We had flexibility with points currency, destinations, and dates. Our only requirement was securing two round-trip flight redemptions in first or business class on the same flight. This flexibility came at a cost: we spent over 30 hours across two weeks manually searching dates and routes on the websites of 10-20 airline transfer partners.
Ultimately, we did find two Japan Airlines first class tickets from Los Angeles to Tokyo for 70,000 points each, returning to New York for 80,000 points each. These flights typically cost between $20,000 to $30,000 roundtrip in cash, but using points, we effectively paid only ~$2,000.
The first class experience was unforgettable, but we didn't want to repeat the tedious search process. So, we decided to build a tool to save time in the future.
I know all this about points might sound a bit like magic, but booking cheap business class flights using points is achievable for the average person. Here's how it works: Credit card sign-up offers range from 50,000 to 150,000 points. These points are either tied to credit card currencies (Chase Ultimate Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards) or specific airlines (Delta Skymiles, United MileagePlus). The most valuable and versatile points are tied to credit card currencies because they can be transferred to various travel partners. This flexibility allows you to choose the best value before transferring points. If you only have points with one airline program, you're limited to their redemptions.
While most people redeem their credit card points through the Chase or American Express travel portals at about 1-1.5 cents per point, transferring to an airline partner can yield 3-8 cents per point for business class or 12-20 cents per point for first class.
The best value for points often comes from non-US airlines like Air Canada, Air France/KLM, Avianca, and British Airways. For example, you can redeem 50,000 points for an Air France business class flight from San Francisco to Paris, which would otherwise cost around $4,000. That's an 8 cents per point value, significantly higher than using the credit card travel portal.
However, the challenges are: 1) most people don't know their credit card points can transfer to airline partners, 2) they don't consider non-US airlines, and 3) manually searching each airline website is time-consuming.
Our tool simplifies this process: Enter your origin airport, destination airport, date, fare class, and number of travelers. After you click search, our tool searches up to 16 different airline loyalty programs in real time and displays the results, including flight information, points cost, and redemption instructions.
The real-time search is free and offers access to 60 days of SkyView, a cached database of the top 6,500 most popular routes categorized by regions (state, country, continent) across two months. The paid version extends access to the full 365 calendar and allows searches up to two months at a time, with email alerts. SkyView is perfect for showing you what is currently available or was previously possible for all your award redemption needs.
We're continuously adding more features and would love to hear your ideas, experiences, and feedback! Thank you in advance!
- I've been in the points game for a long time so I may not be your target customer. Take feedback with a grain of salt, I guess.
- Commissions & Trust: You should disclose (more clearly?) that you're getting commissions from the CC signups and, ideally, that those may not be the best offers available. (ex as of this comment, referrals are paying 90K to sign up whereas your link is at 60K-an almost $300 difference). I understand this is a huge revenue driver, but that's not an excuse for shilling affiliate links where the user loses out on real, actual money.
- Last Refresh: Would be nice to know when the last refresh was. I've clicked a few times for available seats and found that the airline did not actually have the flights available. As a user, this erodes trust in your results.
- Slider: Points min/max slider interface isn't great but honestly I can't think of an alternative. 1 AA point is not the same as 1 Asiana point.
- Program coverage: Your tool coverage seems similar to the other cached searching tools (Seats.aero, award logic, etc) but, honestly, needs improvement. Most airlines are quickly moving towards releasing more inventory to their own members, so coverage is much more important now than it was two years ago. As an example, Singapore Air very rarely releases ex-US business class awards to partners but releases them much more reliably to their own members.
- Alerts: I understand this is part of "SkyView" but you should make it more prominent and clearly marketed. Alerts are *super duper useful* and give your product direct, permissioned access to a user's email and/or SMS that they actually want! This is what differentiates you from Point.me and the airline searches and also what gave ExpertFlyer its edge for so long. My guess is making it more prominent will drive more subscribers.1) You're right. We have Advertiser Disclosures on all other pages, but will make the disclosures more prominent. Going to push out a change today/tomorrow. Affiliate commissions are not a big revenue driver right now.
2) We're working on a new design so the last refresh is more prominent. Currently, you'll be able to see the "Update ## ago" when you either expand the flight details or click into the full flight details page.
If are using the Roame live search, then it should be the instant you search. Please let me know if you are running into issues with live search results not showing up on the airline website.
If you are using SkyView or Discover cached search, we pull results and save them up to 4 days or so. This is to help users plan and search broadly across regions and dates.
3) Agreed. We try to simplify the UI for points beginners. Thought it would be too confusing to try to estimate AA vs. Asiana vs. United, etc. The value of the points would also depend on which fare class and route you want to take. If you someone only wanted to fly US to Japan in JAL, then AA miles would be gold. But if someone wanted to fly US to Paris, then Air France/Flying Blue miles would be gold even though they are easy to earn because all the CC points transfer to Air France.
4) We're working on adding more loyalty program coverage. Our free tool is in real-time though, so slightly different than the cached tools. We do have a cached tool called SkyView.
5) This is good feedback. Will to work on promoting the ability to set alerts more.
Thank you for the detailed feedback! Please let me know if you see anything else you think would be helpful
Many loyalty programs are very prickly about scraping. Are you planning direct integrations, or are you just going to go head-to-head with Akamai's anti-botting tech?
May I ask, are using the live search or SkyView cached search?
If you are using the live search (SkyView toggled off), all results are in real-time as you search.
If you are using SkyView cached search (SkyView toggled on), results are saved up to 4 days, but you can search 60 days at a time from 1 airport to all of Europe's airports.
We get a ton of support tickets when we move something around or make small tweaks to functionality
General tips:
- Never carry a balance, ever. If you do, forget about playing this game because it'll cost you more than you gain. Pay off your CC debt first.
- There are many blogs/sites that push "their" link over ones that pay more to the user because they get paid a hefty affiliate fee. Be wary.
- Have a goal in mind before you accrue points so you can be more strategic about accruing. I recommend starting with a list of all the trips you'd like to take in the next two years and using that to frame what points you will need to accrue. Don't forget hotels as the cost of hotels can easily outweigh the cost of flights.
- Figure out how much work you want to put in. There are levels to the game-the deeper you go, the more work it will be. It will also get that much more rewarding
- Prioritize transferable currencies (UR, MR, Cap1, TYP, etc) because devaluations happen often and transferrable currencies help insulate a bit.
- Try to get your partner on board if at all possible, having a second (third, fourth, etc...) player (P2-P100+) is a scaling super power
- Keep in mind the "burning" side of the equation and use them often. Points and miles are worthless bits of made up paper dressed up as currency and subject to the whims of corporations that don't have your best interests in mind. Treat them as such.
1. Read above, create a strategy and an ordered list of cards
2. Sign up for the credit cards and put all your organic spend on those credit cards to meet spend.
3. Repeat 1 & 2 after meeting spend and gaining sign up bonus
4. If you have another player available, switch between players every time you meet the spend and get the bonus to lower your velocity and appear "safer"
5. You might also want to get a (minimum) 2% everywhere card for everything you can't put on the new cards.
For a couple using this strategy, you'll be averaging ~2 new CC's per person per year (which is very safe) and earning ~7-10ish percent back on most spend. After a year or so of doing this, you should have enough for a vacation or two.
* I'm not really sure I understood what SkyView is? It seems like you need to enable that to book round-trip flights, and you have to pay for it? But then there's also SkyView Lite?? And that's free but needs an account? Is there no way to book round-trip without paying?
* Maybe ask people what cards they have on the homepage? I found it confusing that it suggested flights with points programs I didn't have, and didn't realize you could filter it at first.
* I don't think I fully understood the difference between this and just using my credit card's travel portal to book flights. Is it that you can compare multiple rewards programs at once? Or the idea that you can earn more value per point by transferring them? Maybe it would be good to clarify that on the homepage, because right now it just feels like a generic "book with points" search engine?
* Is there a way to allow discovering deals in any destination? (So rather than choosing a fixed destination, let it be open to any destination, and then plan a trip somewhere where you can get a good deal on a flight, if that makes sense?)
* On mobile, the filter popup is blocked by the "Log In/Sign Up" buttons on the bottom of the screen. Also on the homepage, the "Create an account" notification appears on top of the expanded hamburger.
1) You're right. We have been working on how to best present SkyView to users. Skyview is our cached search product, which lets users search up to 60 days at a time, search from region-to-region, and set alerts.
SkyView Lite is free "intro" version of SkyView, where free users with an account can search the upcoming 60 days of departing flights and search 7 days at a time. Wanted to let free users try it out before upgrading.
We currently do not support roundtrip because often times the lowest-priced points deals are found on different airline programs. With points redemptions 2 one-way flights are the same price as 1 roundtrip. (There are some exceptions like booking on ANA directly, which requires you to search roundtrip). You can open up a second tab to search the different directions though.
2) Totally understand. It was one of the debates we had. We were trying to balance showing users all the live points results out there so they can make their own decisions on whether to get new cards. We find that a lot of users may have one set of points that are not as useful or easy to redeem. They realize that perhaps they should consider another credit card for better access to deals.
We are planning to roll out a saved card programs feature, so you can just turn on to automatically filter.
3) So when you redeem on the Chase or Amex portal, your points are only worth at a set value of 1-1.5 cents per point (cpp) depending on your credit car program and they're all pegged to directly to the cash fare.
Let's use this example:
New York to Paris on Air France business class would cost around $4,000 in cash.
If you were to redeem on the Amex portal, that flight would costs 400,000 Amex points ($4,000 * 100 cents per dollar / 1 cent per point).
However, if you were to use Air France Flying Blue miles and redeem on the Air France website, the flight could be as low as 50,000 points. At 50,000 points you points would be worth 8 cents per point ($4,000 * 100 cents per dollar / 50,000 points). *Amex points can transfer to Air France Flying Blue at a 1:1 ratio.
So you're getting 1 cpp on the Amex portal, but 8 cpp on the Air France website directly. That's a big value increase.
Roame shows all the live availability if you were to redeem your points on the airline directly using their miles. So we would show the flight in the example above with the 50,000 points price.
4) Yes! We have a Discover feature where you can select your city and dates. You will see the cached flight deals from your origin city. We're still rolling this out, so the origin cities are limited right now.
5) Mhmm. Let me take a look at that. Thanks for letting me know
We're focused on the beginner points user and helping them through the learning curve of points. Want people to use our engine to book their first ever business class flight.
In terms of product, we provide 365 days of free real-time search across all the loyalty programs we cover and any fare class.
The fundamental reason that it's hard to find cheap redemptions is that the economic incentives are aligned against cheap redemptions existing in the first place. Airlines want the revenue stream from points to be as high as possible, and the redemption rate to be as low as possible.
However, do you have a strategy to at least mollify the airlines?
As the reason I am a Roame subscriber is that:
1: Air Canada brought the hammer down on one of your predecessors.
2. Air Canada implemented a bunch of anti scraping tech, breaking my custom version of this tool and it’s been easier to pay for yours.
The last few attempts at this caused enormous problems for Air Canada and eliminated a lot of desirable Aeroplan space, so I can easily see AC being upset again.
We believe that we are ultimately beneficial to the airlines because we increase the value of points and bring airlines, especially non-US airlines more US customers.
When more people find good redemptions for their points, they value their points more, and in turn will be more likely spend money using points earning cards.
Airlines benefit by selling billions of dollars worth of points a year to credit card companies.
If your premium features are worth it - I'll register. If you want my info - maybe capture it with an offer for an alert after I do my initial query.
------------ In terms of feedback on the broader platform and idea - I think you may be confusing two different audiences. Travel hackers and average reward consumers are different consumers - Your messaging "free flights using points" and attempt to monetize with credit card offers are targeting average consumers - but your search engine and the headache/problem you are trying to solve is really a travel hacker problem - and honestly - its not really a problem - I kinda Enjoy The Hunt!
For SkyView Lite, SkyView and Discover, those are the pro features and require an account.
Love the feedback! So yes, there is an inherent tension between travel hackers and the average consumer with points. We are hoping to bridge that gap and flatten the learning curve for the average consumer.
These points programs are funded largely due to various fees imposed on the merchants that are often forced to accept the credit cards.
Note: the airline and “signature” cards often impose “premium” card fees in addition to the bevy of other fees (bank, network, transaction, …) associated with accepting debit/credit cards.
Haven't used this tool but I've used point.me a handful of times and have had success doing so. Nothing but positives from my end.
Just to be clear, playing these ridiculous point games isn't something I'm going to come at you over. It's probably not even the most unethical thing you do, intentionally or otherwise, and I won't pretend I'm living a blameless lifestyle either.
And with that out of the way, yes the entire points system is a huge fucking scam and a leech on our economy. The more you "beat the system" and profit off points, the more you care about rewards programs existing at all. That's why "The Points Guy" lobbies for these programs to not get banned. Those wins aren't a loss for the system, they're costs of advertising.
These stupid systems have been around forever and we need to exploit them more if you want to see them gone.
You're already paying the fees, may as well get something out of it.
Or, regulations are need to cap the fees. (cf. the EU)
Airlines would otherwise be flying planes with more empty seats without points redemptions. And airlines don’t like cutting routes because they will lost out to new competitors (JetBlue is a great example of a new entrant) or will lose their airport slots.
My impression is if you fly for work, you get a lot of employer sponsored points, so it's interesting.
But if I fly 5-10 trips a year personally, why would I try points when I can get 3-5% cash back on my various cards?
It's really the average consumer who has never flown business class that gets the most value and just 1 credit card bonus offer of 60,000 points can get them that flight. Some sign up offers are 150,000 points or more. To the average consumer, flying on business class is a dream experience.
In terms of math:
When flying on points, you can redeem business class flights at 4-8 cents per point. So if you're earning your points 1.5 cents per dollar (eg. Chase Freedom Unlimited), each dollar you spend can earn you 6%-12% back (1.5 points earned * 4-8 cents per point). You can redeem first class for even more at 12-20 cents per point.
This is just the low end. You also have category multipliers like 3X points earned on travel or 5X points on flights with some cards.
The problem is that these saver fare business and first class flights using points are hard to find and can take a lot of time. So Roame is stepping in to make it easier.
We have a guide on valuing points: https://roame.travel/guides/cents-per-point-calculations
We also have a Points 101 guide for the basics: https://roame.travel/guides/points-101
I’m not sure what your background is, but this seems like a starkly false assumption to me. I’ve worked in multiple industries, including consulting (the one most famously known for frequent corporate travel) and I wouldn’t even come close to saying it’s a “given”. Only very high levels executives or the very elite companies fly their employees business class. In my years and years of weekly travel for consulting, my company paid for business class a grand total of 0 times (I’ve flown business a handful of times, but always upgraded with my own points). My colleague has only flown business paid for by the company once on a particularly long international flight.
I think you’re really shooting yourself in the foot by not paying more attention to corporate travelers. Corporate travelers are by _far_ the most likely to have credit card or loyalty points to spend, but it seems like you’re just brushing them off.
Is this true? I feel like the "average" person cares a lot more about their destination than the experience of the flight.
Going to Disney World or the Carribean might be a dream experience, but having a bit more legroom and drinks on your flight is way, way down the list.
4. https://www.pointsyeah.com/
I’d love to know what the real competitive differentiator is between Roame and PointsYeah/AwardTool.
I’ve used every single one of the tools listed above (and others) at various times, including Roame, but I can’t figure out why, in particular, I’d use Roame over the others.
That’s not a dig; it’s a genuine question. I like the UX. :)
[edit] I just want to be really clear: this isn’t a problem only Roame has. I don’t know the difference between PointsYeah and AwardTool either. They both have a similar Google Flights-style UX, return similar results, etc. Neither explains their differentiators well.
Perhaps if Roame did, that might be a differentiator in and of itself! :p
Are there any indicators on your website of how many cents per point a particular booking would be for?
Hope this doesn't match what you've experienced?
Almost anything else doesn’t matter. Travel a lot? I guarantee you that if your company is running well and printing cash, VCs will not give a second thought to how much you travel.
But if you’re not making money or sales… that’s a different story.
VCs are shiftier turncoats than Benedict Arnold and Judas.
May I ask, where do you typically store your points / where would like you to go? Not sure if you're an expert or more intermediate, but I can offer some general thoughts / tips if you would like.
I don’t see many options for Brex points. Are those harder to transfer and take advantage of? Is Brex too new?
Small feedback: Skyview is a very confusing subscription term. Why not Roame Lite/Pro/Enterprise/etc
So Brex only has 7 airline transfer partners right now, so results where Brex points can transfer to will be limited depending on the routes you are searching for.
Brex's current transfer partners:
1. Air France/KLM Flying Blue - Really good for Europe
2. Aeromexico Club Premier
3. Avianca LifeMiles
4. Cathay Pacific Asia Miles - US to Hong Kong flights are still significantly below 2019 levels.
5. Emirates Skywards
6. Qantas Frequent Flyer
7. Singapore Airlines
How many people have actually booked long haul flights that aren't absolutely terrible (stops/duration) for less than 100k? I am trying to find a single one that actually lets me book it for any date in September. If I have to spend hours manually searching because United makes these magically disappear there is 0 value in this search engine.
So with United, you're going to have a very hard time finding a first class flight for Zürich to Atlanta route in September. The only possibility is Lufthansa first class with a connection, but Lufthansa doesn't release their first class product to partner Star Alliance airlines (like United) until a few days before departure.
United does not have international first class anymore. SWISS almost never releases their First Class to partners.
You cannot book Air France first class with United because Air France is part of SkyTeam and United is part of Star Alliance.
You cannot book British Airways first class because BA is part of OneWorld. Not that you would want to, British Airways first class usually carries fees around $800-$1,000.
If you are married to just United, then the best tool is the United website award search. Roame shines when you need to search across multiple airline website at the same time.
1.25 cents per point is decent for economy, but you can often find economy flights for 1.5 cents per point when you transfer to an airline partner (sometimes even higher).
The real delta in value comes from business or first class redemptions where sometimes you can realize 5-8 cents per point for business and 12-20 cents for first class.
From a pure numbers approach, you're usually losing out when redeem points on the credit card travel portals. BUT you get to save time by booking any cash fare availability.
https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_credit-ca...
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/183...
Our focus is to help the average consumer book their first business/first class flight. There are a lot of points sitting in everyone's accounts, but most people do not know how to redeem them for the best value.
Some data on the Americans with points: - Seven in ten (71%) people say they have a rewards, points or cashback credit card of some sort (Ipsos May 2024) - In 2018, the McKinsey consulting group estimated the number of unredeemed airline miles sitting in accounts at 30 trillion
80K points booked via AA and including JAL leg to Tokyo, sounds like a JAL First Class from SFO to Tokyo saver fare with an Alaska domestic leg thrown in.
If that is the case, it could be that the flight was booked or in someone's cart in between your search and going to the website. Japan routes are extremely popular right now.
Please let me know if you run into this again.
As a side note, I despise seeing mixed cabin results for routes like that when I'm searching for business/first, where it's one hour in business and then 10 hours in economy. As far as I'm concerned that's an economy flight, or "economy mixed" at best. I know this is a standard practice for travel sites, this is just my particular hobbyhorse to rant about when searching for points flights. I'm guessing the "premium" slider somehow is supposed to deal with that since bumping it up removes that route from the search results, but the intended use of that slider is pretty nonobvious to me.
We are open working with any airline that approaches us on better serving their customers and acquiring new loyalty members.
With regards to the Air Canada lawsuit as someone on the outside, I don't know the reason why Air Canada pursued it.
If a user has entered what points they have, can you limit the results and prices to just that card?
This “launch HN” is really a launch just for HN, it seems; it’s been around a lot longer than today.
As it stood, it started by listing off flights that were like: 85% economy / 15% business.
That's not what I was looking for.
Is this product of interest to Europeans?
It is unclear from the signup page.
Roame does not hardcode any of the points prices.
So the difference between Roame and Awardhacker is that AwardHacker shows you all the theoretical possible redemptions and routes. So even if a route is "theoretically" possible, they may never exist for you to book.
Roame shows the redemptions that are live and bookable now.