Dealray.com zips travel-bargain alerts to your smartphone

Looking for over-the-top travel deals? Here’s a website that serves them to you on your smartphone.

Name: Dealray.com

What it does: A subscription-based travel service that sends you a text message when it finds an exceptionally good flight deal. Free for the first month, then a subscription is $9.99 a month.

What’s hot: I’m impressed that DealRay keeps its promise to respect the user’s privacy. The texts it sends are few enough that it’s exciting when one arrives. I got alerts for deals such as “$402 or Less for Round-Trip to Paris from New York, Los Angeles, or Fort Lauderdale from November through March on Norwegian” and “Asia Round-Trips from $379 —Thailand, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Seoul, Manila & Shanghai from East & West Coasts on Various Airlines.” The deals last only minutes or sometimes hours, but I did find a deal for a Europe flight that was on offer an entire day later. The website offers discounts for spreading the word and recruiting other subscribers.

What’s not: I was automatically signed up for international flight deals. I later checked the website and found the preferences section, where I noticed that you can also opt in for deals on hotels and domestic flights. There are filters on the domestic deals to keep them relevant to your needs and reduce the number of incoming texts.