Citizens of the World: A Stoic Podcast for Curious Travelers - Flying: What You Need to Know about Travel in 2021

Episode Date: May 28, 2021

All right, travel is back! Or we’re getting there.As more people get vaccinated against covid-19, more countries are opening up — and the rules for flying are frequently changing.My guest today is Scott Keyes of Scott’s Cheap Flights, and he’s got his finger on the pulse of everything airfare. He’s here to tell us what we need to know before booking or boarding our next flight.Hello! I'm your host, Sarah Mikutel. But the real question is, who are you? Where are you now and where do you want to be? Can I help you get there?Visit sarahmikutel.com to learn how we can work together to help you achieve more peace, happiness, and positive transformation in your life.Book your Enneagram typing session by going to sarahmikutel.com/typingsessionDo you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

Welcome to Live Without Borders, a travel and wellness show for expats, the expat curious, and globally minded citizens of the world. We are the travelers, the culturally curious, the experiences and not things kind of people. And we know that freedom is about more than getting on a plane. It's about becoming the most heroic versions of ourselves, which is why on this podcast you will hear insider travel secrets, inspiring expat stories, and advice on how to live abroad. but you will also hear episodes that will help give you the clarity, focus, and skills you need to create a life that will set your soul on fire. I am your host, Sarah Micatel, a certified clarity coach trained in the Enneagram, and I first moved abroad on my own at age 18, and I have been permanently enjoying life in Europe since 2010. If you are ready to make some big moves in your life

and want my help moving from someday to seize the day, visit live without borderspodcast.com. All right, travel is back. Or we're getting there anyway. And the rules for flying are frequently changing. I usually like to keep this podcast as timeless as possible, but this is definitely an example of a timely one. So like, what are we supposed to, what do we need to know for flying right now? My guest today is Scott Keyes of Scott's cheap flights, and he's got his finger on the pulse of everything that we need to know before we're booking or boarding. our next flight. So let's jump into our conversation. Welcome, Scott. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be with you. So you founded Scott's Cheap Flights.

What is this exactly? Yeah. So Scott's Cheap Flights is a service where subscribers can sign up and be notified anytime there is an amazing flight deal that popped up out of your home airport. So let me give you an example. just a few weeks ago, out of the blue with no warning or no advance notice whatsoever, cheap flights popped up from all over the U.S. to Japan for as little as $202 round trip. This is on United Airlines. It was with availability all the way through March 2022. I mean, one of the best deals that we've seen all year. But if you didn't happen to be searching from your airport on the right date,

with the right location at the right time, you would have missed this deal because the best deals like this only tend to last maybe five, six hours. And so rather than spending 24-7 on Expedia searching for flights or risk missing out on a once-in-a-lifetime deal, what we do at Scott's Cheap flights

is we monitor deals out of your home airport for you. And as soon as cheap flight pops up out of your home airport, we're going to find it and we're going to send you an email, make sure you know about it before it disappears. Yeah, and I'm a subscriber of yours. And that's something that I especially like is that customization where I can put in what airport is relevant to me rather than getting a bunch of emails from airports that, you know, I will probably never fly out of. Yeah. Yeah, you know, early on when Scotty Place first was just a speck in my eye, just an idea, you know, something, but I had no technical.

expertise or no ability to kind of create that customization. That's the way it was. And folks in living in Seattle were getting cheap flights sent to them that were departing Miami. And one of the great things now, you know, that Scott's Cheap Lights has been around for, oh gosh, over six years with, you know, now 2 million plus members and 40 people on the team means that we're able to give much better customization and personalization than we used to.

Yeah. So, well, this must have been an incredible year for you. I'm sure you're probably sick of talking about how a global pandemic affected your travel business. But I'm curious about, you know, what was it like for you this year? How did you stay connected to your, you know, the people who are following you? Yeah. It was stressful. Let me tell you. I mean, it was a horrendous year for so many people, I mean, for for everybody. And on top of that, trying to run. a travel company during a global pandemic that is all but shut down travel was, let's just say it's not something I want to do again. The goal from the get-go is twofold. One, to be a resource and helpful for our members so that especially early on when so many folks were caught with flight reservations and tickets that they weren't going to be able to use, but we're struggling to get the refunds.

that they were owed from airlines, trying to do everything we could to advocate for members to let people know what their rights were to make sure that they were informed about how they can make sure they're getting that refund and what they're owed from the airlines. But then second, it was to try to make sure that nobody on the SCF team would either get laid off or have their salary cut. And so, you know, we put into, we had a whole big like six point plan, you know, step one, if maybe like myself and then Brian or CEO would cut our salaries to a dollar. And step two, like leadership team would take a pay cut. We're all trying to pull out all the stops possible to avoid having to lay anybody off.

Because look, I approached all this not as a business fan, not as an entrepreneur. I approach all this to somebody who never intended to be an entrepreneur who's really, frankly kind of, I don't know, very like, very, very just squishy. I just love people. I just want to be able to help everybody out. And the idea of having to like let somebody go, I mean, it was just like gut wrenching. It would keep me up at night. And so this is why our goal from the beginning was let's do everything we can to make sure

we don't have to have any layoffs. And it was so, so gratifying to say that we were able to make it through the pandemic without having to do any layoffs, without having to do any pay cuts, you know, that we're able to protect everybody's job and make sure that people who were relying on SCF to put food on the table could continue to do so. And now, you know, with travel rebounding again, with folks really excited to get out and travel again, just seeing the upswing is so fun and exciting. Not just from a business side, but also just from a human side. You know, it's like in the same way that we all get so much joy from seeing people's vaccine selfies. That's the joy that I'm feeling

seeing people's vacation selfies again, seeing folks posting those pictures on the beach and cocktails and everything. It's like, ah, yes, you know, this is wonderful. Nature's healing. We're all getting back to the things that we love to do. Yes, I'm loving to seeing all of this as well. So, yeah, it sounds like things are opening back up. People are getting excited about their trips and, like, you've got your finger on the pulse of all of this. So what's the, vibe right now. What are you seeing from people? Are people like going to your site a lot more? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you're seeing a huge rebound in the number of people traveling in a few ways. I mean, you're seeing record high numbers for travelers since the pandemic began this past Sunday.

We saw just about 1.9 million people get on a flight in the U.S., which again is not only the highest. It's been since March of 2020, but was only down about 10% from the same date in 2019. So we're getting a lot of that pent up demand for travels getting released. You're seeing it in the flight search data. The number of people searching for flights is not only higher than it was right now pre-pandemic. For many destinations, it's not even close. I mean, it's, if you're searching for flights to, if you look at, you know, flight searches to Hawaii or Mexico or Jamaica, they're not only higher than it was the same date two years ago, it's like 50% higher in many cases. So I think you're going to see a real kind of continued surge, especially going into this summer.

I would expect planes to be very full. I would expect destinations to be very full as everybody sort of gets back. gets back to traveling and doing those sort of wonderful trips and exciting vacations that we all had to kind of put on hold for a little while. So what should we know about flying now regulation-wise? I know this is like changing by the moment, but like I just saw something where I think if you are flying internationally, if you go back to the U.S., now they're only requiring to have a like at-home test or something like COVID test.

Yeah, so here's what you need to know. For domestic travel, if you're traveling to 49 states, you don't need to have any sort of documentation or testing or show your vaccine card or anything. It's exactly as it was pre-pandemic. If you're traveling to Hawaii right now, right now all travelers need a negative test before flying to Hawaii. At some point in the summer, likely in the beginning of July, vaccinated travel. will be exempt from that requirement, but that's the one place right now where, where, among the 50 states, where you have to do something differently than you had done pre-pandemic. For international travel, it's a real kind of patchwork.

So there are basically four groups of countries. There are places you can visit where there's no requirements whatsoever. You know, Mexico, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, where you can get on a plane this afternoon. You don't need a negative test. You don't need to show proof of vaccination. There are a larger group of countries where a negative test is required, especially throughout Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa. There are an increasing number of countries where you are exempt from any requirements if you have been vaccinated. So places like Iceland and Belize and big swaths of Europe now, Greece,

Croatia, pretty soon Spain and France and Malta, Italy, you are exempt if you have been, if you can show proof of vaccination. And then there's a dwindling number of countries where you still can't travel right now as a tourist. So that's mostly the Asia Pacific region, Japan, you know, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, places like that. But you make a good point that for all international trips right now, even if you've been vaccinating, you're required right now to show a negative test before flying back to the U.S. This has been in place basically for four months since Biden took office. The good news is that just in the past week or two, they expanded the eligibility to say that a rapid test that you get over the counter at Walgreens or whatever is accepted. as proof of a negative test to return to the U.S., you just have to, it just has to be proctored by

a medical professional over, like a telemedicine visit. So, you know, you can, uh, through your, doctor or your health care provider, you can just set up a quick, you know, Zoom call where they're watching you take this, this rapid test, seeing the results and then, uh, you know, giving it their seal of approval. So it's made it a lot easier, but especially if you're traveling to places like Mexico or the Dominican Republic, almost all of the resorts that cater, especially to American travelers, have their own setup, like, complementary testing sites because they want to make it as easy as possible for Americans to travel there, knowing that they'll need this negative test to come back. The last thing I'll say on this is that I would expect sometimes soon

vaccinated Americans will get exempted from this negative test. requirement for returning to the U.S. Don't know exactly when. This is not inside information or anything. I just would expect that that will happen at some point in the not too distant future. And so you mentioned like proof of vaccination. Are vaccine passports going to be a real thing? Or are we just going to like I got my first vaccine and I got a sort of like business card like thing?

And they put a stamp on it for the first one. And then when I go back, I'll get like a second stamp. Do you expect that's just what I'll be showing? Yes. That's my proof. Okay. Yep. Exactly.

That's going to be, you know, that little white CDC card is what you're going to have, be required to show. In some cases, you'll be required to show it just in order to be able to visit. So if you, and, you know, bypass any mandatory quarantine. So right now, for instance, if you wanted to go to Iceland, if you have not been vaccinated, you need to undergo a mandatory quarantine when you arrive. But if you have been vaccinated, you just show that white CDC card and you're exempted from the mandatory quarantine. If you want to travel to Greece, you either need to bring a negative test or you need to show that proof of vaccination.

So in most cases, it's less of a blockade and more of a fast lane for folks. who have been vaccinated, you know, you're just exempted from certain requirements. You can be on the, on the fast lane. You can go in quicker and easier. But at least for travel to Europe initially, it seems like there will be a number of countries initially where the only Americans who are let in, again, at least for the first few weeks or first month or so, will be folks who have been fully vaccinated. The one exception there is for kids who, especially for,

kids who are not old enough to be eligible for vaccine. If they're traveling with their vaccinated parents, they'll be welcomed and then they just might have to bring a negative test. Yeah. And I actually live in England. So for me, my information is like going back to the U.S. and then getting back to the U.K. So this is all like great information, Scott. And I'm hearing a lot of people say that, oh, I missed my opportunity to get cheap flights

when they were like super cheap during the pandemic. and now prices are normal again. So how would you respond to that? Oh, no, please do not tell yourself that because, look, you're not going to get cheap flights if you don't think they can exist. The mistake that a lot of folks make, so a lot of folks woke up during the pandemic to just how cheap flights were. It became very widely sort of understood, very widely seen. But what a lot of folks missed was just how cheap flights were before the pandemic. you know, that the pandemic didn't cause cheap flights.

The pandemic illuminated cheap flights. We have been living in what I call the golden age of cheap flights, and we've been living in it since about 2015. It has never been cheaper to fly as it has been for the past half decade. And the factors that caused flights to get so cheap and for cheap flights to be so plentiful are going to continue to be in place coming out of the pandemic, you know, namely that 40 years ago, it used to be that the airlines relied almost exclusively on economy airfares to fund their,

their operations. Nowadays, they have so many streams of revenue from, you know, selling frequent flyer miles and credit cards and selling premium seats, you know, business class, first class, selling cargo and corporate contracts, all these sources of revenue that make it so that your economy airfare just doesn't matter to airlines in nearly the way it used to. So what I say is like, look, for all the people who are worried that a, that a surge in travel demand means that we're going to return to pre-COVID airfares, well, we should be so lucky. You know, I mean, we were, the types of fares that we were seeing in 2019 were just unbelievable, you know, regularly transatlantic flights for 300 bucks round trip, you know, flights to Japan for 400 bucks round trip, you know, flights to Hawaii for $3.5. round trip, sometimes lowered from the West Coast.

And we're still seeing tons of those deals every single day. You know, like just looking at the, literally just today as we're talking, we've found flights from, you know, all over the U.S. to Paris for 450 bucks round trip. Flights down to Argentina for 533 bucks round trip. flights to, gosh, you know, Greece for, for a 523 bucks round trip from all over the U.S., including over the summer, I would, the availability of cheap flights is absolutely going to continue. So don't lull yourself into this false narrative that, oh, flights are expensive now and so I'm just going to have to overpay for my next trip.

Great news. We can still find amazing travel deals. It wasn't just because of the pandemic that we were seeing amazing flights. We can always get amazing flights. And if you want to find out how, then follow or subscribe to this podcast because in the next episode, Scott is sharing all of his travel secrets on how to find the cheapest airfare and accommodation. You don't want to miss it. And if you would like my help taking bold action on your own dreams, like living abroad, changing careers in the other life transitions, visit live without borderspodcast.com. Thanks for listening and have a beautiful week wherever you are. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarahmygatel.com slash blank no more.