
Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business - bkidwell
https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/scotts-cheap-flights-02
======
chrisballinger
Something I've noticed that's lacking from most aggregators like Kayak and
SkyScanner (my current fave), is the ability to increase the price of the
ultra-budget carriers by adding their carry-on baggage fees and whatnot. I
don't care about checked bag fees, but some of the carry-on fees are
ridiculous ($60 per overhead item?). These budget carriers are cheating the
system by looking like the cheapest option, when in reality one of the more
expensive carriers is actually cheaper once you compare them apples-to-apples.

~~~
OkGoDoIt
I 100% percent agree with you.

But on a practical note, some advice for those traveling on these budget
airlines: if you pack your carry-on in a backpack rather than a suitcase,
every budget airline in Europe and the US that I have flown on will not give
you a hard time about it. I personally use a very large backpack that holds at
least as much as a carry-on suitcase, yet the fact that it is in backpack form
means they count it as my personal item and don't give me a hard time. When I
travel I usually have a smaller laptop bag inside a compartment in my
backpack, once I get on the airplane I take that out and keep it with me as a
personal item (so I can easily access it inflight) and I put my backpack
overhead like I would a suitcase. I have successfully done this on Frontier,
Allegiant, Spirit, and Ryan Air within the last year and have not had any
issues.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I personally use a very large backpack that holds at least as much as a
> carry-on suitcase, yet the fact that it is in backpack form means they count
> it as my personal item and don't give me a hard time.

Interesting; they always officially state that the “personal item” must fit
_under_ the seat in front of you, which clearly a large backpack won't. No
airline's ever enforced it that I've noticed, but then I've never flown Basic
Economy (and haven't flown since it was a thing.)

I wouldn't rely heavily, though, on that laxity not changing without notice.

~~~
whistlerbrk
A full backpacking pack at 60L+ will not. But a stuffed 35L pack will most
likely fit.

------
jmarbach
Disclosure: I built a competing tool for finding cheap flights,
[https://concorde.io](https://concorde.io).

I think the secret of Scott's success is his incredible writing ability.
Finding the cheap flights is the easy part. Communicating with users in a way
that consistently wins over their hearts and minds takes a high level of
consideration and creativity. This writing ability combined with his co-
founder's understanding and application of direct response marketing has
produced fantastic results. I am glad to see their success.

~~~
sfbay
Nice website. Fix this issue: 1) When I search with a date, it loses the
depart and return dates every time. Save the dates and remember them. 2) After
I select a depart date calender as Month September, it should open September
when I select Return calendar.

~~~
jmarbach
Thank you for the feedback! Agreed that the depart and return date inputs
should be improved as you mention. I am always seeking to eliminate needless
repetitive actions! I'll do my best to get this resolved quickly.

------
natch
Ouch, their site triggers one of my pet peeves about travel sites, listing
prices without clarity whether the deal is one-way or round trip.

    
    
        NYC to Paris: $260
        Normal Roundtrip Price: $900
    

So did people who got that deal save $380? Or did they save $640? Which is it?

As feedback to Scott and Brian, this actually makes me hesitate to sign up for
premium, because I don't know what level of discount we're talking about here.
A 2x difference (one way versus RT) is significant.

~~~
bkidwell
Wow, thanks for the feedback! Almost every single deal we send out is
roundtrip. This is actually why we put "normal roundtrip price" instead of
just "normal price" to help clarify this.

Maybe instead we should do "Roundtrip NYC to Paris: $260" and then put "Normal
Price: $900" to help clear this up.

Thoughts?

~~~
piptastic
Why not just put Roundtrip in both to be as clear as possible?

~~~
bkidwell
I'd actually rather put "Past Roundtrip Deal" above the deal info just because
of how big the word "Roundtrip" is. We have to keep design in mind... and if
we just put RT that would likely lead to confusion as well.

~~~
squeaky-clean
"NYC to Paris and back: $260" is only one fewer letter but I feel it reads
more clearly and you don't need to include the "and back" in other lines of
the message to get the point across you're comparing RT to RT.

------
jwong_
One thing I'd like to vent about is that Scott seems to be making a lot of
money selling e-mail addresses.

I signed up for a couple different contests using unique e-mail addresses
generated specifically for the contest (Yes, they were separate e-mails for
separate contests; No, I did not double-dip my entrees). I was then signed up
for 2-3 e-mail lists for 3rd party companies over the course of a couple
weeks. These companies weren't even doing anything tangentially related to
what Scott writes about(cheap flights). I wish it was more transparent that he
was going to sign you up for these random companies.

~~~
bkidwell
Hey, I'm just going to post the same response I used in the IndieHackers
comment section for someone with a similar concern. Here's what I said:

"Our subscribers are too important to us to ever sell their information to
someone else. We never have and never will sell users information like that.
Our only source of income is subscriptions and occasional advertisements in
the free emails. Ruining our reputation to make a few extra bucks would be an
extremely stupid decision on our end. With that said, we do run promotions
with partners where we give away awesome vacation packages (Mexico and Tokyo
recently). If anyone signs up for one of these promotions they are agreeing to
the terms and conditions, which clearly state that by signing up for the
giveaway the email address will be distributed to all of the partners involved
in the giveaway (typically 4-5 other companies)."

And their response:

"Thanks for the reply! I looked through my emails and found that the emails
started right after I entered a giveaway from you. So that explains it! You're
right, it does say for the giveaway offer that you're signing up for emails.
Sorry that I jumped to conclusions. It's just that I get a lot of spam and
it's very annoying. Also, your partner emails provided no value to me at all."

\--

With that said, it looks like we could do a better job making it even more
explicit (which we try to do in the emails announcing the giveaway). We'll
work on this on our end and never intended to mislead anyone.

~~~
breakingcups
What an incredible response, have you not read it yourself?

"Our subscribers are too important to us to ever sell their information to
someone else. We never have and never will sell users information like that.
Our only source of income is subscriptions and occasional advertisements in
the free emails. Ruining our reputation to make a few extra bucks would be an
extremely stupid decision on our end."

Is at complete odds with:

"With that said, we do run promotions with partners where we give away awesome
vacation packages (Mexico and Tokyo recently). If anyone signs up for one of
these promotions they are agreeing to the terms and conditions, which clearly
state that by signing up for the giveaway the email address will be
distributed to all of the partners involved in the giveaway (typically 4-5
other companies)."

You literally sell their information to advertisers (oh no, sorry, your
"partners") to make a buck. Acknowledge it, don't preface it with PR bull.
What do you see as the difference between the first and the second paragraph?
The fact that you only do it with people entering your promotions? Because
that's still your users information.

Yes it's in your TOS, you are still selling personal information to third
parties and their unknown partners.

~~~
jwong_
Thanks for putting my feelings into words.

And their partners are extremely spammy at best. They're all trying to force
engagement and word of mouth.

Here's an excerpt from one of the intro e-mails I got:

    
    
      > Welcome to the #SkimmLife! Here's how it's going to work:
      > We'll meet you back here, in your inbox, bright and early tomorrow morning (PS If it's Friday or a weekend, 
      > you'll get theSkimm on Monday). We're a company that respects brunch, so we won't be with you on Saturday and
      > Sunday. Can't wait? Here's the most recent Skimm
      > Also, download our new app theSkimm for iPhone. It has a service called Skimm Ahead that makes it easier to 
      > be smarter about the future. Never again will you miss moments like when you vote in a primary or when your 
      > favorite show is back on Netflix. Best Part? It can integrate directly into your calendar.
      > Lastly, good things happen when you share theSkimm! (read: winning prizes, swag, being a Skimm'bassador). 
      > To get credit for sharing, use your unique link: http://www.theskimm.com/?r=3cbcb2df OR our fancy invite page
      > to have friends sign up. See how many people listen to you by checking this page.
      > Your morning just got better. Trust us.
    

edit: formatting

~~~
exclusiv
Yeah further down they note: "We only try to partner with high quality
companies. For example this Tokyo one were running right now is with journy,
ProductHunt, theSkimm, The Wirecutter, and Conde Nast Traveler"

I looked at theSkimm and can't figure out how it's related either. Just seems
like an email acquisition bartering scheme.

~~~
petercooper
That's basically what it is.

People who want to grow lists quickly all get together. The smaller lists pay
for the prizes, the bigger lists pay with exposure. They all pitch a
sweepstakes to their subscribers, all entrants end up subscribed to all
lists.. everyone wins (allegedly).

~~~
exclusiv
I was talking with a younger relative this weekend who is in college and she
mentioned TheSkimm and I immediately thought of this thread. Maybe the younger
crowd who spends so much time with social apps and other noise find it highly
valuable. There's probably a big distrust for mainstream sources which is not
unwarranted.

------
csallen
Scott also came onto the Indie Hackers podcast this week to talk a little more
about his business. For example, about why they don't do any paid advertising
to acquire customers: [https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/020-scott-keyes-
of-scot...](https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/020-scott-keyes-of-scotts-
cheap-flights)

------
thebiglebrewski
This is amazing but is it the kind of business that can last for more than a
few hundred thousand users? At a certain point people get none of the free
deals, because too many are trying to book at once, right?

~~~
austenallred
Even if it caps out right where it is... they're retired after not too long

~~~
DerfNet
Yeah, if they're pulling $5/mo from each premium subscriber, that's... well,
some pretty easy math. They could put a cap on the userbase if they wanted and
still be pulling millions per month just off subscriptions, not even
accounting for ad revenue.

~~~
Toast_
Pretty crazy that they're pulling that much revenue without even using
affiliate links.

------
smaili
I hate to be the one to ask, but how much moat does this actually have?
Couldn't Kayak literally just add a _subscribe_ or _alert me later_ input and
have their massive infrastructure automate this very thing?

~~~
morgante
Kayak does have alert notifications.

The thing is that if you're looking for a very specific destination, you'll
almost never get the best deals. Flight deals work best for people who are
very flexible about destination _and_ timing.

~~~
akg_67
Second this. Some of my friends and I use Scott's emails to discover cheap
fares to any destination. We typically don't have any specific destination in
mind.

When one of us sees Scott's email with attractive deal, we check Google
flights for appropriate dates (typically 7-10 days trip) and ping each other
to see who is interested in that trip and dates. Then we just book flights
typically within 2-6 hours of receiving email. Afterward we research the
destination, decide rest of the itinerary for the trip, and book AirBnBs.

We call it travel easter egg hunting.

------
Huhty
What fascinates me with this story is how low tech everything was. A simple
landing page, email list/newsletter, and "value" in the form of travel deals.
Anyone can do it, and the barrier of entry is minimal.

~~~
taphangum
Tech provides leverage horizontally, not vertically.

As programmers, we often fool ourselves into believing the opposite.

~~~
tomerbd
what do you mean i don't understand the horizontal / vertial

~~~
DontGiveTwoFlux
Vertical - the actual thing that provides customer value.

Horizontal - scaling up your application to lots of customers.

Scaling software is easy, there's no factory to buy more equipment for.
Creating business value is much harder.

------
joelrunyon
Good to see Brian & Scott on here. Crazy explosive growth over the past 18-24
months!

Great evolution of an MVP into a legitimate, mid-size business without taking
tons of funding to do it.

~~~
bkidwell
Thanks Joel!

------
triangleman
So, Scott originally accumulated all those miles working for ThinkProgress?
How does that work? You buy the flights and expense them back to the company,
pocketing the miles?

~~~
basseq
Frequent flyer miles (and hotel points) are a massive perk for traveling
employees. Most consultants I know finance annual vacations completely on
points. Every once in a while, a big company will try to pocket the points for
themselves, usually to great outcry--because it's akin to cutting benefits.

The corporate thinking is: "Points are a reward for buying travel. And I'm the
one footing the bill." The employee thinking is: "Points are a reward for
traveling. And I'm the one on the damn plane."

Personal perks on a corporate card are similar, and again, do the math of how
many points you get by channeling $60-100k/yr worth of corporate travel
expenses through a credit card.

~~~
zild3d
don't most frequent flyer programs require the name on the ticket to match the
rewards account? E.g. I can't buy my sister a flight, she flies it, and I get
points for it.

~~~
el_benhameen
That hasn't been my experience. I buy my wife Southwest flights with my points
all the time. It's been a while since I flew United, but I don't recall it
being an issue there, either.

~~~
sushid
I don't think that what OP is saying. He's saying you can't pay cash for your
wife's flight and have those mileage points sent to your account.

------
Gys
Reminds me of: www.holidaypirates.com

With special websites for most bigger European countries. Its more or less
doing the same, with lots of affiliations, an app, Whatapp group, etc.

~~~
thesimon
Or fly4free or secretflying or ..

99% of the time it's just affiliate links slapped on some deals found on
FlyerTalk

------
SadWebDeveloper
Just wondering if the guys can automate the scraping part, seems unlikely this
is usually information that needs to be handpicked or "moderated" by one or
more humans.

~~~
gruturo
Speculation: it's possible that the source sites are actively hostile to
scraping and intentionally mess with the layout regularly, or may even have
ruled out any kind of automation in their ToS - so if you don't want to get
sued or blacklisted, you can do no kind of (detectable) scraping.

~~~
blevin
Can anyone recommend scraping adapters (businesses or tech) that are robust to
this sort of thing? I'm talking about something higher level than, say,
Beautiful Soup -- something you can configure to point at an endpoint,
essentially request a sql row subscription from it, and not have to mind it
too much.

Both the traversal/retrieval and data-interpretation parts seem to have
interesting aspects when you consider current website design. Some websites
make themselves hard even for humans to read (consider why safari reader mode
exists).

This seems like a potentially valuable service, in the sense of being a
schlep. I wonder how many places have home-grown scraping efforts as part of
their business and how annoying it is for them to maintain.

~~~
RussianCow
At work we use Mozenda[0] with success, though I can't tell you much beyond
that because I'm not involved with that project. I've also heard of Agenty[1].

[0]: [https://www.mozenda.com/](https://www.mozenda.com/)

[1]: [https://www.agenty.com/](https://www.agenty.com/)

------
joering2
If you receive Scott's emails for longer than one week, you will quickly have
the answer to your question "why not to scrap".

I think enough people turn to premium member exactly because a personal touch
of Scott and his team. You have this feeling this is not simple aggregate -- I
always enjoy reading Scott little tips "when you buy ticket to certain city,
don't forget to visit specific point of interest". I end up researching those
and always came up with fun info, making me believe Scott is pro and knows
what he is doing/researching for me. A scrapper will be inhumane and you will
quickly realize that and most likely convert 1% of what they convert.

Scott - I am very curious how did you initially advertise your newsletter?
First weeks/months you were live - how did you get your initial traffic?

Thanks!

~~~
dewey
This is in the article, search for Business Insider.

------
kingosticks
I recently subscribed to the UK version of this
([https://www.jacksflightclub.co.uk](https://www.jacksflightclub.co.uk)). I
didn't know there was a US version, I guess there might be lots of similar
services. I wonder who came first.

~~~
bkidwell
We have plenty of copycats out there (one of the downsides of us trying to
share our learnings online haha). I'd just look at when the domains were
purchased if you want to know who was first ;) Also, we send deals from almost
every continent (launching Africa by the end of the year).

~~~
Naritai
Still looking forward to you having dedicated emails for international
business class tickets. I know the tickets won't be cheap that the total cash
savings on cheap seats can be significant. Here's hoping!

~~~
gommm
Same here. For long trips > 6 hours, I usually avoid economy seats.

------
knownothing
So now people are paying other people to browse FlyerTalk for them? At least
if you're part of the forum you can contribute back to the community.

------
tmaly
I just listened to the podcast for Scott's Cheap Flights.

Fantastic job Courtland. Your podcast is one of my favorites in this space.

~~~
hboon
Can you recommend other similar podcasts?

~~~
csallen
Here's a good list:
[https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/post/-KneXD3g4ILXwNJdJ9nh](https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/post/-KneXD3g4ILXwNJdJ9nh)

------
pgodzin
It's interesting that they employ a dozen flight searchers who manually look
all day. Are there any flight prices APIs that can be scraped, looking for
significant outliers?

~~~
pgodzin
Just saw thus addressed in the comments:

> Great question. We get this one a lot and have been approached by quite a
> few developers who say they could easily build us something like this.

Is it possible? Sure.

Would it be better? I doubt it.

Say we use Google's flight API. The cost per query is 3.5 cents. Departure
airports X destination airports X available dates X 3.5 cents = a ridiculous
amount of money.

Or we build a scraper. It would be cheaper than the API, but we'd still need
the human element to make sure it's actually a good deal. We take into account
number of stops, airlines, etc.

I see potential for a computer/human combo in the future, but right now our
flight searchers are doing great and we don't feel that automating the process
would make the business significantly better.

------
notadoc
Great read. The indiehackers site is full of interesting interviews and
stories, well worth all of them as there is always something to learn.

------
kitcar
Interesting that they have been able to raise prices over time - a fixed
number of cheap seats available at any moment means the more users on the
email list, the less likely an individual user will be able to extract value
from the list - hence list growth actually reduces the value it delivers.

I guess fear of missing out is a strong sales tool!

------
Taylor_OD
I've been on the list for a little while. I havnt booked any flights from the
deals yet because I've got a fair bit of traveling planned already this year
but I'm starting to look at flights for next year. Check out the list if you
havnt. I live in chicago and flights anywhere are usually $500 or less.

------
jpster
>We actually don't do a ton of A/B testing or worry much about open and click
rates, and here's why: Our revenue model is subscription based. We don't take
any commissions or have any ads in the premium emails. Our only incentive is
to keep premium subscribers happy.

I find this a surprising statement -- aren't the emails the primary channel
for trying to convince a free user to upgrade to paid? Why not try A/B testing
to try and boost that percentage from the ~10% to something higher?

~~~
napworth
In most cases, A/B testing will actually do negative damage than if you didn't
test it at all.

~~~
jpster
Depends on if the tester actually knows what they're doing.
[https://blog.kissmetrics.com/your-ab-tests-are-
illusory/](https://blog.kissmetrics.com/your-ab-tests-are-illusory/)

~~~
ssharp
In most cases, flying a plane yourself will result in more negative damage
than having a trained pilot fly you.

------
jpindar
OK, so how many of us are wondering what other kinds of products this would
work for?

I've seen similar newsletters for books, for Amazon Subscribe & Save, and for
low cost Amazon items.

~~~
RepressedEmu
what is the one for low cost Amazon items? I've been thinking about starting a
daily store of weird items but this seems like a good idea also.

Like sub $20 gift ideas/wacky items

~~~
petercooper
Might not be it, but
[https://camelcamelcamel.com](https://camelcamelcamel.com) tracks the biggest
price drops on Amazon each day.

------
jly
Awesome writeup. It's great to see companies that can make this work without
taking any funding. I had no idea there were so many people behind this.

I have nothing to add except that I've been a very happy paid customer for
several months now. These guys run a fantastic service that has been worth
every penny. Yes, some travel companies that have extensive infrastructure
could probably do what is being done here, but they don't.

------
benjaminbeck
Amazing how much they did without too much technology or upstart cost!

------
desireco42
Definitely great business and great example of side business.

------
IPS3c
Hidden fees and baggage charges are the worst. Airlines need to be more up
front with their charges.

This is a cool business model though.

------
losiiiii
I'm not a fan of the fact that on their website the testimonials are the same
(with the currency changed) no matter what location I choose.

The destinations in the locations are of course also the same, so it just
kinda seems like they are trying to trick me. Kind of reinforcing the feeling
I generally get from this kind of business. If they have that many happy
users, they could at least get real testimonials from each place.

------
chriskingnet
I'm not a fan of the fact that on their website the testimonials are the same
(with the currency changed) no matter what location I choose.

The destinations in the locations are of course also the same, so it just
kinda seems like they are trying to trick me. Kind of reinforcing the feeling
I generally get from this kind of business. If they have that many happy
users, they could at least get real testimonials from each place.

~~~
blhack
What is happening here? [http://imgur.com/a/1c8Nj](http://imgur.com/a/1c8Nj)

You posted this identical comment both here, on an account that has only a few
posts over the last 5 years or so, and on what looks like a throwaway.

------
lavezzi
Still don't see the appeal. I get better and quicker results from
theflightdeal.com and flyertalk.

~~~
mherdeg
As far as I can tell Theflightdeal is basically the same service -- a small
army of people searches for fares (HOPEFULLY WITH SOME AUTOMATION!), checks
whether there are any results whose price is very low relative to historical
prices they have logged for that route, and publishes a blog post if the price
is very low. They have little blurbs about each destination prewritten so it's
very easy to make the blog post once they see a good fare. ("Good deal" is
computed either on a cents-per-mile basis or on a low-price-per-segment basis
for certain special routes.) Often a human reads through the fare rules (I'm
guessing they just use expertflyer, heh) and adds a bit of extra color like
booking class, advance purchase restrictions, purchase-by date, etc. to help
save people some time. That blog gets money from affiliate revenue (click thru
from their blog post and book travel and they often earn a percentage). Very
clever, tremendously successful in the niche.

Looker pivoted into doing something similar but with a mobile app (after first
trying to do REALLY hard big-data work I think). They seem to perform the same
kind of analysis, but with more automation and less reliance on spreadsheet.
They use a _really_ interesting input stream (real-time search query results
from a GDS -- so, actual booked flights) to alert people when a route they
care about is cheap vs typical prices.

Other services exist which do the same thing but for premium-cabin travel;
these services tend not to be public facing and try to charge ridiculous
prices in part because J/F travel carries a certain cachet and also in part
because those deals tend to be considerably more fragile.

There are afaict somewhere like 10-100 of these "deal newsletter" business
models doing basically the same work as the deal blogs but trying to make
money on subscriptions. Very clever, I definitely respect the hustle.

~~~
gommm
Any recommended services for premium-cabin travel? Email is in my profile.
Thanks!

~~~
lavezzi
[http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/premium-fare-
deals-740/](http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/premium-fare-deals-740/)

Set-up alerts by carrier or preferred outbound airport.

------
BryanBryce
The system is down

------
bhyam
Really cool story.

