The Art of Manliness - The Secrets to Booking Cheap Flights

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast travel can offer

00:00:11.440 a lot of good memory making adventure mind expanding experiences and plenty of fun and

00:00:16.280 relaxation it's not surprising then that most people say they'd like to travel more than they

00:00:20.180 do what's keeping them from fulfilling that desire well one obstacle especially these days

00:00:24.760 is that the high price of plane tickets puts flying out of reach my guest today can help you

00:00:28.940 surmount this obstacle so you can get away more often his name is scott kyes he's the founder of

00:00:32.760 scott's cheap flights and the author of take more vacations how to search better book cheaper and

00:00:37.600 travel the world today on the show scott shares how scoring cheap flights can help you travel more

00:00:41.420 often the advantages of taking more frequent vacations and the psychological benefit of

00:00:45.400 planning your trips well in advance we then get into the misconceptions people have about ticket

00:00:49.480 pricing from there we turn to scott's strategies for booking cheap flights beginning with why he

00:00:53.420 recommends adopting a flight first rather than destination first approach scott shares the

00:00:58.480 goldilocks time window when cheap flights are most likely to pop up the benefits of building

00:01:02.620 flexibility into your itinerary the days that are typically cheapest to fly and his favorite search

00:01:07.300 site to look for flights he also explains how to use the 24 hour rule and southwest airlines as

00:01:12.200 arbitrage and getting better prices on your tickets and how to employ what he calls the greek

00:01:15.880 island strategy to save more money when flying internationally we end our conversation with how to take

00:01:20.280 advantage of mistake fares and whether the high prices you're seeing the summer are here to stay

00:01:24.240 after the show's over check out our show notes at awem.is slash cheap flights

00:01:28.080 all right scott kyes welcome to the show thank you so much for having me i'm excited to be here

00:01:46.180 so you are the founder of scott's cheap flights where you highlight cheap flights that are out there

00:01:51.680 you've become the guru at finding really cheap flights you got a new book out where you highlight

00:01:57.540 all the tips you've learned over the years of finding cheap flights how did this happen how did

00:02:01.800 you end up becoming the cheap flights guru well it started off when i went to school and studied cheap

00:02:07.480 flights i got my degree you know in cheap flight ology and no no no i i actually this was all a very

00:02:13.740 serendipitous occurrence for me i never in my life would have imagined that i would become

00:02:19.500 an entrepreneur much less a cheap flight entrepreneur i studied writing and political science in college

00:02:26.140 i was a journalist for a while in a previous life and i really kind of happened backwards into this

00:02:32.880 life where you know they say that necessity is the mother of invention well i was somebody who out of

00:02:38.080 college had huge dreams of wanting to travel to europe and asia and elsewhere but basically no money

00:02:44.900 to do it and so i knew somehow people were out there getting cheap flights but at the time i had

00:02:51.100 no idea how they were doing it and every time i was searching for flights it was like they all were

00:02:56.180 expensive you know unaffordable how how were people doing this and so what i ended up doing was really

00:03:03.060 kind of putting on that journalist hat and scratching that itch of why is it that airfare is so volatile

00:03:09.460 how do you put yourself in a position to get those cheap flights when they pop up and this all then

00:03:15.520 culminated a year or two later when i got what is still to this day probably the single best deal that

00:03:22.300 i've ever personally gotten and that was non-stop from new york city to milan for 130 round trip

00:03:29.640 this was a steal there's probably a flight that they meant to sell for 1300 and forgot a zero at the end

00:03:37.200 but when i booked it it was 130 and it was probably the best deal i've ever gotten and so by taking this

00:03:44.680 this wonderful trip to northern italy and going skiing in the alps and hiking in cinque terra not

00:03:50.080 only did i end up having this wonderful incredible trip but when i got back all my i guess word had

00:03:55.260 spread to all my friends and co-workers and they kept coming up to me hey scott you know i heard about

00:03:59.900 that great deal you got uh listen next time you find a deal like that can you let me know so i can get

00:04:06.480 in on it too and so rather than trying to remember every single person i needed to let know next time

00:04:11.900 i found a deal i decided well why don't i just make a simple little email list and this way i can let

00:04:16.760 everybody know at the same time in that moment scott's cheap flights was born but i had no idea

00:04:22.540 because i wasn't an aspiring entrepreneur at the time i was just somebody who wanted to solve this

00:04:27.540 problem of letting everybody know when i found cheap flights and but then over the next year or two it

00:04:32.480 grew and grew until it was finally time to to think about turning it into an actual business

00:04:37.420 and here we are today talking to you about cheap flights exactly look everybody else says they have

00:04:44.100 the coolest job in the world but i get to find cheap flights every single day and help people take

00:04:48.880 make their vacation dreams come true so i i would at least like to put my hat in the ring for that one

00:04:54.480 so you're helping people find cheap flights not for the sake of finding cheap flights like you're

00:04:59.060 really passionate about this because you want people to take more vacations in fact that's what

00:05:03.300 the title of your latest book is called take more vacations let's talk about that like why do you

00:05:07.460 think people particularly americans need to take more vacation like what is the state of vacationing

00:05:12.640 for americans so there are a few reasons why first reason why is because everybody says they want to

00:05:18.500 everybody says you know traveling and taking more vacation it's one of the top new year's resolutions

00:05:24.120 every year it's one of the top and when you look at survey data of what people want to do when they

00:05:28.460 retire it's always up there number one number two everybody desires to take more vacations than they

00:05:35.560 actually do when you look at the data on how many vacation days people have actually been taking

00:05:42.280 it's basically been on a downward slide for the past 25 years you know in the late 90s people were

00:05:48.020 taking on average 21 days of vacation a year and the most recent data was more like 17 days 16 days

00:05:55.460 and for millennials it was under 15 days per year of vacation and so everybody wants to take more

00:06:02.360 and yet we're taking less and less and so part of it was to figure out well why is that the case why

00:06:09.000 isn't our actions lining up with our desires and one of the things that i really was struck by is how

00:06:17.280 much the stress and complexity of trying to book flights is weighing on people's ability to take

00:06:25.260 vacations that because airfare is the single most volatile thing that most people purchase

00:06:31.680 that ends up leading to a ton of stress it you know it's planning is paradoxically both the most

00:06:37.880 enjoyable part of a trip but also the most stressful part for most people and i think that's actually

00:06:43.640 causing people to take fewer vacations than they would otherwise because they seem to only see expensive

00:06:50.240 flights because they don't know if i don't you know if i see this fair today should i book it will

00:06:55.660 it go up tomorrow will it go down how about a month from now it ends up just leaving people much more

00:07:01.920 anxious about an activity that is theoretically supposed to be one that's supposed to take their anxieties

00:07:07.680 away and so partially it's just trying to do this thing in service of what people say they want but

00:07:14.260 really at the end of the day the reason why i think people ought to take more vacations is because i

00:07:21.380 think you end up enjoying those vacations a lot more as a result people i think make a mistake of

00:07:28.380 thinking of travel and thinking of vacation as just something that you go do to relax to you know sit on

00:07:34.560 the beach and and take your cares away and that's that's fine there's nothing wrong with sipping a

00:07:38.820 cocktail on the beach but i would argue that traveling and vacations are actually more like

00:07:43.820 a muscle where the more you do it the better you get at matching the types of destinations the types

00:07:50.900 of trips and the types of activities to your individual personality and so what i mean by that

00:07:56.280 is when you look at people's satisfaction with their vacations over time it actually goes up as they

00:08:01.780 take more vacations because they get better at figuring out will i enjoy a trip to you know the center

00:08:08.740 of paris all the hustle and bustle or would i prefer something more in the countryside would i like to

00:08:14.000 travel to somewhere where there's maybe a ton of pedestrian infrastructure where i can walk around

00:08:19.640 or would i rather be somewhere where there is where it's very kind of nature focused there are tons of

00:08:25.720 different types of trips out there that folks can take but it's difficult to figure out which one is

00:08:30.220 right for you until you start to just take more of them and test it out and see what you what vibes

00:08:35.740 most was the you rather than what vibes most was the average traveler and in finding cheap flights

00:08:41.860 allows you to take more vacations i think most people you know because flights they think oh man

00:08:46.740 they're so expensive i can only take one big vacation a year and because you only do it one time a year

00:08:51.960 you're not able to find out like what do i really like and it also i think taking that one big vacation

00:08:56.140 a year it puts a lot of pressure on that vacation like it has to if it's not out of the park you're

00:09:01.480 going to be disappointed like man i just waste a lot of money and time but if you take smaller

00:09:05.600 cheaper vacations you increase the chances of you having a better time yeah that was one of the

00:09:10.560 biggest revelations for me on this 130 trip to milan was that because i got such a deal on the flight

00:09:19.400 over the entire experience of the trip was so much different it was like this weight had been lifted off

00:09:26.560 my shoulders where everything felt like it just had a halo to it it had some salt added i didn't have

00:09:33.420 that pressure to enjoy myself and every single minute i could relax and and kind of take things

00:09:39.320 a bit slower i could frankly spend a little bit more on you know i could get that truffle linguine i could

00:09:45.360 buy that first class train ticket rather than sitting in coach i could you know splurge on the better

00:09:51.700 seats for the ac milan soccer match like i could do these things because i had saved so much on the

00:09:57.280 flight over there and so the cheaper the flight i think the better you time you end up having on the

00:10:04.260 vacation itself because you can take that money you saved and devote it towards having a better trip but

00:10:09.400 also because you don't have the same sort of pressure so i think it works both on a financial standpoint

00:10:15.140 and as you mentioned on the sort of quantity of vacation standpoint if you take one big trip a

00:10:22.080 year that's putting a lot of pressure on that trip to enjoy it making sure that this is you know all

00:10:27.880 the sort of anticipation and pressure on this one trip and then you know maybe you get there and

00:10:33.460 things don't go as planned maybe there's thunderstorms maybe you miss you know the boat or the flight or

00:10:38.880 something you know i don't know you get you lose your wallet like things happen on travel where all of a

00:10:44.120 sudden if it happens during this one trip that's your entire vacation budget time budget for the

00:10:50.140 year whereas if you break that time up into two three four trips on the year not only is it much

00:10:57.460 more spread out but then the hangover of coming out coming back home from your vacation is just a much

00:11:04.600 different experience when you come back from that one big trip and it's 49 weeks until your next

00:11:11.320 vacation buddy that is a tough tough outlook but if you come back and it's just three months

00:11:17.320 until your next trip well that's totally doable you can already get busy planning planning out what

00:11:23.180 you're going to do at three months from now on your next trip and so that's why i'm such an advocate

00:11:26.940 of taking more vacations using cheap flights as a way to get them and then being able to not only

00:11:33.940 enjoy yourself more on the trip but also being able to test out the places that you go

00:11:39.160 further down the list you know if you have one trip a year you probably have to go to the big hits you

00:11:44.680 go to paris and london and tokyo but if you have three or four trips a year you can take a chance you

00:11:50.340 can take a flyer on going to albania to you know trinidad and tobago to taiwan places that are

00:11:56.700 kind of further down the traditional list but might actually speak a lot to you personally and some of

00:12:02.040 the best trips i've had have been those sort of b list c list places that are not at the top of the

00:12:08.360 traditional tourist circuit but have been some of my favorite trips to trinidad and tobago to taiwan

00:12:13.980 to lithuania that i'm so glad i was able to to see those places which i might not have if i only

00:12:20.540 traveled once a year yes i feel like too when you go to the big the big hits you go there and you're

00:12:26.040 like oh this looks like the pictures i've seen on the internet um it's kind of a letdown yeah yeah

00:12:33.020 especially you know something like the eiffel tower the mona lisa like the tower of pisa exactly

00:12:37.300 like i expected it to the tower of pisa it's leaning all right um so i also like too so there's

00:12:43.420 all these uh you should hide like this research about when you take vacations it's great for your

00:12:46.960 psychological health it's great for your physical health but you devoted this chapter about the

00:12:51.280 anticipation factor of vacations so how in thinking about going on a vacation actually that's

00:12:56.960 probably one of the most enjoyable parts but i mean talk about like what happens when you have

00:12:59.960 something to look forward to that's right look i think a mistake that folks make when thinking

00:13:04.620 about travel is we only think about travel as what happens on the trip itself you've got a seven day

00:13:10.960 trip to costa rica and you just think about it during those seven days but if you actually look

00:13:16.640 at the research of how people tend to enjoy their travels it turns out we actually get more happiness

00:13:23.840 and more joy in the weeks and months leading up to a trip than we do on the trip itself

00:13:29.880 and we actually get more joy in the weeks and months after a trip looking back on it than we

00:13:36.180 did on the trip itself and that's not to say we don't enjoy the actual trip itself we do but we get

00:13:41.900 even more happiness before and after a trip and i think a lot of folks maybe do themselves a disservice by

00:13:49.500 buying into this idea of like oh romantic you know last minute getaway oh i'm just gonna book

00:13:54.720 something for this weekend and go and that's fine there's nothing wrong with it i like being able to

00:13:59.860 be spontaneous sometimes but i think that undercuts some of the ways that you can really enjoy your

00:14:05.240 vacation by planning it further out and giving your today self the joy of that anticipation of looking

00:14:12.860 forward to it you know the great thing about daydreams is nothing goes wrong in them when you're actually

00:14:18.500 on that trip to costa rica i don't know you know maybe there's a thunderstorm maybe i don't know you get

00:14:24.400 too close to some bad animal in the jungle your taxi driver like rips you off something like that

00:14:30.620 but when you're a month out from that trip two months out and you're daydreaming about hiking through the

00:14:36.000 jungle exploring the countryside going to those coffee farms and those beaches nothing is happening

00:14:42.500 wrong in those in those daydreams and so that's why we tend to actually enjoy the anticipation of travel

00:14:49.240 more than the trip itself and why i think that folks should be taking more effort to booking their

00:14:54.840 travels further in advance and booking more of them so that way rather than just trying to book a trip

00:15:01.620 a week before and then take it and then there's just hangover we've got nothing to look forward to

00:15:06.620 for months on end instead book those trips three months out six months out i've basically always got a

00:15:12.820 trip booked three or six months out so i have something to look forward to today that i can be

00:15:18.560 excited about in the future all right so let's talk about how we can take more trips because plane

00:15:23.860 tickets are usually the most expensive cost in a vacation especially now i'm sure people have tried

00:15:29.680 to plan flights looking at it and they're just like oh my gosh like sticker shock it's like what's going on

00:15:34.200 so let before we dig into how to find cheap flights i think it helped listeners to have a big picture

00:15:40.200 overview of why plane ticket prices are so volatile i mean you check you can check one day and it's this

00:15:47.160 price and then a few hours later it's like 10 times higher you check and you can see like an international

00:15:52.120 flight is a cheaper flight than a domestic flight what's going on there why why are prices so all over

00:15:57.700 the place yeah airfare is the most volatile thing that most people purchase and it's something that's

00:16:04.320 really important to not fall prey to some of the classic mistakes that folks make of assuming that

00:16:11.400 airfare is static a lot of folks will think well you know a flight from let's say new york to la is

00:16:17.280 supposed to cost 300 when in reality it's a wide range that it's constantly swinging up and swinging

00:16:25.480 down the reason why airfare is so volatile is it has a few unique characteristics to it that's unlike

00:16:32.100 other things we purchase it is what's called a rival good when i buy a seat on a flight nobody else can

00:16:39.060 buy that seat it you know if i get it nobody else gets it there's what's called spoilage so any unfilled

00:16:46.420 seats when the door closes for that flight are spoiled they get no money for those so there's an

00:16:51.380 expiration date and there's unpredictability of if or when travelers are actually going to book those

00:16:58.340 flights and so airlines have to try to constantly be adjusting their price in anticipation that you

00:17:05.560 know how many folks are going to book that flight to la if it's at three hundred dollars at three months

00:17:10.160 out not enough okay we need to cut it to 250 oh we're selling plenty we can jack up the price it's a

00:17:17.100 very sort of volatile set of circumstances and so the biggest thing that i think as consumers you can do

00:17:24.540 is to stop thinking of airfare and flight tickets as something like a gallon of milk where we think of

00:17:32.880 airfare you know when you think of a gallon of milk you go to the grocery store the price yesterday is

00:17:38.400 going to be about the price today which is going to be about the price tomorrow and the price that you

00:17:44.680 pay for a gallon of milk there is basically going to be contingent on how much milk you're actually

00:17:49.280 getting you know a half gallon is going to be a little bit more than half the price of a full

00:17:55.100 gallon etc but airfare is nothing like either of those to give you one example i remember looking

00:18:01.500 once at a flight from atlanta to amsterdam this is a flight over memorial day i believe and on monday

00:18:07.860 when we searched for it it was eight hundred dollars round trip on tuesday when we searched for the same

00:18:13.100 flight it was three hundred dollars round trip and on wednesday when we searched for the same flight it

00:18:18.340 was thirteen hundred dollars round trip and so it'll have the airfare will have these wild swings where

00:18:24.460 it's not just like slowly creeping up and down it can change by you know orders of magnitude day by

00:18:31.100 day and so that the best thing you can do as a consumer in many cases is to remember that today's

00:18:37.600 expensive flight can be tomorrow's cheap flight and vice versa and when fares are expensive

00:18:42.200 be patient when they're cheap pull the trigger quickly because that could change tomorrow and

00:18:48.360 then the last thing i would say on this is you know we talked about how the price of milk is large

00:18:52.380 to continue with how much you're buying airfare is not like that i remember looking at a flight last

00:18:58.320 year from there were fares available from pittsburgh to to tokyo for 202 round trip this is an incredible

00:19:06.500 fare obviously but uh do you know where else was available to fly from pittsburgh for 202 on the

00:19:12.360 same dates philadelphia and so it was the exact same price for the exact same wildly wildly different

00:19:20.560 amounts of flight distance and so getting it out of your head that oh the how far you fly has a direct

00:19:26.720 relationship with how much you can expect to pay that's not the case with airfare i think a lot of my

00:19:32.700 job is really trying to get folks to unlearn those mistakes or unlearn their sort of assumptions about

00:19:38.640 what airfare is supposed to be any other common misconceptions you see either besides you know

00:19:43.500 ticket price being correlated to trip distance any big other big ones you see that kind of mess people

00:19:48.500 up oh goodness clearing your cookies incognito window people swear by this i mean if i cannot tell you

00:19:56.820 how often i get you know yelled at to my face that i am absolutely wrong on this one that it totally

00:20:02.980 matters you have to clear your cookies i went ahead and tested this once to see you know does it show a

00:20:09.100 different fare the thinking being oh if the airlines can see you really you know you're searching for

00:20:13.620 this flight then maybe they'll jack up the price to try to get as much money from you as possible so i

00:20:18.500 went ahead and tested it once i searched a flight from denver to london october 6th through 13th and

00:20:24.440 the fare came back as 442 round trip i searched a second time 442 round trip i took hours of my day

00:20:33.040 to search this 100 times in a row and lo and behold on the 100th time just like the first time it was

00:20:39.680 still 442 round trip i think the mistake people make is a sort of truman show-esque thing where where

00:20:47.760 they see sometimes fares change when you are searching for them and that's because airfare like

00:20:53.160 we've mentioned is extremely volatile but it's not because the airlines are watching you you know

00:20:59.220 the individual brett searching for these flights and deciding oh we know we're going to jack up the

00:21:03.800 price on them it's because airfare is always changing and in fact i think the logic is actually

00:21:09.220 backwards in some ways because the way that most companies work is that if you engage in what's

00:21:14.480 called an abandoned cart essentially you you know you're looking at a pair of pants from

00:21:18.840 levi's you click on it but then you don't ultimately purchase it they see that you clicked

00:21:23.780 on it they see that you didn't buy it their solution is not to jack up the price on those

00:21:29.320 pants their solution instead is usually to hit you with a coupon code or some other way of discounting

00:21:34.620 the price to try to get you to purchase in the first place so the good news it's not going to

00:21:39.640 cause you to have more expensive flights to clear your cookies or to search in incognito

00:21:43.940 it's just not necessary it's not going to make any difference whatsoever we're going to take a

00:21:49.260 quick break for your word from our sponsors and now back to the show all right let's talk about

00:21:55.580 some tactics to find cheap flights and you say most people when they search for a flight

00:22:00.540 they use a destination first approach when finding flights but you argue that if you want to find the

00:22:06.620 cheap flights you need to take a flight first approach so walk us through the difference between

00:22:11.820 these two and how does a flight first approach help you find cheaper deals sure so let's say you know

00:22:17.360 you're planning a typical vacation bread and and the way if you plan your vacation like most people

00:22:24.660 you use what's called a destination first approach and so probably looks something like this tell me if

00:22:30.240 i'm if i'm off base here you decide first where do you want to go oh you know the paris it's i've had

00:22:37.720 it on my list for a while it seems great like i don't know i just saw some instagram somebody there

00:22:43.680 taking some great photos of the eiffel tower i would love to go to paris so you decide okay paris

00:22:49.400 is the play and then second well when is a good time to go to paris when do we have off oh we could

00:22:55.480 go like in the middle of august you know we've got some time off work then let's choose how about

00:23:01.020 august 15th through 22nd that'd be perfect to go to okay so we're going to go to paris august 15th

00:23:06.660 22nd step three let's look at what the airfare costs and by already choosing the destination

00:23:14.000 and already choosing the dates and then going to search for the fares the end result most of the

00:23:20.240 time is pretty expensive flights and then we're left wondering well why the heck are flights always so

00:23:26.240 damn expensive and so instead what i what i recommend folks is if you want to get cheap flights if cheap

00:23:33.660 flights are really a priority don't make them the last priority in the in the way that you did in

00:23:40.440 this three-step approach of the destination first approach instead make it the top priority take that

00:23:46.980 same three-step process and flip it on its head step one this is what i call the flight first approach

00:23:53.040 step one where are there cheap flights available from my home airport right now so let's say you live

00:23:59.620 in los angeles just in the past week there were flights from lax to hawaii for 160 round trip

00:24:07.400 there were flights for lax down to costa rica for i believe 240 round trip or over to barcelona for

00:24:15.840 385 round trip oh man i would love to go to hawaii like all those sound great but hawaii seems really

00:24:23.660 really awesome so on step two you decide of those places where they're cheap which one interests me the

00:24:28.760 most chose hawaii of those three step three what dates work for my schedule that have those cheap

00:24:34.600 fares available oh we could go august 17th through 24th i see this 160 fares available then let's do

00:24:41.300 it that way and so it's the same three steps but just by reordering it and putting cheap flights as

00:24:47.760 the top priority rather than the last priority that's how you end up being able to get cheap flights and

00:24:54.640 being able to take three or four vacations for the same price you used to pay for one i think the mistake

00:25:01.280 a lot of folks make is getting their heart set on one destination at the expense of all their options

00:25:08.380 when in reality i think most people would are like me they'd love to see most places in the world and

00:25:15.080 you know it's just a matter of when to go visit them and i like to use cheap flights as kind of the

00:25:20.400 determinant there like if there's a cheap flight available right now to hawaii great i'm gonna hop

00:25:25.120 on that even if it's for three six months from now knowing that paris isn't going anywhere it'll still

00:25:30.960 be there next time we show up you know i think i think a lot of folks approach travel planning and

00:25:37.280 flight searching as though they're showing up at a restaurant and you know the waiter offers them the

00:25:43.100 menu and they just wave it away and say no no no i'm gonna have the filet mignon please don't even look

00:25:48.040 at the price and then you know get a little surprised when the bill comes and and they just

00:25:52.780 bought the most expensive dinner that they've had in a month instead you know i like to look for those

00:25:58.240 bargains look for those values and remembering that the availability of cheap flights is not something

00:26:04.000 that stays static it's not that there's one price from la to paris maybe it's expensive right now so

00:26:10.340 i'm going to book somewhere else but maybe later this year it ends up popping up pretty cheap and i can

00:26:15.020 take advantage of it then no i love about this technique too is that it injects some serendipity

00:26:19.960 in your life right because you see oh i never would have thought of going to costa rica but it's

00:26:23.640 only 150 bucks i'll go do that that that's exactly right look that trip to milan that 130 flight that i

00:26:30.020 took i woke up that morning with zero intention of booking a flight to italy that day it was not

00:26:36.420 something that was on my mind at all i am not a fashionable person if you saw me right now i am in shorts

00:26:42.880 and a t-shirt and looking a little bit slovenly frankly to go to such a you know fashion forward

00:26:48.440 place but for 130 round trip i mean there's basically nowhere in the world that i wouldn't go

00:26:54.420 and then once i get there realizing oh there are all these like kind of hidden gems in the area oh i

00:26:59.980 could popped up to lake como went to hike in cinque terra went skiing in the alps went to a ac milan

00:27:05.400 you know champions league game it was so much fun in a way that again totally serendipitous that rather

00:27:12.680 than if i had sort of prescripted everything from the get-go and kind of looked at a map and decided

00:27:18.160 okay i'm going here and then just hoping and praying that cheap fares pop up and by again putting

00:27:23.740 that that price as the top priority it left my wallet still so flush that i could be take doing it again

00:27:30.940 you know a few months from then and continuing to take more and more trips each year okay so the

00:27:37.300 first technique i think it's paradigm shifting for a lot of people look for the flight first look for

00:27:42.360 the cheapest flight first and then pick your destination but let's say someone needs to take

00:27:46.680 a destination first approach to finding a flight like say they've got a wedding they got to go to

00:27:51.440 for example what what are some things you can do to still find cheap flights even though you've got

00:27:57.700 a destination in mind first that's right look flexibility is the single most important thing

00:28:03.080 you can do for yourself to get cheap flights but it's not the only you know you don't have always

00:28:08.740 have a ton of flexibility in every trip sometimes you've got that wedding where you don't have

00:28:13.720 control over the destination you don't have control over the dates and you'd still like to make sure

00:28:18.620 that you you know are not paying an arm and a leg to for those flights and so even in those

00:28:24.300 situations you still have a lot of control over making sure you get the best deal possible the

00:28:30.340 single most important thing you can do for those trips where you don't have much flexibility is to

00:28:36.040 get the timing of your booking right i use this technique called the goldilocks windows approach

00:28:42.380 so what this idea is is that there are certain windows in advance of purchase when cheap flights are

00:28:49.900 most likely to pop up if you're traveling domestically it's usually about one to three

00:28:55.560 months in advance is when a cheap flight is most likely to pop up if you're traveling internationally

00:29:00.980 about two to eight months it's a much larger window when those cheap flights are most likely to pop up

00:29:05.980 and if you're traveling during a peak travel period you know middle of summer christmas new year

00:29:11.040 something like that you need to add a few months to those recommendations so advanced planning is is

00:29:16.500 especially critical if you don't have any flexibility about where or when you go but even

00:29:23.480 then you know trying to make sure that you are not only getting the timing of your booking right but

00:29:30.220 that you're taking advantage of any other like little kind of nudges that can help get you a cheaper

00:29:35.560 flight so maybe you know are you willing to add or subtract a day to your trip if fares are significantly

00:29:42.000 cheaper let's say you live in philadelphia are you willing to you know keep an eye on cheap flights

00:29:48.020 out of newark or out of bwi or you know washington dc if fares are significantly cheaper than out of

00:29:54.620 philly are you willing to you know making sure you check southwest.com separately because their fares don't

00:30:00.920 show up on flight search engines there are a lot of kind of little tips and tricks like that to make sure

00:30:07.180 that you're still getting the best deal possible even in those instances where you have much less

00:30:12.520 flexibility than a normal vacation yeah i love the example of you know being intentional about the

00:30:18.700 airport you fly out because that can that can just knock i mean in one case i think it was an

00:30:22.420 international flight it knocked like thousands of dollars off of a plane ticket because someone took

00:30:26.660 a three-hour drive to a different airport yeah this is one of my favorite this is one of my favorite

00:30:32.180 stories so one of the people i interviewed for my book take more vacations was shanna

00:30:36.120 laugh well and she and her she has a family of five they live outside detroit michigan so detroit's

00:30:41.220 their home airport she had always wanted to take her family out out to bali but flights from detroit to

00:30:48.220 bali are normally like twenty five hundred dollars you know somewhere in that in that ballpark and so

00:30:54.220 family of five we're talking twelve thousand five hundred dollars just for the flights and so that was

00:31:00.980 of course like totally out of the question but all of a sudden one day she got an alert

00:31:05.760 from scott street flights that fares to bali had popped up for 550 out of chicago now what was

00:31:14.240 interesting was chicago is obviously not her home airport but she could buy five tickets for a flight

00:31:21.520 out of chicago to bali for the same price that it would cost for one ticket out of detroit to bali and

00:31:28.280 so the question then was is it worth it like it's not is detroit more convenient to fly out of

00:31:35.240 than chicago but is it ten thousand dollars more convenient and that's a pretty like that's a

00:31:42.720 pretty easy question especially for a family of five so what they did was just they bought those five

00:31:48.040 tickets from chicago to bali they hopped in the car they drove the you know three or four hours whatever

00:31:54.420 it is to drive from detroit to chicago and caught the flight there and the funny thing about it was

00:32:00.440 because it it's a much simpler itinerary from chicago it's just a believe it was chicago to

00:32:07.700 taipei then down to bali with a pretty brief layover it was actually going to be shorter travel time

00:32:14.820 total even with the drive over to chicago than if they were to book a flight out of detroit that had

00:32:21.020 two connections long layovers the way i put it is like you if she had if she and some friends had booked

00:32:28.420 their flights and their friends were flying out of detroit and she was flying out of chicago even

00:32:32.340 with the drive over she would have gotten there three or four hours earlier been able to you know

00:32:36.880 get lunch take some surf lessons hang out at the pool waiting for their friends flying out of detroit

00:32:43.200 to actually get to bali and meet them so not only can it sometimes save you a ton of money to keep an

00:32:48.940 eye on nearby airports it can even sometimes actually save you time as well okay so i think if you don't have

00:32:55.060 any flexibility on your destination or the time i guess the trick is find ways to inject flexibility

00:33:00.840 in your travel plans whether that's changing the airport you fly out of or maybe even the airport

00:33:05.140 you fly into and you have to maybe drive a few hours or be flexible and you know when you fly in so

00:33:11.720 maybe if you get there a little bit earlier because the tickets a little bit cheaper or you leave a little

00:33:16.760 bit later that's right look i took a trip once to norway i was flying out of out of washington dc

00:33:23.700 flights from dc to norway at the time were you know 700 800 bucks like it wasn't cheap but what i ended

00:33:32.160 up stumbling across was a flight from dc to brussels in belgium for 225 round trip once i got to brussels

00:33:41.220 being able to catch a you know budget flight up to oslo was like 50 and so by pairing a cheap flight

00:33:49.200 across the atlantic within a cheap flight within europe i was able to save four or five hundred

00:33:55.360 dollars off what it would have cost to book it as a single itinerary from dc to oslo what was

00:34:01.580 especially great about splitting up that way wasn't just the money savings and then also that i could

00:34:07.100 take some time to explore brussels before my flight up to oslo and so i spaced it out by a day or two got to

00:34:15.160 basically get a free layover in belgium hang out you know have some good waffles some great fries you

00:34:20.620 know see the the weird mannequin piss statue like it was it was awesome it was the you know i didn't

00:34:26.320 like 48 hours was the perfect amount of time to to spend on that trip and then continue on to my final

00:34:32.240 destination so again yeah giving your i think a lot of times people unintentionally kneecap themselves by

00:34:39.740 thinking of flexibility as a binary either you're totally flexible or you have zero flexibility

00:34:44.880 when in reality it's much more of a spectrum it's much more of a dimmer switch you have some amount

00:34:50.220 of flexibility and trying to take advantage of it where you can to get cheaper flights without having

00:34:55.760 to without having to always have like a hundred 100 flexibility that maybe you did as a solo traveler

00:35:03.460 in your early 20s taking a vacation okay and so to reiterate too there's the goldilocks model

00:35:09.120 for when you want to buy a ticket and that's like you know one month to three months out for most

00:35:13.660 flights it's going to be a little bit longer if you're trying to plan a flight at peak flight season

00:35:18.800 and for a bunch of complicated reasons you talk about in the book and this i thought this was really

00:35:22.440 interesting flights usually aren't cheaper if you book them more than three months out and then you

00:35:28.900 don't also don't want to wait the last minute because airlines are counting on business travelers who

00:35:33.380 they don't care about the price because you know the company's paying for it and they got to make it to a

00:35:37.840 meeting regardless so they're counting on them to buy the last minute tickets so it's always going

00:35:43.340 to be really expensive last minute so i guess take away follow the goldilocks model one to three months

00:35:48.320 out buy your ticket and then as you mentioned i think some people think if you book your flight you

00:35:53.380 know on this day or on a certain day you're going to find the cheapest flights and you said that used

00:35:58.620 to be the case you know a long time ago but that's not the case anymore yeah this is one of those

00:36:03.640 misconceptions where 20 years ago when airlines first started selling their tickets online they

00:36:09.120 really would load their fares once a week at a predetermined time like say tuesday at 1 p.m

00:36:14.420 and if you were one of the first people to book flights after that happened you really could get

00:36:19.440 some you know they had a very limited number of cheap flights and you could really take advantage

00:36:23.020 the problem is that that is not how airlines have priced their tickets for years now nowadays airfare

00:36:29.640 is set algorithmically it's changing by the day if not by the hour and so while there's no

00:36:35.940 predetermined time when flights are cheapest to book there are cheaper days generally to fly you know

00:36:43.460 we talked about the business travelers versus leisure travelers the cheapest days to fly are typically

00:36:48.920 tuesday wednesday and saturday those are more often than not going to be cheaper it's not a hundred

00:36:55.460 percent of the time i like to think of it kind of as a as a something of a betting line look when

00:37:00.740 lebron steps on a basketball court he's usually favored to win but that doesn't mean he's never

00:37:05.220 lost a game it's kind of the same with cheapest days of the week to fly they're usually those are

00:37:11.520 going to be cheaper but sometimes you'll see cheap flights pop up on mondays or sundays or or fridays

00:37:16.600 it's just a little bit less likely and what about the seasonality around prices because i mean i'm sure

00:37:21.680 okay summertime is probably the most expensive time to fly but are there periods to fly when it's

00:37:26.440 cheaper because i know you know in the book you talk about how flying thanksgiving week in the united

00:37:30.960 states is really expensive but it can be the best week to travel internationally so i mean are there

00:37:37.200 any other periods like that to fly when it's cheaper absolutely look summer and and christmas new

00:37:42.880 years are the two most expensive times of year to fly summer is an expensive time of year to fly

00:37:48.620 because you have all the you know students teachers families with kids in school who can

00:37:54.000 only travel around the academic calendar that sort of funneling of demand ends up leading to much more

00:38:00.260 expensive tickets whereas if you have the flexibility if your schedule allows you to travel in the fall

00:38:07.320 in the winter in the spring you're much more likely to see very very cheap tickets during those times

00:38:14.560 the last thing too that i would note is that summer flights are always going to be expensive that

00:38:20.000 seasonality and last minute summer flights are going to be especially expensive and so i think a lot of

00:38:26.400 the sticker shock that many folks are seeing right now is a little bit of that sort of confluence of

00:38:33.380 of factors working against people that not only are they looking for flights during the peak season but

00:38:39.460 they're doing so at about the worst time to book that last minute window when fares tend to really

00:38:45.200 skyrocket rather than come down in price what's your approach to searching for flights do you like

00:38:50.800 expedia kayak google flights what's your process yeah they they sort of open secret in the industries

00:38:57.320 they're basically all the same whether you search on orbit search on expedia search on kayak search on

00:39:03.240 my personal favorite is google flights i just find it the user interface the user experience to be

00:39:09.400 significantly better faster more powerful that's why i like it but the actual results that you're

00:39:16.000 going to see are going to be basically a saint the same across the board so the good news is if you

00:39:23.800 have a preference one or the other you really you know you swear by sky scanner you love kayak go for

00:39:30.200 it it's not it's not going to make a huge difference in the actual fares that you see but what i would say

00:39:36.140 is that you might want to differentiate between where you search for your flights and where you book your

00:39:42.740 flights because the price tends to stay the same i like to search for my flights on any one of those

00:39:48.620 kind of meta search sites where i'm comparing across airlines to making sure i'm getting the best price but

00:39:54.180 then when i actually go to book i typically like to book directly with the airline and that's for two reasons

00:39:59.820 one because there are certain federal protections that you have when you book directly with the airline

00:40:05.560 for instance there's something called the 24 hour rule this is a federal law that says when you book a

00:40:11.860 flight directly with an airline you from the moment you hit purchase you get a 24 hour grace period

00:40:18.080 during which you can cancel your purchase and get a full cash refund no questions asked that is not

00:40:24.800 the case under federal law when you book through an online travel agency they might have their own

00:40:30.240 policies or or offerings on those many of them do but they don't because they don't have the weight of

00:40:36.420 law behind them they're just not quite as attractive in my mind but second when you book a flight directly

00:40:42.980 with an airline if something goes wrong with your itinerary if the flight schedule gets changed if there's

00:40:50.360 thunderstorms if you decide to cancel or this or that it's much easier to handle or change your itinerary

00:40:57.600 if you can just deal directly with the airline rather than having to deal with a middleman because not only

00:41:03.360 you know is a middleman going to be a more just an arduous process but then you've got not only the airline's

00:41:09.700 policies but the middleman's policies to deal with as well and so this for simplicity's sake it ends up being

00:41:16.260 far far preferable if anything needs to change with your itinerary if you've booked directly with the

00:41:21.620 airline so differentiating between where you search and where you book all right so book with the

00:41:26.160 airlines and you talk about you can take advantage of that 24 hour rule when you book with an airline

00:41:30.420 to kind of it's a way to find better prices it's kind of arbitrage right that's right so i mean you

00:41:36.320 know i'll give you one example there was a gentleman that i interviewed for the trip who had really

00:41:43.040 wanted to travel to japan he was very very excited to be able to visit and when some cheap flights

00:41:50.940 popped up for him he was like really excited to book them i believe they were initially i'm trying

00:41:57.200 to find the exact price initially 572 dollars he booked them but then within 24 hours all of a sudden

00:42:05.020 a better flight popped up he was in dc from richmond to tokyo for even cheaper so he said well look

00:42:11.780 richmond's not that hard to get to i'll save the save you know 100 i'll go down to richmond and get

00:42:16.740 a cheaper flight and because this new fare popped up within 24 hours he could cancel the old itinerary

00:42:22.800 and book the new ticket from richmond to tokyo well then lo and behold again within 24 hours of doing

00:42:28.500 that another cheaper flight popped up this time out of dc to tokyo for just 584 bucks round trip even

00:42:36.400 better than the initial richmond flight so he canceled that one booked the new dc tokyo flight

00:42:42.520 for 584 and ended up being able to take a great trip a much more convenient trip than what he had

00:42:48.060 initially booked and so the key to remember is that the 24 hour rule can help you in a few different

00:42:55.860 ways it can help you if you're not a hundred percent sure you want to take a trip but you see a really

00:43:00.780 good fare so if you book it what that does is essentially just freeze the price for 24 hours

00:43:07.200 and give you time to decide do you want to keep this trip or would you rather just cancel and get

00:43:12.380 your money back maybe you need to consult with a significant other travel partner but they're in a

00:43:17.280 meeting rather than risking the fare disappearing which which does happen especially with really cheap

00:43:23.620 fares you could book it lock it in for 24 hours and then cancel later if you decide you don't want it

00:43:30.160 but then it also the 24 hour rule lets you take advantage like with this gentleman donald and his

00:43:35.920 flights to tokyo where if the price drops after you book which happens more often than you would think

00:43:42.540 airlines do have what are called fare wars where they're essentially just ratcheting down the price

00:43:47.580 to compete with one another if there's a fare war going on you can book your flight but then if the

00:43:53.600 price gets cheaper or if it switches from a connecting flight to a non-stop flight you can cancel your

00:43:59.740 itinerary book the new one and take advantage without having to pay anything extra and in fact be able to

00:44:05.760 save the difference and you you also will highlight that you can do this with southwest airlines use them

00:44:10.440 as an arbitrage tool so typically southwest we think of like it's a budget airline right but oftentimes you

00:44:15.960 can find better deal with the other airlines so you're saying use southwest airlines to get to your

00:44:20.280 initial destinations you can lock in that kind of you know basically affordable price but then you know keep

00:44:25.440 looking for better deals with another airline yeah like okay so i've got a i've got a wedding that i

00:44:30.800 need to go to this september and as soon as i got the the dates for that wedding what i did was went

00:44:37.720 ahead on southwest.com and i just booked the best flight i could find you know with a reasonable price

00:44:43.280 to the destination for those wedding dates and the reason why i booked it on southwest and especially i did

00:44:49.660 so with southwest points that i had is that southwest flights are free to cancel if you book with points

00:44:56.700 you just get all those points redeposited with no fee or anything if you book with cash they just hold

00:45:03.180 your funds as a you know the exact amount as travel credit for a future trip and so what that does is

00:45:10.160 essentially lets you set a price ceiling so in this instance i believe it paid like 350 for the flight

00:45:17.520 and what that said was i said 350 as the maximum so if the price went down on southwest well i'll just

00:45:24.780 cancel and i'll rebook it for the 300 price if it does go down if it goes up to 400 450 no worries i

00:45:33.200 already got my 350 ticket if it goes down on another airline let's say american offers that that flight for

00:45:40.300 the on those dates for 250 well great i'll book that american flight i'll cancel my southwest one for 350

00:45:46.680 and end up being able to take a cheaper trip so either way what it ends up allowing you to do the

00:45:53.880 southwest arbitrage is essentially create a heads you win tails the airlines lose situation and lord knows

00:46:02.100 we need more of those because it feels like it's more often the other case you know the that the

00:46:06.220 airlines are usually the one to try to get one over on you and so finding instances like this where

00:46:11.380 you can say this is the most that i'm going to pay and if there are any price drops between now and

00:46:16.160 then which there often are considering how volatile airfare is uh you can take advantage and end up

00:46:22.480 saving the difference another advanced tip you highlight that can save you a lot of money especially

00:46:27.460 if you're flying internationally you mentioned this earlier let's say you want to go someplace in

00:46:31.100 europe like brussels but like direct flights from brussels from your you know from chicago are crazy but

00:46:37.240 if you find a place to london that's super cheap basically you said you can just build in a layover in

00:46:42.360 london and then as soon as you're in europe it's pretty cheap to fly anywhere in europe after that

00:46:46.320 point yeah that's exactly right you know so i call this the greek island strategy the idea that if you

00:46:52.660 were to search for a flight from new york to santorini oftentimes they're closer to like fifteen

00:46:58.020 hundred dollars especially if you're traveling in the summer but flights from new york to athens are

00:47:03.200 regularly 450 bucks and oftentimes non-stop whereas there are no non-stops to santorini from

00:47:10.360 the u.s once you get to athens it's really easy to hop a budget flight hop a ferry something else to

00:47:17.120 get to the to the islands for you know 50 bucks 75 bucks and so not only do you end up save you know

00:47:24.440 being able to pocket uh get a 66 percent price reduction off those fifteen hundred dollars santorini

00:47:31.440 flights but you also again can build in that free layover where you can take as much time as you'd like

00:47:36.980 in athens before continuing on to santorini and make it a free layover free two-in-one trip

00:47:43.940 looking for especially when you are traveling whether it's somewhere remote or somewhere even

00:47:50.600 just where there's a the destination there aren't many cheap flights popping up getting you know we

00:47:55.460 talked about getting creative when you might not have full flexibility keeping an eye on cheap

00:47:59.560 nearby airports knowing that once you get to europe once you get to southeast asia it's really easy to

00:48:07.840 then continue on from the hub where you arrive to your final destination on another flight and the

00:48:14.880 reason why you need to take a little creativity and search this yourself is that the airlines themselves

00:48:21.080 aren't going to sell tickets on rival airlines and so maybe the cheapest flight across the ocean

00:48:27.620 let's just say it's on british airways but then the cheapest flight from london down to brussels

00:48:34.640 is on let's just say it's on klm let's say you're going to amsterdam it's on klm you're not going to be

00:48:42.620 able to buy that as a single itinerary with british airways and klm because they're rivals they don't

00:48:48.640 sell one another's tickets and you're not going to see how cheap but instead by buying one flight to

00:48:54.480 london and a separate flight from london to amsterdam you are able to build yourself the

00:49:01.100 cheapest itinerary and so that's why it's important especially when you have these long

00:49:06.040 haul flights over an ocean to see if you can do it cheaper by flying into a different gateway

00:49:11.180 and then continuing on with a different airline to your final destination

00:49:15.220 another tip to find cheap flights is mistake fairs i guess you're kind of you're kind of

00:49:20.440 hinting that you think that great deal you got to milan was a mistake fair what are those and like

00:49:25.300 why do they happen and how do you find them oh yeah absolutely it was there was no question that

00:49:30.240 was a mistake fair mistake fairs are interesting because they pop up more often than people would

00:49:35.660 realize and they they end up getting honored much more often than people would think you know

00:49:41.680 obviously that 130 flight got honored but that's not the only mistake fair i've gotten in my life

00:49:46.200 i've gotten a flight from the u.s to japan for 169 round trip like half of my co-workers it's got

00:49:53.740 two flights got a business class round trip flight to southeast asia for 550 round trip a ticket that

00:50:01.220 normally costs five thousand dollars to you know bangkok or bali or vietnam and those types of deals

00:50:07.400 pop up quite regularly right really you know eight ten twelve times a year usually like i'm looking

00:50:14.800 at one in just a couple months ago there were mistake fair to iceland where it was boston to

00:50:20.400 reikovic for a hundred dollars round trip dc to reikovic for 129 denver to reikovic for 149 round trip

00:50:28.080 those types of deals do pop up regularly they pop up for a number of reasons so the classic case was

00:50:34.780 like with that milan deal where maybe they just accidentally forgot a zero at the end and sold

00:50:40.060 it to me for 130 rather than 1300 there are other reasons why maybe the again airfares set algorithmically

00:50:48.020 nowadays and so it's much more difficult to often figure out what you know it will one change here

00:50:54.260 produce a sort of anomaly in the end result of some other fares and so they do pop up still pretty

00:51:01.720 regularly the key when a mistake fair pops up is to book it as quickly as possible again taking

00:51:07.980 advantage of the 24 hour rule because you know as soon as they're fixed they're gone i remember

00:51:13.320 looking at a flight once from the u.s to india i believe it was from dallas to india for 212 round

00:51:19.340 trip and i was so excited you know i was messaging friends hey who wants to take this trip by the time

00:51:25.060 we sort of found i recruited a friend to go travel we planned our itinerary and everything we we took

00:51:30.920 two hours to plan where we were going to go and when before then booking our flight and i kid you not

00:51:36.740 30 seconds before i went to book the flight it disappeared the 212 mistake was fixed and so by

00:51:44.240 by dawdling by by taking our time we ended up missing the deal uh so we mentioned that prices right now

00:51:51.500 are just crazy for summer summer travel i guess your take is if you really want to travel that place

00:51:55.960 it's better to hold off you want a cheaper flight absolutely look if you have the opportunity to

00:52:01.220 travel in the fall or beyond really labor day and beyond fares are likely to be 50 percent lower or

00:52:07.480 more i mean you just you see tons of it i think people have made the mistake of assuming that cheap

00:52:14.040 flights are gone forever when in reality they're just gone for this summer we are still living in what i

00:52:19.260 call the golden age of cheap flights it's just it's at this point as it would be in any at this in june

00:52:26.000 of any summer it's virtually impossible to find cheap summer flights yeah i think i read somewhere

00:52:31.540 that flights are up by a third the summer is that right yeah they are significantly rebounded from where

00:52:38.920 it was a year ago still cheaper when you look up compared to where it was a decade ago but you know

00:52:44.220 small comfort for folks who are kind of got used to those really cheap pandemic era flights and then

00:52:50.040 are getting a bit of sticker shock this summer okay so flights are really expensive in the summer

00:52:54.360 any year but they're especially high this year because of pent-up travel demand during the pandemic

00:53:00.220 the airlines laid off pilots and they didn't hire as many people and now everyone wants to travel

00:53:04.960 but even if those things get smooth out will prices go down in the fall like they usually do

00:53:10.740 like will will they go back to the normal fall levels that we're used to or things like inflation

00:53:16.820 or an oil price is going to keep them from going back to the prices that we're normally accustomed to

00:53:22.580 uh they will go back and you don't have to take my word for it you can just go look at the prices for

00:53:28.940 the fall right now you know i i took a look before chatting with you and and you know just a couple

00:53:35.340 sample fares for instance if you wanted to fly right now from chicago to cancun july

00:53:40.720 21st through 29th 583 september 21st through 29th 233 you know austin down to a ruba july 8th through

00:53:49.400 15th 951 round trip november 8th through 15th 293 round trip if your schedule allows you to travel

00:53:56.540 in the fall or the winter you really can take advantage of a lot of the cheap flights that are

00:54:01.320 still available but you want to try to book those sooner rather than later if you wait again to the

00:54:05.800 last minute to book those if you wait till september to book your flights in october it could be

00:54:10.540 kind of difficult to get something cheap whereas if you try to get those on the books now and give

00:54:15.620 your today self something to look forward to it's going to end up being better both for your

00:54:20.360 happiness and for your wallet so you guys big takeaway there if you're going to plan a trip

00:54:25.420 plan for the fall and even if prices do go up a little bit there's still good deals to be found

00:54:30.580 absolutely absolutely look it's if your schedule allows it try to avoid frankly flying in the middle

00:54:38.240 of summer that's when fares are going to be most expensive if cheap flights are important to you

00:54:42.640 traveling in the middle of summer is generally not going to be the best time to do that but even if

00:54:47.920 you really want to travel in summer and you really want to still get a good deal having to plan well

00:54:53.600 ahead but what i like to say is if you want to travel peak season always book opposite season you

00:54:59.520 know in the same way that swimsuits are going to be cheapest to buy in the winter same with your summer

00:55:04.760 flights purchasing those in the winter and so what that means is right now in the summer the cheapest

00:55:10.200 thing to buy on in stores are those winter coats the cheapest flights to buy right now are those

00:55:15.840 winter holiday flights so think about booking your christmas new year's flights now while they're going

00:55:20.820 to be much cheaper than if you wait four or five months and are trying to book them at the same time

00:55:25.440 as everybody else and seeing really expensive fares at that point well scott this has been a great

00:55:30.060 conversation where can people go to learn more about the book in your work

00:55:32.740 absolutely so the book is available at any bookstore they some of the large conglomerate

00:55:39.060 selling books online or your local independent bookstore it's called take more vacations

00:55:43.540 and you can sign up for alerts about cheap flights popping up from your home airport at scottscheapflights.com

00:55:51.240 no apostries no underscores that's scottscheapflights.com

00:55:55.440 fantastic well scott kyes thanks for your time it's been a pleasure

00:55:57.440 my pleasure brett thank you so much for having me

00:55:59.820 my guest there is scott kyes he is the founder of scottscheapflights you can check that out at

00:56:04.920 scottscheapflights.com also check out his book take more vacations available on amazon.com and

00:56:10.000 bookstores everywhere also check out our show notes at awm.is slash cheap flights where you can find

00:56:13.940 links to resources where we delve deeper into this topic

00:56:16.020 well that wraps up another edition of the awm podcast make sure to check out our website at

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00:57:00.380 you've heard into action

The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

The Secrets to Booking Cheap Flights

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