Scott Keyes loves travel. In 2016, he traveled to thirteen countries, and yet only had to pay for taxes. Taking advantage of credit card points and frequent flier miles, he accrued enough points to take the trip virtually free. He combined his skill with credit cards with his knack for finding cheap flights and made possible a flight many can only dream of.
His 2016 trip isn’t the only one he has taken, and it did not 
take long for his travel prowess to catch the attention of his friends and coworkers. As more and more of them requested that he keep them up to date with deals on flights, he slowly transitioned to a newsletter service and then to a full-fledged for-profit business. His website, Scott’s Cheap Flights, does not sell flights but rather sends daily emails with information on deals that cut down hundreds of dollars on international flights.
In a way, it seems like the business fell into Keyes’ lap. However, the success of such a business seems so easily accomplished only because there was both passion for travel savings and a need for people to take cheaper trips. This business flows from what Keyes was already doing, and doing well. His drive to find good deals and love of travel made him both suited for and willing to run his website. Also, the fact that the business started with people he knew means that demand for his service was high. If the individuals in 
one’s small personal sphere have interest in your business, then it is highly likely that there is interest in the national realm. Keyes found a niche where what he was good at and ready to do met what other people asked for or wanted.
What make Scott’s Cheap Flights so unique is that everything is done manually. Scott himself as well as a few other employees manually surf websites searching for great sales and errors that result in lower ticket prices. No algorithm exists that can find the deals as well as Keyes and his team does. Finding deals online is more of an art than a science, and has not been developing for very long, as the online market has not existed very long. Although increasingly more people are developing skills with credit cards and deals, Keyes was both talented and ready enough to make one of the initial moves on a fairly open market.
In this service, Keyes mixes his passion with a problem. According to his website, “Scott searches for flights all day every day because he has no life.” He could apply what he already did to an area that other people asked for, and now his business serves more than 530,000 people. Scott’s Cheap Flights displays innovation not in software or technology but rather using what one already knows how to do.
I love this idea so much I was going to write about it myself! I think this is the perfect definition of finding a need and filling it! This business has made getting flights, something that can be confusing, expensive, and annoying, into something quick and cheap! I wonder if Scott would say that he is happy with how he spends his life though! Either way he has certainly made a name for himself!
I love the way Scott Keyes does this. Personally, my family has taken advantage of people who do this type of thing in the past and its such an overlooked business. People are able to get well priced airfare to see the world, they just don’t know where to look. Scott provides everything in his business and its just so important. He saw such a gap in the business and decided to make it his problem to solve. He started by seeing the problem and then proceed to fix it. Love it.
I am very impressed that Scott does all the searching manually. That is definitely not an easy task and requires a lot of time and attention to go into searching for cheap flights. I honestly think it is a gift. My mom is always great at finding cheaper flights for me to take. For example, a $80 ticket to florida. Scott was wise for taking this idea and running with it because some people are not willing to take the time to invest in searching
I am very impressed that Scott does all the searching manually. That is definitely not an easy task and requires a lot of time and attention to go into searching for cheap flights. I honestly think it is a gift. My mom is always great at finding cheaper flights for me to take. For example, a $80 ticket to florida. Scott was wise for taking this idea and running with it because some people are not willing to take the time to invest in searching.
This is great because I love to travel, but it’s very expensive. Ill start using this service in the future. It’s great for people that don’t have special credit cards that record miles. I should tell my dad about this.
Great post! I love travelling and have totally felt the pain of expensive flights. They man is changing the game for the better. He is seeing a gap in the air-travel industry and filling it with an amazing solution.