Squish Like Grape

Remember this scene from Karate kid?

 

Walk right side road – Safe.

Walk left side road – Safe.

Walk middle of road – sooner or later… Squish like grape.

Want to find a pretty good deal every once in a while? Stick to the right side of the road & go to kayak.com. Sometimes you’ll get lucky on the price you’ll pay and sometimes you won’t, but you will find a flight to anywhere you want to go, any time you want to go there.

Want to find an exceptional deal every single time you travel? Cross all the way over to the left side of the road.

My family and I travel exclusively on the left side of the road and we average about 8¢ on the dollar for every trip we take. Thousands of JGOOT subscribers do the same, and you can too… But you have to stick to the left side of the road (read: You have to learn “The JGOOT Way” of travel.)

There are 3 simple rules to The JGOOT Way and they’re very simple.

  1. Look every day – whether you’re planning a trip or not, and schedule trips around good exceptional deals when you find them. (Our trip-alert service allows you to do this over your morning coffee.)
  2. Plan on being flexible on when/where you want to go to maximize savings.
  3. You MUST have a backup plan for the times when you can’t apply rules #1 & 2 (Because there will always be trips where you 1) don’t have time to plan ahead, and 2) don’t have flexibility on when/where you want to go.

Don’t want to follow all 3 of those rules?

Sooner or later… Squish like grape.

 

Want to travel for an average of 10¢ or 20¢ on the dollar yourself? Click here.

Webinar recording: How to turn Chase Sapphire Preferred’s Signup bonus into $1000 to $15,000 in travel benefits

Ever feel like the airlines have a gun to your head when you NEED to fly somewhere?

Here’s a guaranteed method to turn the tables on them.

Don’t want to watch the whole 60 minutes?

Click here to read a summary in another blog post.

Click on any link below for highlights of the video above:

1:10 – If I’m not selling anything – WHY would I do this webinar?

2:45 – How to prevent EVER having to pay high prices again.

4:10 – The only two types of travel you need to know about

7:32 – 6 common objections to trying point-hacking

9:25 – Objection 1: “The hassle of getting a new credit card vs. the hassle of finding a cheap flight”

17:07 – Objection 2: “I already have a travel card” (and where the hidden magic of travel cards REALLY is)

19:00 Objection 3: “I don’t want to ruin my credit” (The 3 main things that go into a credit score)

23:53 – Objection 4′: “I prefer getting cash back” (and the opportunity cost of cash vs travel benefits)

30:11 – Objection 5: (I don’t want Juggle a bunch of credit cards” (And how not to have to do that)

34:00 – Objection 6: “I don’t have good credit” (and how to fix it to get thousands of dollars in travel benefits.)

36:55 – 5 ways to fix your credit

41:44 – How to solve the the “I wish I could travel more” problem

43:20 – Free resources

45:25 – Questions from viewers

Resources discussed in this webinar:

7 quick-and-easy trip customizations

Have you ever decided to research a trip and been disappointed at the price? So you play with different options to see if you can get the price down, right? Sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes you don’t.

Well researching a JGOOT trip-alert is the same thing, except instead of trying to whittle the price down – you play with options to find something that works better for you.

7 quick and easy trip customization options:

Whenever we send you a trip-alert, your flight options look something like the screenshot above.

Below are 7 quick and easy changes you can make to see if you can find a trip that works for you at-or-near the prices we found:

  1. Round-trip vs one-way. Every trip we share is based on a round-trip price, but you can easily change that to a one-way flight for roughly half the price (sometimes even less than half the price!)
  2. Change the number of passengers: (This is especially important if traveling with 3 to 6 of you.)
  3. Flight plus hotel packages: Once you find dates that work for you at a price you want to pay – it’s always a good idea to click on “packages” to see what kind of a deal you can get on the hotel. (Hint – these discounts can be massive. On rare occasion it can even mean getting the hotel for free.)
  4. Change your travel dates: Although it’s never guaranteed how many alternate dates will be available at the same price, you can almost always adjust the dates and find something that can work for you. (sometimes months earlier or later, so it never hurts to check.)
  5. Don’t want to deal with too many layovers? Check this box to find the cheapest nonstop options.
  6. Sort by “quickest” “Best” and “Shortest” – For just a few dollars more, you can sometimes find far more convenient options. These options help you find those options very quickly.
  7. Don’t like a certain airline? You can exclude certain airlines, or scroll down the list until you see one you like. Sometimes, a much better option is only negligibly more expensive. (Don’t like Spirit? Note that in the example above – spending $25 more not only gets you a different airline, but it also gets you a direct flight.)

PS – Don’t forget one other very important thing when looking up flights on Kayak: Make sure to wait for the page to fully load, so you get to see all pricing options available!

Positioning flights (Advanced travel-hacking strategy)

A positioning flight is a flight someone takes out of a different airport than their own when they can fly for cheaper from that airport. It’s a bit of an advanced strategy experienced travelers use to get cheaper international flights.

The advantage: Someone living in L.A. might only be able to find flights to Paris for $1000 out of their area, but they might find flights out of D.C. for $300. If they’re a family of four, it could be VERY worth their while if they can get themselves to D.C. for under a couple hundred dollars.

The disadvantage: It requires two separate bookings – so if flights are delayed on either end – and you miss a connecting flight – you’re on your own.  Because of this, it’s usually a good idea to add in plenty of time (if not an overnight stay) to make sure you don’t miss your connecting flights.

The JGOOT difference: At JGOOT – dealing with the hassle of positioning flights is a lot less necessary because – when you travel “The JGOOT Way” – the difference between flying to Europe from the West Coast and the East Coast is negligible. (The same goes for Asia, Africa, or anywhere else.)

For example – For the most part – we publish fares from the East Coast to Europe that are an average of about $350.  We share fares from the West Coast to Europe that are an average of about $400.  As you can see – the difference between East & West Coast flights to Europe is less than $100 (which is hardly worth the expense of getting yourself to the opposite side of the country to take advantage of a cheaper fare).

Photo Courtesy of Robert Cross Fishing Tournament

One exception (Mexico): There is one exception to this – where positioning flights could be very worth your while and that is if you like Mexico. If you don’t mind jumping through a couple extra hoops to save $150 to $200 per passenger on your flight anywhere in Mexico, here’s an option to consider:

  • Since flying across an international border costs an extra $100 to $200, and walking across the border costs about ten, Tijuana airport (which has a bridge connecting directly to San Diego) represents a very unique opportunity.
  • A round-trip flight to Cabo that might cost anywhere from $200 to $500 from San Diego – might only be $59 from 20 miles away in Tijuana.
  • Warning: All of the other rules when dealing with positioning flights apply – if not more so because you have to actually change airports.

The easy solution is to keep an eye on your trip-alerts for cheap flights to San Diego from your home airport. When you see one that might work, hop on Kayak or Google flights and see what flights to anywhere in Mexico cost from Tijuana. If you find something, plan for some extra time in San Diego and when the time is right, take the $20 uber ride to the (US based) parking lot and walk across the border to the TJ airport.

The more advanced solution: If you’re a die-hard Mexico traveler, AND  you like the idea of gaming the system a little, AND you have plenty of “backup plan” points (rule #3 of the JGOOT Way of travel), AND you can easily get yourself to San Diego to take advantage of a cheap fare to Mexico, AND don’t mind hopping on an Uber to get yourself from San Diego airport – to the TJ airport bridge on the other side of San Diego) – Watching fares out of our San Diego territory is a great option.

If you are a JGOOT subscriber, simply reply to any email and tell us if you’d like us to send you fares from up two additional territories.

If you are not a JGOOT subscriber, you can click here to try our service out free for 30 days.

The territories we currently cover include:

  • AZ – Phoenix
  • CA – San Diego (including SNA options)
  • CA – L.A. (Including flights out of LAX, SNA, BUR & ONT flights)
    CA – San Francisco (Including SFO, SJC, and OAK flights)
  • CO – Denver (Including DEN & occasionally COS flights)
  • FL – Miami (Including MIA & FLL flights)
  • FL – Tampa
  • GA – Atlanta
  • IL – Chicago (Including ORD & MDW flights)
  • IN – Indianapolis
  • LA – New Orleans
  • MA – Boston
  • MI – Detroit (Including DTW & FNT flights)
  • MN – Minnesota
  • MO – Kansas City
  • MO – St. Louis
  • NV – Las Vegas
  • NY/NJ – New York (Including LGA, EWR & JFK flights)
  • NC – Charlotte
  • NC – Raleigh/Durham
  • OH – Cleveland
  • OR – Portland
  • PA – Pennsylvania
  • TN – Tennessee
  • TX – Dallas
  • TX – Houston (Including IAH & HOU airports)
  • UT – Salt Lake City
  • WA – Seattle
  • Washington D.C.

PS – there is another reason for considering positioning flights – and that’s when you can get business or first-class flights for less than the price of a coach fare (sometimes, when using rule 3 of The JGOOT Way of travel, a LOT less) – but that’s another post for another time.

Flying to Beijing in lie-flat United Polaris seats for less than $300 by departing from Washington D.C. instead of Denver.

Happy travels!

Joel

Please feel free to share any great positioning flight stories you’ve got in the comments below. Maybe we can even do an interview!

 

How does JGOOT work? Are these fares real?!?

Hi there,

 

If you’re reading this – you might be wondering how I’ve been able to take over 20 trips for what I used to pay for just 4 or 5 trips. 

I’ve got a few tips below that should help! I also noted those tips in my video which you can click on below.

 

 

First of all… are these fares real?

 

  • Yes!
  • I am not a paid actor, though it would be amazing if I were!
  • I have taken 21 JGOOT trips and counting. Each one is different and unique in its own way.
  • Trip number 20 was to Hawaii for less than $600, which included my hotel

 

How do I find these deals?

  • Our #1 rule is to check those e-mails every day! 
  • After being a free subscriber for about a month, I became a premium subscriber – which increases my likelihood of finding a deal by over 20 times. My e-mails come into Denver at 7:33 a.m. every day. Yours will come from your home airport. 
  • Open those e-mails and click on any fares that interest you.
  • After you click on them wait for up to 2 minutes for the website to fully load. 
  • If you’re on a mobile device be sure and click the sort by “cheapest” or “best” in order to see the fares we’ve found.
  • The fares we find are fully clickable and bookable by you! You can book them directly with the airlines if you prefer. 
  • Be flexible! Good fares can be found around many dates but if you want to save 60% to 90% – consider being flexible. Maybe you can fly home the day after President’s Day? Maybe go to Costa Rica instead of Aruba? A little bit of flexibility goes a long way.
  • Be open to new places! You might find that you have discovered a hidden gem that becomes your favorite new vacation spot. 

 

If you have any questions at all please reply to any of your trip alert e-mails. Those e-mails come straight into my inbox and I am happy to help you in any way that I can. 

 

Cheers Just Get Out Of Town!

 

Writer, traveler, family CEO, and cupcake baker extraordinaire, Brooke Merkle currently wears the hat of Director of Customer support for Just Get Out Of Town. You can follow her blog at justgetoutoftown.com/blog or reply to any email you receive from JGOOT. Plus, if you’re lucky, she’ll share one of her cupcakes with you 😉

 

“Sorry, this just seems like a scam”

For every one “Thank You” email I get from a paid subscriber, I probably get ten from free subscribers who simply don’t believe the prices I say are possible.

Here is one of my more polite replies from a skeptical free subscriber this morning.

If you’re like Regan, I understand.  The JGOOT Way of travel is not for everyone.

That’s why I openly share how you can do what I do for free.

Yes, The JGOOT Way is different.

Yes – if you want to travel for 50% to 98% less than everyone else on the plane – every time you travel – you MUST start preparing a MINIMUM of 4 months in advance.

Yes, there is a learning curve (that can be learned via my free blog, Facebook page, and free youtube channel without ever upgrading to my premium trip-alert service.)

Once you get past that learning curve – you will have the knowledge and tools to spend 50% to 98% less than everyone on the same plane as you.

Every single time you travel.

For the rest of your life.

BUT…

If you’re not willing to set aside everything you know about traveling “the traditional way” to learn a slightly different way of travel (operative word being “learn”)…

Traveling for 50% to 98% off every time you travel simply isn’t possible and there is no sense continuing to fill your inbox with travel tips from me.

There is an “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of every email you receive from me.  No hard feelings if you use it.  I promise.

The best way to save big on lodging (that is overlooked 90% of the time.)

Today’s blog post was inspired by a question I get asked almost as often as “Can you give me a price quote for flights to _______“?

(And just as a reminder – Price quotes require a middleman paid on commission which defeats the purpose of this site. Commissions would significantly drive up the cost of the trips I help my subscribers find themselves.)

Unfortunately, it’s too late for Joe, but all the more reason to write this blog post for you.

Want to know the best secret to substantial hotel savings when traveling?

It’s so simple – you won’t believe it.

Sometimes (as in the example below) it can even mean FREE lodging with no groupons, gimmicks or tricks.

Ready?

Use Kayak to book on a major site like Travelocity or Expedia, and book your hotel at the same time you book your flight.

Why?

Because they know you’ve already got your wallet out to book the flight.

(They also know you’re a savvy shopper, and before you book with them, you’ll probably go straight to the airlines and they won’t get a dime in business.)

If they don’t get your business for the lodging right then and there – they probably won’t get it at all either  (for the flights OR lodging.)

The best way they can close the deal right then and there? Massive discounts.  Discounts so good, in fact, it will be nearly impossible to find as good a rate by booking your air and lodging separately – even if booking straight through the airlines, and straight through the hotel.

Here’s how you can test this theory yourself:

  1. Pick a destination. ANY destination and look up the price of a flight there (and multiply that price by the number of passengers)
  2. Now, pick a couple nice hotels in that location during those dates and note the total cost of that hotel. (Make sure it’s at least 3 nights because that’s what it takes for the bundle-discounts to kick in.)
  3. Make note of the total cost of flight(s) plus hotel if you booked them separately.
  4. Look up the “Package” price of booking the flight and hotel together, and subtract the TOTAL cost of the flight.
  5. Odds are, you’ll save 30% to 50% on the hotel by bundling with your flight vs. booking them separately.

Here’s a random example:

Flight to Greece: $1019 round-trip (And let’s assume 2 passengers)

(Note that I’m NOT saying that flight price is a good deal. Far from it in fact. This is just an example to demonstrate the power of bundling your flight and hotel.)

2 passengers = $2038 (For the flight alone. That’s robbery! But I digress.)

Now, let’s look up hotel prices during those same dates.

$938 for the week. Not bad!

 

We’re now at a total of $2976 by booking flights at one time, and booking lodging separately.

Here is where the magic happens. See that little link called “Packages”?

Below is an example of why you should ALWAYS click it (even if you weren’t planning on booking a hotel yet.)

 

Let’s not forget that the package prices are per-person, and my example is for two people.

So…

$918 X 2 = $2036

By itself, that’s about a 30% savings vs booking them separately.

But when you look at the price for two flights alone ($2038) vs the price for two flights plus 7 nights ($2036), your 4-star hotel is FREE.

Granted, the numbers don’t normally work out this well, but you can expect to regularly spend 30% to 50% less on your lodging by booking it with your flight vs hunting down a flight deal, and then trying to find a deal on your hotel separately.

PS – On a tight budget?

Remember how flights alone were $1018 per person?

Check out this per-person price for flight plus 7 nights at a budget hotel.

(In other words – whether you stay at the budget hotel or not, you just knocked nearly $300 off of the cost of your trip (PER PERSON) by simply bundling a cheap hotel with your flight.)

The moral of the story?

Always, always, ALWAYS check for flight plus hotel prices. Sometimes (like in the example above), you’ll find loopholes that mean the equivalent of getting paid to book a hotel along with your flight (even if you don’t use the hotel.)

The above strategy works for any trip you find yourself “the old fashioned way.”

Imagine the savings if you used this strategy after finding a 50% to 90% off flight via your JGOOT premium trip-alert service.

Happy travels!

–Joel

 

 

 

The more often you look – The luckier you get

I’m flying my family of four across the country for only slightly more than what most people would pay for one passenger and just had to share…

I was about to admit defeat and pay more than I’ve paid for a flight in over 2 years: $222 per person to fly my family from Denver to Raleigh. (I even did a video to document why I was going to suck it up and pay $222 vs. flying for free by dipping into my backup stash of frequent flyer points.

But then, GUESS WHAT?!?!

I.

Got.

Lucky.

Because Rule #1 of “The JGOOT Way” of travel is to watch fares every single day starting as early as possible, I waited a couple more days, and stumbled across a Frontier sale. It turns out we got those same flights for under $100 each – round trip. (That price is WAY better than a “free” flight that would have cost my family of four 120,000 to 150,000 frequent flyer points. (And I can save my frequent flyer points for what they’re supposed to be used for: As a backup plan when flights are too expensive.

Want to travel for $.10 to $.50 on the dollar EVERY time you travel?  It’s not rocket science.  Watch fares (and watch for sales) every. single. day. You’ll be surprised at how often you get lucky. Here are plenty of free tips showing you how. Don’t want to read? Try my YoutubeChannel.

Don’t want to go to all that trouble? Click here and let my team of analysts watch for them for you. For as little as $8 per month, we’ll watch for trips day in and day out. We’ll alert you of the ones we find that are so inexpensive – you would be better off paying cash than using frequent flyer points.

Whatever the case, I wish you happy travels!

–Joel

PS – You know what’s even better than flying your whole family across the country for about the same price as what most people pay for just one person? Being able to get there plenty early, relax at the lounge, and feed your whole family for free.  Here’s a quick video from the archives about how we do that almost every time we travel.

Here’s that link again if you want to give our trip-alert service a try.

Don’t look for deals on cruises. Do this instead:

Here is my response whenever I get asked if I have deals on cruises. 

Thanks for reaching out.  I solely focus on flights for one reason:

You can get a FREE cruise, and it doesn’t much matter if that locks you into specific dates that require you to pay $500 or $600 per person to fly there.

Instead, one of our 44 categories of trips is “Cruises”. Our cruise category has flights to cruise ports when we find them at 50% to 90% below normal prices.  Then, we include links to cruises that depart during those times.

By finding a $50 flight to a cruise port that normally costs $500 or $600, a family of 5 can save $2500 on their flights alone. (Even a FREE cruise that requires you to pay $500 per person to fly there would be hard to make up for compared to finding $50 flights to the same cruise ship.)

Any time you’d like choose from 20 times more travel deals than what you get as a free subscriber, our premium service starts as low as $8/month. You can try it risk-free for 30 days at JGOOT.com/upgrade

Happy travels!

–Joel

PS – The same goes for a friend’s free timeshare, and all-inclusive resorts. A good deal doesn’t mean much if you’re tied to specific dates, don’t have a backup plan, and can’t find affordable flights to get there.

Planning a trip to Hawaii

Yesterday, a premium subscriber called with a question about the best way to plan his Hawaii trip. Since it was going to be a long/involved conversation, he agreed to do it on camera so others could “listen in” too. It turned out to be a pretty fun/productive one so I’m sharing it here.

No time to watch all 67 minutes? Highlights are listed below.

** If you’re not already a premium subscriber, click here for more tips/tricks like this AND 100 to 150 trip-alerts that are better deals than using frequent flyer points.

Chad, by the way, has a very unique business called “Your Family Bank”. He has a very unique way of getting people out of debt 10 times faster through subtle changes in your spending habits. Feel free to give him a call at 720-291-8602 to see if he can help you.  

  • 1:00: Planning a trip to Hawaii to visit daughter for birthday
  • 4:10: Value of points with specific airline vs with Chase, Citi, or Amex.
  • 6:10: Free resources to get the most out of your miles.
  • 7:20: Why points should always be as a last resort
  • 11:25: How Michelle & I flew to Hawaii for $22 and 25,000 points each (vs $51 and 50,000 points each)
  • 15:40: Finding deals so cheap you wouldn’t waste the points on them.
  • 17:00: Teaser about a hack to get the Southwest Companion pass
  • 17:40: Teaser about getting out of debt in a fraction of the time
  • 19:30: Deciding whether or not to keep a credit card after using the miles earned from it.
  • 21:30: Why cards from Chase bank should be among your first 5 credit cards.
  • 22:20: Why the $450/year Chase card is far better than the $95/year Chase card.
  • 24:00: Long demo of Award Hacker & how to use
  • 33:40: Discussion of RewardStock (and even better version of AwardHacker)
  • 36:00: backup plan #2 – finding trips that are better trips than redeeming points using your JGOOT subscription
  • 40:00: How to watch for good deals on your own without being a JGOOT premium subscribers
  • 43:05: Why you should bundle lodging/car reservations at same time you book the flight.
  • 45:00 – 52:00: Misc banter about navigating the JGOOT site. (Feel free to skip)
  • 52:30: Where to go & stay in Kauai (Including the only resort we would go back to in Kauai)
  • 55:50: Napali Coast Hike (an absolute must)
  • 57:00: Avoiding a disappointing boat ride (Do the Napali coast. don’t do the 90-minute each way island snorkel tour.)
  • 59:30: Misc things to do on the South side of the island
  • 1:02: Teaser about power of getting Southwest’s companion pass if you’re self-employed
  • 1:06:50 – Wrap-up with Chad’s thoughts on his JGOOT subscription and advice to future subscribers

 

“A Star Is Born” and and unexpected reaction

A Star Is Born

Photo Credit: Amazon Movies

Last night, in hopes of cramming one last Oscar nominated movie in before tonight’s award ceremony, my lovely wife Michelle rented “A Star Is Born” for us to watch.

After a long day skiing (and a 4 hour drive back due to a 2-hour road closure on I-70), I wasn’t expecting to be able to stay awake, but man was I wrong.  I was either on the edge of my seat, cheering, or sobbing my eyes out throughout the entire movie.

Not only that, but we watched every “bonus scene/video” possible, and THEN we decided to watch it again.

I think the pivotal moment in the movie was how Jack surprised Ally with a “once in a lifetime opportunity” – knowing she didn’t think she was ready (but he knew she was).

And She F**king Nailed It! (I’d include the clip, but it’s 1000 times better if you watch how they got there in the movie.)

Michelle was surprised at why this movie touched me so much, and quite frankly, so am I.  I think the biggest reason is because of where I am now, and where I’ve been in my life.  More specifically – the opportunities I’ve seized, and the opportunities I have let slip by because of being caught up in the grind of daily life.

It wasn’t until my mid-40’s that I discovered travel as a way to grow…
to find perspective…
to unplug from work…
to plug in with my family…
to find myself…
to visit more friends and family…
to have more friends & family visit me…
to give my family gifts that won’t start collecting dust two weeks after I give it to them…

Ever since that discovery, I’ve been making up for lost time. Even when I can’t travel myself, I look for travel deals that I hope one of my friends or family members can take advantage of.  (And as long as you’re reading this blog, I’m not going to let the opportunity slip by to inspire you to visit more friends, family, or new places either.)

If you want to start visiting more friends, more family, and more new places, there is nothing more powerful than doing this one simple thing:

Whether you’re planning a trip or not, simply watch for opportunities to JGOOT (Just Get Out Of Town) every day.
  • If you’re subscribed to my paid trip-alert service, that’s as easy as opening my trip alerts every day.  (Don’t wait until you’re ready. Open them every day.)
  • If you’re not subscribed, here are a TON of free tips showing you how to find unbelievable trips yourself. (No, not last minute, not redeye flights, not standby flights, and unless absolutely necessary, not even using points. Just travel deals that are so low – you can’t help but consider getting out of town.)
Sound like too much work? No problem, but it sure would be unfortunate if the exact same Summer trip you’ll end up paying $400 per-person for  – could have been snatched up 5 months in advance for $47 during a 48-hour flash sale.  (Especially if you’ve got a family of 6.)

Happy travels!

Joel

 

Abe Lincoln, sharpening axes, chopping down trees, and traveling for pennies on the dollar

We all like to think we’re good at finding deals when it comes to travel. (And most of us are.)

But The JGOOT Way of travel isn’t about finding “good” deals…

Anyone can find a good deal…

The JGOOT Way is about finding deals so freakin’ cheap – the stories from the price you paid eclipse the stories from the trip itself.

Stories like when you’re going through a divorce, you’re forced to live on $2000 a month, and you to take your kids on your first vacation with just the three of you. How? By finding $41 round-trip flights to a cruise-port that perfectly fits with their days off of school. Since it was Fall Break (and cruises are dirt-cheap) you hopped on an all-inclusive 5-night cruise for less than what you would have spent taking them to the five obligatory bowling and bouncy-house parties that were planned that week. 

Stories like when you’re dating a girl, and it’s getting serious (but not THAT serious yet). You stumble across $29 round-trip flights to her home-town in two months. Together, you laugh about the rumors flying about why you flew home to meet her friends & family.

Stories you get to tell your kids (and future grandkids) about how you woo’ed that same girl by taking her on a vacation over Thanksgiving at a fancy all-inclusive resort. (Not because you were Mr. Money-bags, but because you found $110 round-trip flights to Cabo, and you booked an all-inclusive resort that got a 65% discount by booking it at the same time you booked your flight.)

I don’t care how good you are at finding “good deals” you are… It’s not physically possible to find a travel deal that came-and-went when you weren’t looking.  Other than occasional dumb-luck, the ONLY way to find a price so cheap you get to brag about it for the rest of your life is to do one simple thing:

Look.

Every.

Day.

I know, I know – You’re probably expecting this blog post to be a build-up to convince you to pay $97 per year to subscribe to my daily trip-alert service, but…

Screw that. I’m not even going to include a link.

Here’s a free tip on how you can do all of the above yourself for free:

Just promise me you’ll stop thinking “I’ll get around to that when I’m ready to plan my next trip“.

That’s the reason people think travel is so expensive…

That’s the reason I had to hire an assistant just to tell over 100 people a week that my service won’t be of any use to them this time around, and that there is no way around them having to pay $650 per person for what would have been $124 flights had they started looking two or three months earlier.

Just trust me…

This isn’t a pitch for my paid service.

It IS a pitch to convince you to stop looking for travel deals the way you always have done it.

Whether you’re planning a trip or not, set up some fare watches today using the free tip in the video above.

Look at those prices every day and I promise you one thing;  There will come a day when the price you find is so low – you simply won’t be able to resist the temptation to just get out of town.

JGOOT Subscriber story: “Flights so cheap we got to bring the grandparents!”

Nikki Sandschaper and her husband are both school teachers – which might seem great for vacations, but considering the only time teachers can travel is during peak seasons, that can get pricey quick.

In this interview, we talked about one of their JGOOT-inspired trips where they not only went over the most expensive week of the year, but they were able to take their parents too.

Don’t have 20 minutes to watch the interview? Skip to the parts that interest you below.

Not getting JGOOT daily trip alerts? Try it risk-free for 30 days.

Want to share your JGOOT travel stories?  Email me & let’s talk about it!

Intro: Meet Nikki

0:55: “We like experiences over things”

1:35: First “adult” New Year’s eve in years thanks to grandparents watching kids.

2:10: How to just grab the cheap flight & use AirBnB to accommodate all 5 of us.

4:55: Recommendations on how to “get your feet wet” with international travel.

6:00: Using JGOOT as inspiration for finding your next vacation destination.

7:00: Nikki’s favorite feature of JGOOT – finding affordable trips when school is out (which is normally peak/expensive season)

9:00: Adjusting dates to find dates that work for you.

13:40: Discussion point: Rather than Planning to take a trip and hoping to get a good deal – Find a good deal, and plan around those dates.

14:00: Why you need to be watching for deals LONG before you plan on taking a trip.

15:00: How to get friends & family to visit you for $30 to $100 round-trip (Demonstration of reverse-search feature)

18:00-18:40 – Technical difficulties

18:45: Closing advice from Nikki: Why it’s great to subscribe even if you’re not planning a trip soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exploiting the airline industry’s “Achilles Heel”

Whether dealing with discount airlines, or one of the big three – all airlines use extremely expensive software and algorithms to extract every dollar possible out of every seat on every one of their planes.

But much like Achilles’ heel, even the millions of dollars airlines put into predicting how much customers will pay for a seat on their planes, they don’t always get it right.

About .1% of the time, the airlines get their “supply and demand” charts wrong and they find themselves in a bind. As early as 10 months before a flight, if they don’t have at least 15% of their seats booked, they realize they’re not on-pace to fill enough seats on the plane.

The way they fix that problem and get to their 15% target? They drastically slash prices on a handful of seats. Since staying on pace to fill as many seats as possible is EXTREMELY important to the airlines, these price slashes have to be enough to get someone’s attention so they can fill those seats in a hurry.

You never know when or where those price-cuts will happen, but one thing is for sure… They disappear FAST, and as soon as they do, the airlines go back to charging what they know passengers will pay.

Want to spend less than everyone else on the same plane as you?

Watch every day and look for the .1% of seats in planes that are 70% to 90% below normal prices.

Not when you get around to it…

Not 1 or 2 months before you’re ready to plan a trip…

Every. Day.

Unbelievably good deals to destinations all around the world are out there every day, and all you have to do is watch for them.

Don’t want to look every day?

That’s fine, but Murphy’s law says that perfect trip 6 months from now will pop up in the next week or two, and when you get around to planning for it in 3 or 4 months – you’ll probably pay double to triple than what you could have paid if you watched for that trip every day.

Don’t think .1% gives you enough options to choose from?

Think about this:

  • If the average international airport flies to 700 destinations around the world…
  • If they have an average of 4 flights to those destinations per day…
  • If there are 365 days in the year…
  • If there are an average of 250 seats on those planes…
  • That gives you 204,000,000 options to choose from. (700 * 4 * 365 * 250)
  • If you only took flights that were among the cheapest .1% of those 204,000,000 choices, you’d have 204,000 options to choose from (per year).
  • With that many options it’s virtually impossible not to find something that can work with your schedule.
  • Besides, how many trips do you need to take a year?

Is “The JGOOT Way” perfect?

No. 

Will “The JGOOT Way” get you to exactly where you want to go, when you want to get there?

Absolutely not. 

Will it allow you to take an annual vacation or two to amazing destinations at a price YOU are willing to pay (vs what the airlines (and hotels) are charging everyone else who doesn’t know any better?)

Hell yes.

Want someone else to look every day so you don’t have to? Try my trip alert service for a buck.

 

 

 

 

Like the Gideons give Bibles to Hotels

Sean and Janelle of Toward Awakening Travel were kind enough to invite me to talk about the concept of remnant travel at their monthly meetup in Denver.

Here is a recording of that interview, and here is a copy of the quick-start guide I gave to attendees. (I give it away like the Gideons give Bibles to hotels.)