No doubt about it: 2025 was the best year of flight deals since we launched our Thrifty Traveler Premium flight deal alert service nearly a decade ago. And it's even more impressive by the numbers.
We've heard from hundreds (if not thousands) of subscribers and travelers who booked bucket-list-busting trips all over the world for a fraction of what they thought they would pay – or, better yet, paying next to nothing by using their points and miles instead. That's why we do what we do: help people travel the world for less and take trips they might have only dreamed of. It's what drives us.
But I wanted to dig past the vibes and dig into the hard-and-fast numbers. How many deals did we send this year? What destinations did we feature most? What departure airport popped up in the most flight deals? Let's find out.
- Total Flight Deals: 1,137 (& Counting!)
- Total Departure Airports We Search From: 226
- Total Business & First Class Deals: 360
- Unicorn Alerts & Mistake Fare Deals: 19
- Total Nerd Alerts: 31
- Total Hotel Alerts: 106
- Most Deals by Destination: Italy! (131)
- Most Deals by Departure City: New York City (694)
- Cheapest Domestic Fare: $57 Roundtrip
- Cheapest Domestic Award Fare: 1,400 Miles Roundtrip
- Cheapest International Fare: Banff from $180 Roundtrip
- Cheapest International Award Fare: Cancún from 6,800 Delta SkyMiles RT
Total Flight Deals: 1,137 (& Counting!)
We delivered more flight deals to our subscribers than ever before in 2025, sending about 100 flight deals a month, on average. And that final tally will grow before 2025 comes to a close.
Travelers who opt in to receive deals from “All Cities” – including our quirky-but-fun “Nerd Alerts” – received all 1,137 of these alerts. But the final number in Thrifty Traveler Premium members' inboxes varies: Travelers can tailor those deals to only receive alerts from their go-to airports, get every business class fare we find no matter where it departs from, or even exclude economy altogether, among other fine-tuning features.
Speaking of airports…
Total Departure Airports We Search From: 226
We've said it before and we'll say it again: We find flight deals from more airports than any other flight deal service on the market.
From Halifax (YHZ) to San Diego (SAN) and from Fargo (FAR) to Fort Lauderdale (FLL), we currently search for flight deals from 226 U.S. and Canadian airports every day!
Check out our full list to see if yours is included. Spoiler alert: It probably is!
Total Business & First Class Deals: 360
We sent our members a business class flight deal for nearly every day on the calendar in 2025!
It was a record-breaking year of lie-flat flight deals and points and miles availability for our members. We heard from hundreds of them who were able to book the fanciest seats in the sky for their next trip.
Unicorn Alerts & Mistake Fare Deals: 19
All 1,100-plus flight deals we've sent this year were great – we don't send an email unless we know it's something special – saving travelers at least $250 (if not much more) a ticket. But some deals are ultra-rare and extra special.
When airlines mess up and we catch them, we send our members an email and a text message so that members can book that mistake fare ASAP. Same goes for our famous “Unicorn Alerts” – while they might not be an error, they're so time-sensitive that we send a text message, too.
In all, we sent four mistake fare alerts to our members in 2025, including:
- Roundtrip fares to Amsterdam (AMS), Paris-Charles de Gaulle (CDG), or London-Heathrow (LHR) from just $218 on JetBlue
- A business class mistake fare to London-Heathrow (LHR) for just $1,281 – less than half the normal price!
- An even cheaper business class mistake fare: Just $1,063 roundtrip to destinations all across Europe
- A Delta Premium Select mistake fare to Madrid (MAD) from just $603 total!
Plus, we sent another 15 Unicorn alerts in 2025 – more than one a month!
Total Nerd Alerts: 31
Some of the flight deals we send are just … different.
We call them Nerd Alerts, and they're built for all our fellow “sickos” out there who might go to extreme lengths to book a stellar deal or fly a special cabin. We sent 31 of them this past year.
Some of these flights never touch U.S. or Canadian soil. Other times, they're only bookable one-way, leaving you to find another way home. But they all offer insane value to fly some of the best airlines in the world.
Take this Qatar Airways First Class deal. You could use your points and miles to book that swanky seat, but Qatar doesn't fly first class to the U.S. Where do they fly it? Between Doha (DOH) and Bangkok (BKK), Hong Kong (HKG), and the Maldives (MLE)!
Total Hotel Alerts: 106
After nearly a decade of sending flight deals, we branched out last year: Thrifty Traveler Premium Hotel Alerts allow our Premium+ members to pay a bit more each year to start getting the heads up when some top-rated hotels and resorts around the world are bookable with points.
This year, we went big and sent more than 100 hotel alerts – more than two a week! Here's a small sample.
As a bonus, we also now include hotel options in (almost) every flight deal alert we send – and not just points availability but discounted paid rates, too!
Most Deals by Destination: Italy! (131)
Move over, Hawaii: There's a new most frequent destination for Thrifty Traveler Premium subscribers.
This year, we sent 131 Italy flight deals: A staggering total – more than twice as many as we sent last year! That's a reflection not just of Italy's popularity but also just where the deals were: After years of adding flight after flight to Italy, airlines apparently struggled to fill all those seats, leading to more stellar deals than ever.
Curious as to our other top destinations worldwide?
- Italy: 131
- France: 92
- Japan: 86
- London: 80
- Ireland: 79
- Amsterdam: 78
The top destination in the U.S. was – of course – the Hawaiian Islands.
Most Deals by Departure City: New York City (694)
Travelers who had New York City's trio of airports chosen as one their departure airports had plenty to pick from.
We found more than 690 flight deals departing from New York City (JFK), New York City-LaGuardia (LGA), and Newark (EWR) combined in 2025! Remember, we sent more than 1,100 deals, meaning a majority of our deals included low fares from these East Coast hubs. JFK was the leader among the three, appearing in more than 630 of our emails this year.
From other major hubs to even small regional airports, we sent tons of deals from all 200-plus airports across the country. But travelers would be wise to add New York to their departure airport settings – it's only a positioning flight away!
Cheapest Domestic Fare: $57 Roundtrip
Southwest is gonna Southwest. The airline known for low fares made some unpopular changes this year, but they haven't strayed from selling cheap flights.
While the Fresno (FAT) – San Diego (SAN) California commuter flight edged Austin (AUS) – Fort Lauderdale (FLL) by $1, the latter flight is impressively cheap for a two- to three-hour journey!
Cheapest Domestic Award Fare: 1,400 Miles Roundtrip
Remember when JetBlue was selling one-way airfare for 700 miles each way in February? We'd thought they lost their minds…
The total: 1,400 points roundtrip and $11 in taxes and fees. For a flight! That's mind-blowing stuff. And you could find it one almost every one of JetBlue's routes between New England and Florida for a few days in February.
Cheapest International Fare: Banff from $180 Roundtrip
You'd probably assume something to Mexico, the Caribbean, or Iceland would take this title, but American Airlines was selling some crazy airfare between Chicago-O'Hare (ORD) and Canada – specifically Calgary (YYC), in this case.
The second place fare in this category was also Chicago to Canada: this time to Toronto (YYZ), also on American Airlines. International flights for domestic prices: It doesn't get any better than that!
Cheapest International Award Fare: Cancún from 6,800 Delta SkyMiles RT
Ask anyone in the Thrifty Traveler office: I can't use Photoshop. I can barely use my email inbox. So believe me when I say, this screenshot from a Thrifty Traveler Premium deal is 100% real, and 100% the craziest points and miles deal we've ever seen to Mexico.
It was part of a bigger deal of roughly 80 cities with Delta SkyMiles fares to Cancún (CUN) under 19,000 SkyMiles roundtrip. And just a few minutes earlier, we had found some similarly cheap fares under 10,000 SkyMiles roundtrip to Cabo (SJD) and Puerto Vallarta (PVR), too!
Bottom Line
It was a banner year for Thrifty Traveler Premium, and the numbers bare that out!
We sent close to 1,200 flight deals in 2025, departing from nearly 230 airports in the U.S. and Canada. You can add more than 100 hotel alerts to that tally, too.
Congratulations!! Those are some astonishing numbers, to say the least!!! Those are unmatched numbers from anywhere else or websites!! In this environment, you gotta love it!!!