While we’re always looking for great airfare deals to book using miles and points, sometimes it’s worth it to bite the bullet and shell out some cash when there’s a really cheap deal, especially when there are airline mistake fares. Go to Travel Gal team member John C., for example, was able to grab a $49 one-way fare to London for he and his wife. Who could pass that up?
But finding these types of fares can be time-consuming when scouring through tons of websites, email newsletters, blog posts and tweets with these notifications. I came across a website called Mighty Travels Premium which, for a small fee (though there is a 30-day free trial), alerts you to these great deals via email and/or text and based only on the destinations and class types (business, economy, etc.) you are interested in.
I’ve been using it for a few weeks, and it’s sent me amazing deals that I would never have known on my own! Someday, when kids are out of school and we have more flexibility, I’m going to be booking these deals left and right ;-). Those of you who already have that flexibility should definitely give this service a look!
Setting up the Service
To set up the service, you’ll need to go to MightyTravels.com and click Sign up for the 30-Day Free Trial. From there, you can try the service 30 days for free, after which it is $7.99/month or $4.81/ month (if you pay yearly), which is easy to make up in the savings of fares it will provide you. You will have to provide a credit card to start the free trial, though as long as you cancel before 30 days, you won’t be charged.
Next, head to the Notifications section to set up your home airport or any other airports for which you’d like to notified about great deals. For example, I put in Chicago, since it’s just more than two hours away from us, as well as D.C. and New York City, because I’m happy to hop on a Southwest plane to get there to take advantage of cheap deals to Europe!
You can choose to receive deals by fare class, such as Economy only (that’s what I and my family prefer to save as much as possible!), Economy Premium, Business Class and/or First Class.
You’ll get these notifications once a day via email. If you’d like real-time alerts for specific routes, you can head to the Dashboard page where you can type in a specific route or even Indianapolis to Europe, for example. You can also add parameters like maximum price, cabin class and even a specific airline.
Once you have these searches in your Dashboard, go back to Notifications then click the radio button next to the searches (shown at the very bottom of the page) for which you’d like to get real-time alerts.
When you first subscribe, you’ll also get a series of helpful emails that show you how to make the most out of the service.
Receiving Alerts
Most alerts will come daily via email, but you can opt in to receive alerts via text that come once or twice a month. Alerts that Mighty Travels will send via text include:
- Deals they feel are too good to pass up
- Deals that might expire within 24 hours (some of these deals expire within minutes)
These alerts will also come to your email.
In your email, you can expect to receive a daily summary of fare prices that are below the average fare price to and from destinations you have set up in your dashboard.
The email lists the route, the price in US dollars, sample dates, the airline and a link for booking.
Great Airfare Deals
When Mighty Travels Premium sends you a deal, they also include historic pricing to help you determine if it is or is not a good deal. The historic pricing may include the lowest price ever, as well as the average price.
If a deal is lower than the average price, it’s considered a good deal, though the closer it gets to the lowest price ever the closer it gets to a “great” deal :).
Airline Mistake Fares
What are airline mistake fares? They are fares accidentally published by airlines that are between 70 to 99% lower than their typical price for that route.
“Mistake fares allow you to fly in a higher cabin and can make a trip pure luxury for minimal monetary investment,” says Torsten Jacobi, the founder of Mighty Travels.
According to Jacobi, there are often several mistake fares in a week and then none for a few weeks, so it really varies.
When Mighty Travels Premium sends you a mistake fare, they usually include the link for booking them, as often they are only on select booking engines for just a short amount of time. Some mistake fares may still remain in your dashboard even though they are no longer bookable. It’s best to book those right away in case that happens!
Keep in mind airlines don’t always honor mistake fares, but will provide you a refund if they don’t honor them. Usually, this is determined within about two weeks, so you should probably wait at least that long before booking other nonrefundable travel plans like hotels.
Miles and Points
Hooray! Mighty Travels Premium also estimates how many miles or points you would earn by booking the flight deal, though it does not know if you hold elite status and thus would earn additional miles.
They also show you how many miles or points it would take to purchase the deal instead of using cash, though they do not check for award seat availability, nor do they show you the fuel surcharges you may have to pay.
Other Things to Know
The site only pulls one sample date for each deal, though the deal may be available for many more dates. You’ll need to check a site like Google Flights to find the other dates. Then they recommend also checking Momondo once you have dates, as they say that they usually have better prices.
Site founders also suggest that you map out your travel availability for the next 12 months, so if an amazing fare pops up, you’ll know whether you can go ahead and snag it quickly!
Would a site like Mighty Travels be useful for you? Are you open to booking cheap fares in addition to those using miles and points?
This is a sponsored post from Mighty Travels; however, the writing and opinions are my own and I only share with you tools and resources that I have used and recommend.
