be beneficient.
You can actually get savings for or especially if you've
got complex itineraries you're hoping to go places that are
(31:20):
really far flung, they can absolutely be beneficial. But I
think for most you know, you're just flying out to
Chicago for the weekend, you're going to visit your sister
in Fort Lauderdale. I think most in most of those situations,
a travelation would definitely be overkill for what you can
just self service in terms of buying flights at the airport.
(31:45):
It is. It's not a myth per se, but without
having seen the specific TikTok, I would say it's probably overstated.
How a common that is. Okay, So there are a
few budgets airlines, you know, everybody knows that the big
what's the big drawback with Matt Joel with with budget airlines.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
I gotta pay for everything. Yeah, you're gonna get nigged in, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Exactly, it's the fees. You gotta look at all. There's
so many fees now. One of the way that they
without getting too far into the weeds of the federal
tax code. One of the ways that the budget airlines.
One of the reasons why they do so many of
these fees is because they're actually tax advantage when there's
(32:28):
an optional fee. If there's something that's mandatory, it gets
taxed at a higher rate. They have to pay seven
point five percent excess tax. But if there's an optional fee,
then all of a sudden they don't have to and
it gets it just it gets taxed at a lower rate.
So you have you know, there's this delightful term of
a convenience fee that you'll see some budget airlines, so
(32:53):
I believe Frontier is one of them. They will sometimes
add a convenience fee for booking it online. It's not
it's not something like massive. I think it's somewhere on
the order of twenty dollars, but they will add on
this fee for booking online. But in order to make
it optional, there has to be a way around it. Now,
what's the way around it? You if you go book
(33:14):
in person at the airport. You know, that's where Frontiers
agents are, and so theoretically you could maybe save you know,
twenty bucks or something on a Frontier ticket if you
book your flight at the airport rather than online. But
this is not something that is widespread with all airlines.
It's something that is basically just a few budget airlines,
(33:38):
and it's I would say it's closer to a rounding
error in terms of the amount than a significant portion
of the overall flight.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Okay, that makes sense, and it makes sense to that.
I would apply more to the budget airlines who are
breaking out those additional fees. Speaking of and you just
mentioned Frontier as well, But I would love to get
your thoughts on Southwest. Is this a part of why
they carved out that's check bag because now it's an
optional charge and if you opt for that now they
don't have to pay tax on that without you being
(34:09):
a part of the Southwest board call or anything like that.
The Hertings report, I would love to hear how you
think Southwest dropping those free check bags is going to
impact their business.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
It definitely makes the decision a little bit easier when
you know changing the fee structure is going to right
off the bat give you a seven point five percent
boost to the bottom line, you know, and we're talking
about an airline with billions of dollars in revenue, so
you know, many many millions dollars in savings just right
off the bat. That is I think a small but
(34:40):
not not a negligible part of why Southwest made this,
you know, the really substantial overhauls. The biggest My issue
is like why do you fly Southwest now?
Speaker 4 (34:54):
Right?
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Like who's buying Southwest tickets? If there's nothing different about
them from American or Delta United, and you know the
like what's the benefit they There are ways in which
they're noticeably worse. They don't have those sort of long
haul international flights, they don't have a lot of partnership,
their miles are not all nearly as lucrative. Like, there's
(35:17):
all sorts of reasons why Southwest is worse than these
full service airlines, But now, like, I don't see many benefits,
So I don't want to fully predict that it's not
going to work. I know there's sock prices up since
announcing the changes. I just I'm skeptical. If I had
any better ideas though, I would be CEO rather than
(35:38):
just a commentator from the sidelines.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Yeah, it's hard to know what their identity is now,
and they had an identity before that they were able
to communicate to customers really really well, totally. I thought
it was fascinating that Frontier kind of clap back. You
were talking about Frontier they made free bag checks for
free for a limited time. Do you think I think one?
Do you think that this just shows how much competition
(36:00):
there is still in the airline space? And then too,
do you think like trolling is going to be the
new reality in the discount airlines space.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
It's so weird that trolling has become like a legitimate
marketing channel these days, but you know, we live in
a weird time. My sense is that Frontier is sort
of feeling its oats right now, where you have this
budget sector of the airline industry that has been struggling
(36:30):
frankly a coming out of the pandemic. You know. Southwest
we talked about their struggles. Spirit obviously went into bankruptcy
after being one of the fastest growing I think the
fastest growing airline in the country over the past twenty years,
and so Frontiers looking around and saying, well, maybe we
can be the premiere budget airline in the US and
(36:53):
trying to figure out what is going to be the
sort of identity that we want to have going forward.
They've tried on a lot of different hats. It's almost like,
you know, my kids aren't teenagers yet, but from what
I understand about teenagers, remember having been one, You're you're
testing out a bunch of different identities. You know, you
have your goth phase, You've got your emo phase, like
(37:13):
you've got your different ones. And I almost feel like
Frontier is is testing out and seeing what what what
different phase is right for them as they sort of
enter adulthood. Because they actually started out not as a
budget airline, but as a more premium one. You know,
I was still old heads like me remember flying Frontier,
and their whole stick was that they would serve you
(37:33):
warm chocolate chip cookies on board. It was dope. They
were really good, And obviously that's not you know, the
the joke on Frontier and south and Spirit now is like,
oh you gotta you know they'll charge you for water,
They'll charge you for using the bathroom. Not based in truth,
but getting to an element of that nickel and diming.
But I think Frontier now, with Southwest having abandoned this
(37:55):
sort of call it nice budget airlines, like like like
a humane and treat you well budgetline, Frontier might be
looking saying, well, maybe that could be work for us.
Maybe we could kind of enter that space and be
both a low fair but also well regarded budget airline.
(38:17):
So I think of this as them sort of doing
a little bit of sampling, testing out and seeing what
might work.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
It'll be interesting to see where they lay. And I remember, like,
I think the four of us flew Somergol and we
flew Frontier and it was nice, the seats were nice,
like it was a newer plane. I was like, this,
this is not the budget experience that I was expecting.
Saved a couple hundred bucks on our airfare too.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Yes, I have a theory that, you know, because I
had a very similar experience a year or two backflying
Spirit over to Las Vegas. I have a theory that
Frontier Spirit, you know, these airlines that are the butt
of late night jokes, that they get some sort of
benefit from people's low expectations. You know, tomorrow a phrase
the soft bigotry of low expectations that everybody I'm saying thinking,
(39:01):
this Spirit fright, this one tier flight is going to
be the worst experience I've ever had traveling. And then
when as it is most of the time, it's basically fine.
You come out of it being like that was fine. Yeah,
nothing bad happened. There were no brawls on the flight, like,
you know, I made it to my destination.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Fine, they didn't like late night at waffle house or
something like that.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
It's interesting too, man. It makes me wonder if some
of these airlines are going to kind of capitalize on
the market share that they have now and then if
you continue to like step up what it is that
you're providing, Man, you can take it in its higher
population through just yeah, a lifetime of having upgraded. I
guess like you start off when you're younger and you're
(39:42):
flying maybe, but then with the airline you're able to
increase your budget a little bit and at the same
time they are providing the kind of service that you're
You're like, okay, great, no reason, why would I hop
why would I get with somebody else.
Speaker 4 (39:53):
It's like when I'm eighteen, I'm willing to fly Spirit,
but if Spirit moves with movies with me.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah, it's like like a almost like a life cycle
sort of airline, as opposed to it sticking with a
certain segment of the market and staying pinned to that,
but talk about let's talk about some specific location scott
because we haven't. You've mentioned some I guess anecdotes and
places where you've gotten some deals. What other parts of
the world do you see are underrated or undervisited, just
(40:18):
routinely less expensive to visit, And we're talking anything from
countries to specific cities in general.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
One of the things that I think is one of
like the best fringe benefits of cheap flights is the
way that they let you explore places further down your
bucket list. So you imagine somebody who pays, you know,
they've got maybe a travel budget, a flight budget for
a year fifteen hundred dollars, and if they spend all
(40:46):
fifteen hundred on one flight because they just didn't do
best practices to get a good deal whatever, then where
are they going to choose. They're not going to take
a risk on somewhere further down their their list. They're
going to choose somewhere that's kind of a more traditional,
sort of average tourist favorite. Paris, Tokyo, you know, Australia.
(41:08):
Nothing wrong with these places, they're great, but no, you know,
you're not the average tourist. You've got your own your
own personalities, your own likes and dislikes. And so the
cool thing about being able to split that fifteen hundred
dollars up and take you know, three or four different
flights because you've got good deals, you know, three or
four Indred bucks each to Europe or South America or wherever,
(41:30):
is that it gives you permission to try places further
down your list, and then you can see you can
actually sample them and see which one feel, which one
you like the best, and which one which ones are
kind of forgettable, not going to go back and visit there.
And so you know, for me, the places that I've
visited that are not the sort of traditional tourist favorites
(41:50):
but have been the some of my best trips. Places
I've most enjoyed Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. You know,
it's not it doesn't get hype though way Bahamas or
or even like a Aruba or you know, Dominican Republic gets,
But man, that's an incredible country. The food there, this
blend of like Caribbean and African and Indian cuisines is
(42:16):
just incredibly delicious. Going over to Lithuania in Eastern Europe,
you know, real East meets West. Great, you know, I
know you guys are into craft beer. The craft beer
culture there was incredible in Vilnius. The architecture but also
super duper affordable. Just another great city. My wife actually
(42:38):
recommended it because she was, like, I heard everybody is
beautiful there. It gets like wins Awards is like some
of the most beautiful people in North All Right, I've
heard worse reasons to go visit a country, so let's go.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Let's just people watch.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Yeah, exactly. We had a great time. Taiwan another like
just standout place that doesn't you know, it's rarely in
the sort of like, oh you gotta go to Wan
before you die type of list, but we've just found
it to be totally totally engaging. The like Tarroco Gorge.
Think of a place like the Grand Canyon, but instead
(43:11):
of being like red and dusty, it's like green and lush,
and you can like ride motor scooters through the base
of it, and they're like Buddhist temples up in the mountain.
Just an incredibly cool place. So it's those places that
I really think of when I'm like, oh, man, why
cheap the way cheap flights have really I think benefited
by a giving permission to test, to take a risk
(43:35):
on a place, whereas if you're only taking one or
two vacations, it's hard to justify taking a risk. What
if you go somewhere and it sucks. You know what
if you're like, oh, well, I just wasted my whole vacation,
I can't travel somewhere, get now for another year, and
you know it whears If you take a risk on
somewhere and it doesn't work out, but you only spent
a quarter of your travel budget, then you're like, no
(43:57):
big deal, I'll be able to go take another trip
in a couple months rather than a whole year.
Speaker 4 (44:01):
I love it all right.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
We got a few more questions to get to with you, Scott,
including you believe you have a recipe for the perfect vacation.
I'm want to hold you to that and figure out
what that is.
Speaker 4 (44:10):
We're talking about that and more right for this, we're
back for the break.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Talking with Scott Keys and Scott, let's talk about I
guess one aspect of taking flights and flying places the
airport and if booking the flight is a lot of
people's worst part of travel. I feel like the airport's
got to be a close sish because I mean, come on,
it's it's not a whole lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
The choice rounded overpriced and just kind of men most
of the time.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Do you have any do you have any tips for
folks about getting through an airport unscathed, whether it's like
with some of the different services that allow you to
pre check, or you know, basically cut the line.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
You know, I'm annoyed because my tip used to be
get one of the credit cards that gives you a
priority pass so you can get into the lounge and
be a to really kind of kill time in this
much more chills and oasis. And then everybody took that tip,
and so all of a sudden you can't get into
the lounges anymore because their lines out the door.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
That's not where I want to go and anymore.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
Now for me, it's like I'm in that weird subset
of people that enjoys being at the airport. I think
it's a fun place to be with interesting people, to
you know, to people watch and get to see all
the airplanes and stuff. So you have to take my
advice with a little bit of a grain of salt.
But I what I found is that a lot of
especially if you're traveling like with with with kids, there's
(45:36):
a lot of airports that have really focused on putting
in amenities that most of us don't really realize are
necessarily there. So everything from indoor playgrounds and airports to
art galleries to uh, you know, in my home airport
of Portland, there's actually a little mini free movie theater.
They are all sorts of these things in airports that
(45:57):
I think they do a really poor job of actually promoting.
But next time you're at an airport, I would just
go and google, you know, like like that airport and
amenities or see what sort of uh stuff. Just do
a quick Google search, because it might, you know, you
might have to walk a few gates down, it might
be in a slightly different section of the terminal. But
there are a lot of times there are cool stuff
that actually helps pass the time, especially if you're somebody
(46:20):
like me who doesn't like airport theory, who likes to
actually get to the airport with a reasonable amount of
buffer time and not worry about missing my flight.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Portland's calling card for a while was the carpet changed
the car.
Speaker 3 (46:32):
Yeah, so there's a new there's a new version of it.
It's very polarizing which one is better? But yeah, there's
a I could I could go on and on about
my love for PDX. Don't get me started.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
I still remember carpet Gate, oh man, A lot of
consternation over that decision. I want to hear your recipe
for the perfect vacation. You you made it sound. You've
made it sound like there's a scientific underpinnings behind what
makes the perfect vacation.
Speaker 3 (46:59):
When is Yeah, so you think of fun and enjoy
something that is, you know, just totally unpredictable. Bull and
serendipitous researchers have actually studied this. They've actually, you know,
spent a lot of time looking into the way that
people enjoy their vacations, and they found a few surprising things.
One is that, you know, we think of vacations as
(47:21):
something that we only enjoyed during the trip itself, when
we're on the beach, when we're in that you know,
Parisian cafe, that that just being just those seven, ten,
fourteen days when we're on a trip is the only
joy from it. But when you look at studies. They
actually find that people get more joy from a vacation
(47:41):
in the weeks and months leading up to the vacation
than they do on the trip itself, and they get
more joy in the weeks and months and years after
a vacation looking back on it than they did on
the trip itself. It's not that we don't enjoy ourselves
when we're on vacation. It's just that the antica a
patient and the sort of memories of a trip are
(48:04):
even better. So this is, you know, rather than this
the sort of romantic Hollywood idea of showing up at
the airport and booking, you know, buying a ticket on
the spot. I actually think that most people should be
booking their trips way further in advance, because what you're
doing is giving yourself today much more joy of being
(48:25):
able to anticipate that trip, you know, four or five,
six months from now, because it's locked in when you
book the flight. That's the sort of underpinning that that
you know, a trip is happening, rather than just something
ephemeral or oh, maybe we'll go to Paris in the summer,
maybe we'll go to you know, Hawaii next year or something.
If you actually book the flight. It's happening, it's real.
(48:47):
So booking your flights further in advance something I strongly recommend.
The other one other thing is there is a this
one researcher looked at like, how do we actually joy
What are the memories of a trip that we find
a joy from? And what he found is that you
get them. What a trip boils down to in the
(49:10):
end are the feeling that you have at the peak
of your trip, like the peak emotion, and especially the
feeling that you have at the end of a trip.
So he calls it the peak end rule. And one
of the ways that he'll take advantage then that I've
tried to incorporate into my travels as well is to
always end on something on a high note and put
(49:32):
on the last you know, the last day, the last dinner,
some big event, some really fancy dinner. You know, if
you're gonna splurge, splurge on the last day, because that
will create a sort of memory and impression of the
entire trip that's much more lasting and exciting and continues
to pay dividends for years to come from that trip.
(49:54):
So those are some of the ways that I like
to structure my trips to make sure that I'm getting
I know, I try to have to too prescriptive about
it because it's still vacation. You still want to leave
some room for you know, serendipity, but to try to
make them as enjoyable as possible.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
I think that's that's smart. Yeah, there's a way to
structure it to where you're able to gain the most
enjoyment from that trip. Totally. Man, thank you so much
for taking the time to speak with us. Of course
we'll link to Going. Are there anything Is there anything
in particular that you want to highlight over there, like
any special features or so.
Speaker 3 (50:24):
The biggest thing is are the Going Travel app, where
we've largely transformed from an email based subscription historically to
an app right now on an app on iOS or Android,
and the benefits there again those push notifications, so when
a good deal pops up from your home airport, being
able to know about it instantly, when those mistake fares
(50:45):
pop up, being able to book it before it disappears,
and being able to set price alerts for those specific
trips you're looking at to make sure you know when
the price drops and help guide you on when and
when not to book those flights?
Speaker 1 (50:58):
Perfect awesome. We will link to all that. Scott, thanks
for speaking with us today.
Speaker 3 (51:04):
A pleasure as always, Thanks you to all.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
Right, Matt, gotta love good old Scott. Yeah, he's a
a fount of knowledge.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
Well, I gotta mention that him and a famil are
going to Supporo. So we always, like, we always end
up talking to folks and I so wanted to ask
him about Japan and uh, yeah, he's excited to get
back there with his family. I tried just in case
anybody else was wondering where he was going to go.
Speaker 2 (51:22):
I try to ask personal questions of the guests afterwards,
like we're talking about investing, how would you invest my money?
Like I don't ask something like that, But with Scott,
I did have to ask him a particular travel pleasure.
Speaker 4 (51:33):
For our family at least.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
Yeah, you just subjugate all of our listeners hearing your
so specific details. I want to go here on these dates, Scott.
Speaker 4 (51:41):
Yeah, No, I don't want to do.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
That, but of course, So we had a fantastic conversation
for sure, for everyone. I think there are takeaways for
all types of travelers out there. For you, did you
have a specific big takeaway from a conversation.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
I love that he said pull the trigger when the
price is right, yeah, And I think that's so smart.
I think it's with how quickly price shifts take place
in the travels base specifically. I mean it's happening in
more and more industries, kind of that dynamic pricing. But
when you see a price that seems pretty good, and
they're like on a site like Google Flights, they are
indicators right telling you, oh, this is like in the green,
(52:11):
or this is in the yello, or this is in
the red. If you see it in the green, like yeah,
there might be a lower price that comes along, but
I wouldn't think on that. And so go ahead and
get when they getting's good, don't necessarily. I think maybe
perfect can be the enemy good in this situation.
Speaker 4 (52:26):
So so true.
Speaker 2 (52:27):
Be ready to book when you see a good deal,
something like a mistake fair or an incredibly ridiculous cheap,
cheap fair. Matt even, I remember when you and I
were booking to go to Scotland and we waited just
a little bit of time, and I think the prices
rose by like forty fifty bucks a ticket, and we
were just like ah, so annoyed because if we had
just booked when we said we were going to, we
would have saved money.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
That's true, all right, I love it. My big techaway
is going to be a more philosophical one, which is
that by not prioritizing these top of the list bucket
list destinations, and this is what he said, it gives
you permission to test and take risks when it comes
to how it is that you travel. And I think
that that is just a great way to think about
traveling generally speaking.
Speaker 2 (53:06):
But Lithuania and Taiwan, we're not on my list and
now they are.
Speaker 1 (53:09):
Yeah, it makes me want to consider some of those
secondary cities that are not in countries as well that
I would not have otherwise ever considered the beer Joel
that you and I enjoyed it today was is it
just called Kolsh? Doesn't have a name on it. I
think it's just Kolsh by Altstad. This is a brewery
out of Texas, Texas Hill Country. This is born in Fredericksburg.
(53:31):
What do you think about this one? So born in Frederick, Fredericksburg, Texas,
immersed in German history, you know, of course this is
a German beer.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
What do they say on the side that they brew
this according to German purity laws, which is no more
than four ingredients.
Speaker 4 (53:43):
I liked it.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
I thought it was It was clean, crisp and smooth,
and I am normally down for something a little more
abrasive than this, but especially as the weather it gets hotter,
something clean and crisp, like that's what you need. It
moves up my value meter. I care more about those
metrics and a beer these days.
Speaker 1 (53:58):
So you're trying to stay hydrated, that's what we're gonna
recommend here on the podcast. Derehydrates you folks. But yeah,
this is a great one. Glad you and I got
to enjoy. You can find our show notes up on
the website at howtomoney dot com and Buddy, that's gonna
be it. So until next time, best friends Out, Best
Friends Out.
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
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