Comparison
Going vs. Thrifty Traveler
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Since 2015, Going has been helping travelers see the world for less. Today we’re 2 million members strong and our deals provide an average savings of $550 on international economy flights, $200 on domestic economy flights, and $2,000+ (yes, really) on international business class flights.
Our mission is to make sure you never overpay for flights, and we think we do a pretty great job, but we know we have some competitors out there. Here’s how Going compares to Thrifty Traveler.
Thrifty Traveler was founded in 2015 by Jared Kamrowski and now lists 10 employees on its website. Thrifty Traveler gathers and shares domestic deals on its website daily and via its free Daily Beat email newsletter. Their subscription newsletter, Thrifty Traveler Premium, sends fare alerts (including “mistake fares,” when an airline accidentally discounts a flight more than they wanted to) on domestic and international flights. Subscribers can then book directly with airlines or through OTAs.
Premium members are notified about economy class fares, as well as the occasional premium economy, business, and first class fares. Members can choose an unlimited number of departure airports to track from more than 175 cities in the United States and Canada. Thrifty Traveler also offers free “travel rewards credit card consulting” to help members strategize ways to earn maximum travel rewards.
While the free Daily Beat newsletter sends out alerts on domestic fares, these are only for airports within the continental U.S.—not including Alaska or Hawaii. In order to see deals to either of those states, you’d need to upgrade to a Premium membership.
Thrifty Traveler Premium costs $49.99 per year (billed annually) or $7.99 per month (billed monthly). Cost-wise, it's on par with Going. It's also cheaper than options like Dollar Flight Club or The Flight Deal for a comparable level of service.
Thrifty Traveler is a legitimate company. There are no reviews on Trustpilot, and while online reviews are scarce they are generally positive. Many appreciate that their membership fee is locked in for life, so even if the fee for new Premium members goes up, theirs does not. Some lament that while the list of airports served is long, most of the best deals are from the bigger cities.
Thrifty Traveler offers a 100-day money back guarantee when new members sign up. Memberships do renew automatically, however, so if you’d like to cancel after the first year you’ll need to do so before the auto-renewal date.
Going serves more airports than Thrifty Traveler, and shares deals that Thrifty Traveler doesn’t cover (like our Weekend Getaways). The annual fee for Going's Premium membership is about the same as Thrifty Traveler’s Premium membership, while Elite is a bit more but includes deals in business and first class and premium economy.
Check out some reviews of Going here.
Thrifty Traveler has been around since 2015 and they know a lot about traveling cheaply, especially on points and miles. They have a very robust library of information about the points and miles game and as part of their Premium service they offer consulting to help you book points and miles trips.
That said, they don’t serve quite as many US airports as Going, they don’t offer weekend trips, and they don’t have a dedicated service to find business and first class seats, so they only send those deals occasionally.
Thrifty Traveler’s product is pretty decent, but a bit less robust than Going. We serve more airports, we vet every deal carefully to make sure it truly deserves a spot in your inbox, and if you’re looking to fly in the big seats up front, we’ve got you covered.
The biggest difference between Going and Thrifty Traveler is deal frequency. In an internal analysis, we found that members subscribed to our top 10 airports received 3x as many deals from Going as they did from Thrifty Traveler in the same time frame.
That lower send frequency means that a lot of really great deals slipped through the cracks. In fact, only 3% of the deals they sent went to Latin America/Mexico, so people looking for shorter-haul international getaways were pretty much out of luck.
We’re thrilled to have nearly 3,000 Facebook reviews of Going with a five-star average.
See how Going compares to other services, include Next Vacay, Secret Flying, or The Flight Deal.
If you fly from a Canadian airport, or would really value points and miles consulting to help you make the most of your awards, Thrifty Traveler may be for you. But if you live near a smaller airport, want only the best deals, and want to receive frequent deals in business and first class, we hope you’ll join Going. You can even try us free for two weeks!
Published September 3, 2021. *All competitor details were accurate at the time of publishing.