How to score cheap flights (and mistake fares) in 2023

Scott Keyes has been finding and sharing cheap flight deals since 2013 after he scored a mistake fare that made his friends envious: a scheduling error got him a roundtrip ticket from New York City to Milan for $130. What started as a hobby – and a service for friends and colleagues – has since grown to a business with more than 2 million subscribers and a team 65 people strong. 

The name he first gave his newsletter — Scott’s Cheap Flights — now seems misleading and limiting, Keyes told SFGATE this week. The company’s new name, Going, and sleek branding to go with it, went live earlier this month. Keyes, the company’s founder and chief flight expert, says the changes encompass the company’s old mission (finding people cheap flights) with its goal of providing personalized flight deals as well as helpful travel guides.

Keyes expects 2023 to be a really good travel year with fares dropping at least 5% compared to 2022, fewer full flights (meaning more elbow room!), some cheap fares to Tokyo (and other destinations in Asia), and — thanks to more transatlantic competition  — more mistake fares.

He spoke with SFGATE following the launch of the new site to talk about what was behind the decision, what else Going will be offering subscribers, and tips he has for all travelers.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

For someone who wasn’t familiar with Scott’s Cheap Flights, how would you have described it to them?

The way Scott’s Cheap Flights works — and now Going — is that cheap flights are popping up all around us whether we’re searching for them or not and many times the difference between getting that once in a lifetime deal or missing out on it is just knowing that it existed. 

Let me give you an example. About a month ago there were flights from San Francisco over to Tokyo for about $400 roundtrip — normally you can expect that to be closer to $900 or $1,000. That San Francisco to Tokyo fare was available for only about five or six hours, so if you didn’t happen to be searching for the right dates, the right route at the right time, you would have missed out on that. What Going does — and what Scott's Cheap Flights has always done — is to make sure that you get an alert any time those amazing fares pop up so that if you’re interested you can book them before they disappear. 

Why the name change?

There’s a lot of reasons why but, for me, the most personal is I grew extremely uncomfortable feeling like I was being funneled credit unfairly at the expense of the rest of the team. 

… It started as a hobby in 2013. At the time it was just me — it was just Scott [and] I just gave it the least creative, most on-the-nose name I could possibly think of and that was “Scott’s Cheap Flights.” What I was doing was finding these cheap flights and sending them out to people … The name just kind of stuck. 

Why “Going”? How did you come up with that?

We ended up going through about 3,000 different names before deciding on Going. … The entire process from when we decided to rebrand to when we rolled it out about a week ago was 15 months. Even after we decided on a name last summer, there was still a solid six months of work to do after that in terms of creating the brand [and brand vibe].

... I like to think the effort was worth it. You only have one chance to make a new impression. We wanted to make sure we were putting our best foot forward. 

What’s the impression you’re trying to give now?

It’s straddling two things. We’re trying to both convey to our existing members that our mission is still the same — we still love cheap flights just like before. 

We also recognize that the flight over is not the only part of the trip. (I think it’s the most important part because it’s the key that unlocks the trip. When you book a flight, it takes it from just being an idea you had to something that is actually happening.) 

[But] we want to be able to do more to help support and guide people along their travel. 

What new tools and features are you rolling out? 

The biggest one that’s not out yet but is coming is the mobile app. It’s been one of our most top-requested things from members for years now, and we want to make sure that when we do roll this out, that it is something that is really useful. 

When can we expect the mobile app to be available? 

It’s one of the top priorities right now. Sooner rather than later [but definitely this year!].

What else is the Going team working on?

A lot more in the way of personalization. This has been the long-term trend of what Scott’s Cheap Flights and now Going has been working toward. Not just alerting people to a cheap flight anywhere but alerting people to the right cheap flight for them. 

The biggest thing now going forward is to make sure that even [the] more finely tuned constraints people have, that we’re serving those as well as possible. 

For example, say you got a teacher working on a teacher’s budget but also has June, July and August off every year. Those are some of the toughest months to get cheap flights in but that’s the only window they might have for travel. What we’re working toward is making sure that those folks who have not just budget constraints but other constraints — like date constraints — that they’re getting the right deals. So, right now, a teacher can log on to their Going account and be able to see right away what cheap flights are available in June, in July, in August. 

We’ve been able to build it so that people are getting their alerts dynamically. When we send an alert now, the subject line and the content of the email actually dynamically switches based on what home airport they have. 

Will you still have free subscriptions? What’s the difference between tiers?

We’ve got three tiers: the free “Limited” tier, the “Premium” tier ($49/year) and the “Elite” tier ($199/year). 

Limited: You’re going to get a limited number of deals. You’re not going to get all the deals from your home airport like folks do on “Premium” and you tend to get them on a delay. So, you might get them a day or two after they first become available. Sometimes for the best deals, those are not always going to last a day or two. 

Premium: You’re getting all the deals from your home airports as soon as they pop up, but just in economy. 

Elite: Primarily for folks who have enough means to sometimes fly business class or premium economy and want to make sure they’re not overpaying for those flights. It includes not only deals in economy at their home airport but also premium economy, business class and first class. 

When there are mistake deals — like the $130 flight I got to Milan (from New York City) — those are only sent to Premium and Elite tier subscribers. 

How often do airlines make mistakes like that? Are airlines getting better at having them happen less frequently?

They are getting a little better, but they still happen. 

In 2022, there were seven mistake fares that we found for members (including roundtrip fares to Iceland for $100, London and Amsterdam for $174, Israel for $209, and Tokyo for $316). In 2021, we found nine mistake fares throughout the year. 

We’ve already seen one this year. There were flights to a few places in West Africa for $327 roundtrip — places like Senegal, Morocco, Gambia, — all out of New York for under $400 roundtrip. 

How do you suggest people take full advantage of Going?  

The best way to take advantage: Sign up, give it a spin. (You can try the Premium tier free for two weeks.)

For folks who are really intent on traveling more, on not overpaying for flights, who want to make good on that New Year’s resolution this year, I think the biggest thing that folks can do, in addition to signing up, is trying to switch from a mindset where we plan our vacations in the traditional way of picking where you want to go and when you want to go there and hoping and praying for a cheap flight. … Instead, the best way to approach it is to take that same three-step process and flip it on its head. 

Step 1: Where are there currently cheap flights available out of my home airport? (And that’s what we can make sure you know about.)

Step 2: Of the places that are cheap out of my home airport, which one interests me the most?

Step 3: What dates work for your schedule?

By setting price as the top priority rather than the last priority, that’s how you can not only be able to make good on those travel resolutions but also afford to take three or four vacations for the same price you used to pay for one. 

Do people have to be able to travel at the last minute to really take advantage of the service? 

Definitely not traveling at the last minute. In fact, we never really send out last minute deals for two reasons: one because I don't think most people travel that way — most people want to book at least a month in advance — but two because last minute flights, rather than being cheap, tend to be quite expensive. 

Almost all our deals are not just cheap flights, but good flights. The best deals — like mistake fares — tend not to last. 

We try to not just alert people to cheap flights but also try to educate them about what their rights are as travelers. One of those really critical rights is what’s called the “24 hour rule” — this is a federal law that says when you book a flight directly with an airline, as long as it’s a least a week out from departure, you get a 24-hour grace period from the moment you hit “purchase” during which you can cancel your ticket and get a full cash refund. No penalties, no fees, no nothing.

What that does is essentially lock in the price for 24 hours. [Just remember to cancel it if you need to!]

What tips do you have for would-be travelers? Is there any truth in certain days of the week being better than others? How far in advance should people book? Or do certain airports have more deals than others? 

There is no cheapest day to book your flight, but there are cheapest days to take your flight. Those tend to be Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday. It’s not that you’ll never see good deals on Monday or Sunday, but those tend to have the best odds because they tend to be days that business travelers avoid. 

The best strategy is not to pinpoint a specific time or day of the week but instead to use what we call “Goldilocks windows” — not too early, not too late, just right in the middle. Most folks know last-minute flights tend to be really expensive but what I think a lot of folks miss is that you can actually book your flights too early. 

For domestic flights, if you’re talking about off peak travel, usually about one to three months in advance is when you’re most likely to see cheap flights pop up. If you’re talking about a peak travel season — middle of summer, Christmas, New Year’s — more like three to seven months in advance. ([The] international off peak [is] two to eight months in advance; peak [is] four to 10 months in advance.)

I mention this because I think a lot of folks tend to think the earliest bird gets the worm and that is absolutely not true.