Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel and I'm Matt,
Speaker 1: and today we're discussing how to find the cheapest flights
Speaker 1: with money pro Scott Kay's Joel. This is going to
Speaker 1: be an awesome episode. It turns out that folks are
Speaker 1: booking their airfare, booking their flights all wrong, and Scott's
Speaker 1: here to drop some knowledge on us. You know, it
Speaker 1: kind of hurts sometimes, Matt, to be told you're doing
Speaker 1: something wrong, but ultimately it's gonna save you lots of money.
Speaker 1: It's worth it, right, I'll take it. Take your medicine, Joel.
Speaker 1: But real quick, before we get to that, I want
Speaker 1: to let you know, Matt, I installed this new Chrome
Speaker 1: extension called Facebook news feed Eradicator and we'll put a
Speaker 1: link to it in the show notes. Sounds so hardcore,
Speaker 1: it is news Eradicator. So I'm reading this book right
Speaker 1: now by Cal Newport and we're hoping to have him
Speaker 1: on as a money row in in a couple of months,
Speaker 1: but he just came out with a book called Digital Minimalism,
Speaker 1: and man, it's really kicking me in the pants. We've
Speaker 1: talked before about how I gray scale my phone. We've
Speaker 1: talked about putting your phone on airplane mode to get
Speaker 1: more accomplished. And then this Chrome extension that I just installed,
Speaker 1: I feel like he's been a big boon to my
Speaker 1: productivity because here's what it does when I go to
Speaker 1: Facebook instead of seeing my news feed because me like
Speaker 1: a quote from Buddha or something like that. So literally
Speaker 1: you have you have no feed, And basically the essential
Speaker 1: tools of Facebook that you can use are the notifications
Speaker 1: and your groups over on your on the left, and
Speaker 1: that's all that matters anyway, dog right. The worst part
Speaker 1: about Facebook is the mindless feed scroll. And I feel
Speaker 1: like that's what I got sucked into on occasion. And
Speaker 1: so now even i'll honestly find myself, I'm learning quickly
Speaker 1: how I would resort to the Facebook news feed when
Speaker 1: I just had a couple of minutes extra and my
Speaker 1: my fingers just literally across the keyboard type in Facebook,
Speaker 1: and I go there, and now I'm like, oh wait,
Speaker 1: there's nothing for me to do, and I quickly x
Speaker 1: out and I'm done. So if anyone's looking to be
Speaker 1: just like a little more productive and finds himself mindlessly
Speaker 1: scrolling through their Facebook news feed, it's a really worthwhile thing.
Speaker 1: To consider installing this Chrome extension the Facebook news feed eradicator,
Speaker 1: and like I said, we'll post a link in the
Speaker 1: show notes. What what do you think, Matt, is something
Speaker 1: you would do? Yeah? I love that. That's that's awesome.
Speaker 1: Although I don't find myself getting lost as much in
Speaker 1: just the Facebook news feed. I kind of, honestly, I
Speaker 1: find myself going to actual news outlets and just obsessively
Speaker 1: sort of by default, like you said, when there's an
Speaker 1: extra minute, going off to that website and just kind
Speaker 1: of seeing what's going on in the world. That's just
Speaker 1: how I operate. But um, while we're talking about Chroma
Speaker 1: extension as though if you're looking to save some money,
Speaker 1: have you ever heard of Honey I have. Yeah, Man,
Speaker 1: that's one that Kate and I use a lot, And
Speaker 1: if you haven't heard of it, it applies coupons that
Speaker 1: already exists online to your shopping cart when you're checking out,
Speaker 1: and specifically we use it a lot with Amazon and uh,
Speaker 1: they have an option where it shows the price history
Speaker 1: of a product, so you can kind of see where
Speaker 1: it's been and so if it's currently at a good
Speaker 1: price point, you know to buy. Sometimes it'll suggest buying
Speaker 1: from different sellers as well. If Prime isn't that important
Speaker 1: to you, you can save out of money by ordering
Speaker 1: from this seller. Obviously you don't have the prime shipping benefits,
Speaker 1: but sometimes that's not important. And you can also create
Speaker 1: a drop list where you get emails on items that
Speaker 1: you saved, and so then as the price goes down,
Speaker 1: you get an email giving you the heads up, so
Speaker 1: you know to buy. That's super cool. Yeah, and also
Speaker 1: we use it seriously all that all the time. Well,
Speaker 1: I've been using one for a lot of years called
Speaker 1: Invisible Hand, and it kind of works in the background
Speaker 1: and if I'm on an Amazon page, let's say there's
Speaker 1: a little drop down that that occurs and it says
Speaker 1: we found this item for five dollars cheaper at Walmart
Speaker 1: dot com or at whatever. And so I love those extensions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's great. But I'm gonna check out honey, because honestly,
Speaker 1: I haven't used it, but I've heard good things. So
Speaker 1: the beer that we're drinking on the show today, man
Speaker 1: is Penguin, which is a blonde stout aged and bourbon barrels.
Speaker 1: And this is my rhyan Geist brewery in Cincinnati. Again,
Speaker 1: it turns out Mad. A couple of people at rhein
Speaker 1: Geist are listeners, and Natalie sweetly reached out set an
Speaker 1: email and said, can we please send you guys some beers?
Speaker 1: So thank you Natalie and the folks at rhein Geist.
Speaker 1: We're excited to have this beer. So we'll tell you
Speaker 1: what we think about this blonde stout Asian bourbon barrels
Speaker 1: and we've never had a blonde stout on the show before.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if I've ever had a blond
Speaker 1: stout in my life. So I'll tell you what we
Speaker 1: think about this beer at the end of the show.
Speaker 1: And man, I didn't know a ton about Ryan guy,
Speaker 1: so I looked them up this afternoon. Have you seen
Speaker 1: their tasting room that they have in downtown Cincinnati. I've
Speaker 1: seen pictures. It looks amazing. Dude. It is the coolest
Speaker 1: space I think I've ever seen. It's definitely cooler than
Speaker 1: any tasting room that I've been too. So I kind
Speaker 1: of want to go up there just to drink beer
Speaker 1: in their space. Road trip. Let's do it. High five, Yeah, Matt,
Speaker 1: speaking of cool stuff, Well, Scott Kay's he's a really
Speaker 1: cool dude and he's our money pro for today. And
Speaker 1: also he's got one of the coolest jobs. He has
Speaker 1: an email newsletter service called Scott Cheap Flights. He sends
Speaker 1: out alerts to anybody who subscribed to the service about
Speaker 1: cheap flights. I've been a subscriber for years and Scott
Speaker 1: helping me find some great deals. And you know what,
Speaker 1: even if I don't get to buy the deal, which
Speaker 1: I usually don't like, I just love dreaming and seeing
Speaker 1: how cheap things are and kind of comparing prices. So
Speaker 1: it's a really cool service. Yeah, what's cool about Scott's
Speaker 1: Cheap Flights is this is something we've recommended of four
Speaker 1: We've talked about his website in previous episodes, and to
Speaker 1: now actually have him on as a money pro is
Speaker 1: super cool. I think that's that's awesome man. And the
Speaker 1: way it started a little bit of his back story
Speaker 1: is that in Scott he scored a round trip ticket
Speaker 1: to Milan, Italy for a hundred and thirty bucks, which
Speaker 1: is an awesome deal. He wasn't even planning a trip
Speaker 1: to Italy, but he had to take advantage of such
Speaker 1: a great deal. And then when he got back, his
Speaker 1: friends were asking him, you know, they were saying, hey, dude,
Speaker 1: let us know next time you see an awesome deal
Speaker 1: like that. And those emails like that was the start
Speaker 1: of Scott's Cheap Flights, the birth of something great. It's awesome.
Speaker 1: But now he they've got over one point six million
Speaker 1: members subscribed and some personal nerdy travel stats on him.
Speaker 1: He's flown around the Earth fifteen times since and he's
Speaker 1: got over thirty eight different stamps in his passport. That's
Speaker 1: like the opposite of me, because I travel very I
Speaker 1: travel very little. Scott Kay's not a home body. And
Speaker 1: I think the reason that most people don't travel Matt
Speaker 1: is because it's prohibitively expensive. And travel can be expensive,
Speaker 1: especially if you don't know how to book it well.
Speaker 1: But for most people, they do have a wanderlust. They
Speaker 1: want to travel, they want to get out there and
Speaker 1: explore the world a little bit more. And it turns
Speaker 1: out the traveling is cheaper than ever, but only for
Speaker 1: people who know how to book travel well, who know
Speaker 1: how to score to the cheap flights. So everyone wants
Speaker 1: that deal, but often we suck at finding the deal.
Speaker 1: That's just because we haven't been trained to do it.
Speaker 1: But that changes today. So just a reminder that every
Speaker 1: money Pro episode we bring on our money Pro, they
Speaker 1: get five minutes of time to give us their distilled
Speaker 1: wisdom on one topic, and today Scott's gonna tell us
Speaker 1: how to find the cheapest flights. So let's hear Scott's
Speaker 1: five minutes of money Pro right now. Hey guys, today
Speaker 1: I'm super excited to talk to you about how to
Speaker 1: score cheap flights. This is what I've devoted my career too,
Speaker 1: and so I'm excited to dig right in with you all. So,
Speaker 1: the very first tip that I recommend to folks when
Speaker 1: they're thinking about how to score cheap flights is to
Speaker 1: actually flip their flights search order. So let me giving
Speaker 1: an example. The way that most people tend to search
Speaker 1: for flights is a three step process. Step one, they
Speaker 1: pick where they want to go, Step two, they pick
Speaker 1: what dates do they want to go there, And only
Speaker 1: on step three do they see what is the airfare
Speaker 1: for that particular route and date. And by setting price
Speaker 1: as the third order priority, it's not terribly surprising that
Speaker 1: you end up getting some pretty expensive flights doing it
Speaker 1: with that approach. So what I recommend to folks is
Speaker 1: actually flipping that order and going with the strategy like this. First,
Speaker 1: see what cheap flights are out there. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a dozens of tools Google Flights, Momondo, Kayak Explorer. See
Speaker 1: where the cheap flights are to various places around the world.
Speaker 1: Step two, decide which of those cheap destinations appeal to you.
Speaker 1: Where do you actually want to go among Maybe there's
Speaker 1: four undred dollar flights to Rome, Barcelona, and Paris. Yeah, Rome,
Speaker 1: I'd love to go fourner bucks. And then see, okay,
Speaker 1: are there dates for that fourner dollar affair to Rome
Speaker 1: that work with your schedule? Yeah, that like May eight
Speaker 1: to fifteen, I could get that off work, I could go.
Speaker 1: And by setting price as the first order concern right
Speaker 1: in the third order concern, you're much much more likely
Speaker 1: to get an actual, really cheap flight. And especially if
Speaker 1: you're someone like myself who frankly there's nowhere in the
Speaker 1: world that I wouldn't like to go see, you end
Speaker 1: up being able to see many more places because you're
Speaker 1: only spending four hundred dollars on a flight to Europe
Speaker 1: as opposed to eight or nine hundred bucks or even
Speaker 1: a thousand or more. So this kind of leads me
Speaker 1: into step two here which is to try to cross
Speaker 1: the ocean as cheaply as possible. Let me give you
Speaker 1: an example. Let's say you live in Atlanta and you
Speaker 1: really want to go to the Greek Islands. You know,
Speaker 1: you've had your heart set on Santorini. So you go
Speaker 1: to Google flights and you see what is there faur
Speaker 1: cost to get from Atlanta to Santorini. I just looked.
Speaker 1: It's yikes, that is a lot of money. But that's
Speaker 1: only if you're actually searching it in one single itinerary.
Speaker 1: You know, a couple of weeks ago, we found and
Speaker 1: sent out a deal from Atlanta to Athens for five
Speaker 1: hundred and forty three dollars round trip. And once you're
Speaker 1: in Athens, you can get a flight or a cruise
Speaker 1: a boat over to Santorini for like fifty bucks round trip.
Speaker 1: So by splitting it into two itineraries, it would only
Speaker 1: cost like five hundred and ninety three dollars six hundred
Speaker 1: bucks give your take, as opposed to the original hundred,
Speaker 1: so you'd save almost two thousand dollars. In this case,
Speaker 1: you can split it up both on the destination side,
Speaker 1: like they're you know, flying to Athens and then going
Speaker 1: to Santorini, but you can also split it up on
Speaker 1: the origin side. The best deal that I've ever personally
Speaker 1: gotten in my life was NonStop from New York City
Speaker 1: to Milan for a hundred and thirty dollars round trip.
Speaker 1: I could not believe when I saw that fair. My
Speaker 1: heart still race is talking about it. But at the time,
Speaker 1: I didn't actually live in in New York. I was
Speaker 1: living down in d C. And if I had tried
Speaker 1: to get a flight from d SEE to Milan, it
Speaker 1: would have been like eight hundred fifty dollars. But I knew,
Speaker 1: you know, look, I can take a bus up to
Speaker 1: New York, hang out with some friends for a couple
Speaker 1: of days, and then fly over to Milan. Pair the
Speaker 1: twenty dollar bus fair with the hundred thirty dollar flight
Speaker 1: hundred fifty dollars total versus eight hundred fifty. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a no brainer. So really, kind of being flexible
Speaker 1: and trying to cross the ocean as cheaply as possible
Speaker 1: and then getting onto your ultimate destination is a really
Speaker 1: smart strategy for getting cheap flights. So we've got about
Speaker 1: a minute left, let's lightening round a couple of these
Speaker 1: cheapest times to fly. Cheapest days of the week gonna
Speaker 1: be Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday. Cheapest times of the year
Speaker 1: going to generally be January through May and September through November.
Speaker 1: When should you book your flights? I recommend for domestic
Speaker 1: flights booking at least a month ahead of time, and
Speaker 1: for international flights at least two months ahead of time.
Speaker 1: If you're looking to travel kind of peak summer, Christmas,
Speaker 1: New Year's maybe trying to add a couple of months
Speaker 1: to those recommendations. Do not wait for last minute flights.
Speaker 1: I cannot stress that enough. Thirty years ago, it was
Speaker 1: the case that the airlines would cut the fair right
Speaker 1: before they close the door for that flight because they
Speaker 1: wanted to fill all the seats. Nowadays, they actually jack
Speaker 1: up the price in the last week or two because
Speaker 1: they know it's business travelers who will pay any price
Speaker 1: in order to get that seat. It's business travelers who
Speaker 1: are booking those last minute flights. Two other things. One,
Speaker 1: should you clear your cookies. Here's the truth, It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: Do it if it will make you happy, but it
Speaker 1: really doesn't make any difference. The best search engine, my
Speaker 1: personal favorite is Google Flights But another kind of hidden
Speaker 1: secret here is that it actually really doesn't matter. They
Speaker 1: will basically all draw on the same distribution system, and
Speaker 1: so you'll get basically the same results anywhere. One small exception,
Speaker 1: search Southwest dot com separately, Southwest Airlines does not show
Speaker 1: up on any of the flight search engines. Thanks you all,
Speaker 1: dang man. Scott brought the knowledge, he brought the heat.
Speaker 1: That was some amazing stuff from our money pro uh
Speaker 1: and he mentioned Southwest, which is one of our favor its. Yes,
Speaker 1: Southwest has no check bag fees and no ticket change fees. Man,
Speaker 1: that's a rarity. Now. So we're gonna go ahead and
Speaker 1: take a quick break, but right after that we're gonna
Speaker 1: unpack all that Scott, how to say? All right, Mac?
Speaker 1: Quite a while back in episode number four, we talked
Speaker 1: about traveling with purpose on the cheap, and one thing
Speaker 1: that we did talk about was saving money off flights,
Speaker 1: and we mentioned Scott's website, Scott's Chief Flights, but we
Speaker 1: didn't get a chance to delve into all the ways
Speaker 1: that you can save money by booking a flight. And
Speaker 1: the first thing that's got mentioned, which is by far
Speaker 1: the most important thing you need to think about, when
Speaker 1: you're looking to score a cheap flight is to flip
Speaker 1: your search order and making price. As Scott said, the
Speaker 1: first order of concern is the most important thing you
Speaker 1: can do to save money. Most people do the exact opposite.
Speaker 1: They're like, I've got these dates and I want to
Speaker 1: go to this destination, and can I find a good
Speaker 1: fair Well no, no, usually you can't because you're doing
Speaker 1: it in the wrong order. But if you are looking
Speaker 1: to travel cheaply, you'll flip the script and you'll look
Speaker 1: for a cheap destination and trying to find something that
Speaker 1: fits those dates. And that's the main way that you're
Speaker 1: gonna be able to save money when booking flights. That's Rachel.
Speaker 1: You know, you have to make money the priority. If
Speaker 1: you're looking to save money, then make that sort of
Speaker 1: like your very first filter when you are searching for flights.
Speaker 1: And honestly, this is just not a pitch for Scott's
Speaker 1: Cheap Flights. We brought him on for a reason. Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly what he does. We like what he's got to say. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like his emails are the perfect way to help you
Speaker 1: to decide where to go, because you are only going
Speaker 1: to be looking at the cheap fares, the cheap flights
Speaker 1: that are out there, and so you want to book
Speaker 1: based on finding a deal, not just with a sort
Speaker 1: of preconceived idea of where you want to go. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So let's say, for instance, you're looking to book a honeymoon, right,
Speaker 1: you say I want to go to Hawaii. Well, you
Speaker 1: know what, you might find a good deal to Hawaii.
Speaker 1: But if you're less specific on your destination and you
Speaker 1: say I just want to find some sort of tropical destination,
Speaker 1: a great beach somewhere warm, right, yeah, to to go
Speaker 1: on my honeymoon. Well, if you're looking at it through
Speaker 1: that lens and you're les specific with your destination, there's
Speaker 1: a good chance you're opening yourself up to a lot
Speaker 1: more potential deals. You might find a great deal to Thailand,
Speaker 1: let's say, or Costa Rica, who knows. But being open
Speaker 1: and making price the first order of concern as opposed
Speaker 1: to the destination, that's what's going to save you big money. Yell,
Speaker 1: And honestly, this just gets me pumped to try to
Speaker 1: do this more often, And honestly, it's a more adventurous
Speaker 1: way to find the deal and then to figure out
Speaker 1: what you want to do. There. That fits with my
Speaker 1: sort of personal mission statement. We talked about this recently,
Speaker 1: like adventure, I kind of I'm trying to find ways
Speaker 1: to incorporate that more into my life. I tend to
Speaker 1: be a rigid type a. Everything has to be lined
Speaker 1: up and perfect and organized. But man, what a way
Speaker 1: to interject some adventure in some sort of unpredictability while
Speaker 1: also saving a ton of money. Is that why you
Speaker 1: join that fight club, Matt, just looking for a little adventure?
Speaker 1: You're not talk about that? Oh, that's right, crap, broke
Speaker 1: the first rule. Doing it this way, it kind of
Speaker 1: expands your horizons about where you'd like to travel. It
Speaker 1: kind of opens up the whole world to you, as
Speaker 1: opposed to having this one pigeonhole destination that you really
Speaker 1: want to go to the world is your oyster? Booking travel?
Speaker 1: Where where prices? The first order concern, and my favorite
Speaker 1: part about booking travel like this is that ultimately you're
Speaker 1: gonna go see a whole lot more of the world
Speaker 1: because if every trip that you book is less than
Speaker 1: half the price of what it would have cost you
Speaker 1: had you picked your destination first, that sounds like twice
Speaker 1: as many flights. Joel twice as much travel, right, So
Speaker 1: I love that. I think that's a great way to
Speaker 1: not only see more of the world because you're paying less,
Speaker 1: but also get you out there to go see more
Speaker 1: places that you wouldn't have even considered. And I love it. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: like you said, that's an adventurous way to travel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Juel, you know, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it's about seeing more places. Because if you love to
Speaker 1: travel and you want to go more places, it probably
Speaker 1: doesn't quite matter as much the order to which you
Speaker 1: visit these cities like Paris, right, Like, that's the quintessential
Speaker 1: sort of city that ever wants to you know, they
Speaker 1: want to make it to Paris. Well, chances are there's romantic.
Speaker 1: It is romantic, but you know what, there's going to
Speaker 1: be a deal to Paris very soon, and just don't
Speaker 1: feel like you have to go right this one time.
Speaker 1: If you're more flexible, you're gonna be able to travel
Speaker 1: much more. Personal example of for Emily and I, so
Speaker 1: we ended up going to Norway. So my families from Norway.
Speaker 1: My grandpa came over to the United States when he
Speaker 1: was five from Norway, and so I've always wanted to
Speaker 1: go but for the longest time, flying to Norway was
Speaker 1: prohibitively expensive. It was usually around a thousand dollars eleven
Speaker 1: hund bucks a ticket. I thought about at different times
Speaker 1: just kind of forcing it and making it happen and
Speaker 1: paying the bounty and just going to Norway when it
Speaker 1: was really expensive. But I'm glad I held off because
Speaker 1: eventually a couple of discount airlines lunch service from the
Speaker 1: United States, and they were flying to Scandinavia as well
Speaker 1: as other parts of Europe. But Scandinavian flights just went
Speaker 1: on sale big time, and so Emily and I were
Speaker 1: able to go to Norway. I want to say we
Speaker 1: paid literally like five and five dollars a piece something
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, round trip to Oslo. And I'm just
Speaker 1: so glad that we waited, because Norway is kind of
Speaker 1: an expensive country already, food prices, lodging, all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. Man, it all adds up, and so it
Speaker 1: would have just been a prohibitively expensive trip if we
Speaker 1: had paid full price for airfare. But following Scott's method,
Speaker 1: we were able to get really inexpensive tickets and just
Speaker 1: really enjoy our trip and kind of spend a little
Speaker 1: more on some of the travel throughout the country to
Speaker 1: make our trip really special. And so yeah, it's not
Speaker 1: like you're not going to get to go to that destination.
Speaker 1: A deal will pop up at some point, but just wait,
Speaker 1: just make sure you're pouncing when it's cheap. Be patient, Joel.
Speaker 1: I gotta learn that sometimes. And Scott's next key point
Speaker 1: that he mentioned was to try and cross the ocean
Speaker 1: as cheaply as possible. So we're talking life raft right,
Speaker 1: battle boat, and honestly that could and most likely will
Speaker 1: mean flying into a different destination. Luckily, though, getting around
Speaker 1: Europe is really cheap and pretty easy as well. You know,
Speaker 1: you can fly into Amsterdam if you're trying to get
Speaker 1: to Paris or even vice versa. You just want to
Speaker 1: make sure that you are considering those nearby destinations because
Speaker 1: that will likely save you tons of money. Yeah, unlike
Speaker 1: our country, which is enormous, right, so it's a little
Speaker 1: bit harder to train travel. You know, maybe you can
Speaker 1: in the Northeast particularly, but but really across most of
Speaker 1: America can't really take a train. You gotta hop in
Speaker 1: a car, right or an airplane. You can't take Martha
Speaker 1: to and y see, I think most listeners do on
Speaker 1: Marta is that's our local rapid transit, and I put
Speaker 1: rapid rapid, it's somewhat rapid. Trains aren't necessarily the way
Speaker 1: to go in the US. Yeah, not here. But in
Speaker 1: Europe trains actually are efficient that they work really well,
Speaker 1: at least when the workers are on strike, which has
Speaker 1: happened a few times while I've been in Europe. But
Speaker 1: train travel is an easy and cheap way to get
Speaker 1: from let's say Amsterdam to Feris Matt, like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: which means that if an airfare into Paris is a
Speaker 1: thousand dollars and air fare into Amsterdam is well, guess
Speaker 1: what flying Amsterdam, take the hour and a half train
Speaker 1: ride to Paris for thirty bucks. Is it that long?
Speaker 1: It's only hour and a half. Yeah, I think it's
Speaker 1: about an hour and a half. Nice, you can see
Speaker 1: a little countryside. Those train rides are actually I mean,
Speaker 1: I love them. I think they're really fun. So there's
Speaker 1: so much of Europe that you do get to enjoy
Speaker 1: and see by train that it's just part of the
Speaker 1: trip as well, right, And I think that's one of
Speaker 1: the advantages is just instead of high tailing it to
Speaker 1: sort of like your real destination city considered like the
Speaker 1: scenic route. Like Kate and I we love going on
Speaker 1: road trips and so to go somewhere and then to
Speaker 1: have to have to you know, or get to rent
Speaker 1: a car or take a train and see so much
Speaker 1: of say a countryside and making stops along the way
Speaker 1: and stopping at farms, like this is the stuff that
Speaker 1: we've done before, and we have found so much enjoyment
Speaker 1: out of doing that. Yeah, even sometimes on these train
Speaker 1: rides you can take a quick pit stop in a
Speaker 1: town along the way, check it out. Like I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure if I remember correctly, Bruges is in between Amsterdam
Speaker 1: and Paris, and I think, and don't quote me on this,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure, but I think you could actually hop off,
Speaker 1: hang out and Bruge for a couple of hours, hop
Speaker 1: back on the train, not paying the extra, and then
Speaker 1: go the rest of the the way into Paris. Why not,
Speaker 1: there's just like a free stopover and Bruges to check
Speaker 1: out some cool stuff and then keep going. So maybe
Speaker 1: on Google Maps, check out and see what cities are
Speaker 1: nearby the city that you're looking to go to, and
Speaker 1: do air fare searches to those cities as well, and
Speaker 1: then make sure that there's efficient train travel from one
Speaker 1: city to another. That's just an awesome way to to
Speaker 1: save money on your trip. You know, the only reason
Speaker 1: people go to Bruges because of In Bruges the movie, right,
Speaker 1: have you seen the movie? Underrated movie? Yeah, it is
Speaker 1: really good. It's a great movie. But I think half
Speaker 1: of the Americans that actually do visit Bruge it's because
Speaker 1: of in Bruges. Honestly, that's probably half the reason I went.
Speaker 1: But it was well worth it. So Joel, I didn't
Speaker 1: go to Bruge, but in college, some friends and I
Speaker 1: did something very similar, you know, where we had an
Speaker 1: alternate destination. We knew very little when it came to
Speaker 1: actually traveling for cheap, but we didn't know that we
Speaker 1: wanted to go to a bunch of cities in Italy,
Speaker 1: and we had less interest in going to Milan. It's
Speaker 1: funny that Scott mentioned Milan because it must be a hub. Well,
Speaker 1: it turns out that the best plane ticket prices Where's
Speaker 1: and Milan, so that's where we ended up flying into
Speaker 1: and we did take the train from there and all
Speaker 1: the destinations that we truly didn't want to go visit
Speaker 1: and we got to see some cool stuff in Milan
Speaker 1: as well. But you know, like the real reason we
Speaker 1: flew into Milan was because that's where the deal was. Man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So at this point, Matt, we've talked about flying into
Speaker 1: a different destination that's nearby the destination that you actually
Speaker 1: want to go to, maybe two for the price of one,
Speaker 1: or at least just way cheaper to skid out all
Speaker 1: out of that place that you fly into and to
Speaker 1: go visit another town or city. But another thing you
Speaker 1: can consider is departing from a different city on the
Speaker 1: front end of your trip. So, like Scott mentioned, that's
Speaker 1: what he did to get that sweet Milan deal. He
Speaker 1: took a bus from d C up to New York
Speaker 1: and stay with friends, and then flew out of New
Speaker 1: York City. Because oftentimes a lot of the best international
Speaker 1: flight deals originate from Boston, New York, Chicago. Associally, you're
Speaker 1: near Milwaukee and driving to Chicago might score you a
Speaker 1: much better deal on an international plane ticket, or if
Speaker 1: you're in d C, taking that bus up to Boston.
Speaker 1: Just searching from other departure cities where you can stay
Speaker 1: with a friend or easily drive your car, or there's
Speaker 1: public transportation to get you to that airport. That's something
Speaker 1: you strongly want to consider because it could be another
Speaker 1: factor in saving you hundreds and hundreds of dollars on
Speaker 1: your overall trip cost. Do keep in mind you want
Speaker 1: to make sure you're doing it cheaply though, right, So,
Speaker 1: otherwise it's not worth the additional hassle. You're not saving
Speaker 1: money if you're driving to a different city and paying
Speaker 1: for parking at the airport for seven days. The examples
Speaker 1: you gave like taking the bus or a train, I
Speaker 1: know you've taken Megabus, which is that even still around anymore? Megabus?
Speaker 1: Megabus is totally still was it? Yeah, okay, it's quickly
Speaker 1: I'll just mention what Megabus is. Megabus is a super
Speaker 1: cheap bus service, and that's honestly one of the best
Speaker 1: ways probably to consider getting from one town to another.
Speaker 1: And I've taken it to go to Memphis from Atlanta.
Speaker 1: I've taken it to go to New Orleans from Atlanta,
Speaker 1: and tickets start at a dollar and if you book
Speaker 1: really far in advance, you can score those dollar seats,
Speaker 1: get those first few seats, right Yeah, So, so I would,
Speaker 1: especially for domestic travel consider taking megabus. There have been
Speaker 1: some horror stories written up about megabus, like tires busting
Speaker 1: or like the one that come on fire exactly, some
Speaker 1: bad customer service. Yeah, terrible publicity unfortunately. But I would
Speaker 1: say for the majority of the bus rides, all the
Speaker 1: ones I've been on and my mother in law takes
Speaker 1: it to come sometimes like it's been completely worth the
Speaker 1: price savings and and so it's a yeah, comfortable way
Speaker 1: to get from one place to another. Yeah, megabus, check
Speaker 1: it out. Yeah, So if you're gonna change your origin
Speaker 1: city or the city that you're departing from, just keep
Speaker 1: that in mind. And then again, the example Scott gave
Speaker 1: was amazing was perfect going to visit friends. You know,
Speaker 1: I personally haven't done that before, like going to visit
Speaker 1: friends and kicking around for an extra day. But what
Speaker 1: a fun way. It's a to spend some more time
Speaker 1: in a city that you're less familiar with, or to
Speaker 1: revisit friends, and then you get to hang out, maybe
Speaker 1: have some beers, and then the next morning, you know,
Speaker 1: you hop on your flight and your also vacation for
Speaker 1: a week or ten days. I love that I've actually
Speaker 1: done that for a domestic trip. I ended up driving
Speaker 1: to Birmingham from Atlanta for a flight to the West Coast.
Speaker 1: I found just a sweet deal out of Birmingham, stayed
Speaker 1: with a buddy, I left my car at his house.
Speaker 1: He drove me to the airport that morning, and you know,
Speaker 1: saved a couple hundred bucks on my West Coast Plaine
Speaker 1: fair that was years and years ago. But it's just
Speaker 1: another way for you to consider. It's a little bit
Speaker 1: of outside of the box thinking in order to find
Speaker 1: like a super cheap fair so you can take an
Speaker 1: awesome trip that's just not prohibitably expensive. That makes me
Speaker 1: think of the Atlanta airport. So you and I, we
Speaker 1: both live maybe about fifteen minutes. It's like a fifteen
Speaker 1: minute drive to get to the airport. And how many
Speaker 1: times do you think you've taken folks or picked up
Speaker 1: friends from the airport? You know, a bunch a lot.
Speaker 1: I know I've taken you, and Emily, I've I've taken
Speaker 1: other friends. I have friends who live in the northern
Speaker 1: suburbs and they will drive down, park their car at
Speaker 1: my house at five am just to catch their flight
Speaker 1: and I'll drive him down. Don't have any problems with it. Exactly.
Speaker 1: I guess that's just one of the perks you have
Speaker 1: when you've got a friend that only lives about fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes from the airport. All right, Matt, There's so much
Speaker 1: more to cover when it comes to finding the cheapest
Speaker 1: possible flights, and we'll get to that right after the break,
Speaker 1: all right, Joel, And now let's go ahead and get
Speaker 1: to What'scott called the lightning round, which is true. He
Speaker 1: kind of burned through those last few points pretty quick.
Speaker 1: What Scott think he is like a game show host.
Speaker 1: But what he talked about though was when and how
Speaker 1: to book, and he specifically said how you want to
Speaker 1: travel like you, your travel dates to be typically on
Speaker 1: a Tuesday, Wednesday, and a Saturday. Those are gonna give
Speaker 1: you the best deals. And that's mostly Matt, because that's
Speaker 1: when business travelers aren't traveling. So that's when normal every
Speaker 1: day josh mos like you and me and our listeners,
Speaker 1: that's when we're gonna get the best deals, that's right, man.
Speaker 1: And as far as the months go, he mentioned how
Speaker 1: January through May are gonna be your best bets. In
Speaker 1: September through November or the cheapest months as well, and
Speaker 1: there's obvious reasons for that as well. Right, everyone's traveling
Speaker 1: during the summer, and the summer months in June, July,
Speaker 1: and August December as well, all those are kind of
Speaker 1: like the crazy season, and you might think too to yourself, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: those are still a lot of dates that I can't fly, right,
Speaker 1: because I think a lot of the tips that he
Speaker 1: mentioned here at the end, anybody can pretty much do.
Speaker 1: Like it doesn't take a ton of flexibility, and that's
Speaker 1: true even for this section as well. Even though there
Speaker 1: are certain days that it's more affordable to fly, that's
Speaker 1: still three out of seven days that he mentioned. That's
Speaker 1: almost half of the week. And then the months he
Speaker 1: mentioned eight out of twelve months, that's not too difficult
Speaker 1: to try to do, Like, those are the months that
Speaker 1: you know you'll be able to get a deal. I
Speaker 1: still think that's uh, pretty doable for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: all right. And so how far in advance should you book? Well,
Speaker 1: if you're looking for a domestic airfair, Scott said roughly
Speaker 1: one month ahead, which I found to be true in
Speaker 1: in search results for flights for me. Although I'll give
Speaker 1: this one caveat it doesn't hurt to look even further
Speaker 1: in advance, when you get to be less than a
Speaker 1: month away from your travel date, prices are gonna start
Speaker 1: to escalate pretty quickly, So you don't want to wait
Speaker 1: longer and longer hoping that prices are going to go
Speaker 1: down as you get closer to your travel date. If
Speaker 1: you're in a compressed less than a mon timeframe, it
Speaker 1: doesn't hurt to start looking four, five, six months in advance.
Speaker 1: Often you're gonna get a good deal then. But typically
Speaker 1: the best prices on domestic airfare are going to be
Speaker 1: roughly in that month to a month and a half
Speaker 1: ahead of your departure date. And for international flights he mentioned,
Speaker 1: go ahead and double that, so like you're looking at
Speaker 1: at least two months in advance. But like you said,
Speaker 1: especially for international, you can find some really great deals
Speaker 1: if you're looking pretty far in advance. I know that
Speaker 1: with you and your work traveling and whatnot, Like you
Speaker 1: y'all have booked trips really far in advance, like almost
Speaker 1: a year, right, How far in advance do you remember
Speaker 1: booking a trip where you still got an amazing deal? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like honestly eight nine months sometimes ahead of
Speaker 1: time we've gotten amazing deals like four hundred dollars to
Speaker 1: Ireland or or six hundred dollars to Thailand follars Ireland.
Speaker 1: I was there for that one. Yeah, we did that too, right,
Speaker 1: And I'm going in April, so humble brag. So yeah,
Speaker 1: two months ahead of time is a great time to
Speaker 1: book your international travel. But honestly, the more flexible you
Speaker 1: can be and the further ahead that you can look
Speaker 1: in that six, seven, eight month time frame, if price
Speaker 1: is your number one in order of concern, you're probably
Speaker 1: gonna find some really good deals looking that far in
Speaker 1: advance too. Yeah, and Jel you just touched on this briefly,
Speaker 1: but sort of those last minute flights and how those
Speaker 1: are specifically reserved for business travelers and how the prices
Speaker 1: just skyrocket because, like Scott said, they don't have a
Speaker 1: choice to not travel for work, and in the business
Speaker 1: Ford or Coca Cola, whoever, like, they're gonna pay it
Speaker 1: and it doesn't really matter. And so if you book
Speaker 1: last minute like that, yeah, you're gonna end up paying
Speaker 1: out the nose. But that's just what businesses are typically
Speaker 1: willing to spend. One thing I wanted to bring up
Speaker 1: that Scott didn't mention Matt Is that booking as a
Speaker 1: group can actually often hurt you if you are contacting
Speaker 1: an airline or a travel agent to book a group
Speaker 1: booking of like a bunch of people. Let's say you're
Speaker 1: booking ten people. Well, you're gonna pay more booking as
Speaker 1: a group than you are booking individually through a website
Speaker 1: like Google flights. And we'll talk about that more in
Speaker 1: a second. So when you're booking a large group, maybe
Speaker 1: get two computers out or three computers out, depending on
Speaker 1: how many people you're booking. Book as individuals through a
Speaker 1: site like Google flights or Momondo or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: Airlines just love to jack at fairs if you are
Speaker 1: a quote unquote group. So I can totally see that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it just makes sense to book separately. Don't tell
Speaker 1: them that you're a special group, right, and you're going
Speaker 1: to qualify for those cheapest individual fairs that are out there,
Speaker 1: all right. But when it comes to the actual search
Speaker 1: engine that you use in order to book flights, I
Speaker 1: like what he said, Man, they're all pretty much equal.
Speaker 1: His preference is Google Flights, and from all the different
Speaker 1: ones I've used, that's my preference to I'd like using
Speaker 1: Google Flights. It just feels like it's the easiest one
Speaker 1: to use, and it's just easier to kind of look
Speaker 1: on the map and then plus or minus certain days
Speaker 1: in order to to hone in on that cheapest fair.
Speaker 1: So I like using Google Flights. But there are other
Speaker 1: great taxes as well. So if you've got one that
Speaker 1: you currently use that you like to search for flights,
Speaker 1: like Kayak or Momando, whatever it is, don't hesitate to
Speaker 1: use that side either. Well. Yeah, specifically, man, I'm a
Speaker 1: huge fan of Frontier because they've got that special deals
Speaker 1: page and I was looking on there today and I
Speaker 1: know that right now you can get from Atlanta to Austin,
Speaker 1: Texas forty four bucks. Well, there we go. That's the
Speaker 1: heck of a deal. Just know, if you book on
Speaker 1: a cheaper airline like Frontier Spirit one of those guys,
Speaker 1: you're gonna pay for everything else on top of that ticket.
Speaker 1: You just make sure that you're not bringing any bags
Speaker 1: and you are comfortable wearing those clothes all weekend. We're
Speaker 1: like three layer clothes on the flight and then you
Speaker 1: can peel them off as you go. But yeah, that's
Speaker 1: one thing you're gonna pay for a coke, you're gonna
Speaker 1: pay for the water. You're gonna pay for a check bag.
Speaker 1: You're gonna pay for a bag that you bring on
Speaker 1: the airplane too. But you can't beat a deal from
Speaker 1: Austin to Tampa for twenty bucks that was also on
Speaker 1: their twenty's it's a Tampa and that nuts. Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1: But I do also like Google Flights man, Like that
Speaker 1: map is so key, Like you can enter your your
Speaker 1: city that you're flying out of, and then you got
Speaker 1: the map view you zoom out, click around, and it
Speaker 1: shows all the different airfares. It's just a fun way
Speaker 1: to explore not only your country but even the world.
Speaker 1: Like you can kind of scroll over and look at
Speaker 1: Europe and be like, hm, where can I fly to?
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, Madrid, four d bucks. That's pretty good.
Speaker 1: Like why not St. Petersburg sounds interesting? Like it's it's
Speaker 1: so much more adventurous that way, And I feel like
Speaker 1: it's turned the way we typically plan for a location
Speaker 1: on its head, Like it really is what what Scott said,
Speaker 1: which is it just flips it. Instead of looking at
Speaker 1: where you gonna go when you want to go, look
Speaker 1: at when you're gonna get the best price and base
Speaker 1: your travel on that. But the one big elephant in
Speaker 1: the room, the one big airline that doesn't put their
Speaker 1: fares on Google Flights or any of these other search engines,
Speaker 1: is Southwest, and so if Southwest does fly out of
Speaker 1: your market, you're gonna want to make sure you go
Speaker 1: directly to their website Southwest dot com. And since Southwest
Speaker 1: is one of the discount airlines, they often have some
Speaker 1: of the best prices, not to mention the fact that
Speaker 1: they have some really good customer service, and they're also
Speaker 1: one of the only airlines not to charge baggage fees
Speaker 1: or change fees, and so there are a lot of
Speaker 1: perks about flying Southwest. Southwest definitely lends itself to checking
Speaker 1: a bag for free and then loading that check bag
Speaker 1: up with local beer, bringing it back home and sharing
Speaker 1: with your best bud. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Well, So I
Speaker 1: used to never check a bag until I got super
Speaker 1: into craft beer, and then I would carry on my
Speaker 1: bag to a destination and then I would go to breweries,
Speaker 1: buy some bottles, pack them up, check my bag, and
Speaker 1: come home. And that's why I typically trying to fly
Speaker 1: Southwest domestically if the airfare is one of the best
Speaker 1: prices because I get that free check bag man, and
Speaker 1: I get to bring beer back from wherever I go.
Speaker 1: I can't beat that. All right, Joel, let's let's take
Speaker 1: it back to the beer. Give me your thoughts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we're drinking Rheineist barrel aged Penguin. It's a blonde
Speaker 1: stout aged and bourbon barrels. Never had a blond stout before. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know, the only blonde Stott ever had was maybe
Speaker 1: ten years ago, and it was Guinness Blonde and it
Speaker 1: did not taste like this. This is amazing. No comment
Speaker 1: on Guinness or Guinness Blonde, but this beer was fantastic, man,
Speaker 1: I would like The first thing I noticed about it
Speaker 1: was that it had coffee notes, which is odd because
Speaker 1: it's a blonde, so of course, like an I p A.
Speaker 1: It looks like a sour or an I p A
Speaker 1: in color pretty light. You're definitely not expecting coffee, right, No, yeah,
Speaker 1: but more than anything, that's what I noticed on it was,
Speaker 1: you know, you taste the wood, you taste the barrel.
Speaker 1: But then I was picking up on coffee notes, which
Speaker 1: you just don't expect from a beer. That's that looks
Speaker 1: this light and color. Yeah, it's honestly, it's a fascinating style.
Speaker 1: It tastes completely different than a normal stout. It's kind
Speaker 1: of lighter in your mouth. Yeah, I dig it. And
Speaker 1: it has some really great oak presence at the same time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it almost has like a little bit of zip,
Speaker 1: like a little bit of tartness to it that, like
Speaker 1: you said, lightness. Yeah, it's just drinking really well. I
Speaker 1: love this beer. Yes, So thanks again to Natalie from
Speaker 1: rhyan Geist for sending this beer out to us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks Ryan Geist. All right, Joel, let's kick it off
Speaker 1: with some final thoughts. All right, Matt, First thing that
Speaker 1: Scott mentioned the most important thing that you need to consider.
Speaker 1: Forget everything you learned about booking travel. Quit looking at
Speaker 1: destinations first, look at the price first. If you make
Speaker 1: price the first order concern of travel, that's how you're
Speaker 1: gonna find the cheapest deals. That's how you're gonna get
Speaker 1: to visit more destinations. Ultimately, you're just gonna be more
Speaker 1: well traveled if price is your first order concern. That's right, man.
Speaker 1: Not only does Scott want you to not look at
Speaker 1: your destination first, but he wants you to not look
Speaker 1: at your calendar first as well, because you want to
Speaker 1: have flexibility when it comes to dates, and so obviously
Speaker 1: flexibility is key, But what if flexibility isn't key? Right?
Speaker 1: I've got an example here, Kate and I had to
Speaker 1: fly into France for a wedding that we were shooting,
Speaker 1: and guess what, with weddings, there's not any flexibility when
Speaker 1: it comes to when the wedding is going to go down,
Speaker 1: and we or our client could have gotten stuck with
Speaker 1: some pretty significant airfare. But we have the flexibility to
Speaker 1: fly over a couple of weeks early when the airfare
Speaker 1: was cheaper, Plus we got to travel and France for
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks. But I guess I wanted to
Speaker 1: acknowledge the fact that not everyone has that kind of flexibility.
Speaker 1: A lot of trips are limited within a certain window
Speaker 1: of specific dates, or you know, there is the destination
Speaker 1: that isn't negotiable, like specifically for a wedding or if
Speaker 1: you're going to go visit some family, and so if
Speaker 1: you're locked into some of those constraints, make sure that
Speaker 1: you follow Scott's other tips when it comes to booking
Speaker 1: your airfare. Yeah, Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday. Travel and booking at
Speaker 1: least a month in advance for domestic travel or two
Speaker 1: months ahead for international travel. That's how you're going to
Speaker 1: find the cheapest possible deals. Especially, you're gonna want to
Speaker 1: pay more careful attention to those tips if you're locked
Speaker 1: into a specific departure and destination and specific dates. All right, Joel,
Speaker 1: I think that's gonna be it for this episode. We
Speaker 1: want to thank everyone for listening, and a special things
Speaker 1: to Scott Kais for coming on our show. We'll have
Speaker 1: a link to his website, Scott's Cheap Flights up on
Speaker 1: our show, notes on our website at how to money
Speaker 1: dot com. All right, if you like this podcast, if
Speaker 1: you found this episode helpful, we would love your thoughts
Speaker 1: in review form at Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to
Speaker 1: subscribe while you're there. And you know what, if you
Speaker 1: think there are ways that we can improve this podcast,
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from you as well. Go to
Speaker 1: how to Money dot com slash do Better and send
Speaker 1: us your constructive criticism. We'd really appreciate it. All right, Joel,
Speaker 1: Until next time, best friends, our best friends out