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Smart Travel: Upgrade Your Getaways
Secrets to Finding Cheap Flights and Avoiding Fees, Straight from Scott’s Cheap Flights
00:37:34
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- [00:00]
Sally French
Megan, I want to know from you, what is the wildest travel myth you've heard?
- [00:04]
Meagan Coyle
Oh, I love the people who swear the cheapest airfares come out on Tuesdays. It's not a Trader Joe's restock, people.
- [00:10]
Sally French
Yes, I totally hear things like that. I think we agree that there is no best day to book airfare as it really depends on so many factors.
- [00:17]
Meagan Coyle
Yeah, there's so many myths like that that just need to be busted.
- [00:20]
Sally French
I think I know the person who would be perfect to bust some flight bookie myths. Welcome to Smart Travel, a deep dive into the tips, tools and tactics to maximize your travel dollars.
- [00:34]
Meagan Coyle
I'm Meagan Coyle.
- [00:35]
Sally French
And I'm Sally French.
- [00:36]
Meagan Coyle
And we're the travel nerds ready to help you plan your next big trip.
- [00:39]
Sally French
And today is a special episode because we brought on another travel expert to help you find the deals.
- [00:44]
Meagan Coyle
Stay tuned for an interview with Scott Keys, the founder of Going, which is a flight deal service. But first, some news.
- [00:52]
Sally French
So our first topic is credit cards related. So here is our usual spiel. We'll talk about a few credit card companies that are nerd wallet partners in this episode, but that does not influence how we disp discuss them.
- [01:02]
Meagan Coyle
Chase just announced a slew of new benefits to the United Airlines co branded cards. The United Gateway card, which is the zero dollar annual fee card, now has two free checked bags each year. To be clear, you only get those after you spend $10,000 in a calendar year with your United Gateway card.
- [01:18]
Sally French
Yeah, so that might be unrealistic to actually hit that $10,000 spending threshold. Don't go out of your way to spend that money if it's something you wouldn't do otherwise. But at least this benefit is maybe better than a poke in the eye.
- [01:30]
Meagan Coyle
And some more bad news. The United Explorer going up in price. It will now have a zero dollar intro fee for the first year. Then $150. That's up from the previous annual fee which also had a zero dollar intro fee. And then $95 per year.
- [01:47]
Sally French
Sadly, I think $150 is the new $95. You know, I'm thinking about another card like the Delta Sky Miles Gold. That's the equivalent card in the Delta family of cards. It also has the same 0 intro annual fee for the first year and then it's $150 after that.
- [02:02]
Meagan Coyle
And you're kind of seeing the same thing with mid tier cards as well. The United Quest card is increasing its annual fee by $100 to $350 but it also added some perks, like a $200 United travel credit. This is instead of the previous one, $25 United flight credit. And this is annually. So each year you get that kind of discount on a United flight. There is also a new 10,000 mile award flight discount that's every year. And 1000 card bonus pqp each qualification year starting in 2026 pqps are what you need to earn elite status. Oh, and one fun one I'll add is up to $150 in credits on JSX purchases annually. JSX is a semi private flight service where you can fly in these small private jets that can usually hold up to 30 people.
- [02:53]
Sally French
And we're going to talk about JSX later, in fact.
- [02:56]
Meagan Coyle
Oh, and let's finish out these United card updates. I'll make it quick. The annual fee on the United Club card is also increasing from $525 to $695.
- [03:05]
Sally French
Oh, yikes, that's a lot.
- [03:06]
Meagan Coyle
Yeah, it's sad. The lounge membership fee is going up too. So it's slightly cheaper to pay the annual fee on the United Club card if you can get approved for it, even with this higher annual fee. But still, that's a lot of money to spend on a single airline card.
- [03:20]
Sally French
Okay, so did they at least add any other benefits to make up for it?
- [03:23]
Meagan Coyle
Yeah, there are a lot of new benefits, but some of them you have to earn, so they're not automatic. I will point out some of the ones that do seem worthwhile. Up to $150 in credits on rideshare purchases annually if you use Uber Lyft a lot. Up to $200 in credits on JSX purchases annually and 1500 card bonus pqp each qualification year starting in 2026. Now this is starting to sound exhausting with all of these different credits and you have to spend a certain amount to get them. Some are only given to you in certain increments. So it's a lot of work to start keeping track of all of these things. Of course, we would be here forever if we talked about every new benefit on these cards. So we'll put a link in our show notes to the Nerd Wallet article about all the changes to the United cards.
- [04:08]
Sally French
Okay, so speaking of airline rideshare benefits, if you are used to earning Delta miles from your Lyft rides, that will end on April 7th. So the two companies were partners, but Delta has broken up with Lyft.
- [04:19]
Meagan Coyle
In fact, they replaced Lyft with Uber.
- [04:22]
Sally French
A breakup where they already have their next partner lined up.
- [04:25]
Meagan Coyle
Once the Delta and Uber partnership officially kicks off, SkyMiles members will be able to earn miles for eligible rides and deliveries across the US once they link their Uber and SkyMiles accounts. You can earn 1 mile per dollar spent on UberX rides to and from airports, and 1 mile per dollar spent on restaurant and grocery orders of $40 or more via Uber Eats, which is the company's food delivery arm.
- [04:47]
Sally French
Of course, fancy rides earn more, so you can earn 2 miles per dollar spent on U or Uber Black. You'll also earn 3 miles per dollar spent via Uber Reserve, which is basically a scheduled ride service. This allows you to request trips in advance.
- [05:00]
Meagan Coyle
Moving right along, Booking partner airlines with Air Canada points may cost you more now the Air Canada aeroplan loyalty program just switched to dynamic pricing yesterday for a few of their airline partners. Previously they had this nice little award chart. You remember that? And it made it so predictable to know how many points you would need for an award flight.
- [05:19]
Sally French
That's such a bummer. The prices were good too. So I guess now you'll see dynamic PRIC pricing for United Emirates, Etihad, a few other smaller airline partners when you book flights on those carriers with Air Canada aeroplan points.
- [05:31]
Meagan Coyle
Womp, womp. I feel like we should have a sound effect for devaluations.
- [05:35]
Sally French
Make it happen. Playing the points and miles game does feel like being on a game show sometimes.
- [05:40]
Meagan Coyle
Now let's go back to jsx, that semi private jet service we mentioned earlier. Why don't we tell people a little more about what it is?
- [05:46]
Sally French
So with jsx, instead of going through a regular airport and its standard security, you'll board in a private hangar. Plus, JSX has partnerships with both JetBlue and United, so you can earn frequent flyer miles for either of those programs when you fly jsx.
- [06:00]
Meagan Coyle
That sounds so awesome. Like this private jet experience walking out on the tarmac. But how much is it?
- [06:06]
Sally French
Yeah, so it's definitely more expensive than your standard airline, but much cheaper than a true private jet. So if you're looking at something like a flight from LAX to, let's say, Las Vegas. Obviously airfares fluctuate, but you can find a flight on JSX for something like 250, $300. Now you can probably find a flight on that same route on a standard carrier, sometimes for less than $1. But that's so much less than probably the thousands you would pay for a private jet that it can be at least worth the experience for some people.
- [06:35]
Meagan Coyle
And with some of those credits on the United cards, like the $150 credit, I mean, that $250 credit became a $100 flight to Vegas one way, which isn't too terrible.
- [06:45]
Sally French
So let's go to the new JSX updates and that is that JSX has just unveiled a new list of destinations that will begin offering service in May or June. Those include Santa Fe, New Mexico, Destin, Florida and Monterey. Californ will go between existing cities that JSX already serves. I'm talking about locations like Dallas and Las Vegas.
- [07:04]
Meagan Coyle
Should we go to the Monterey Aquarium?
- [07:06]
Sally French
Sally? Oh, yes. Field trip.
- [07:09]
Meagan Coyle
Sally, I've been so excited ever since you told me you landed this guest because I've been following him for a long time.
- [07:15]
Sally French
Yes. Our guest today is Scott Keys, the founder of the Flight Deals Alert service. Going.
- [07:20]
Meagan Coyle
I've been on Scott's email list for years. Back when it was called Scott's Cheap Flight Same. I think the best deal I got was that $317 round trip flight from California to Beijing. Oh my gosh, it was so cheap. It was crazy. And even more recently, I booked a deal to Edinburgh, Scotland and it was $500 roundtrip from Washington D.C. and the dates were perfect because it lined up with my childhood friend's wedding in Scotland. And Scotland's not the most common destination. Like most people fly to London and then either take another short flight or a train. But I'm always really impressed with the variety of destinations that and his team are able to find deals for really cool spots.
- [07:59]
Sally French
I flew to Croatia because I found a deal through him. I booked a flight to Hong Kong from San Francisco that was about 500 per person. Often I think these flights to foreign countries are cheaper than what I pay to go see my parents in Missouri.
- [08:10]
Meagan Coyle
And that's the reason Scott started the company in the first place, because he found a killer flight deal back in 2013. I think it was between New York and Milan.
- [08:18]
Sally French
Yes. And it cost him $130. Now granted, that was 2013. Inflation has happened since then. It might be more difficult to find that exact price now, but still amazing.
- [08:28]
Meagan Coyle
So after that trip, he built this company dedicated to sharing fare alerts. And some of them are just really good deals like sales or something. And some are mistake fares like when airline accidentally forgets to add a digit. And the 1500 dollars airfare might be listed for 500.
- [08:42]
Sally French
So they have a freemium model where you can get some fare alerts for free if you Join their premium service, which starts at $49 per year. You can get more custom alerts and even more deals. I did find my Hong Kong flight using the free version, so I think the free version is honestly Good enough.
- [08:56]
Meagan Coyle
Today going has a staff of about 50 people and has served an estimated 2 million travelers. And over that time, Scott has amassed tons of great insights on how they find these deals and how you can find amazing airfare deals, too. All right, without further ado, Sally, take it away to your interview with Scott.
- [09:11]
Sally French
All right, well, Scott Keys, welcome to Smart Travel. Thanks for being here.
- [09:15]
Scott Keys
Thanks so much for having me.
- [09:16]
Sally French
Okay, well, I'm excited to have you as a guest on our show. I hear so many people talk about flight myths, and one of them is just about when to book, when to fly. In your opinion, is there a golden rule for when to book flights, or is it all a myth anyway?
- [09:31]
Scott Keys
Yeah, look, I think the fact that there are so many different rules about when you're supposed to should kind of be the tip off that it's a little bit of a myth. Like you've heard. Tuesday at 1pm, Saturday at midnight, exactly 63 days before. These are all recommendations that I've heard, and they're all wrong. I think this is why that they're wrong. You can go back and calculate last year's airfares and find the exact cheapest day for flights. Just in the same way you can go back and calculate the stock market and find the single best day for stock performance. That just doesn't tell you anything about what the single best day for stock performance this year is going to be. You know, look, Maybe it was March 7th last year, but if you bought stocks on March 7th this year, you might find yourself losing a lot of money. So that's why I think it's the wrong way to approach it. Instead, the best way to do it, the way that we recommend, is something called the Goldilocks window. Not too early, not too late, just right in the middle. And so if you're traveling, for instance, domestically during off peak travel dates, about one to three months in advance, that's when you have the best odds of a cheap flight popping up. If you're going during a peak travel period, summer, Christmas, New Year, something like that, three to six months in advance for those domestic flights, but international, more like 2 to 8 months off peak, 4 to 10 months during peak travel period, that's the best way to get the timing of your booking right.
- [10:59]
Sally French
What is the number one mistake people make when they're Looking for airfare.
- [11:04]
Scott Keys
Yeah, look, I think that most people say they want cheap flights and then the way they go about trying to find cheap flights is the exact opposite. Right. Approach. Here's what I mean. We all say, oh, I really want to get cheap flights. Airfare is so expensive. And then we do a three step process when we search for flights. Step one, we decide where we want to go. Step two, we decide when we want to go there. And step three, we look, well, what are the prices, cost, what are the flights at? Does that sound about right, Sally? Does that sound like what the way that you might search for flights.
- [11:37]
Sally French
That's how definitely most normal people go. I think you and I are a little different.
- [11:41]
Scott Keys
That's true, that's true. But look, by setting price as the last priority, it's not terribly surprising we end up with some pretty expensive flights. And so what I tell folks is like, look, if cheap flights are a priority, make them the priority. Take that same three step process and reverse your search. Step one, where are their cheap flights available right now? Out of my home airport, knowing that that changes every day. Step two, of those places that are available cheap right now, which one interests me the most? Where would I like to go? And step three, what dates do they have those cheap flights available that work for my schedule? So by setting price as the top priority rather than the last priority, that's how you end up being able to get cheap flights and take three or four vacations for the same price you used to pay for one.
- [12:28]
Sally French
Yeah, and it definitely sounds like being open minded to location is the way to go. And, you know, that's how I found some of my most exciting locations. I went to Croatia randomly just because there was a cheap flight. And I would have not gone to Croatia otherwise.
- [12:40]
Scott Keys
Totally. You know, it's funny you mentioned that exact destination. I remember, you know, interviewing a couple for a book I wrote a few years back and they had the exact same experience where a mistake fare from Columbus, Ohio to Zagreb, Croatia.
- [12:55]
Sally French
That's where I went to.
- [12:56]
Scott Keys
Oh my goodness. Yeah, it was under 350 bucks round trip.
- [12:59]
Sally French
Maybe we found the same flight.
- [13:01]
Scott Keys
They might have been. They had never thought of going to Zagreb, but they were like, for that price, you know, look, we'd fly that same amount to fly down to Florida or to go over to Texas. Let's go to Croatia. Let's be serendipitous. And they ended up having the trip of a lifetime. So I think leaving yourself open to serendipity is a great way not only to be able to get cheap flights, but to take much more interesting, unexpected vacations than you might otherwise.
- [13:25]
Sally French
Yeah, I agree. It was totally interesting and totally not a place I would have gone to otherwise. So I do want to ask you about budget airlines. What is your take? Do these things actually save you money? I'm talking about Spirit, Frontier, or do all the hidden fees cancel out the savings?
- [13:39]
Scott Keys
So it depends. Obviously, if you're only traveling with a backpack, it's definitely going to save you money because, you know, I've looked at flights from my home airport in Portland down to Las Vegas, and the spirit flight costs $25 each way. The next closest Alaska flight costs 130 bucks. So, you know, an extra over $100. But you mentioned once you start taking into account some of the fees, some.
- [14:03]
Sally French
Of those bag fees, it can easily.
- [14:05]
Scott Keys
Get more expensive for the budget airline. So obviously you want to be very cognizant of the fees. I'm not telling folks anything that they don't know, but the thing that I think they might overlook, and I'm going to give you one good reason to fly a budget airline and one reason to avoid.
- [14:19]
Sally French
Okay, hit me.
- [14:20]
Scott Keys
So the good reason for budget airlines is especially to leisure destinations like Vegas and Orlando. They actually have the most nonstop flights. So for many folks, if you're flying from Minneapolis, you're flying from, I don't know, Des Moines, Iowa, or San Antonio or something like that, you actually might be able to get a nonstop flight to Las Vegas or Orlando on a budget airline. But if you were flying a full service airline, you might have to connect in Dallas or Chicago or something like that. So it'd be a quicker flight in many instances on the budget airline. The reason to avoid them that most folks don't necessarily think about is that budget airlines have far fewer flights on the schedule. And so if you've got a flight to Vegas on Spirit and that flight gets canceled, it might be a while until there's the next available Spirit flight to your destination. They don't have partnerships. They don't have what are called interline agreements with other airlines to put you on a different carrier. So you could actually be waiting days to get a replacement flight. That's something that usually doesn't happen if you're on Delta or United.
- [15:26]
Sally French
It's so funny that you say Vegas. I had a friend flying on Frontier to Vegas and her flight got canceled and they said, oh, no worries, we'll put you on the next flight two days later.
- [15:36]
Scott Keys
Exactly. The downside risk with budget airlines can be a lot worse than the downside risk with full service airlines.
- [15:43]
Sally French
Yeah, but you know, if you can avoid that layover. I always try to avoid layovers if possible. And as you mentioned, sometimes with budget airlines to those big destinations, it is better.
- [15:51]
Scott Keys
Absolutely. Look, I'll gladly fly Spirit to Las Vegas if it means nonstop versus a connecting flight on a full service airline.
- [15:59]
Sally French
And I'm a no bag person anyway, so I don't worry about the bag fees. Okay, so we want to dig a little more into airfare pricing because it feels like there is a science behind it. And for the nerd like us who understand the science, finding great airfare deals is possible. We will get that in a moment. Stay with us. So Scott, you look at airfare prices every day and it seems like airfare pricing is really unpredictable. How do you find these best deals when prices are always changing?
- [16:34]
Scott Keys
So the funny thing about searching for good airfare for those really cheap flights is that you don't really have much advance warning. There's not, you know, a weather report, a 10 day advance notice of what airfare is to come. You just kind of got to be there watching all the time and make sure when those deals do pop up that you find them as quickly as possible and let members know. Because there's a rule in airfare, the better the deal, the shorter it tends to last. And so, you know, I often hear, oh Scott, well why do we even need going? You know, I can search on Google flights, I can find these deals myself. And I say absolutely. Look, if you we spend 16, 18 hours a day searching for airfare to make sure that we never miss those great deals, you can certainly do that. Not everybody I've come to find is similar in that love for airfare hunting. And so that's the service we try to provide for folks.
- [17:28]
Sally French
So I know there is something about a 24 hour cancellation rule. Can you talk about that and how listeners can maximize that?
- [17:35]
Scott Keys
I will talk about it in a moment. But can I lead in with my. My biggest cheap flight regret of my life?
- [17:41]
Sally French
Oh my gosh. Tell us.
- [17:43]
Scott Keys
So this was back in, gosh, I don't know, 2015, about a decade ago. And I was up late searching airfare as one does, and I stumbled across a deal over to India for $212 roundtrip. I remember the exact fare. You know, my heart skipped a beat. I was sweaty palms, so excited. And rather than taking my own advice of just booking it right away and then figure out the details later, I decided why don't I Figure out an itinerary. I've never been to India. Let me figure out a bit, you know, when I want to go, what's a good amount of time to spend there. Let me find a bunch of friends who would want to go. So I spent the next couple hours scouting all that out and then when I went to actually book the flight, I missed it by 30 seconds.
- [18:24]
Sally French
Right?
- [18:24]
Scott Keys
It had just disappeared. And so the advice that you're supposed to do that I didn't take myself, but now would never make this mistake again, is knowing about the 24 hour rule. There is a federal regulation that says from the moment you hit purchase on airfare, you have a 24 hour window during which you can cancel that purchase and get your cash back. No questions asked, no requirements, just period. You get your money back. And what that does is essentially a free price freeze.
- [18:58]
Sally French
Right?
- [18:59]
Scott Keys
Hit purchase on that flight, you've got it locked in for 24 hours, during which you can decide do I want to keep this flight or do I want to cancel. And so what I should have done with that India flight was, you know, book maybe one flight in, let's say for two weeks in April, book one flight for two weeks in May, book one flight for two weeks in June.
- [19:19]
Sally French
You're a maniac.
- [19:21]
Scott Keys
Yeah, totally. But then spend the next 24 hours deciding which one of those I want to keep and then just go ahead and cancel the other two. Assuming I don't want to take three India flights in three months.
- [19:31]
Sally French
And that's, that's a long trip to do three.
- [19:33]
Scott Keys
Totally. But when there's a mistake, fair something that feels like once in a lifetime, that's what you want to make sure you get it locked in. And ideally, give yourself some options and then figure out after the fact which one to keep and which one to give back.
- [19:47]
Sally French
You just got to remember to cancel within 24 hours. If you 20, 25 hours is no very important. Do you think mistake fares are still alive and well? What is the status of them these days?
- [19:59]
Scott Keys
They are. We've found three of them here going so far in 2025, $87 Brazil deal their flights over to Madrid for $603 round trip. In premium economy, that usually costs well over fifteen hundred dollars. Closer to do still pop up. My favorite one from last year was flights to Dublin for $114 round trip.
- [20:22]
Sally French
Amazing.
- [20:22]
Scott Keys
But the bad news is mistake fairs don't pop up quite as often as they did when I first started my professional cheap flight finding career. So back then, this all started When I got a mistake fair myself, nonstop from New York City to Milan for 130 bucks round trip. And I remember back then, you know, it felt like every week or two there was a different mistake fare. And so airlines have gotten better at catching them, but they're not perfect. And once every couple of months or so, we find one of these mistake fares. The rest of the deals we find are still very, very good, but they're not quite the, you know, 90, 95% off deals that you might find with the mistake fair.
- [21:07]
Sally French
So so far we've been talking a lot about cash mistake fares or just cash deals in general. I know going recently it launched Going with points. Talk about how people can find great deals using their points. Points.
- [21:18]
Meagan Coyle
Yeah.
- [21:18]
Scott Keys
The thing that I love about points is that they're a great complement to cash deals. We talked about the Goldilocks windows, when cheap flights are most likely to pop up, and it's basically right in the middle. The great thing about points is it's the opposite. You're going to find the best deals, especially if you're trying to fly in, you know, the front of the plane. Premium economy, business class, first class. Those deals are most likely to pop up right at the beginning of the schedule, about 11 months before travel and right at the end in the last few weeks or last month before travel. And so that's why having the stash of points can be really, really helpful in any deal that you're hoping to get, because if you're in that mushy middle, maybe paying with cash is where you're most likely to see a good deal. But let's say you found out, oh, my gosh, I've got next weekend off. Where can I go? Well, the cash fares might be pretty expensive, but paying with points, you might actually be able to get a pretty good deal. So they complement each other really nicely.
- [22:19]
Sally French
And do you see stake points deals?
- [22:22]
Scott Keys
Absolutely. You know, we found one, it was in 2024 over to Finland in business class for 19,000 points round trip. That's the equivalent of about $190 for the standard $0.01 per point cash out. And so that flight would normally, if you're paying with cash, cost 3,000, $3,500 to get it for the points equivalent of $190. That would have been the deal of a lifetime for me. I've got a couple of young kids. I couldn't jump on it myself. I would have loved to, but if you don't have the Fin Air points or the, you know, amex points to transfer, you can't take advantage of that mistake fare on points.
- [23:00]
Sally French
Yeah, and sometimes that can be tricky because even, especially with a lot of airlines, it takes a long time to transfer points. So as soon as you see that deal, then the deal's already gone by the time you've made the transfer. It can be tricky.
- [23:11]
Scott Keys
100%. You know, you've heard the, the advice in the financial world of diversifying your portfolio. It's the exact same thing with points and miles. Having a diversified pool of points and miles and especially transferable bank points, that's essentially built in diversity. Think of it as the index funds of the points world where those Amex points and Chase points can transfer to a bunch of different airlines. Hopefully you'll be able to do it quickly. You know, you can do a quick Google search and see if it's an instant transfer or if it takes some time to be able to jump on it next time there's a mistake there.
- [23:44]
Sally French
Are there any points programs that you lean towards because they, they are the best Quote index fund.
- [23:50]
Scott Keys
Oh goodness. I mean, look, I always like focusing mostly on the bank points because that transferability, the fact that you can take an Amex point and transfer it to dozens of different airlines you can transfer to and what the benefit is there is there might be a good, you know, the number of points it costs on Delta might be a hundred thousand points for this flight to Paris, but on Air France flying Blue miles, it might only be 30,000.
- [24:16]
Sally French
Yeah.
- [24:17]
Scott Keys
And so if you've got a bunch of Delta miles, you're out of luck. You can't really take advantage of of it. But if you have a bunch of Amex points, you just transfer them over to flying Blue to Air France and then you can do it just 30,000 points rather than the hundred thousand it might have cost on Delta.
- [24:33]
Sally French
So last question on nerding out over low airfare prices. I see a lot of the nerds out there swear by using VPN's Incognito mode to book their flights. Is this actually a useful trick? What have you found about using this short answer?
- [24:47]
Scott Keys
No.
- [24:47]
Sally French
Okay.
- [24:47]
Scott Keys
I've come to terms with the fact that I am going to be be arguing this until I die. It will be on my tombstone. Scott, he didn't believe that airfare was impacted by cookies, but this is true. We searched for air for tens, hundreds of thousands, millions of airfare every single day. If somebody was going to see prices impacted by repeated searches, it would be us. And we don't. And the fact is that airfare is the most volatile thing that we purchase. That is true.
- [25:19]
Sally French
It's not egg prices.
- [25:20]
Scott Keys
They're just high and stay high. Okay, TR apparently sometimes roller coasters. But the mistake that people make is this sort of Truman show belief that the airlines are watching you and when you search for something, they want to jack up the price to get more money from you. But the weird thing is it actually has the logic backwards in most forms of E commerce. You know when you're on, I don't know, Levi's.com and you're searching for some jeans and you click on one but then you don't actually buy it. Levi's, they're not going to jack up the price next time you look for. What they're going to do is they're going to hit you with a discount code. They're going to email you a coupon, say, hey, we saw you're interested. Would you like a 10% off promo code? And that's the way that companies tend to approach it. They actually discount ones that you've looked at, not jack up the price. So the good news, it doesn't make a difference if you don't believe me. If you really steadfast in your belief, go ahead and search in incognito, clear your cookies. It's not going to make a difference either way.
- [26:18]
Sally French
Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, especially for you. You search so many cheap flights, you would think that you would be presented the highest prices.
- [26:24]
Scott Keys
Totally. I mean, I did this on video once. I searched for the same flight a hundred times in a row. On it was a long video. And on flight search 100, just like flight search number one, the exact same. It was Denver to London for 442 bucks round trip. Didn't change a penny.
- [26:40]
Sally French
Okay, cool. Okay, so I want to ask you some personal questions.
- [26:43]
Scott Keys
Yes.
- [26:43]
Sally French
First off, I know that going formally Scott's cheap flight started when you found $130 flight between New York and Milan, which is amazing. But I want to know what is the best flight deal you've ever booked if it wasn't that one.
- [26:56]
Scott Keys
Oh, goodness. It probably that one's certainly the most memorable for me. But I also had one once over to Japan for $169 round trip.
- [27:05]
Sally French
Wow. Amazing.
- [27:06]
Scott Keys
That one was unreal. The only reason I don't think of that one rather than $130 Milan flight is the $130 Milan flight ended up causing this sort of butterfly effect that resulted in me being here today as a Professional cheap flight find. The Japan one was just a fun.
- [27:22]
Sally French
Vacation over to Japan, and was that from Portland?
- [27:25]
Scott Keys
So that one was actually kind of odd. The logistics of it was from San Jose, but it was actually over to Taiwan. And so the way I did it was you had to fly from Taiwan over to San Jose and then back. And so you ended up having to do what's called hidden city ticketing, where you didn't take the last leg of a flight. It was a little bit complicated to. But suffice to say, for $169, I'm willing to take a little bit extra hassle in order to make that trip happen.
- [27:54]
Sally French
And also, I want to know about risk. Do you think not taking the last leg puts you on a sketchy list anywhere?
- [27:59]
Scott Keys
I think if you do it sparingly, you're fine. I've heard of almost nobody getting in trouble that way.
- [28:05]
Sally French
Amazing. You guys heard it from Scott.
- [28:08]
Scott Keys
There you go.
- [28:08]
Sally French
We've talked a lot about cheap flights, but I do want to know what's your biggest travel splurge?
- [28:13]
Scott Keys
Oh, goodness. So my best advice on splurging for travel is not necessarily one specific thing, but it's the timing of your splurge. I always like to splurge on the very last day of a trip. Something expensive, something indulgent, a big tour, safari, great restaurant, meal, whatever it is. And here's why. When scientists and researchers have looked about how people tend to enjoy their vacations, they found something called the peak peak end rule, which means that your vacation ends up boiling down in your memories to how much you enjoyed it at the peak of your experience and how much you enjoyed it at the end of your experience. And so having a great activity or whatever it is planned for that last day really helps shape your memories of that trip and makes it a much more. Gives you almost your future self a lot more joy. That's nice in those memories. So whatever it is is that you might be doing, you know, skiing in the Alps or whatever, I always like to make sure I'm targeting it for that last day of the trip because it's going to end up giving you more joy for basically for the rest of your life.
- [29:23]
Sally French
I like that. Okay, well, my last question for you. If you personally could make one change to the airline industry, what would it be?
- [29:30]
Scott Keys
I think the thing that I would love to see is the ability to resell your ticket after you purchase it.
- [29:37]
Sally French
Wait, that's a great one.
- [29:38]
Scott Keys
Yeah. We all kind of of forget that this is very standard practice when it comes to other tickets, right?
- [29:44]
Sally French
Yeah. Taylor Swift concert. All about that. Yeah.
- [29:47]
Scott Keys
You buy tickets to, you know that your. Your local NBA team, your local NFL team, whatever it is, and you decide you don't want to go, you can resell them. There are tons of reselling things, but with flights with airfare, for some reason, we can't do that. I would love for that to be the case because it gives people a lot more flexibility to be able to change their plans after they book.
- [30:08]
Sally French
Huh. Why can't we do that right now? That's such a good point.
- [30:11]
Scott Keys
The short answer is that the airline's pricing model is predicated on you not being able to resell. What they say is, well, we would have to charge more if we didn't know that people would be taking those flights. But the thing is, they also said this about change fees in general. They said, look, if. If you're able to change your plans without paying a hefty fee, then we're going to have to charge more. And then Covid happened in late 2020, airlines across the board got rid of change fees that no longer cost money to be able to change your plans. If you cancel, you get full amount of travel credit for a future flight. And airfare's been fine. It's basically about even with where it was pre pandemic, if you adjust for overall inflation, it's way cheaper than it was in February 2020. So I don't know. I think airlines could deal fine with people reselling their tickets.
- [31:03]
Sally French
Yeah. You know, I'm very fascinated by this idea.
- [31:05]
Scott Keys
Totally. Airlines are a little afraid of change. You know, it's something of a little c. Conservative industry. And it's why you don't see huge changes in airline technology or the traveler experience or this and that. So I'm not holding my breath that this is going to happen anytime soon.
- [31:20]
Sally French
No, no.
- [31:20]
Scott Keys
But make me king of the airline industry for a day. That's the first thing I'm doing.
- [31:24]
Sally French
Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today. I hope you have an amazing time in Japan. It's been fun talking to you.
- [31:30]
Scott Keys
Thank you so much. It was great chatting with you, Sally.
- [31:33]
Meagan Coyle
Sally, that was awesome. Lots of great advice in there that you wouldn't necessarily expect.
- [31:37]
Sally French
You know, I was so shocked when he said that he does skip lagging, because I know it's so frowned upon. And he was like, it's okay if you do it. Do it in moderation. I love that.
- [31:46]
Meagan Coyle
Everything in moderation.
- [31:49]
Sally French
Okay. So, Megan, I want to know from you, we heard from Scott. But what are your hot takes related to airfare?
- [31:55]
Meagan Coyle
Mine is don't sleep on stopovers. I think when we think about airfare, we often think about it as just a round trip to one destination and we want to get the lowest price for that. That. But if you have time, you should think about booking a multi city itinerary because sometimes it won't cost any extra and it's like you got two destinations for the price of one.
- [32:13]
Sally French
Yeah, this is basically the hyperdrive version of my long layovers hack. So a stopover is basically when you stop in a city on route to your destination and instead of just doing a layover at the airport, you spend at least a night, sometimes multiple nights in that city. I love this hack, Megan, because you're getting two trips for the price of.
- [32:29]
Meagan Coyle
One flight and some airlines or countries actually help you do this. Like I'm thinking Icelandair, which lets you stay in Iceland for up to seven days before you continue your journey and fly somewhere else, usually in Europe. Turkish Airlines has another great option where they'll even put you up in a hotel for free for two or three nights depending on if you flew economy or business class when you stay in Istanbul.
- [32:49]
Sally French
We should mention that some airline loyalty programs allow free stopovers for points bookings too. I'm thinking of United Airlines. They have something called the excursionist perk. This gives you a free one way award within select multi city trips between at least two award regions.
- [33:04]
Meagan Coyle
So let's translate that for people. Let's say you want to go to both London and Paris on your European vacation. So you might fly from Chicago to London and then from London you'd fly to Paris and then Paris back to Chicago. So with the excursionist perk, the first leg, the one to London, London and the last leg, the one from Paris to Chicago, those would be award redemption. So you would spend as many miles as those flights cost. But the middle segment in between Paris and London actually won't cost any miles. It's zero miles. It's free.
- [33:38]
Sally French
Amazing. So this example is Europe, but this also works for flights within other regions like Southeast Asia, South America, all without using extra miles.
- [33:46]
Meagan Coyle
Yeah, we've got some info on the Excursionist perk on the Nerd Wallet website that we will link to in the show show notes. Hope you all can take advantage and add another country or destination to an upcoming trip.
- [33:56]
Sally French
Yes indeed. So we do want to hear from you all. Tell us your best airfare deals you've ever found, any tricks you have for finding them. Email us@travelerdwallet.com you can even leave us a voice memo, which is cool because I am inclined to play your voice back on the show.
- [34:10]
Meagan Coyle
And besides giving us your feedback, come back for more by following the show on your favorite podcast app, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and iHeartRadio Radio.
- [34:18]
Sally French
That way you can automatically download next week's episode and all future episodes to come.
- [34:22]
Meagan Coyle
This episode was produced by Hilary Georgi and Tess Vaglen. Claire Socie helped with fact checking, and a big thank you to NerdWallet's editors for all their help.
- [34:30]
Sally French
And here's our brief disclaimer. We are not financial or investment advisors. This info is provided for general educational and entertainment purposes and may not apply to your specific circumstances.
- [34:40]
Meagan Coyle
Thanks for listening. We hope you're inspired to keep your passport full and your wallet it even fuller. See you next episode.