Everybody loves a good flight deal. Flights are often the single biggest expense travelers have on any adventure.
If you can find a cheap flight to your destination, it can make the entire trip better. When you save money on flights, you’ll be more inspired to take the leap and go, and you’ll have more money to spend on activities, food, and accommodations when you get to where you’re going.
In recent years, a number of services have popped up to help travelers find the best deals on airfare. Two of the most popular are Dollar Flight Club and Going.
Both of these services are quite similar; both boast that they can save their members up to ninety percent on flights.
Since the two services have much in common, travelers often struggle to decide which one to join as a paid member. If you’re looking for an honest comparison between these two services, you came to the right place.
What is Going?
Going was created only a little earlier than Dollar Flight Club. The beginnings of the two services are so similar; founder Scott Keyes wanted to use his talent for finding the cheapest flight deals to help others to travel.
He started a newsletter in 2013 to help his friends and family and it just grew from there. He started Going website with now-CEO Brian Kidwell in 2015.
Today, Going has over two million members, which is double the number of members that Dollar Flight Club has.
The two services are quite similar in what they offer, but they also have some major differences in how they do what they do.
Watch our YouTube tutorial and review how to use Going to get flight deals directly to your email inbox.
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What’s So Special About Going?
Like Dollar Flight Club, Going is a membership service that exists to let its members know about fantastic flight deals on both international flights and domestic flights.
Founder Scott Keyes was inspired to start his newsletter after finding a roundtrip flight to Milan from New York City for just $130, and he wants the site’s members to enjoy incredible deals like that one also.
The site claims to often have deals that are as much as ninety percent off standard flight prices. Users can wait for deals to hit their email inbox, or they can visit the site to scroll through current deals as they are discovered.
You can click a link next to any deal and jump right to it on Google Flights so you can book it for yourself immediately.
See Related: Best Day to Book Flights
How Going Finds Deals
Although Going now has a remote staff of over fifty travel enthusiasts, they don’t search for flight deals the same way that Dollar Flight Club does.
Dollar Flight Club uses actual human beings to search the internet to find the best deals, but Going finds those deals using cutting-edge software and technology instead. The staff delivers the deals to you, and the customer service is friendly and helpful, but it’s computers that are finding those deals.
Whether or not this is a good thing can be viewed both ways. On one hand, computer software can be programmed to search the internet much faster than a human being.
This can be especially helpful when it comes to finding mistake fares before the airlines catch them and fix them.
However, there’s also much to be said for travel deals searches being done by people; a pair of human eyes and a human brain may be able to catch incredible deals that a computer may miss.
How to Use Going
Using Going is just as easy as using Dollar Flight Club. All you have to do is sign up, and the rest is self-explanatory. The site is very user-friendly and is simple to navigate.
When you sign up for Going, you first be granted a Limited membership, but as with Dollar Flight Club’s free membership, you won’t benefit much from that.
If you want to really enjoy the benefits of Going, you’ll need to pay for a Premium or Elite membership instead.
Before jumping into a premium, you can try Going for free using our link.
Limited
The Limited membership at Going is slightly different in that it allows you to choose five airports for your cheap flight alerts, but the system will only tell you about international flight deals so if you’re looking for domestic flights only, it won’t be of much help to you.
You’ll also only get occasional alerts.
Premium
The Premium membership to Going is a great deal for all you get. Premium members can choose one home airport and nine other airports to watch.
They’ll get economy deals from all of those airports, and mistake fares and weekend getaways from their home airport. The deals they receive will be to both domestic and international destinations.
Elite
Going Elite membership is quite a jump in cost from the Premium membership option but there are some great bonuses if you are someone who flies a lot.
Elite members get all the benefits of a Premium membership plus they also will get flight alerts about business and first-class fares.
They will also be able to see mistake fares and other deals from all airports across the United States instead of just the few they designate.
Like what you are hearing? Read our full Going review.
What is Dollar Flight Club?
Dollar Flight Club was created by traveler Jesse Neugarten in 2016. He was inspired to build a site to help other people find great travel deals after he found himself stranded in Nepal after an earthquake in 2015.
Neugarten had been traveling the world for years at that point and always tried to find the best deals on his trips so he could travel even more. He realized that he had quite a knack for it.
Soon, his friends and family took notice and started asking him to help them with their travel needs as well. While stranded in Nepal, and seeing the devastation of the earthquake there, he realized he wanted to do something to help others.
Combining his love of travel and his ability to find great deals, he started an email list and eventually a website to help others find cheap flights so they could travel the world, too. What began as a small email list has now grown into a gigantic and well-known travel website.
Today, Dollar Flight Club boasts over one million members.
So, What Is It?
Dollar Flight Club is an online, subscription travel service that offers both free and premium memberships. The service sends alerts to its members about cheap flight deals from airports that each user chooses.
The site aims to save its members $500 per booked ticket on average. It consistently sends members deals that are as much as sixty to ninety percent off normal flight prices.
Alerts are delivered to users through email and through the Dollar Flight Club app.
How Does Dollar Flight Club Find the Best Deals?
What is Dollar Flight Club doing that you aren’t? Actually, a lot of what this company is doing is exactly what you likely do when you look for cheap flight deals online. The difference is that it’s the job of the company’s employees to do this all day.
They are able to dedicate all their time to this task, while you have to work at your job, have a social life, and take care of yourself and your family also.
The team at Dollar Flight Club spends their waking hours manually searching for cheap flight deals to share with members. They find the best days to travel on the best airlines at the best times for the best deals.
They look for sales and deals and mistake fares. They are absolute pros at what they do since they do it all the time. When they find the best possible fares, they put them into an alert, and they pass them on to their members.
Then, the members independently book the flights they want on their own.
How to Use Dollar Flight Club
To use Dollar Flight Club, all you have to do is sign up using our link. When you sign up you’ll automatically get a Free membership.
Free membership is better than no membership, but to get the most out of this service, you’ll want to sign up for a Premium or Premium Plus membership.
Free
A free membership will allow you to explore the site and learn a little about what it’s all about, but again, you won’t really get to experience the full benefits of Dollar Flight Club at this level.
Still, you’ll get one cheap flight alert per day in your email or on the app.
That deal will depart from somewhere in the region that you choose upon sign-up, but it might not be from your closest airport.
Premium
Premium membership is well worth the investment because you’ll get many more alerts, and therefore you’ll have much more opportunity to potentially use the deals.
With a Premium membership, you’ll be able to choose departure airports that you want to watch, your favorite airlines, and specific destinations that you’d like to visit.
You’ll get at least four times as many alerts about cheap flight deals than Free members will, and you’ll get them earlier than them too, which will give you the opportunity to grab them before they’re gone.
Premium Plus
Premium Plus memberships cost only a little more than Premium memberships and are a great investment if you are a very frequent flier and especially if you like upgrades.
This type of membership also offers alerts on first-class and business-class fares.
It also gives you 20% off the Mobile Passport Plus app, which is great to save time coming through customs on your way back from international travel, but if you don’t already have Global Entry.
Like what you are hearing? Read our full Dollar Flight Club review to learn more about this cheap flight newsletter.
Similarities Between Dollar Flight Club and Going
As you can see, these two services have quite a bit in common, so it’s no wonder that travelers have a hard time choosing between the two.
Both services offer great flight deals with savings of up to ninety percent. Both of them will send you deals on both international and domestic flights, and both have three levels of membership to offer you.
You’ll benefit from either service, especially if you travel often and if you are flexible on dates and times of departure. If you’re flexible about destinations, even better.
Flexible travelers can save a lot of money with either Dollar Flight Club or Going, or with both.
Differences Between the Two Cheap Flight Newsletters
The main difference between Dollar Flight Club vs Going is the fact that the former is powered by humans doing the searches and the latter finds deals using software and computers.
Despite this difference, many of the deals found by both services are the same. However, you’ll find some deals on Dollar Flight Club that you won’t see on Going and vice versa.
Also, Going seems to offer its members a bit more when it comes to fine-tuning one’s membership. Members have much more control over the types of deals that they see in their cheap flight alerts, and they have much more freedom over the airports that they choose as theirs.
Both websites are user-friendly and easy to navigate, but you’ll notice a different look and vibe when visiting them. Chances are that you’ll like the look of one more than the other, but that preference really just comes down to what you as an individual like best.
See Related: Business Class vs First Class
Benefits of Dollar Flight Club
Dollar Flight Club is a great site and service for finding discount airfares, but you’ll need to buy a membership to enjoy the biggest benefits. The membership fee, however, is quite reasonable though, considering how much money you can save if you fly even a few times per year.
Further, the highest membership level, Premium Plus, is not nearly as expensive as the highest membership level – Elite – on Going.
The flight deals offered by Dollar Flight Club are constantly updating and you’ll get at least one alert per day even as a Free member. You’ll also be eligible for discounts with Dollar Flight Club’s partners on accommodation, food and beverage, and entertainment.
Benefits of Going
Going has many of the same benefits as Dollar Flight Club. Most importantly, you’ll save up to ninety percent if you choose to buy some of the flights this service suggests to you. If you travel frequently, this can add up to many thousands of dollars over the course of a single year.
The Premium membership offered by Going will give you a chance to fine-tune the flight alerts that you receive from the service which will make the alerts you do get much more useful to you.
The site’s Elite membership, although a little more expensive, will give provide you with even more travel opportunities. Again, even if you’re only flying a few times a year, the savings you can potentially enjoy from a paid membership make it worthwhile.
See Related: Cheapest Places to Fly Right Now
Which Should You Get?
All of the above information will help you to understand the similarities and differences between these two services. Which one you choose is up to you; the two services are almost the same, but they do have minor differences.
However, if you are someone who travels a lot, then you might consider trying a middle-level membership on both sites.
Most people don’t need all the benefits of the highest-level membership of either service, but almost everyone can save a bunch of money with the flight deal alerts offered by Premium memberships from Dollar Flight Club and Going.
You’ll find that both services sometimes offer the same deals, but that there are some deals that are unique to each. That’s what makes joining both services, if you can, well worth it.
FAQs
Who Should Get Dollar Flight Club?
People who want deals for first and business class might prefer Dollar Flight Club because this service’s Premium Plus membership is cheaper than the Elite membership with Going.
Also, people who like the idea of humans – rather than compute software – searching for flight deals will lean toward Dollar Flight Club.
Finally, some people prefer Dollar Flight Club because it has an app that will send you alerts on your phone. Going is entirely email and web-based.
Who Should Get Going?
Most people will likely prefer Going over Dollar Flight Club. Going has much more flexibility for members; you can choose more airports and see more deals with each level of membership than you can with each comparable membership level in Dollar Flight Club.
However, if you’re someone who likes to fly first class, the jump from Premium to Elite membership is a big leap in price. Unless you fly a lot, it may be more than you want to spend.
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