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How to Use Going (Formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights)

Everyone who loves to travel also loves a great travel deal. After all, those of us who love to travel want to travel as much as possible! Extensive and frequent travel is only financially possible for most if we get great deals some or all of the time.

Cheap airline tickets can be a game-changer for many travelers. If a flight is affordable, then there’s more money to devote to a trip’s accommodations, meals, activities, souvenirs, and adventures.

When you find an impressive flight deal from your home departure city, then the world of travel opens up immensely. So, traveler – if you’re looking for great deals on airfare – and who isn’t? – you should be using Going (Formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights).

This online service is helping connect people with cheap flights that they might not find on their own otherwise. It connects travelers with mistake fares, economy class deals, business class deals, and even discount First Class seats.

Scott’s Cheap Flights helps people save money by showing them good deals on flights that inspire – and many users find that they save as much as 90% off the average fare. For international flights, people using the site save $550 on average per roundtrip flight – that’s incredible.

You may have heard of Scott’s Cheap Flights before but you don’t yet know much about it. Or, maybe you’ve considered signing up for the site before but you have been apprehensive – you think you can find your own great deals. Well, you should read on anyway.

In this post, we’ll tell you everything that you need to know about Scott’s Cheap Flights, and exactly why every single traveler should sign up and give it a try.

How Going (Formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights) Began

Going Logo

It seems like people have been talking about Scott’s Cheap Flights for a very long time, but believe it or not, this travel service hasn’t even existed for a full decade yet.

Founder Scott Keyes is a traveler just like you. He loves to travel and has always been interested in finding the very best deals.

In 2013, he wasn’t even planning on going to Milan, but when he randomly found a round-trip flight from New York to Milan for $130, he jumped at the opportunity. Who wouldn’t?

When he got back from his trip, his friends and family were amazed by this incredible deal. They all asked him to keep them in mind if he ever came across a similar deal so they could take advantage of it too.

As a result, Scott’s Cheap Flights was born. At first, Scott put together an email list and began searching for cheap flight deals as a hobby.

The list grew and grew, and eventually, two years later, a business was born. In 2015, Scott joined forces with Brian Kidwell, who is now the company’s CEO, to oversee the business side of things, and soon after, Scott’s Cheap Flights became somewhat of a household name for travelers.

Today, the company has over two million email subscribers and it continues to grow exponentially each month. If you’re not using Scott’s Cheap Flights to score travel deals for yourself, then you’re missing out. It’s time for you to dive in; it’s worth it.

How Going (Formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights) Works

Going (Formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights) consistently delivers great flight deals to its users and members – but how does it do it? Well, Going uses both computer power and human power to locate great flight deals. Although computers do the searching, every deal is evaluated by a human being before it is passed on to members.

It’s also important to note that Going is an independent company; it doesn’t have any partnerships with airlines. No airline is pressuring this company to put their flights in front of members. All of Scott’s Cheap Flights offers are chosen because they’re excellent deals and for no other reason.

The Bestie Test

They decide which fares are worth passing on through a method they refer to as the Bestie Test – a name that refers to the fact that the fares they’ll give you are the same fares that they’d give to a best friend.

The company doesn’t want to pass on super cheap fares unless they are also great flights; you might not care that you are saving hundreds if your flight from Denver to Tokyo makes four stops and takes three days to get there.

To pass the Bestie Test, the fare deal must meet five criteria.

Cheap

First, it must be cheap – Going (Formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights) will only alert its users to significant savings, not small discounts. On average, users save $550 on roundtrip international flights and $200 on domestic flights.

Easy

The flight must be easy. Depending on your home airport, Scott’s Cheap Flights will try to find you deals on direct flights rather than flights with layovers.

However, some small airports almost require a layover to get anywhere; Scott’s Cheap Flights will find you deals on flights that are as simple as possible, regardless.

Pleasant Layovers

When your flight does have layovers Scott’s Cheap Flights will try to make them pleasant for you.

Either they’ll be short so you won’t be stuck in the airport for hours, or they’ll be long enough and during the day so you can have some time to explore.

Reliable

Scott’s Cheap Flights will also only send users flight deal alerts from reliable airlines. They don’t turn to discount airlines to get amazing deals that might turn out to not be that amazing on the day of travel. Instead, they stick to the tried and true airlines that we love.

Available

Finally, to pass the Bestie Test a flight deal must be available. Mistake fares may disappear quickly, but even those must offer several different dates and times to be included.

You won’t see last-minute deals on Scott’s Cheap Flights; the company wants its deals to be available to everyone and useable.

Give It a Try

As you can see, the flight deals that Scott’s Cheap Flights have to offer are not only cheap but they’re also checked by a real live person to see if they’re dealing someone would want – which makes them very exciting, indeed.

If you’re wondering how to use Scott’s Cheap Flights, keep reading. We’ll walk you through the basics next.

See Related: How to Get Cheap Last Minute Flights (Step by Step Guide)

How to Use Scott’s Cheap Flights to Find Flight Deals

Flight Booking Guide
Scott’s Cheap Booking Flights Step 1

Using Scott’s Cheap Flights is easy. It’s a very uncomplicated site that anyone can use.

When you sign up, the site will ask you to choose the airports from which you’d like to see deals.

It’s wise to choose more than one, even if there’s only one airport close to you if you think that a very good deal might persuade you to drive to another airport to depart. Plus, more airports mean more deals, and that’s a good thing.

The Scott’s Cheap Flights website will indicate nearby airports that frequently have deals for their users during the selection process.

Flight Deals Booking Guide
Scott’s Cheap Booking Flights Step 2

Now, all you need to do is to wait for the deals to appear in your inbox. Often, the best deal Scott’s Cheap Flights has to offer at any given time will appear in the subject line of the email, but you’ll find even more cheap airfares to consider inside.

Alternatively, you can sign into the site at any time and look at deals that are currently available. This is a great strategy if you don’t want to wait for the emails, or if you want to search for deals that begin from another city.

If you’re looking to fly a friend to you or if you’d like to travel with a loved one who lives somewhere else, this is a wonderful way to find deals that can benefit those other people, too.

Example of Booking a Flight
Scott’s Cheap Booking Flights Step 3

Finally, you just need to go ahead and book the flight deals that interest you, and then wait to depart and enjoy. It doesn’t get any simpler than Scott’s Cheap Flights. You just have to sign up, then sit back and watch the deals roll in, book them, and go.

How to Read a Flight Alert

The Scott’s Cheap Flights deals that are sent via email are straightforward and easy to read. This company doesn’t want to waste your time, so it aims to stay as user-friendly and simple for you as possible.

A flight alert will show you the departure city, the destination city, and the lowest fares Scott’s Cheap Flights has found. It will also tell you which airlines you’ll need to fly to get these deals and the date range of the fares.

These alerts will also be marked as mistake fares if they fall into that category. Mistake fares might be corrected within minutes, so you’ll need to move quickly, and around 10% of them are rejected altogether.

But, if you land one, you’ll enjoy one of the best deals of your life. If you’re not sure if you can travel on the dates of the mistake fare, remember that you can always cancel for free within twenty-four hours of booking if it doesn’t seem like it’s going to work out.

How to Book the Deal

It’s important to know and remember that Scott’s Cheap Flights is not a travel agency. Rather, this site exists to let its users and members know about great deals on flights as they appear.

Then, the users have to go book them themselves to take advantage of them. Scott’s Cheap Flights does not issue airline tickets.

When Scott’s Cheap Flights alerts you to a deal that looks interesting, they’ll show you proof of the deal in the form of a link next to the flight alert listing.

That will take you directly to the deal on a search engine like Google Flights when you click on it. You can change the dates and departure city from there to see other cheap fares that may suit you well if you’d like.

If there’s a platform you prefer for booking flights for some reason, you may be able to find the same deal through it. If you’re an airline points/miles member and enthusiast, you may even be able to pay for the deals with your miles, leading to even greater savings for you.

More Important Things to Know

Many technology-savvy people who are always on the go find it odd that Scott’s Cheap Flights doesn’t have an app and that the company does not reach out to its customers via text.

However, although almost every Scott’s Cheap Flights review you read will mention this fact, none feel that it’s much of a problem.

Users get plenty of contact from the company through email, and if they wish to view deals on a more frequent basis, they can go to the website to look.

Second, it might be important for you to know that Scott’s Cheap Flights currently focuses on departure cities in the United States (including U.S. territories) only.

You’ll have the opportunity to see flight deals for both domestic and international flights that depart and return to airports in the United States, but you won’t be able to list a foreign airport as the departure city yet. However, Scott’s Cheap Flights is working on this, and that option may be available in the future.

See Related: Best Websites for Cheap Flights and Hotels

Scott’s Cheap Flights Membership Levels

Scott’s Cheap Flights offers three different levels of membership for its users.

Although it may seem tempting to sign up for the site’s free membership only, you may find that you’re soon disappointed with it.

Free members receive far fewer benefits from the site than paid members, so to get the best deals, you’ll need to upgrade to either a Premium or Elite membership.

Limited Membership

List of Benefits
Scott’s Cheap Flights List of Limited Membership Benefits

The free membership with Scott’s Cheap Flights is a great way to get acquainted with the site. Limited members get two fight deal emails per week.

The deals are for international destinations and only represent deals in economy class seats. However, these are still great deals, and you can get a taste of the types of offers Scott’s Cheap Flights has for its members without spending a dime.

See Related: How to Use Momondo to Find Cheap Flights

Premium Membership

List of Benefits with Many Checks
Scott’s Cheap Flights List of Premium Membership Benefits

The Premium membership offered by the site is a huge upgrade. It’s less than $5 per month to join this standard membership and it’s worth every penny.

Premium members will not only be able to see international economy class deals, but they’ll also be able to see deals for domestic economy flights as well.

People with this level of membership will also be alerted to mistake fares from their chosen airports, and they’ll also get deals in their emails about weekend getaways to various destinations.

Elite Membership

List f Membership Benefits
Scott’s Cheap Flights List of Elite Membership Benefits

The Elite membership with Scott’s Cheap Flights is a big leap in price from the premium membership, but it’s well worth it for people who prefer to fly in premium economy class, business class, or first class on the flights that they take.

Elite members will also get mistake fares from airports throughout the United States. They also get greater control over what types of deals the service sends their way.

Which Membership Level Is the Best?

While the Limited membership allows you to check out Scott’s Cheap Flights site, you’ll need to pay for a membership to enjoy it to the fullest. The Premium membership is affordable and is perfect for most travelers, so it’s a great place to start.

If you find that you want more benefits down the road, then you can always upgrade to the Elite membership later on. No matter what you choose, you’ll be enjoying deals on cheap flights before you know it.

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