There are already websites, like Going, for getting flight deals. As a solo traveler who doesn’t have to coordinate with anyone and can pack light, I can jump on the deals when they come up and save a lot more than what a regular price group rate probably is. Looking at my upcoming trip, I got it for 50% off the current pricing, for solo or a couple.
Coordination with others also makes booking take longer and tends to fix dates and locations, which makes it hard to grab a deal when they come up.
You have to invert the order of how most people plan travel.
Typically people plan in this order:
1. Where to go
2. When to go
3. Check airfare
Flip it on its head:
1. Keep an eye out for cheap flights from your home airport
2. Pick one of those destinations
3. Choose when to go
Not exactly inverted, but the flight goes from last to first.
I had Ireland in my head for my next trip, but then Italy showed up last week. That sounded pretty good, so I checked the dates and found a flight that fit in my schedule, and booked it.
It’s not great for getting a flight around a conference, wedding, or some other event you are planning around. But when you know you want to take a vacation to somewhere and sometime this year, it can cut flight costs in half.
A single flight ends up paying for the cost of the subscription 10x over, and then some.
Also, it could be somewhere near where you want to go. I had tickets to Croatia about 5 years ago, but hand to cancel due to the pandemic. I didn’t know anything about Croatia when I booked, but I figured the worst case scenario was I catch a quick ferry or flight over to Italy once I’m there. Once you’re over there it’s cheap to go one country over. That flight to Croatia was $289, that cheaper than a flight to Nashville for me, which is only about an 8 hour drive.
I did the same thing when I booked a flight to Sweden. I didn’t know if I’d like it there, so from there I booked a connection to Copenhagen for next to nothing. I spent a week in Copenhagen, but then ultimately did go back to Sweden for week, which I ended up loving. I’m glad I didn’t spend the whole trip in Copenhagen.
Another deal I got that stood out was to Tokyo. I think I paid around $550 give or take. A coworker of mine has family there and goes on a regular basis, he was floored by that price. He always pays over $1k, and usually closer to $1,500.
Ultimately it’s just an alert service for flights that are abnormally low. If you have a specific destination in mind, Google Flights is pretty good at showing when the cheapest time to travel is, giving a booking date of today. Of course it fluctuates over time, which is where the alerts come in.
It’s saved me thousands. Though I probably would have only taken about 20% of the trips I have without it.
Thanks yeah that was my strategy I'm flexible with travels, I remember setting Paris and Lisbon after to see what flights I could have. Maybe it was focused on USA. Maybe their emails was getting my SPAM folder, IDK what happened but I never found what I was looking for.
I got my own flight tickets by looking on my own though.
Coordination with others also makes booking take longer and tends to fix dates and locations, which makes it hard to grab a deal when they come up.