You’ve Been Looking for Travel Deals All Wrong And Here’s How to Fix It

Happy Thursday to you!

If you’re reading this, there’s a 99% chance that you’re hunting for travel deals and it’s going poorly. But don’t worry, it’s not your fault. Because the truth is, the travel industry does a horrible job educating travelers on how to get the most bang for their travel buck (which as you’ll learn today may put $$ back into their dry coffers but does nothing to help you travel more economically, more frequently, or more intentionally). Read more to learn how to get the best travel deals for you and your family!

So just for Travel Goals Newsletter readers today, I’m going to break it down:

1. Why your current travel research is broken
2. How to fix it using Google Flights, Skyscanner, and Going (formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights)
3. The massive benefits this new system unlocks for you (and how to get the most out of it)

Ready? Let’s dive in.

Why Your Current Travel Deal Set Up Is Broken

The average travel deal hunter makes 2 big mistakes that keep her from searching in a beneficial way.

Travel Deals Mistake #1: Destination, not the deal, takes the lead.

There’s a reason your deal search is a mess. Over the last few years, you’ve had a destination in mind. That fixation on a particular destination, say Rome, is set in your mind. But if you saw an amazing deal to Milan would you turn it down?

If you are fixated on a particular destination that means you’re not finding fantastic deals that may be available to you and/or even close to your ideal location.

Travel Deals Mistake #2: You set specific dates for your trip

Let’s say you’ve found round-trip tickets to Rome for $1,500 in July. Because that is the date you’ve set, the price is not so flexible. But that same flight in September is a third of the price. Bringing some flexibility to your dates is a great way to lower prices.

Travel Deals Mistake #3: You want someone else to do the work for you so you hire a travel agent

Using a travel agent that works for hundreds of people across all age groups and interests can lead to potentially generic trip results.

Travel attracts curious individuals with multiple interests across different areas and age groups. As a result travel agents often offer somewhat generic large-group tour experiences that will span multiple interests across multiple age groups in order to bring in the most people possible.

Working with a travel professional would be fine if they automatically curated a list of experiences specific to your interests and abilities. But instead, you could be faced with:

• an overpriced service provider because that’s who the agent contracts with
• extra fees to cover the “middleman” costs
• larger, more general tours that lack your individualized tastes
• blocked out or restrictive dates
• the exhausting turnaround between events because the tour window dictates it

Now your trip has become noisy and cluttered. You’re getting small tastes of your different preferences but much less frequently than you imagined and at a much higher price.

Luckily there’s a better way.

How to Find Better Travel Deals with Google Flights, Skyscanner, and Going (formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights)

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could get on your desktop or phone and use it to intentionally find amazing travel deals?

This would look like:

Google Flights – there are so many search engines out there but this one is the O.G. And for good reason!

1. You can search with 5 home airports and 5 destinations. Google will automatically create the best combinations for you based on your trip filters.
2. The Explore Destinations feature allows you to type in your home airport and then an entire region as a destination. You can select dates and how long you’d like the trip to be then look as far as 6 months out to identify the cheapest destinations.
3. The calendar feature on Google Flights allows you to see the best prices month by month up to 11 months out. So you can be aware of future dates that might have better deals. The cheapest dates each month are in green.
4. You can schedule price alerts to your Gmail account. Set up specific destinations if you’d like for specific dates and set up alerts so you will be notified when there is a price change for that particular flight.

Skyscanner – this is a meta-search engine that searches not only across airlines but also across many other search engines such as Expedia, Orbits, etc.

1. You can select your home airport and destination, then select the month you’d like to travel. Dates in green are available. Select a green departure date and a green return date. Scroll down to see the total cost. Or search across other months to check for a cheaper deal.
2. You can allow Skyscanner to find the cheapest month for you and set up an alert to get notified via your email. When you are ready to buy Skyscanner will automatically take you right to the booking site with the best deal.
3. The Explore the Map feature allows you to adjust the price bar to your budget in order to see where you’d like to go. You can also change the month of travel to see how the deals change. Green is non-stop and red has at least one stop.
4. The Everywhere feature in combination with the Cheapest month feature lets you see where you can go in the world and when for the absolute best price.

Going (formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights) – if those features in Google Flights and Skyscanner sound good to you but you don’t want to have to do it yourself, then this is the service for you.

You can enjoy a year of someone else finding all those great deals for you and sending alerts straight to your inbox. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3.

1. Select your interest level: Limited subscription is free and you can think of it as a teaser for everything available to you in Premium. For free you will receive a small number of cheap flight notices from your selected airports. Premium is $49 per year and gives you all the best of economy-level deals. Elite is $199 per year and gives you everything in Premium as well as deals for those who prefer a bit more luxury in Premium Economy, first class, or business class seats.
2. Sign up for your home airport then expand to nearby airports to increase the number of deals you’ll see.
3. Watch your inbox for deals

Going has a staff of over 25 people who dive into these searches for you and send all the best according to your selected airports your way.

3 massive benefits this system unlocks for you

Once you start searching this way you can put more focus on your travel intentions. This means instead of letting the destination drive your travel, instead of falling victim to an inflated budget, you go forward with a focus on how you want this trip to make you feel. Now you know you are getting there with the best deal available so your mind is freed to think of other things.

Said another way, you start to use travel intentionally. As you travel more intentionally you’ll unlock 3 main benefits.

Benefit #1: You’ll save $$ and be able to travel more frequently

A curated search of affordable travel destinations means you’re going to see many more deals to locations that you can now afford to venture out to more often.

This alone will improve your travel. Rather than letting the destination drive you, putting the deal first gives you the control to focus on traveling more frequently.

Benefit #2: You can create a specific intention for your trip

You can use this travel deal system to get more in touch with how you want this trip to make you feel. Do you wish to relax and get back in touch with yourself? Deepen your relationship with someone else? The transition from one phase of life to another? Heal? A sense of clarity about your intention behind travel opens up to you once you choose to ask yourself this key question.

Benefit #3: Customize your travel experiences

Spending more time out in the world and knowing how you want each trip to make you feel prepares you to customize your travel experiences.

When you set up the research system options outlined in this article you can create an open budget for intentional travel experiences that allow you to skip the generic large company tours.

Trying to do this with the default travel search experience of destination first, dates second is pretty much impossible. Searching for deals with your hands tied behind your back is just asking for frustration.

But using the research system options I’ve described here minimizes time spent searching and minimizes the money going out to someone else designing your trip for you.

Your big takeaway is this travel deal search system allows you to create travel experiences intentionally, not mindlessly.

If you have any questions about this, feel free to 👉hit reply and let me know!

Want a little bit more information about how to find the best deals check out this article How To Find Cheap Flights in 2022​

Bonus

If you are already out and about and dealing with flight delays or worse, cancelations an avid traveler put together this bonus for you of all the airlines’ best contact numbers and how to reach each airline’s customer service.