“A Star Is Born” and and unexpected reaction

/1 Comment/in , , /by
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

/in , , , /by

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.

Exploiting the airline industry’s “Achilles Heel”

/in , , /by

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.

 

 

 

 

Kids fly free on Frontier!

/in /by

I love it when this awesome community of JGOOT travelers helps each other out…

The Points Guy posted this news, and one of my savviest JGOOT subscribers – Brooke Merkle – shared the details with me so I could get the word out. Thanks Brooke!

I won’t steal TPG’s thunder, so you can read his review (and fine print) here, but if you’ve got kids, have flexibility on days you can travel (like this Summer), and don’t mind being on a budget airline, it can be a great deal (especially if you can find those occasional $29 round-trip flash-sales Frontier is so famous for.)

Happy Travels!

–Joel

Photo Credit: FlyFrontier.com

Photo Credit: FlyFrontier.com

Seriously???

/1 Comment/in /by

I’m in a few Facebook travel groups, and one of them in particular is an especially active one. The average post gets over 20 replies, but one in particular got over 100 replies in the first hour, and is up to over 350 comments.

The post was “How do you guys travel so much?”  and all of the replies had one common theme; “You have to make travel a priority.“

Although I agree that the first step in traveling more is making it a priority, I couldn’t disagree more with HOW these people were making travel a priority.  I can’t tell you how many responses utterly shocked me:

 

Other shocking responses:

  • Eat Ramen every day, and put the savings towards a travel fund.
  • Sell your car, take the bus and apply what you save on payments and insurance towards travel.

Seriously???  If you’re needing to take the bus, work a second job, or eat crappy food just so you can afford to travel – you’re doing it wrong.

Why not just watch for deals every day, and when you find a deal that is too good to pass up – book it? 

They happen all the time. You just have to be watching for them (because the odds of them still being available the exact moment you decide to look for a trip are about zero).

Watch this interview where I play the skeptic and interview a JGOOT subscriber who spent 3 to 5 minutes a day watching for travel deals and took 3 trips for 1/3 the cost of what they have paid in the past for those exact same trips.

***********************************************************************************************
Want to hire my team of analysts cherrypick the best deals on the internet each day so you can review them over your morning coffee?
Try “The JGOOT Way” out for 30 days for a dollar.
***********************************************************************************************

 

 

 

 

 

From one of the greats

/in , /by

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Wayne Gretzky is among the greatest hockey players in history.

When asked what he attributes to his success he quoted a simple lesson his Dad gave him: “Skate to where the puck is going, not to where it has been.”

Want to spend so little, your friends don’t even believe you when you tell them what you paid for your vacation?  

Stop “chasing the puck” by trying to go to a specific place at a specific time. Instead, find the 1% of trips that are 75% to 90% below market value, and go there.

They’re out there every day. But if you’re not watching for them – they’ll pass right by and someone else will get them.

****************************************************************************************
Want to use a service that will tell you where the puck will be every single day?
Try our fare-finder service for a dollar.
We’ll share the most affordable 1% of trips on the internet.
****************************************************************************************

Your “Travel More” New Year Resolution

/1 Comment/in , , /by

So you want to travel more, huh?

Let’s get you started on your first step toward actually getting to your dream destination affordably within the next year, shall we? Below is a blog post (And video if you prefer not to read) with my BIGGEST secret to finding the deals I find: Watching every day (whether I’m planning a trip or not.)

  • Step 1: Think of a destination that is on your bucket list
  • Step 2: Go to a site called AirfareWatchdog.com, and search for their “fare alerts” feature.
  • Step 3: Enter your home airport and then enter as many destinations as you can think of on your bucket list. (If there is more than one airport to that destination, go ahead and enter all of them.)
  • Have friends & family around the country? Now, start a search for every one of their airports too.

Don’t be shy about this! The more destinations you watch, the sooner you’ll stumble across a deal that you can’t afford not to go on.

Don’t worry – Manhy of your alerts will be expensive at first, but have faith – they always go down. Always.

You just have to be watching for when they do (and guess what; If you followed steps 1-3 above, now you are! All you have to do is take about 30 seconds to check each subject line of what they send every day.)

Remember – you’re not just looking for a good deal. You’re waiting for a deal so amazing – you think it’s a mistake. (It won’t be. It’s just a pricing anomaly that usually only lasts a day or two, and if you grab it – it can save you hundreds, if not thousands more than what everyone else on the plane will be paying a month or two later.)

Happy travels!

**************************************************************************************
Don’t want to weed through a bunch of emails every day to find the best deals?
We analyze over 700 destinations per day from your home airport, and only send you the best 4 or 5 deals we found.
That way, you can review the best deals on the internet over your morning coffee.
Try it out for a buck!
**************************************************************************************

 

Ummmmm… Hell no.

/in , , /by

[TL;DR? Watch a video at the bottom of this post instead.]

I bargained with my sophomore son and told him if he took a free ACT practice test on Friday, he could take a friend snowboarding today.

I was going to go boarding today too, but it was NEGATIVE TEN DEGREES outside, and was only going to get up to a high of 2.  Ummmm… Hell no.

Unlike the out-of-state visitors who all paid thousands of dollars to ski in Colorado during the second-most crowded week of the year – One of the nice things about living just over an hour from the slopes is that you can occasionally say “no thanks” if conditions aren’t absolutely perfect.

Instead, you can grab your laptop, a hot coffee, and work by a warm fire while your kids freeze their butts off on the slopes.

Wanna know a secret?

Traveling for pennies on the dollar works the exact same way.  Unlike the suckers who decide to look for a travel deal every once in a blue moon and settle on somewhere in Mexico (again) because that’s the only destination where they could find a flight for under $400, you can be a lot more picky about the trips you take and the prices you pay.

  • Mexico? Not unless it’s under $150.
  • Europe?  Not unless we can spend less than $400 per person AND get a week of lodging included.
  • What? $29 flights to my Alma Mater for a big game? Let’s grab some friends & go!

But there is a catch…

Since the majority of those fares only last days (if not hours), you HAVE to watch for them every day.

The best way to do that for free?  Airfare Watchdog. Simply enter as many destinations as you want to go to, and they’ll send you the best price they can find to that destination. Every day.

99% of the time, you’ll say “no thanks” and go on with your day.  But about 1 in 100 times the fare will be so low – you’ll think “Ummm… OK!!!” – and you’ll snatch the fare up knowing it will likely be the cheapest seat on the plane.  (The best part? These trips are often months in advance so you can easily work your schedule around them.)

Try it & see for yourself. For your convenience, here’s a link to their free site.

**************************************************************************************************************
Have more than a few places you’d be willing to travel to for the right price?
Every trip we send to our subscribers is at “Ummmm… OK!!!” prices that are virtually guaranteed to be the cheapest seats on the plane.

Right now, you can check out my premium trip-alert service for 30 days, for a dollar.
**************************************************************************************************************

Want more free videos?
Follow my Facebook page.
 

Reach out and touch someone

/1 Comment/in , /by

.
In the late 70’s – long-distance calling was extremely expensive ($.10 to $.25 per minute), rates were very confusing, and most people only called for really special occasions. So AT&T launched a campaign about how their new calling plans allowed you to “reach out and touch someone” for $.02 to $.10 per minute and forever changed how people treated long-distance calling.

Now, nearly 50 years later, at $.10 to $.25 per mile, most people think flying is too expensive, meaning traveling across the country to visit a friend or loved one “just to say hi” is reserved for special occasions only.

Just like AT&T revolutionized the way people stayed in touch 50 years ago, “The JGOOT Way” is changing the way friends & family stay in touch today.

Every week, I share a few dozen different flights with my premium subscribers that are between $.02 and $.05 per mile.  That’s about 1/4 of what most people pay to fly, 1/10th of what most people pay to drive, and believe it or not – a better value than what you would pay when using frequent flyer points. (Here is an article describing that math.)

As a JGOOT premium subscriber, any time you see a trip alert in a city where you know someone, you can either:

  • Have one-click access to the flights I found so you can go visit them
  • Use my “reverse search” link & fly them out come visit you.
  • (Fares I find in the Domestic US are rarely over $100, and as low as $29 round-trip, so there is rarely an excuse for not “reaching out and touching someone” you care about.

Don’t want to pay $.26 per day to have me find those deals for you? No problem. Here is a post on how you can regularly find $.02 to $.05 per mile flights yourself for free.

Just for fun, here are a couple more AT&T commercials:

“I wish I could travel like you”

/2 Comments/in , , /by

Every time my wife & I get together with friends, they comment on our most recent Facebook travel pictures saying “I wish I could travel like you.”

The funny thing is…
if you want to travel like me, all you have to do is… Travel like me.
  • When you travel like me, you spend an average of 85% less than what everyone else is paying for the exact same trips.
  • And when you spend 85% less than everyone else on the same plane as you, you tend to travel more.
It’s that simple.

Here is how you can take an entire family on trips that cost less than what most people pay for just one person:

  1. For vacations, watch every day for deals that are months in advance.  Don’t just look for “good deals”… Keep an eye on hundreds of destinations, watching exclusively for AMAZING “needle in haystack” deals that are too good to pass up. They’re out there every day – you just have to watch for them.  When you find one that’s 60% to 90% less than what you’d normally pay, book it well in advance and plan your schedule around it.   Trips my subscribers and I have taken include $110 flights to Cabo, $192 flights to Aruba, $154 flights to Cancun… $325 to London, $290 to Spain, and so on. (Those are all round-trip prices, BTW.)
  2. I also keep an eye out every day for cheap fares where I have friends/family who I like to visit. I’ve booked $29 weekend flights to Indianapolis (where my wife grew up), $39 flights to L.A to visit friends, $84 flights to visit my brother’s family in Raleigh… When I found $50 flights where my friends Peter & Tania lived, I invited them to visit us for a ski weekend. The list goes on.  None of these trips are trips I would have planned. But when you can take a long weekend visiting friends/family for those prices… Why not? 
  3. https://www.123rf.com/profile_albund

    Photo Credit: Allan Stewart. 123rf.com/profile_albund

    Finally – As a last resort – I always keep a stash of at least 100,000 frequent flyer points for scenarios when I CAN’T find a cheap trip that fits my schedule.

    • For example:
    • When my wife wanted to go to Hawaii, but my cheap ass refused to pay $1326 PER PERSON just to get there??? Points to the rescue. We went for $22 each.
    • When friends from Indianapolis snatched up a JGOOT deal to Turks & Caicos & invited us, we’d have normally had to say “no” because flights from Denver were over twice that. ($650). But we dipped into my stash of points, joined them for $96, and started a multi-family “friendcation” tradition that is now 3 vacations strong.
    • When we had to fly to a friends’ Dad’s funeral and couldn’t find tickets less than $450 each, we used points and went for $11.

So there you have it.

If you want to travel like me, all you need to do is… Travel like me.

My blog and my Facebook Page are open books on how you can find travel deals yourself for free.
Don’t have the time to sort through hundreds of fares per day to find a needle in a haystack? As a premium JGOOT subscriber you can:
  • leave the haystack behind, and have the “needles” delivered on a silver platter every day. (With “needles” being unbelievably good travel deals that have been cherrypicked from thousands of regular priced trips.)
  • I’ll share a far more comprehensive guide than this one, webinars on how to easily collect 100,000 frequent flyer points in the next 60 days, and…
  • You’ll also have private access to my member-only group where you can ask questions & get answers from other premium subscribers who are regularly traveling for a fraction of what 98% of travelers are accustomed to paying “the traditional way”.

The 60 second method to finding amazing travel deals

/in , , , /by

Remember that scene from Karate Kid where the culmination of all of Daniel’s “karate training” comes together?

Everything he knew about Karate was what he taught himself in a textbook. After weeks painting fences, waxing on/waxing off, and sanding floors – Daniel had no idea that what Mr Miyagi was teaching him was a far more efficient way to become a master of Karate.

Click on the video clip below and watch Daniel’s face as he instantly goes from exhausted, discouraged and pissed – to seeing a whole new world of possibility.

Most most people book vacations like Daniel taught himself Karate. (The “Textbook Way”)

  • They decide to book two or three months before a trip. They spend hours hunting down the optimal times/dates, and sometimes they get an OK deal.
  • Sometimes, they give up and have to repeat the procedure several other nights.
  • Eventually, they settle on something that seems like the best deal they can get (not even knowing they missed a flight that was half the cost a few weeks earlier)
  • or worse – they give up chalking travel up as “too expensive” and they put their vacation off yet another year.

Now let’s talk about “The Miyagi Way” of travel (also known as “The JGOOT Way”)

Forget about how you’ve always planned a trip.

Start looking for the best travel deals every day – whether or not you’re planning a trip.

Most days, what you find won’t work and you’ll wonder why you’re bothering to look every day.

But every once in a while – you’ll find a deal that interests you. Rather than thinking “This trip doesn’t fit my schedule” – try thinking “Could I slightly adjust my schedule (or slightly adjust the dates) to take advantage of this ridiculously affordable trip?”

Before you know it – you’ll find deals so unimaginably good – you can’t help but book them.

Sometimes it will be a $20 to $50 flight across the country to visit a best friend.

Other times, it will be a bucket-list destination that is 1/4 the cost of what you were expecting to pay.

Whatever the case – even though very few of the trips you take were trips you planned in advance – you’ll start traveling more often, traveling in better seats, staying at better resorts, and you’ll wonder why you always told yourself travel was so expensive.

All because you started planning trips around deals instead of expecting to find deals that fit your plans on the rare occasions that you look for them.

PS:

If you’re a happy subscriber reading this – I’m probably preaching to the choir. Thanks for your patronage!  You can help inspire others by sharing the latest deals you’ve booked in our Facebook Group JGOOT Village.

If you’re a subscriber still wondering if our service is a fit for you –  Try opening your alerts daily and watch the magic happen.

If you’re not a subscriber, feel free to give our service a try free for 30 days. (Just make sure to open the email we’ll send you each morning. Not doing so would be like joining a Karate class, but never attending because you don’t anticipate getting in a fight any time soon.)

 

JGOOT rule number 3: You MUST be flexible

/in , , /by

Actual screenshot of a text from Brooke Merkle

As you hopefully know by now, there are 3 simple rules to “The JGOOT Way” of travel.

  1. ALWAYS have at least 50,000 miles for when rules #2 & 3 don’t work.
  2. Look for trips every day (whether planning a trip or not)
  3. You must be flexible. (Case study below)

Since being interviewed by CBS News over a year ago, Brook Merkle, her husband, and their two kids have gone on ten trips that she found with the help of her JGOOT subscription.

TEN trips!!!

But all the trip alerts in the world wouldn’t do her a single ounce of good if she looked at each of them thinking “Nah. That doesn’t fit perfectly with my schedule.” If you want to save 50% to 90% every single time you travel, you’re going to need to have at least a little bit of flexibility.

Don’t worry though. I’m not talking about massive changes to your schedule.

  • They went to Hawaii for less than what most people pay to go to Cabo by snatching up a trip she found 6 months ahead of schedule and working all future plans around that trip. (This saved them nearly $1000 per person on their flight alone.)
  • Another time, by taking a 4-day weekend over MLK weekend, she snagged $78 flights to Florida to visit family (saving about $1800 compared to everyone else who paid $450 to $600 per person for a 3-day holiday weekend flight).
  • By booking a Thursday-to-Thursday flight to Vancouver instead of Saturday-to-Saturday, they saved enough to take a private helicopter tour.

Do you need JGOOT to have flexibility?

Absolutely not. This rule can be applied to any trip you take – and at the very least – I hope it helps you get out of town more affordably.

We just make it interesting by sending you 4 or 5 of the most affordable 1% of trips on the internet each morning – for you to dream about over your morning coffee.

Happy travels!

–Joel

 

***********************************************************************************************************

Want daily inspiration of trips you thought you had to wait until retirement for?

My team and I analyze 500 to 1000 destinations per day from your home airport. You’ll have access to hundreds of trips we’ve already found, and over 100 new ones every month.

    • We’ll alert you whenever we find:
      • Domestic flights between $29 and $100 (These fares also work in reverse so you can invite friends to visit you.)
      • Caribbean/Mexico flights between $100 and $400
      • Europe/South America, Hawaii & Asia between the high $200’s & $500
      • Australia, India & Africa between $ the high $500’s & $1000
      • I also include business class fare discounts, one-click lodging options on Travelocity, Expedia, VRBO, AirBnB & Hostels.com, and one-click access to Flight+Hotel prices for 1 to 6 travelers.

You can try it out for the next 7 days free.

Click here for more details.

***********************************************************************************************************

Travelocity did to Travel Agents what Wal-Mart did to Mom & Pop Stores

/in /by
Copyright: 123rf.com - https://www.123rf.com/profile_highwaystarz

Copyright: 123rf.com – https://www.123rf.com/profile_highwaystarz

Let’s talk about travel agent commissions.

  • Travel agents get 0% to help you book a domestic flight. (But they usually help in hopes that they can book your hotel & car too.)
  • They get between 4% and 8% to book an international flight.
  • They get 5% or so to book a rental car for you
  • They get 10% to 20% to book a hotel or cruise (That’s where the money usually is.)

NOW let’s talk about mistake fares…

  • Whether an actual mistake, or intentional fare dump to get 4 or 6 butts in seats to keep from cancelling an under-sold flight – travel agents get paid ZERO commissions on mistake fares.
  • On top of that, sites like Travelocity and Expedia HEAVILY discount hotel commissions when you bundle air and hotel together (including when you pay next-to-nothing) for the flight. (Sometimes, so much so – that you can get air PLUS hotel for less than the cost of the flight alone.)

The result?

Although travel agents can offer great assistance with “normal” trips – they cant compete when it comes to mistake fares unless they charge an additional fee to you.

Don’t get me wrong – Travel agents still provide plenty of value in the right circumstances (Just like Mom & Pop store owners offer way more value than the minimum-wage Wal-Mart employee when you need to pick out the right baseball glove.)

But when it comes to prices… Even if a travel agent rebated their entire commission back to you – they still couldn’t come close to the price you can find by booking a mistake fare on a major travel site.

So you’ve got three choices:

  1. Pay a pretty penny for the convenience of finding a flight that goes to the exact place, at the exact time you’re looking for.
  2. Have a little flexibility and use a free system to find the mistake fares that happen every day from your home airport…
  3. Have a little flexibility and use a paid service that focuses exclusively on mistake fares. (Just don’t plan on them doing it for free – because they’re not going to get a dime when you eventually book a trip.)

With enough patience & flexibility – both choices 2 and 3 will have you traveling for 50% to 90% less than option 1. (And not some bullshit department store “Mark it up so we can say it’s marked down 50% to 90%…” crap…

Put a little energy into finding mistake fares, schedule trips around them when you find them and you will ACTUALLY pay 50% to 90% less than what most people on the exact same trip as you are paying.

Here is an article on how to find mistake fares on a daily basis – for free.

Traveling affordably (with no math involved)

/in , /by

In case you didn’t know it. I’m a numbers guy. My co-author and I wrote a book about cracking Google’s algorithm with paid advertising (Google AdWords for Dummies), and after that, Google hired us to write two books for them to give to their advertisers.  Now, I use algorithms to find mistake fares the same way.

But rather than writing a book about how to calculate the value of a flight – I do that math behind the scenes with every trip I share on JGOOT.

I analyze over 20,000 flight options per day, and rule out the 99.9% that are too expensive.  In a nutshell, if you can’t find it on JGOOT.com, that’s because I already analyzed the dates you’re thinking of – and ruled them out as “too expensive to pay cash for”.

My advice?

  • Use this site to watch for ridiculously affordable trips that you can work your schedule around whenever possible. (Which should be about 1/2 the time.)
  • Don’t waste time searching for a good fare for “need to go to a specific place at a specific time” trips. They will almost always be too expensive and you’d be FAR better off just paying with points.
  • Don’t have points? You should. Download this free quick-start guide & I’ll show you how.

* Wondering why I bother with mistake fares if I can travel on points for practically nothing?  Here is the math on why just about every fare I publish on JGOOT is a better deal than paying with points.  

 

 

 

That feeling when you’re driving and you see a radar gun pointing at you

/in , /by

Have you ever been driving down the highway and have your heart skip a beat when you see a police car on the side of the road with a radar gun pointing at you? Fortunately, I just got a new car that has a pretty cool sign recognition technology that keeps track of that for me at all times.

Don’t get me wrong… I’m a safe driver, but it sure is nice to know my car is “watching” for the speed limit, even when I’m not.  Now, whenever I see a cop with a radar gun pointing right at me, I’m a lot more relaxed because I know the exact speed limit (regardless of the last time I paid attention to the speed limit in the area.)

What does this have to do with travel?  Even if you’re good at finding OK deals whenever you want to take a trip – If you don’t have a system in place to watch fares FOR YOU – you’re going to miss a lot of amazing deals that will have come-and-gone by the time you get around to looking for them.

Here are three suggestions:

  1. Stick with “Aggregator Sites.” Whether you’re preferential to Travelocity, Expedia, or Orbitz, don’t use them to set up your searches because they all receive large commissions for the trips you book on their site. The fares you’re looking for are so low – they don’t pay commissions. Although the big travel sites are required to display those commission-free trips on their site, they don’t make it easy for visitors to find them.  Below are suggestions for aggregator sites that are paid to send traffic to the above sites and are NOT on commission. Your odds of finding those unbelievably good deals will be a lot higher by sticking with the aggregator sites.
  2. Flexible on when you want to go? Airfare watchdog is a great aggregator site, and you’ll get alerts for the best prices possible for as many destinations as you want to watch.  (Don’t forget to watch domestic flights where you have friends & family too. $29 and $49 round-trip flights across the country happen all the time. Besides – it’s pretty cool when you get to call a long-lost friend or family member and say “Hey – I just found $39 round-trip flights from your city to mine. Want to come out & go to the big game?”)
  3. Have specific times you need to go? You’ll end up paying slightly more when you don’t have flexibility on departure and return dates, but mistake fares still happen during peak travel times, so watching every day (as early as feasibly possible) will still pay off.  Either Google flights or Kayak.com are GREAT for setting up fare watches for specific dates.  The more destinations you watch – the more likely you’ll find not just a good deal – but an unbelievably good deal.

Just be sure to watch every single day!

No matter what method you choose – be patient and remember that finding these kinds of deals is a marathon, not a sprint.  I don’t care how good you are at finding good deals, it’s not physically possible to find a good deal that doesn’t exist at the tiny moment in time you get around to looking for it.  Look every day, and I assure you-you’ll be traveling sooner than you thought, spending less than you thought, and going to cooler places than you ever imagined.

Happy travel

–Joel

PS – Speaking of police cars, if you drive one for a living – don’t forget that you (along with other community first responders, teachers, and non-profit employees) are eligible for a FREE premium subscription valued at $100 per year. Click here for more info.