How to Save Hundreds with Flight Deal Subscriptions (Updated 2026)

Short answer: a flight deal subscription emails you cheap fares from your home airport. In the UK and Ireland, start with Jack’s Flight Club. It has a free plan, and the paid Takeoff plan was £48 a year on 1 Nov 2026. In the US, use Going, where Premium is billed at $49 a year. One good deal covers the fee.

Paying money to save money on a trip sounds backwards. Flights are the priciest part of most holidays, though, so it’s the one place where spending a little up front to save a lot more later actually works out. Here it does.

You probably pay for Netflix or Spotify already. A flight deal subscription is different. It’s one of the few subscriptions that can put money back in your pocket.

What is a flight deal subscription?

It’s an email (or app) alert service. You pick your departure airport, and a team sends you fares that have dropped well below normal.

There are many ways to find cheap flights, and we’ve got a full guide to booking the cheapest flight possible. Subscriptions add real people to the search. Their teams use fare-tracking tools to spot big drops, then check them before sending.

It isn’t a travel agency. You book the fare yourself, either with the airline or on a site like Skyscanner. The service saves you from searching the same route every night.

Sceptical? Ted was too, until he signed up in 2019. On routes where he knew the normal price well, the deals saved him $578 USD per person.

Which service should you use?

Pick by where you fly from. A US service won’t help much if you live in Manchester.

UK and Ireland: Jack’s Flight Club

Jack’s Flight Club sends deals from UK and Irish airports. Its UK plans on 1 Nov 2026:

• Standby (free): 1 curated deal a week, economy only.
• Takeoff (£48 a year): 8 to 10 deals a week, covering economy, premium economy, error fares and Weekend Trips, plus app access.
• First Class (£149): every deal first, including business and first class, plus Ask Jack and 2 extra Takeoff memberships.

Jack’s says its members “save on average £400 per long haul return flight”. That’s the company’s own figure, not ours. Even so, you’d only need one decent long-haul deal to cover Takeoff.

Our view? Start on Standby for a month. If the weekly deal is from your airport and tempts you, upgrade.

US: Going

Going (formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights) only sends deals that depart from US airports. Founder Scott Keyes started it as an email list for friends and family.

Going’s plans on 1 Nov 2026:

• Limited (free): continental US economy deals. No Hawaii, Alaska or international deals.
• Premium ($49 a year, billed annually): all domestic and international economy deals, plus custom destination alerts and mistake fares.
• Elite ($199 a year, billed annually): everything in Premium, plus premium economy, business and first class deals.

Going says Premium members save “an average of $500 on international flights and $200 on domestic”. If you fly abroad once a year, Premium pays for itself on that claim alone. Elite only makes sense if you’d really book business class.

Flying from somewhere else: Dollar Flight Club

Dollar Flight Club says it serves members with departure airports outside the US. It’s free to start. Premium was $69 a year and Premium+ $99 a year on 1 Nov 2026, with a $1 trial for both.

Premium covers up to daily deals from 4 airports, plus mistake fares. Premium+ adds premium and business class deals and SMS alerts.

Nomad Tip: add more than one departure airport. Jack’s and Going both let you watch several, and Dollar Flight Club’s Premium plan allows 4. A deal from an airport two hours away can still beat your local fare by a long way.

What Going saved Ted

Ted was a paying Going member back when it still covered flights from Australia. It doesn’t any more, so treat these as past examples, not deals you can get today.

Sydney to San Francisco

Ted wanted to fly from Sydney to San Francisco for Burning Man in the Nevada desert. Return flights on that route averaged about $1,200 AUD. Then an alert came in from $725 AUD.

That saved $475 AUD per person, or $950 AUD for two. One alert did that.

Sydney to Vietnam

Another alert flagged a Jetstar sale: return flights around Southeast Asia for the price of a one-way. Ted used it to fly to Ho Chi Minh City.

With fares, taxes and bags, it came to $303 AUD ($223 USD) per person return. That route normally cost $700 to $800 AUD. The membership then was $49 a year, a historic price.

How to set one up

It takes five minutes.

1. Create a free account. Jack’s Flight Club for UK and Irish airports, or Going for US airports.
2. Add your departure airports. Pick every airport you’d happily drive to. You can also add one for a friend or family member.
3. Choose your cabin. On Going, Elite members can switch off economy deals and keep only business or first class. On Jack’s, business and first class deals come with the First Class plan.
4. Wait for the emails. Don’t sit on a good one. Error fares and sale prices can vanish within hours.

The Thrifty Gist

• Flight deal subscriptions email you cheap fares from the airports you choose, checked by real people.
• UK and Ireland: Jack’s Flight Club. Free Standby plan, or Takeoff at £48 a year (1 Nov 2026).
• US: Going. Free Limited plan, Premium billed at $49 a year, Elite at $199.
• Elsewhere: Dollar Flight Club, Premium at $69 a year.
• One good deal covers the fee. Start free, then upgrade if the deals suit your airport.

For more ways to fly for less, see How to Book the Cheapest Flight Possible to Anywhere.