Learn how to save hundreds on your next flight by reading my in-depth Scott’s Cheap Flights review.
Being flexible is the key to finding the best deals. Typically, you’ll pick the country you want to travel to and then book the flight. And I’ll admit, this used to be me too. But not anymore!
A few years ago, someone showed me an outrageous flight deal. When I asked how they found it, they mentioned Scott’s Cheap Flights (now Going).
I still didn’t believe them. I had to do my research. When I signed up with them, I immediately received incredible flight deals straight to my inbox! I was stunned.
These days the process of receiving flight deals has changed slightly. Still, my first step in planning my next adventure is finding good deals.
Continue reading my Scott’s Cheap Flights review to learn more about these amazing deals and the famous mistake fares!
What is Scott’s Cheap Flights (now Going)?
Scott’s Cheap Flights is a U.S.-based flight deal finder. These deals come straight to your email inbox or via text message.
Scott Keyes is the person behind that email service. He knew he had a potential business on his hands when his friends kept asking him to send them cheap flights!
There is no work involved on your end. This service sends these amazing flight deals directly to you—no strings attached. You can let these great deals plan your next vacation!
Going (formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights) grew at a fast pace. He now has over 50 employees working on his dream of sharing the cheapest flights with the world.
How Does Scott’s Cheap Flights Work?
You might be wondering how Scott’s Cheap Flights works. It’s pretty simple, actually. There are three membership levels you can choose from when you start, and all of them come with a once-a-year annual fee.
Scott’s Cheap Flights gives you international flight deals but only from U.S. airports. Hopefully, this will change in the future. Even with this limitation, the airfare deals are worth the price of a membership.
You can opt for the free service or pay for the premium or elite membership. I’ll go over each membership in more detail later on in this article.
Depending on your membership, you’ll get to choose a certain number of departure airports. These airports can only be in the United States.
You should always choose your home airport as one of them and then add others that might be convenient to you because you never know, right?
The Goldilocks window is the period when flights are usually the cheapest. This is between two to eight months for international flights and one to three for domestic. Scott’s Cheap Flights sends you deals during this period, so you don’t have to think about it.
You’ll start getting emails once you fill out the airports you’d prefer to fly out of! Each flight deal includes a lot of helpful information, too.
Most of Scott’s Cheap Flights reviews tend to miss that key detail when trying to understand these deals.
The information that Scott’s Cheap Flights also gives you is:
- The time frame the flight deal is for
- How many days do you have to book the flight deals
- What the flight comes with, like a carry-on, meal service, early boarding, etc.
- How much extra it costs for add ons
- The history of the airfare prices of this route in the past
- The best deals of all time for that route
Once you find the cheap airfare you like most, you’ll click a link that will take you to Google Flights. From there, you can click on the flight, and that’ll take you to the airline’s website.
A Quick Look at Scott’s Cheap Flights (Going) as a Company
Going was founded by Scott Keyes in 2015. What was the spark that led to him creating this company? A $130 roundtrip ticket to Milan. You heard that right. $130 to Milan!
This international trip interested his friends, and he quickly realized he could turn this into a business. His members can sometimes save up to 90% on flights!
Instead of individually telling all of his friends when he found a cheap flight, he started an email list with them. And the rest is history!
Is Scott’s Cheap Flights legit?
Short answer: Scott’s Cheap Flights is 100% legit! The deals you’ve heard about might seem too good to be true, but they aren’t.
Their mistake fares might be the hardest to grasp your hand around. These are rare, so you might never see one and think they are fake, but they’re not!
A mistake fare is when an airline accidentally lists a flight for a much lower fare. They don’t happen often, and they don’t last long, but when they do, Going is there to alert you.
Why did Scott’s Cheap Flights change to Going?
In the early days of Scott’s Cheap Flights, the company name fit. It was all about the cheap flight deals that Scott found and sent to your inbox.
As Scott’s Cheap Flights team grew, the name started not to fit anymore. The company was becoming more than just an email subscription service.
The Scott’s Cheap Flights team went through over 3,000 different names before settling on Going.
The company’s future lies beyond cheap flights alone. Going wants to expand the brand to focus on choosing to travel from unexpected places and finding enticing opportunities.
How many members does Scott’s Cheap Flights have?
In the early days, Going (formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights) started with a few thousand. That number increased over the years to over 2 million today!
With so many members, it’s no wonder that Scott couldn’t do it all on his own! These team members are all there to help you find cheap flights.
Going Review: My Experience With Using Scott’s Cheap Flights
Choosing the Perfect Airports
Finding cheap airfare using Scott’s Cheap Flights (Going) starts with picking your departure airports. The bigger the airports, the more frequent the airfare deals.
Certain airports are better if you’re looking for an international flight deal. This has to do with the location and size. You’ll also be receiving domestic deals at these airports.
The larger your membership plan, the more airports you can add. Premium membership will give you ten different airports to choose from.
What I usually like to do is choose the closest airport to me. After that, I will choose larger airports with more frequent deals. Ideally, these airports are only a few hours away from you.
Receiving My First Email
It doesn’t take long to receive your first of many flight deals in your inbox. When I received mine, it felt like Christmas morning! These exclusive deals made me itch to travel immediately.
I remember it like it was yesterday. My first email from Scott’s Cheap Flights was to Ireland—a round-trip ticket from Washington, D.C., for $320.
I immediately went to Google Flights to ensure I saw this correctly. The email stated that this ticket’s normal price is $800+. That’s over 50% in savings!
All of the Scott’s Cheap Flights reviews that I’d read said the first deal will blow you away. They were right.
Helpful Information with Every Deal
As I mentioned, with all of Going’s flight deals, they’ll send along other helpful information. I signed up in 2021, during Covid times.
Along with the standard information they send, they’d also include the airline’s new policies regarding COVID-19. These policies were important as many countries’ rules changed daily.
A cool section they add to these emails is a collection of helpful tips for your trip. These tips have nothing to do with flight but rather the location.
The travel tip for this particular flight to Ireland was “Visit St. Michan’s Church (near Jameson Distillery) and tour the underground crypts.”
Not only is Scott’s Cheap Flights sending you great deals, but also helpful information to use for your trip.
My First Purchase
I remember the first of many cheap flights that I booked, thanks to Scott’s Cheap Flights. It drove me to travel through Latin America in all of 2022.
One morning, I received a price drop for Peru in my email box. My favorite traveling activity is hiking, so Peru was high on my list. You have to jump on cheap airfares like this. So I did.
The ticket price was $281. Any normal person might still hesitate about this but not me. I bought it immediately, and I’m glad I did!
This one spur-of-the-moment purchase turned into my dream trip. I was hooked. Scott’s Cheap Flights works wonders.
From the first time I read a Scott’s Cheap Flights review, I was hoping for this feeling, and they truly delivered.
Pros
Affordable
Many airfare deals come at a cost. The cost of Scott’s Cheap Flights is only a once-a-year payment. The beauty is that you’ll easily pay for the membership after just one flight.
And don’t get me started on the mistake fares. International flights are notoriously expensive. But you’ll find the best flight deals when you’re flexible.
All of the Scott’s Cheap Flights reviews (Going) that I read praised their affordability, and they weren’t wrong. You’ll spend either $49 or $199 for the entire year.
If you love to travel and save money simultaneously, this is the best deal out there!
Text/Email Alert System
I usually hate getting emails or texts that seem spammy. With Scott, I feel the complete opposite. When I see an email from Scott’s Cheap Flights, I immediately open it.
Scott’s Cheap Flights offers these deal alerts either as texts or emails. Based on how many I’ve received, it seems like they find flight deals so easily. But I know it’s harder than it looks.
Offers Mistake Fares
A mistake fare is the best possible email (or text) you could ever receive from Scott’s Cheap Flights. These are technically error fares by the airline or online travel agency.
Airlines used to have to honor all flights sold before 2015. This isn’t the case anymore. Still, only around 10% of these mistake fares get canceled.
You’ll get a refund if that happens, so at worst, you’ll be out the ticket but not the money. My advice is that it’s always best to book flights like these and worry about the consequences later.
Customizable Departure Airpot Location
Scott’s Cheap Flights would almost be spammy or somewhat pointless if you couldn’t customize your departure airport. But even with Scott’s Cheap Flights free version, you still get to customize five airports.
Certain airports have great airfare deals, while others might not. This is a tricky game. The best deals will typically come from larger hubs but not always!
What’s more certain is the number of deals. Larger hubs tend to have more deals that pop up.
Scott’s Cheap Flights will tell you which airports are better for more frequent deals. This will be shown by the fire emoji in your ‘departure airports’ section.
Weekend Getaways
Most of the cheap flight deals you’ll receive will be for the future (two to nine months). Although, sometimes, a weekend getaway email will be waiting for you.
These cheap airline tickets are nonstop for both domestic flights and international leaving within the next month.
Cons
United States Departure Only
One of my least favorite parts about Scott’s Cheap Flights is that they only leave from United States airports.
For most people, this isn’t an issue. But I love taking long trips and traveling for extended periods. When you’re slow traveling, the flight from the US is just the beginning– you arrive in another country, and then you hop around.
So, if Going also provided flight deals within other countries, that would be super useful for me.
Flight Deals Are Gone Fast
This con affects most people. Even with simple decisions, I can take hours trying to figure out what to do. The same goes for purchasing a flight. It can be hard to decide immediately on whether the travel dates work, or if I can afford to make the purchase.
With Going, you have to act fast. All the best deals are gone within days, which isn’t ideal.
That said, it’s good all of these deals are from the United States. That’s because the law requires that every airline leaving a U.S. airport has a 24-hour cancellation policy. This gives you an extra day to think over these deals.
Not Able to Search for Flights
Scott’s Cheap Flights is all about finding the best deal, no matter the destination. You have to act fast. Because of that, a search feature isn’t necessary in most instances.
Still, I would love a search feature because it’d allow me to find previous deals with countries I’d like to visit in the future.
Membership for Going
How much does it cost to join Scott’s Cheap Flights?
There are three different membership plans, two of which are paid memberships. Unfortunately, there isn’t a Scott’s Cheap Flights lifetime membership.
With the Scott’s Cheap Flights free version, you’ll spend nothing. Both memberships that cost money are one-time payments for the whole year. You’ll either be spending $49 for the premium membership or $199 for the elite membership. Each of these tiers easily pays for itself.
All of the deals are on roundtrip flights, and you’ll even find a nonstop flight from time to time!
Limited (Free) Plan
This is the plan I started with. The free version used to send more deals to your inbox, but now there aren’t as many.
Signing up for this tier is still worth it, however, as it costs you nothing, and you’ll save a lot of money.
The free service allots you just five departure airports. With this limited plan, you’ll only receive international deals. They will also be less frequent, sent to the paid members first, and won’t include first-class flights.
Premium
The following paid membership is called ‘premium.’ Premium economy is not included in this paid plan. You’ll only receive economy-class deals, but you’ll get a lot of them.
Becoming one of Going’s premium members will unlock domestic flights, weekend getaways, and mistake fares! You’ll be the first to know about the flight tickets.
If you’re wondering whether the number of departure airports will increase, I have good news! The amount of airports allotted to premium members increases to 10.
The premium membership is my favorite choice out of all three. The best part is that it only costs $49 for the entire year! You can easily find cheap airfare that saves you 3x that amount, if not more.
Elite
Scott’s Cheap Flights elite membership is for those who like to fly in luxury. You’ll receive all of the benefits of the premium tier plus a lot more!
Elite members get the opportunity to enjoy the following:
- Economy Seating
- Premium Economy
- Business Class
- First Class
- Unlimited Departure Airports
- Priority Support
- More Deal Customization
Scott’s Cheap Flights elite members can save thousands on their flights. When the day comes that I plan on flying first class for the first time, I’ll be sure to buy this membership plan.
The first-class deals alone pay for the membership of $199 for the year! This is an incredible return on investment. Even if you only want premium economy, I think it’s worth a look.
Going Cancellation & Exchange Policy
According to their Terms of Use, Scott’s Cheap Flight’s cancellation policy is straightforward. All membership purchases are non-refundable.
Within 30 days of purchase, you can pause your membership, request a refund exemption, or cancel the next renewal. To do this, you’ll want to click “view options” on your billing page.
Conclusion: Is Scott’s Cheap Flights worth it?
What’s not to love about this product? Scott’s Cheap Flights finds excellent deals for a variety of travelers. The team at Going is constantly expanding and making the user experience better.
Although there are new alternatives popping up now, like Matt’s flights and Faredrop, the bottom line is that Going is a better product.
No matter where my home airport is, I’ll always subscribe to Scott’s Cheap Flights. Plus, there is Scott’s Cheap Flights app coming soon!
The idea of others paying more than they should for flights increases my anxiety. So do yourself a favor and subscribe to this amazing product!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Phillip Anderson
Phillip Anderson is a freelance travel writer, personal trainer, and adventure enthusiast. With years of travel experience under his belt, Phillip is an expert in finding the best deals through travel apps and websites. He knows how to find cheap domestic and international flights, like a flight to Peru for as low as $350.
When looking for cheap accommodations, Phillip combines his knowledge of websites like Airbnb, Booking.com & Hostelworld with more unique sites like TrustedHousesitters, for even more savings. Whether it’s flights, accommodations, or local experiences, he teaches travelers to make informed decisions, ensuring their adventures are both memorable and economical. For more from Phillip, check out his website, JaywalkTheWorld.com.
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