The why
Manifesto
By Nick Flournoy · May 17, 2026
"We need to give money back to people and let people live their lives cheaper so they can have more fun."
This is the why. Everything else is mechanics.
What we're actually mad about
Corporate price gouging with cover stories
- COVID was used as cover for permanent price increases that never came back down.
- "Inflation" gets blamed for prices while the same companies report record profits in the same quarter.
- Food, travel, housing, insurance, all 30-50% more expensive than 5 years ago, while wages haven't kept up.
Zero accountability
- When a corporation does wrong, they pay lawyers to settle for less than they made breaking the rules.
- $35M FTC fine to Shutterstock (May 2026) for hidden subscription charges and deceptive cancellation. They made tens of millions off the scheme.
- Vonage paid $100M for the same kind of cancellation dark patterns. Major brands have paid billions collectively.
- The math works: break the rules → make money → pay fines smaller than profits → repeat.
- Individuals don't have lawyers. Individuals can't fight back. They just pay.
Travel specifically is broken
- Airbnb: cleaning fees revealed at checkout
- Hotels: resort fees added after booking
- Airlines: bag fees, seat fees, change fees stacked on top of advertised fares
- Furnished Finder: 1.6/5 PissedConsumer rating, auto-renewal complaints
- Going.com: $199/yr to find mistake fares (charging for information that already exists)
What we're building toward
A travel SaaS that doesn't extract value from users. We aggregate travel data and give it to people honestly:
- Show the real total cost including fees, before they click anything
- Take our money from suppliers and corporations, not from people trying to take a vacation
- Be transparent about what we earn and how, disclosed on every result, not buried in ToS
- Don't lock useful information behind paywalls the way Going.com does
- Show users when we lose to competitors, honesty over marketing
The 3-year arc
| Year | Primary revenue | Consumer experience |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | Affiliate + cheap Pro tier ($49/yr) | Generous free tier; Pro is "tip jar" not a paywall |
| Year 2 | Affiliate + Pro + B2B contracts ramping | Same |
| Year 3+ | B2B/enterprise dominant | Consumer side stays free/cheap forever |
The bigger picture
If weeklyescapes works, we extend this to mistfare.com (mistake fare alerts), pointssearch.com (points/miles optimization), and a portfolio of consumer tools that work this way.
We're not trying to become Booking.com. We're trying to be the alternative that exists because the incumbents got greedy.
The rule
"Does this give money back to people, or does it take money from them?"
If a feature, a pricing tier, a marketing tactic, or a partnership doesn't give money back to people, we don't ship it.
That's the rule.
This is the manifesto in full. The spec is private during early build (it contains partner pricing and product roadmap detail that aren't appropriate to publish verbatim yet). What we can publish lives on this site, including /decisions, /research, and /stats.