Thrifty Traveler Review
Tl;dr: It’s fun, but probably not worth $80 per year.
A few weeks ago, we took a spur-of-the-moment(ish) trip to Tuscany. It was a great trip, and affordable too, with the bonus points from my Delta Amex Gold covering most of the fare. Sadly, most of the time you can’t fly to Italy for under 50,000 Skymiles. That’s where Thrifty Traveler comes in–we only started looking for flights once Thrifty Traveler sent me an email about a Skymiles sale to Europe, with basic economy tickets starting at 28k miles for Delta credit card holders.
How does it work?
Thrifty Traveler has a free version you can sign up for here, which offers a few emails per week with great flight deals, albeit departing from all over the country. For more targeted emails, you’ll have to sign up for the premium version.
Currently, Thrifty Traveler Premium clocks in at $90 per year ($80 with our referral link). You can then set your home airport(s) to receive the best deals for flights originating at airports convenient to you. The deals include both cash and point deals, and all cabin types (basic economy, economy, premium economy, business class, and first class). You can elect to see business and first class deals from any airport if you want. Once you join, the annual fee will not increase, and there is a 100-day money back guarantee.
Our Experience
Our flight to Italy was our first time booking a flight based on a TT alert. We definitely got a good deal and saved money, and could have saved even more had it not been for scheduling limitations on our end. But in my experience it’s not unusual to find good Skymiles deals to Europe; if I had checked the Delta website intermittently for a few months, I probably could have found flights for under 50k miles on my own. That said, Skymiles sale fares can sell out quickly, so getting an early alert can maximize your odds of getting a good deal on the route of your choice.
Beyond the occasional opportunity to book a bargain fare, I mainly enjoy receiving the TT emails to see what the going rates are for certain flights. For instance, I seem to receive a deal alert for sub-$200 flights to Hawaii every month. Now that I know how easy it is to fly to Hawaii on the cheap, I would never pay $300+ for a ticket knowing that a big sale is likely just around the corner. I have also received several flight alerts that I would have liked to take advantage of, but couldn’t for scheduling reasons. If you have a highly flexible schedule, you’ll probably receive several great deals each year that will be worth jumping on.
If you do sign up, though, you’ll get a healthy amount of deals. On some days I can receive five or more emails from TT. If you’re the type of person who doesn’t want a lot of emails clogging up their inbox, TT may not be for you.
Is it worth the money?
As with Going, I’m locked into a relatively cheap annual fee, which makes me more willing to pay for a finger on the pulse of the airfare market and for saving big on the occasional bargain fare. Going costs $49 annually, while Thrifty Traveler comes in at a whopping $80 even with a referral. If you use it to book a deal fare once a year, you might break even, and Thrifty Traveler makes this easier by including points and premium seat alerts as well (Going has an “Elite” version with these options, but it costs $199/year). If you are flexible enough to jump on mistake fares or rich enough to take advantage of the large discounts on premium seats, the membership is more likely to pay off.
The average person, though, is unlikely to get their money’s worth from the service. If you poke around Google Flights or the frequent flyer program of your choice for a couple hours you are highly likely to find a good deal without investing in a deal-alert service.
Conclusion
Thrifty Traveler may not be for everyone, but I enjoy it and recommend giving it a try, especially if you travel internationally relatively often. You can sign up for their free version to get a feel for the service. If you’d like to give the premium version a whirl, you can sign up via our referral link here and save $10 per year, with a 100-day money-back guarantee.