Is the Cheap Flights Membership "Going" Worth it?

It's not -- and here's why "Going" is going in the trash. (See what I did there?)

Going, formerly Scott's Cheap Flights, is an online service that constantly scans for airline deals and alerts you when massive price drops -- sometimes in the realm of hundreds of dollars -- are found.

Signing up for Going is actually completely free, and you can even choose preferred home airports to fly in and out of. However, this is a "limited" membership, and if you really want to make any good use out of the site, you would need to sign up for one of Going's paid membership plans.

Going offers two paid membership options: Premium, which is 49$ yearly, and Elite, which is $199 yearly.

A premium membership open up a wave of new possibilities including more exclusive deals, more airports and airline options, and "mistake fares," aka error or glitch fares -- when airlines accidentally sell tickets for much less than the intended price.

If you decide to splurge on the elite membership, Going will send you deals from every flight class -- even first class, give you all available deals from all available airports, and allow a much more customizable experience and higher level of personalized support.

Going is not a 3rd party ticket seller like Expedia, contrary to popular misconception; it's simply a mostly automated discount finder. It actually just redirects you to Google Flights and pulls up the deal there for you.

So many travelers swear by Going, so naturally as a budget traveler and a fiend for good deals, I had to try it out for myself. I signed up for a free trial of the Elite membership, and here is my experience.

After several days of fiddling with and diving into Going's search engine, settings, and preferences, I decided that I just didn't really like it. I was super glad I took advantage of their free trial before I dropped the money on a membership.

Don't get me wrong, Scott's Cheap Flights do offer great deals, but there are other search engines I love way more -- insert Skyscanner, Skiplagged, and just good old Google Flights (which Going is just a middle man for anyways) -- all of which are free!

Even with the Elite membership, I couldn't quite search in the way that I wanted to. The most annoying part, personally, was that you couldn't specify dates any further down than the month. Going doesn't even show you the dates that the trip is for (again, only the month(s)), meaning you have to let yourself be directed to Google Flights just to see the departure and return dates. This made me do a lot of back and forth -- which was frustrating.

Similarly, because of the whole date issue, Going is not the best for planning out trips. Going can be great for those who have a lot of flexibility in their life and schedule (ie by working remotely) and can be ready to go on a trip when a good price comes up -- which can sometimes just be days before departure. However, for most people, this isn't possible.

More so, it can be overwhelming and annoying to be bombarded with notifications by Going... which can be abundant.

And although I haven't personally experimented with Going's customer service, I've heard that it's not ideal and they're hard to get ahold of.

Again, so many travelers have had great experiences with Going and attest that it's saved them so much money. In the end, there's nothing explicitly wrong with Going; it's just expensive and annoying compared to every other, better option. In my personal opinion, the membership is just not worth the money. I much prefer my repertoire of other travel deal scanners which are not only completely free but have much more user-friendly and advanced search engine settings and filters. I use Google Flights the most and Skyscanner second to that. After all, when you use Going, you end up using Google Flights anyway! A limited Going membership is more than fine for me, and I probably won't even use that... sorry.

To those of you who do especially like Going -- why do you prefer it over other deal-finding sites? Let me know!