Scott’s Cheap Flights: You Could Save $550 on Airfare

Who doesn’t love a great flight deal?

Scott’s Cheap Flights is a free service that finds cheap domestic and international airfare and shares these fares with their subscribers. The value it provides is phenomenal! On average, subscribers save up to $550/ticket for flights abroad. If you’re a frequent traveler, that savings can add up big time. I stumbled upon this service early in my uber-crazy travel days, and use it faithfully.

What is Scott’s Cheap Flights?

Background: Scott Keyes is the founder. He loves researching flights, and each time he found a great deal on a flight, he’d share the news with friends. He was often asked how he did it and if he could teach them how to do it. He eventually created a distribution list, and started sending email information about deals he had found. And that’s how Scott’s Cheap Flights launched in 2015.

Fast forward to 2020: Keyes’ company has more than 2 million subscribers. People sign up for a free or premium membership and in return get emails alerting them to deeply discounted prices on flights from the airports they select, to both domestic and international destinations.

Scott’s Cheap Flights don’t make commissions on what they recommend; it’s the paid memberships that fund them, although you do not have to pay to get great deals. Scott’s provides links to other websites, and that’s where you find and purchase your tickets.

How do we use Scott’s Cheap Flights?

When you go to the website, you can sign up for a free membership. You select the airports you want to receive alerts about so you can begin receiving emails with deals.

The website itself has a FAQ section and an extensive library of articles and resources for making smart travel decisions. You can look at the recent deals, get some general information about current deals, and link directly to Google Flights with search criteria already filled in. But! – the website itself isn’t what’s most valuable about Scott’s Cheap Flights – it’s the email deals you’ll receive where the real value lies.

Once you create an account and designate your airports, Scott’s Cheap Flights starts looking for flights that could be good deals. This data is reviewed by real people for what consists of a “good deal”, including how the price compares to regularly offered prices for that flight, the convenience of the flight, how much time you’ll spend traveling, travel dates, airline experience, etc.

Is Scott’s Cheap Flights free?

How to sign up for Scott’s Cheap Flights:

Signing up for Scott’s Cheap Flights is easy. Start by visiting the Scott’s Cheap Flights website. Click on the “Sign Up” button in the top right corner of the screen. When you sign up using your email, you’ll be sent a link to verify your account.

Next, you’ll be asked to choose your home airport. If you live close to an airport that doesn’t usually get a high number of deals, as I do, the software will suggest additional airports to add and create a list that the software will regularly search. That’s the case for me; the Albuquerque Sunport has limited traffic, and is not a hub for any airline, so Scott’s also sends me deals from the additional airports shown below. As you can see, you can also add other airports of interest. For example, I often visit my sister on the East Coast before or after an overseas trip, so I can list airports near her, as well.

You’ll be asked to choose a membership plan after you select your home airport. It will continually nudge you toward the premium membership, even if you choose the basic one. There is a comparison list to consider, which shows what you get with each option. You can see from the image below that the free option is pretty basic (but still valuable!). Because the premium membership is only $49 and you get a 14-day free trial, it may well be worth the investment for the deals you get in return. Personally, if you’re new to Scott’s, I’d try the free trial and see what you think about it; you can decide after seeing a bunch of deals.

You’ll finish out your registration with a message from Scott himself, and the option to check out deals that were recently available. Then you just wait for the deals to hit your inbox!

How to get the most out of Scott’s Cheap Flights

• You must act fast when you get an email from Scott’s with a great price. The offers may be very short-lived. Once you see an offer, immediately investigate whether it’s a good buy for you.
• Even better, see if there is a way to book your flight with points to reduce your out-of-pocket costs.
• Being flexible with travel dates and destinations will lead you to the best prices. The days you fly can impact fares, and you may well find that flying into a city that’s close to your main destination can result in significant savings. [For example, when I was planning my trip to Croatia, I couldn’t find a direct flight to Zagreb, so I looked at prices for flying from the US to London, Paris, and Amsterdam, and then on to Zagreb. Tickets to London were hundreds of dollars more expensive than flying to Amsterdam. I took advantage of flying into Amsterdam by tacking on a few days to my “layover” to explore a city I’d never visited before.]
• Finally, make sure you’re subscribed to get ongoing communications from Scott’s Cheap Flights. This will keep you up to date on promotions, educational information, contests, and more.

The bottom line on Scott’s Cheap Flights

Scott’s Cheap Flights is a great tool to check out for free if you’re planning to travel or just interested in seeing what kind of airfare deals are out there. Sometimes a great deal can lead you to places you never thought you’d go. [This is how I came to visit the Indian Ocean in Mombasa – one of my favorite spots in the world, that I’d never even heard of or considered! – for $200 round trip. I found this with the free membership.]

If you go for the premium membership, it costs less than $5 a month to get all the premium information. Think about it – if you’re someone who loves a good deal, especially when it comes to travel, that is money very well spent.

We may receive compensation from the products and services mentioned in this story, but the opinions are the author’s own.

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Have you used Scott’s Cheap Flights? I’d enjoy hearing about the deals you got…