Scott’s Cheap Flights Review

Thank you to Scott’s Cheap Flights for providing complimentary premium membership.  All opinions are my own.

I have had a Scott’s Cheap Flights premium membership for about three months.  While I was admittedly hesitant that the premium membership would be worth the cost of its $39 annual fee, I am already convinced that Scott’s Cheap Flights premium membership is well worth its annual fee for any traveler who makes at least one trip abroad each year.  With three kids, our family needs to purchase five flights anytime we travel.  We are constantly in search of discounted airfare to make international travel affordable. We use Google flights and monitor several fare deal websites and have taken advantage of several good deals that we have stumbled upon over the years, including round trip airfare to San Francisco for $130, to New Orleans for $80 and to Reykjavik for $370.  However, it’s so time consuming to wade through all the offers that aren’t available from our local airports that I have to admit that I often don’t even open the automated fare deal emails I received.  Now that I regularly receive Scott’s Cheap Flights’ ad free and filtered emails about amazing flight deals from only my desired airports, I have unsubscribed from the free services that used to send me automated emails and am certain that we will find better airfares through Scott’s than searching on our own as we’ve done over the past few years.

Review of Scott’s Cheap Flights

Scott’s Cheap Flights History

After Scott Keyes took advantage of a $130 round trip flight deal from New York City to Milan in 2013, he built an email list to let friends and colleagues know about other deals he found.  Keyes partnered with co-founder Brian Kidwell in 2015.  Now, Scott’s team monitors airfares and notifies its 1.6 million members when they find abnormally low fares on a specific route.

Scott Keyes and Brian Kidwell – Photo credit Scott’s Cheap Flights

Scott’s Cheap Flights Limited Membership Review 

Scott’s Cheap Flights offers free limited memberships with impressive benefits.   I tried out a limited membership before upgrading and found that limited members receive occasional cheap flight notifications from their geographic area but not filtered to include only the closest airports.  When Scott’s Cheap Flights send limited members deal notifications, they delay them about 30+ minutes from the premium members’ notification.  The deal alerts include ads, and Scott’s Cheap Flights makes sure to notify limited members of the amazing premium deals that they missed out on due to their limited membership.  These alerts could definitely be useful but reminded me of many of the other free flight deal notifications.  The emails and a few Scott’s Cheap Flights reviews definitely made me want the premium membership.

Is Scott’s Cheap Flights Premium Worth It?

Scott’s Cheap Flights Premium Review

I upgraded to a premium membership about 10 days after starting my limited membership.  The welcome message indicated that premium subscribers receive three times as many deals and are “wayyyy” more likely to book a flight deal than limited members.  After becoming a premium members and setting my airport selections, every fare deal I receive includes routes from the airports our family would consider using.  Premium members also receive notification on fare deals to Hawaii and Alaska, peak season flights and mistake fares.

Each deal alert includes an introduction, discounted routes, lowest fares available, time frame, airlines, baggage costs, normal costs, special notes, estimate on how long the deal will last and a link to a sample Google search.  Scott’s Cheap Flights does not earn a referral fee on flights booked.

Scott Keyes is always searching for low airfare – Photo credit Scott’s Cheap Flights

Scott’s Cheap Flight Deals I Wanted to Book

Due to our kids’ school schedule, our family does not plan to travel internationally until this Summer or Winter, and we don’t have a location nailed down.  Most of the flight deals I’ve received through Scott’s Cheap Flights have been for travel through May 2019, so we haven’t been able to take advantage of anything yet.  Nonetheless, when I an appealing fare deal shows up in my inbox, I often click on the Google Flights link just to test some dates around my kids’ Spring break. Sometimes, I am not able to find flights as low as advertised, which could mean that they already sold out.  Other times, I find deals that are so good that I’ve had to restrain myself from booking trips.

My absolute favorite deal was a $276 round trip flight from Cleveland to Rome on Delta basic economy that included a full size carry-on and was available over our kids’ Spring break.  Even though we just spent five days in Rome last July, this deal seemed too good to pass up.  Similar flights were well over $1,000 each when I was looking last summer.  Rome was such an phenomenal city, and I was desperate to find someone who could take advantage of this amazing fare deal.  I didn’t have any luck, but pulling up one of my Scott’s Cheap Flights emails has been a cool party trick on several occasions when discussing bargain airfare.  One friend who was booking insanely expensive holiday travel between Memphis and Cleveland was actually annoyed to learn that the Cleveland-Rome flight was a fraction of the cost of her Memphis-Cleveland flights.

The Colosseum in Rome

Here are some other sample fare deals that made me want to book flights:

• $396 flight from Cleveland to Beijing on Air Canada, Delta or United with no baggage fees
• $314 flight from Cleveland to Honolulu on American with carry on
• $372 mistake fare flight from Cleveland to Zagreb on American, British Airways or Croatia Airlines

Is Scott’s Cheap Flights Premium Membership Worth the $39 Annual Fee?

Definitely!  Even though we have not booked a Scott’s Cheap flight yet, we hope to travel to Southeast Asia or South America this year.  I am certain that we are going to find a flight to Bangkok, Buenos Aires or somewhere else amazing through one of Scott’s Cheap Flights’ alerts at a savings of significantly more than $39.  Also, the alert messages make me happy knowing that it is possible to travel internationally without blowing the budget on flights.  I may have thousands of unread emails in my inbox, but I open every message from Scott’s.  I just wish Scott’s Cheap Flights included more domestic travel.  I’m itching to travel to Seattle or Portland and can never find any fare deals on my own.