Today’s an exciting day in the miles & points world, as we’re seeing the launch of point.me, which I’d consider to be the most useful award search tool to date. This really puts the ability to redeem points into the hands of consumers in a way we’ve never seen before.
It’s also personally something I’m excited about, both because I’ve been lucky enough to be involved (full disclosure: I have a stake in the company), and also because it marks a new beginning for PointsPros, the award booking service I launched eons ago.
In this post:
What is point.me?
Perhaps the purpose of point.me is best explained in the form of example. Us miles & points geeks make a full time hobby out of learning how to maximize our rewards. Meanwhile others redeem their points for gift cards, toaster ovens, or garden gnomes, in many cases getting significantly less than a cent of value per point.
Of course we try to guide our friends and family in the right direction — “well, you could transfer your Amex points to British Airways Executive Club and then redeem for travel on American at a great rate.” I’m sure I’m not the only one who has said that to someone, and then got a blank stare.
Over the years we’ve seen all kinds of award booking concierge services pop up, whereby you can pay a fee to have a human help you redeem your points. But we’ve never seen an efficient, automated search tool that can quite literally walk someone through the whole process. That’s where point.me comes in:
- You can run a single search, and point.me will search award availability with 30+ loyalty programs and 100+ airlines
- Results will be sorted not only by the number of points required, but can also be sorted based on expert recommendations (and real expert recommendations, not “expert” recommendations or recommendations from sponsors)
- If you have transferable points currencies (Amex, Capital One, Chase Citi, etc.), point.me will walk you through the process of transferring points and booking your ticket
We’ve never seen redeeming points for aspirational travel be made this accessible before — this makes it possible for anyone with points to plan their dream trip, even if they don’t have the knowledge.
I’ll write a separate tutorial about how to use point.me. Let me say that point.me isn’t perfect yet. I’d say it’s beyond a beta phase, but there are still some improvements to be made. For example, there will eventually be a multi-day search option, more partners will be supported, search speeds will be improved, etc. Just keep in mind the complexity of the searches being executed (the site makes it look easy, but it isn’t), and that these searches aren’t cheap to run.
What makes point.me special
In theory anyone could hire a bunch of engineers, spend many millions of dollars trying to develop an award search tool, and hope for good results (a certain website may or may not have been trying exactly this for years, with not much to show for it). However, what matters more than anything is having actual experts behind this who live and breathe points, and that’s where other similar endeavors have fallen short.
Some of the brightest minds in miles & points are behind this, and I can’t even describe the amount of effort that has gone into making these results as useful and valuable as possible, rather than just trying to engineer something that’s good enough. For example, if you sort results based on “point.me picks,” that factors in my points valuations and program rankings, rather than which program is willing to write the biggest check.
My friend Adam is behind point.me (he ran Juicy Miles, which has now been rebranded as point.me), as is “our” very own Tiffany. They both have a ton of experience in miles & points, and with managing award booking services. On top of that, literally dozens of miles & points geeks (including me) have been providing input to create the best product possible.
How much does point.me cost? (try it for free!)
If you want to sign-up for point.me, there are a few membership options:
- There’s the point.me starter pass ($5), offering unlimited searches for 24 hours
- There’s the point.me standard plan ($12 per month or $129 per year), offering unlimited searches and more
- There’s the point.me premium plan ($269 per year), offering a 10% discount on all concierge services, a personalized miles & points “checkup” annually, and five starter passes to gift friends and family
There’s also a personalized concierge service available through point.me, for those who want a human touch. That costs $200 per person per booking, and can be used for award bookings, mileage run planning help, and even a credit card consultation.
OMAAT readers can get a complimentary 24 hour pass (the same one that would usually cost $5) by registering with promotion code OMAAT. Just click on “Sign Up” and then go to the “I have a code!” section. Give it a try, and let us know what you think (though again, if you’re a super advanced miles & points person, this product isn’t necessarily designed for you).
This is also a new era for PointsPros
As mentioned above, in high school (15+ years ago) I started PointsPros, which is an award consulting service where we helped people redeem their points. That grew over the years, thanks to some awesome, passionate colleagues, to the point that we’ve helped people redeem well over a billion points. Thanks to their skill I was able to take a more hands-off role, as I focused more on the blog.
The launch of point.me also represents an exciting new chapter for PointsPros, as we’re joining forces. Our whole PointsPros team is now working with point.me, and won’t just provide award concierge help, but will also provide their expertise to make the award search tool as good as possible. I’m also excited to contribute more to helping to build point.me into as good of an award search tool as it can be.
I’m immensely proud of how far PointsPros has come, as well as for all of the people who have used PointsPros over the years. As far as I’m concerned this isn’t the end, but rather just an exciting continuation.
Bottom line
point.me is officially launching today, which is a great new site for helping people redeem their miles. In addition to a concierge service, we’re seeing a self-serve award search tool unlike anything that has been on the market before. This award search tool not only displays award availability across 100+ airlines, but also walks you through the process of actually booking your ticket.
While this won’t necessarily be for those who spend hours a week searching award availability for fun, this is a game-changer for those who want to get value from their points, but don’t know how. Not only does this walk you through the process of redeeming points, but it uses an unbiased methodology to make recommendations.
Remember, you can get a free 24 hour pass to point.me by registering with promotion code OMAAT. And if you’re a miles & points super user, maybe have a friend or family member give point.me a try, so that they can see all the possibilities with their rewards points.
I'm really excited about this feature, but please-- if you are going to offer a FREE session ($5 value), don't limit the number of offers available. It was irritating to discover, after jumping all the hoops, that the FREE session was no longer available. It left a bad taste in my mouth to the point where I'm not sure I want to pony up even the $5 to try it out. Irritating prospective clients is not a good business practice when it drives them away.
@Ben, thanks for this awesome tool. It still takes a little work and it doesn't get everything - specifically, I found something on Alaska that you all didn't have. But I saved a TON of points and money on flights to/from and within Europe this July! Thank you for creating this! Worth every penny of the $129 subscription fee.
Is this tool actually working? Can't believe it's impossible to get access using the signup code 3 months after this product is launched.
As someone who have earned and redeemed for years, but only subscribed and started point.me searches a few days ago, point.me leverages the other tools I use beyond individual airline sites (AwardHacker, FCF, award travel bloggers, TripAdvisor, the 3 flight tracking websites, my globe, my spreadsheet of all the airlines/alliance/credit card award point relationships), particularly because point.me integrates AwardWallet and current transfer bonus opportunities and step by step guidance into its results, and seems faster,...
As someone who have earned and redeemed for years, but only subscribed and started point.me searches a few days ago, point.me leverages the other tools I use beyond individual airline sites (AwardHacker, FCF, award travel bloggers, TripAdvisor, the 3 flight tracking websites, my globe, my spreadsheet of all the airlines/alliance/credit card award point relationships), particularly because point.me integrates AwardWallet and current transfer bonus opportunities and step by step guidance into its results, and seems faster, easier, and more comprehensive than ExpertFlyer. While no single tool gets all possible flight awards available, I believe point.me combined with my other tools will save me time and award points, as well as make me consider options I might not otherwise have considered.
Tiffany: I've been reading your posts for years and think you're the absolutely the best. However.....I was also a faithful subscriber of many years to juicy miles and point.me is simply a huge step back backward in every way except for price. I was a beta user for point.me and sadly it has only gotten worse with the formal rollout. I would gladly return to juicy miles and the much higher cost as point.me is...
Tiffany: I've been reading your posts for years and think you're the absolutely the best. However.....I was also a faithful subscriber of many years to juicy miles and point.me is simply a huge step back backward in every way except for price. I was a beta user for point.me and sadly it has only gotten worse with the formal rollout. I would gladly return to juicy miles and the much higher cost as point.me is almost useless in comparison. Here's hoping for some improvement soon.
My main concern is the search inventory - how do we know this search is getting all of the available inventory? It would be helpful to have a list of award programs/flights that are part of the search inventory so we know what programs are actually being searched. Then we could individually search those other programs as needed.
@ Alan -- I hear you! We're working on how to make that more visible for every search, as on occasion something will time out and we won't get 100% of the expected results from a program, and there are a handful of cases where a program has different inventory restrictions for different operating carriers and so forth. And we err on the side of caution, so I agree it would be nice to have...
@ Alan -- I hear you! We're working on how to make that more visible for every search, as on occasion something will time out and we won't get 100% of the expected results from a program, and there are a handful of cases where a program has different inventory restrictions for different operating carriers and so forth. And we err on the side of caution, so I agree it would be nice to have a quick place to check that.
You can find a broad list of the programs point.me supports here, though to make it easier, currently point.me shows pricing and inventory for:
Aegean Miles+Bonus
Aer Lingus AerClub
Aeromexico Club Premier
Air Canada Aeroplan
Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan
American Airlines AAdvantage
ANA Mileage Club
Avianca LifeMiles
British Airways Executive Club
Cathay Pacific Asia Miles
Delta SkyMiles
Etihad Guest
Emirates Skywards
Flying Blue
Hawaiian Airlines HawaiianMiles
Iberia Plus
JetBlue True Blue
Qantas Frequent Flyer
Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
TAP Miles&Go
Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus
Turkish Miles&Smiles
United MileagePlus
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
New code received last night. Just tried it: Invalid.
@ John -- That code is valid, and others are using it. If you run into issues, please click on the blue chat button in the bottom right of point.me, and the support team there will be happy to help.
Point.me said the OMAAT code was oversubscribed and directed me to await an email showing activation. I checked back today and the site told me my account had expired.
@ John -- You should have received a waitlist code. If you run into issues, please click on the blue chat button in the bottom right of point.me, and the support team there will be happy to help.
Haven’t looked at the tool yet. But as a subscriber to expertflyer for a number of years now, I am tired of and suspicious about the declining number of partners for which they can accurately display award availability. Unclear how this new tool will overcome those constraints and limitations.
I hear you Tiffany about creating win-win partnerships with the providers, but I’m sure it’s much easier said than done.
I’ll sit on the...
Haven’t looked at the tool yet. But as a subscriber to expertflyer for a number of years now, I am tired of and suspicious about the declining number of partners for which they can accurately display award availability. Unclear how this new tool will overcome those constraints and limitations.
I hear you Tiffany about creating win-win partnerships with the providers, but I’m sure it’s much easier said than done.
I’ll sit on the sidelines and watch how this progresses before I cancel my existing EF membership.
@ gstork -- Well, for what it's worth, I won't be canceling my ExpertFlyer membership, but it's also never been my go-to for award flights. And they continue to have some highly technical info (like the remaining capacity in a given revenue fare bucket) that I find very helpful.
But EF has never had the capability to understand routing rules, segment combinability, much less pricing. So what we're trying to do with point.me is quite different.
Still no official answer regarding inventory access agreement with who ever the source is from.
None of the past well known tools have ever kept all there data source.
And I'm not even going as far as incorrect availability or pricing shown.
@ Eskimo -- I did answer this, but perhaps you didn't see it (though, respectfully, your past comment history would suggest you don't have an actual interest in the answer).
"We have a host of commercial and legal agreements, including enthusiastic support from a number of loyalty programs. And we're adding more all the time.
The thing to keep in mind about point.me, as opposed to maybe some other approaches that have historically been taken,...
@ Eskimo -- I did answer this, but perhaps you didn't see it (though, respectfully, your past comment history would suggest you don't have an actual interest in the answer).
"We have a host of commercial and legal agreements, including enthusiastic support from a number of loyalty programs. And we're adding more all the time.
The thing to keep in mind about point.me, as opposed to maybe some other approaches that have historically been taken, is that everything about what we are doing pushes traffic and volume back to the loyalty programs and their websites. It's a win-win for so many reasons."
I have been waiting for something like this .Good luck and hope this site offers more features as it grows.
But please keep it premium and do not dilute the membership by offering too many free codes.I would like to pay to get this premium service
still over subscribed..... its JULY
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Should be more now!
Once again, one credit card at a time is hours behind View From The Wing.....
@ Tiffany
On then surface this looks great. May I offer some perceptions (with some experience in an Internet start up and in production marketing):
You want to sign people up, but as a potential customer I can't check it out since the two intro codes on offer (one from this and one from another travel bog) don't get me in for a look, given the limited number on offer and limited access of such...
@ Tiffany
On then surface this looks great. May I offer some perceptions (with some experience in an Internet start up and in production marketing):
You want to sign people up, but as a potential customer I can't check it out since the two intro codes on offer (one from this and one from another travel bog) don't get me in for a look, given the limited number on offer and limited access of such - that is mental, don't you want to enrol folk?
On one page you state the subscription offers unlimited searches - the disclaimer that this isn't the case at all hides behind a tiny little superscript "1" which leads nowhere on that particular webpage - that is a very unfortunate case of misleading the customer: you have to go to another page to check the qualification only to find out unlimited searches doesn't apply at all.
Furthermore, the "limit" on the "unlimited" searches is not qualified for the customer (e.g. a discrete number of searches, etc), but totally at the discretion of the provider - nobody in their right minds would agree to such terms!
My understanding is that the user has to run day-by-day searches - surely that alone is going to pump up search queries customers will run? For instance, I just scooped two QF first-class SYD-LAX awards using Alaska miles - hard to do when you have to check dozens of days (spoiler alert - it only takes a minute or two on the AA website).
IMHO the subscription prices are too high - I ain't gonna pay that much when I'm highly competent at searching award space in those handful of airline loyalty programs in which I have some reasonable point balances and can scan through such in a calendar mode.
In any case - I ain't handing over any cash when the "unlimited" searches are in fact limited at your discretion.
I'm also not handing out any cash without knowing whether the site could get closed down if any of the cited airline loyalty program go legal on you - I guess my cash would be lost! Are the airlines on side?!
Two of the airline programs I use the most are Qantas and Singapore. QF makes significantly more award space available on its website to its own members (and some claim to elite members) - will your system show that award space and also qualify that it is only bookable on QF points?
Similarly, premium awards on SQ, usually are only bookable on KrisFlyer Miles?
You say this venture supersedes Juicy Miles with totally new software. Can you confirm whether the "as seen on" media outlets at the bottom of your home page all refer to "point.me" (or Juicy Miles, etc)? Perhaps you can clarify to avoid any misrepresentation, either real or perceived?
The concept is awesome and it looks like you al have made an amazing step forwards- the devil in these things is always on the detail!
Good luck - I hope it is a great success!
@ Platy -- We aren't crazy! We are purposely throttling free access codes, because of the volume of interest and searches. And we ultimately care more about people having a good experience when they do use the tool than we are about a certain enrollment number. The experience at present is not what we'd prefer, and we don't want people to be frustrated, so we are being more judicious.
As far as our fair use...
@ Platy -- We aren't crazy! We are purposely throttling free access codes, because of the volume of interest and searches. And we ultimately care more about people having a good experience when they do use the tool than we are about a certain enrollment number. The experience at present is not what we'd prefer, and we don't want people to be frustrated, so we are being more judicious.
As far as our fair use considerations, once we know what exactly that number should be, we'll publish it. For right now, I can guarantee that a normal consumer isn't going to run into limits here. We may send a note if someone's account activity jumps up far beyond the normal range, but our concern here is around the commercial operations using our tool unsustainably.
Yes to QF and SQ.
@ Tiffany
Many thanks for the clarifications.
The simple question is whether this tool is actually launched or not? Your pricing suggests you are launching and so does the title of your OMAAT article.
There's clearly been some sort of testing phase through Amex.
Surely you would only launch once you are in position to manage your traffic volumes? My perceptions may be wrong, but you appear to be prepared to compromise your ability to...
@ Tiffany
Many thanks for the clarifications.
The simple question is whether this tool is actually launched or not? Your pricing suggests you are launching and so does the title of your OMAAT article.
There's clearly been some sort of testing phase through Amex.
Surely you would only launch once you are in position to manage your traffic volumes? My perceptions may be wrong, but you appear to be prepared to compromise your ability to recruit customers and put limits on subscribed customers rather than allow for greater traffic.
Of course I am unaware of the cost sensitivity of scaling your delivery elements within your particular business model. But surely you would have sufficient test data from your pre-launch to ascertain financial viability?
Statements like "I can guarantee that a normal user isn't going to run into limits" is utterly meaningless got me as a potential customer because your perception of a normal user may not be the same as mine or anybody else's - we don't have your data of typical usage by individuals from your testing phase.
I would argue that if you are not in position to guarantee usage, you should not be launching (a product which claims such), unless you can define your caveat.
FWIW the Internet product I was once involved with fell into several traps, which were obvious with hindsight.
1. We should have skinnied down the feature set to offer one of the product versions with very basic functionality and offered that up for free and upsold from there to generate high volumes of prequalified potential customers
2. We should have looked beyond our pride in our wonderful product to price the thing appropriately - price to the market and not to what we imagined the product was worth
3. We should have matched the feature sets of the various versions of the product to address customer issues, which could be very easily and simply addressed and marketed
A very different product to yours for sure, and a different set of brains behind each - hopefully your team is smarter than we were!
IMHO limiting potential customers (apparently to manage traffic issues) may incur trap number 1. My personal perception is that your pricing puts you in trap number 2. And your current webpage, while cute and clean, has mixed messages about the customer challenges you are seeking to address, thus possibly incurring trap number 3.
Hopefully, you are all over this stuff - it would be great for FF community if your venture is a success!
oversubscribed???? seriously???? why would you limit people when you are trying to launch a product?
complete fail
@ Brian -- We'll keep opening it back up and letting people in, but I feel like you'd be more unhappy if you came in and did a search and only saw one of maybe 50 possibilities because the overall traffic is so high?
Juicy Miles was a far better tool.
Assume it just made it too easy and was hurting same owner's award seat booking service.
Point.me is a major step down
No search engine will factor in things like United status or having their chase card offering additional award seat inventory.
In the case of Air France and Avianca agents often see completely different inventory then can be booked online.
@ Jon -- Not the case at all, but if you have specific things that you're looking forward to seeing from point.me please let us know. We have a button for support & feedback in the bottom right of the site.
In the past, the Juicy Miles search engine has saved me a LOT of miles. I’ve enjoyed playing with the free Amex Platinum version, and I won’t hesitate to pay to use the svc when I start flying international routes again. Best wishes, Ben.
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Sounds interesting. I’ll give it a shot. I’d like to have one spot that knows the balance of All my accounts (even if it’s manual cuz I don’t wanna give up my passwords) and then I search and it tells me which of my points fits best or is best value or if I should buy miles or transfer. It’s not that I can’t figure it out, but sometimes I get lost in the math or paralyzed by the number of choices and weighing how hard it is for me to earn specific points etc
How does one delete a reward flight from their list of "My Reward Flights". Added one as a test, but can't seem to find a way to delete it.
Have looked into this and AA and LH availability do not show.
AMEX doesn't transfer to neither program but without AA and LH in the picture, point.me misses out quite a number of award seats.
@ SMK77 -- Both programs are supported on point.me! The Amex site only shows Membership Rewards partners, for obvious reasons.
I tried via the AMEX page. Thanks for clarifying!
Overall first impression: Excellent tool!
Excited to give it a try. Would be curious if they plan to incorporate any of the more traditional Expert Flyer services like fare buckets/seat maps. Looking for a good excuse to break up with EF if possible.
@lucky - does this search United PN and PZ space?
@ Scott -- Not at present!
Do you all have legal agreements in place with the airlines to ensure they don't try to block access or otherwise shut this service down? Sounds like a great tool once the initial kinks are worked out but I'd be concerned about the long-term viability if it becomes popular if there aren't arrangements with the airlines.
@ jetset -- We have a host of commercial and legal agreements, including enthusiastic support from a number of loyalty programs. And we're adding more all the time.
The thing to keep in mind about point.me, as opposed to maybe some other approaches that have historically been taken, is that everything about what we are doing pushes traffic and volume back to the loyalty programs and their websites. It's a win-win for so many reasons.
Wow had no idea you were part of this. I played around with it for a bit when I found out about it through Amex. Was less than impressed, searches took forever to show results and the fact that you have to search one day at a time was very time consuming. Hopefully as the app evolves, it'll become more user friendly.
Unfortunately the flights I've recently booked for points that are either via (publicly available) promos just don't seem to show up here as available- stuff like the flying blue 25% off that's happening. I don't see some of the discounted Avios awards either. Also, the Iberia + miles + unknown fees is a bit disingenuous because it's using the points + cash slider as far as I can tell. Either that or I'm just not...
Unfortunately the flights I've recently booked for points that are either via (publicly available) promos just don't seem to show up here as available- stuff like the flying blue 25% off that's happening. I don't see some of the discounted Avios awards either. Also, the Iberia + miles + unknown fees is a bit disingenuous because it's using the points + cash slider as far as I can tell. Either that or I'm just not getting the fares that this says should be available. Disappointing in either case...
I have been using a beta version of point.me. I use it only for our vacation planning. Today I got a notice that I had been overusing their program that I paid for.
They said they would terminate my account if I continue to over use.
You wait 3-5 to get a result, then change it a day, then another day trying to find a useful flight. I do not know how that is abuse of a system.
@ John -- Thanks for responding to our support team so quickly! Yes, you are absolutely right, we do have fair use limits in place (which are disclosed on our pricing and terms pages), and notifications that go out when someone is doing a certain % more searches than usual.
It's unfortunate we have to do this, but as I'm sure you can imagine even in the beta version we've had problems with competitors...
@ John -- Thanks for responding to our support team so quickly! Yes, you are absolutely right, we do have fair use limits in place (which are disclosed on our pricing and terms pages), and notifications that go out when someone is doing a certain % more searches than usual.
It's unfortunate we have to do this, but as I'm sure you can imagine even in the beta version we've had problems with competitors setting up "commercial" accounts and abusing our systems with automated scripts and such.
So again, we really appreciate you responding so quickly, and confirming that you are just excitedly planning a trip for yourself! We're all good on our end, and if you need help narrowing down dates or searching more efficiently, the support team is standing by!
Is it possible to implement a Captcha or other rate limiter, as perhaps an intermediate step for heavy search behavior?
Why is my first thought ‘oh no what’ll happen to all of Lucky’s business credit cards under his PointsPro business?’ Haha!
This new tool looks amazing! Can’t wait to try it.
If we sign up now does our 24hr start right away or can we save it for a 24hr period later on?
@ Kyle -- It would start right away, but we'll keep releasing codes to OMAAT over the next several days, so no reason to rush! (and honestly, I'd suggest waiting a bit, as we are currently very busy, so things are a bit sticky).
Love the honesty here! Well done.
Good stuff. Will definitely check this out.
I'm also curious about the Amex connection and how that will evolve. Were they just a beta testing partner (which would seem odd)? Or perhaps this becomes another notch in the Amex coupon book (refund on fees if you hold premium cards)? The fact that it's not been part of the coverage even though it's already out there leads me to believe discussions must still be happening, but it will be interesting to see how...
I'm also curious about the Amex connection and how that will evolve. Were they just a beta testing partner (which would seem odd)? Or perhaps this becomes another notch in the Amex coupon book (refund on fees if you hold premium cards)? The fact that it's not been part of the coverage even though it's already out there leads me to believe discussions must still be happening, but it will be interesting to see how it turns out. And I'd hold off on paying for any annual plans!
I just learned of the AMEX ability today. Visited the website, and it is indeed temporary.
The currently displayed end date is 3/15/22.
So far I've found point.me to be spot on and looking forward to see the improvements as it grows. Used it a few weeks back to book BA biz class to London and from Edinburg on the return. Did a lot of the legwork for me!
Congrats, Lucky. Juicy Miles was a fantastic tool and I look forward to using POINT.ME.
Congrats on getting it out there. I loved Juicy Miles and look forward to spending more time on this than is healthy.
an "explore" feature would be great. A lot of times I don't have a specific destination in mind and am willing to go where my points can best take me.
Haha. Yep, they must recognise what their audience wants. A lot of us will use this like Facebook and just browse
That truly would be useful. Years ago, after transitionung from 9-5 to self-employment, I set out to see the world by effectively letting Google Flights explore tab choose my destinations. Now, having accumulated a mountain of frequent flyer miles, I'd very much like to do something similar with airline currency without having to enter countless permutations to find the best value.
This is awesome, congrats! Just promise me you won't sell this to Red Ventures when it blows up LOL
@ Seven_Stevie_Seven -- DEAL.
Tiffany! How we've missed you. Glad to hear you're still in the game!
Looking forward to trying this out!
I'm planning a trip in the next two weeks to Istanbul and I was excited to try this. Then trying to login, I discovered I signed up for this several months ago and promptly never tried it again because it was effectively useless. The only results I get are Air Canada, Jet Blue, and United; all airlines I never and would never fly. I have almost 3 million miles on cc's, AA, Finnair, Etihad, and...
I'm planning a trip in the next two weeks to Istanbul and I was excited to try this. Then trying to login, I discovered I signed up for this several months ago and promptly never tried it again because it was effectively useless. The only results I get are Air Canada, Jet Blue, and United; all airlines I never and would never fly. I have almost 3 million miles on cc's, AA, Finnair, Etihad, and BA and not a single result even though the miles are accurately reflected in my account from AwardWallet. I would like to use my Finnair and Etihad miles since I bought them as a result of articles on this website, but not gonna happen with this version of point.me.
@ Boogen -- We support all the programs you mentioned to some extent, and frequently see results for all of them. If you go to point.me, click on the icon on the bottom right, and send a note to our support team, we'd love to take a look at your account and help troubleshoot.
So that's why Tiffany had kinda disappeared :) ! Congrats on this new venture, it's super exciting! I will put it to the test soon. At first I was wondering what the difference was with something like AwardHacker but if you can pull live inventory, that's definitely a game changer.
The pricing is kinda surprising, $5 a day is pretty expensive while $12 a month is really reasonable. Not sure why anyone wouldn't shell...
So that's why Tiffany had kinda disappeared :) ! Congrats on this new venture, it's super exciting! I will put it to the test soon. At first I was wondering what the difference was with something like AwardHacker but if you can pull live inventory, that's definitely a game changer.
The pricing is kinda surprising, $5 a day is pretty expensive while $12 a month is really reasonable. Not sure why anyone wouldn't shell the extra $7 hah. To be clear, the monthly plan can be cancelled anytime, correct? Or are we committing to a year?
That was my first impression too. I'm guessing they view most people realistically book a flight/trip once in a while, so the $5 one-off would be for that.
Yep, plus, some people are just subscription-adverse.
And while we miles & points aficionados enjoy searching for award space recreationally, most people just plan their trip and book their flights and then go back to their usual past times.
So we wanted to be sure to have an option for the folks who only need something like this once or twice a year.
Excellent tool. I will be using it frequently. Huge timesaver.
It would be nice to know which programs it doesn't check, so that can be checked separately. I have lots of miles in some pretty obscure FF programs, like Avianca LifeMiles, GOL Smiles, TAP, Virgin Atlantic, Finnair and Spirit. Which of those do I need to check separately?
Thanks for answering everyone's questions.
Agree with this, I would need more transparency as to what is checked and what isn't to consider paying for this. Otherwise, if I don't see a result I'll effectively have to go check every program to see whether something shows up on a program that isn't included.
Been using it for months and it’s often missing some options which is the issue - ie it really has to be all or nothing if it has holes the appeal quickly wanes
I have been a point.me subscriber during the beta testing. I like it for the most part. There have been some issues that have been resolved. But you still do not have accurate data for Emirates availability in all cabins. Most of the time it does not show any availability. One more issue was the lack of data for Alaska Mileage Plan awards on some of the partner airlines. Lastly, even though there are fewer...
I have been a point.me subscriber during the beta testing. I like it for the most part. There have been some issues that have been resolved. But you still do not have accurate data for Emirates availability in all cabins. Most of the time it does not show any availability. One more issue was the lack of data for Alaska Mileage Plan awards on some of the partner airlines. Lastly, even though there are fewer and fewer carriers offering a true first class product, this site needs to extrapolate FC away from Business. These are just some pet peeves of mine. All-in-all, it's a great product.
Congrats Ben and Tiffany. Best of luck in the venture. Again, you show time and time again how helpful you are. Keep up the good work.
I had a subscription to juicymiles and was surprised when it disappeared lolll. I’ve been using the amex point me link which is free for platinum members (I’ve been using it for a couple of months). It doesn’t have the +/- 3 functionality but otherwise it’s great. Def need a subscription or free service. You’ll do endless searches if you’re like me :).
Incidentally how come you don’t mention the free link through amex? I assume you still get paid for this?
The Amex link is good, but it only provides awards for programs that Membership Rewards participates in
Link to the Amex pointme site please?
https://amex.point.me/amex-terms-and-conditions
@ Mick (and others) -- Because contractually, only Amex is allowed to market their version (hence why links aren't being posted here).
It also only shows Membership Rewards partners, and has other constraints that make it very different from the core point.me tool. We are offering the codes this week in part so people can see the differences for themselves!
Looking forward to this tool. Testing it now. For me at least using Google Chrome on Windows the calendar date selector is super glitchy. If you try and key in a date in the date format shown the calendar bugs out and won't let you pick a date successfully without refreshing the page and only if you click a date and not key it in.
Congratulations on this new tool and new era for Points Pros. This thing is going to be super innovative I think.
@ Tocqueville – Eek! If you don't mind, click on the little chat icon in the bottom right of the site to send us a bug report? We've done a fair amount of device testing, but of course things do slip through.
(and thanks for the kind words, we're excited too)
Hey @Tiffany
Just joined the Point.Me site. Did a simple search testing things out. The website "froze" on me while doing my search. How do I report a bug? Is it on this website that you said to use the chat icon? Or...is it on Point.Me?
Chris
@ Chris -- On point.me please! (it's a teal bubble in the lower right)
Tiffany,
I have been a beta person for months and paid $129. Today Sanjay Sharma sent me this. "We want to make you aware that your recent reward flight search activity on point.me significantly exceeds a typical customer’s search patterns. Per our terms and conditions, point.me unlimited search plans are not intended for high-frequency or commercial usage. Continued excessive use may result in the termination of your membership. To comply with our fair use...
Tiffany,
I have been a beta person for months and paid $129. Today Sanjay Sharma sent me this. "We want to make you aware that your recent reward flight search activity on point.me significantly exceeds a typical customer’s search patterns. Per our terms and conditions, point.me unlimited search plans are not intended for high-frequency or commercial usage. Continued excessive use may result in the termination of your membership. To comply with our fair use policy, please reduce your volume of searches or contact us to discuss a custom plan appropriate for your usage.
Really, I am just a regular guy like everyone else. Everyone needs to know this. I sit at my desk working (engineering) and try a search, then go back to work (mainly because it takes 3-5 min. for a search).
As an owner, are you going to shut me down ????????????
Congrats on your new venture! Defenitly a double edge sword here. Making it easier to find value is great as it provides better options for the most number of people but like anything the more the secret is out and the more people finding outsized value you limit the number of these exceptional opportunities.
I was a fan and member of Juicy Miles for a period but they abruptly closed down some months ago. As well I had noticed that a significant number of award possibilities were not showing towards the last few months (which I found myself the old fashioned way). I joined Award Logic which was good at first but I'm finding the same thing now, many options are not showing up. At certain times entire plans/airlines...
I was a fan and member of Juicy Miles for a period but they abruptly closed down some months ago. As well I had noticed that a significant number of award possibilities were not showing towards the last few months (which I found myself the old fashioned way). I joined Award Logic which was good at first but I'm finding the same thing now, many options are not showing up. At certain times entire plans/airlines seem to be blocked from searches. Which leads me to wonder about this new version of Juicy Miles, are you assuring that ALL inventory is being checked? I suspect some airlines are blocking these searches at different times which makes it less than useful. I was actually going to cancel Award Logic for this reason but will give Points.ME a try but in hopes that we don't see the same thing.
@ Stuart -- Nothing on point.me has anything to do with whatever had existed on that early JM version (there may be pros and cons to this for some!).
We built and designed everything from scratch, including how searches work. I (intentionally) can't speak to what anyone else is doing, or what their tech stack might be, but would encourage you to at least give it a try.
I did sign up and have been playing with it. I'm noticing that mixed cabins do not come up. This was an important feature of the other one I mentioned that I did like. It was often useful for searching awards out of Europe that might not have business on the short connection segment but did on the long haul. Am I missing this somewhere? As an example I searched out MEL-NRT on the same...
I did sign up and have been playing with it. I'm noticing that mixed cabins do not come up. This was an important feature of the other one I mentioned that I did like. It was often useful for searching awards out of Europe that might not have business on the short connection segment but did on the long haul. Am I missing this somewhere? As an example I searched out MEL-NRT on the same day in April with Point.Me and the other site. Yours showed no awards available and the other one showed me a few mixed class options.
@ Stuart -- We do support mixed cabins, and have some cool icons around it too. What is happening today is that (who knew?!) a lot of y'all really like points and miles! So searches are timing out for some people in some cases and results are thinner than they should be. We are working on getting things back to full strength!
Hello Ben,
nice tool.
But at least for FrankfurtLondon it does not consider the Avios "Reward Flight Saver", does it?
@ Klaus -- Hopefully coming soon!
I've always been amazed that a comprehensive tool like this did not exist, though I understand how complex it is to operate.
One thing that I may have missed above, does it only tell you ways to book using your points, or does it actually show you award space available too?
@ pstm91 -- Yes, it is live inventory, as accurately as we can get it, so what you see should be bookable at that moment.
Hi Tiffany
So are you able to see this inventory? If its live inventory that should be available correct?
I need to get my wife from DFW-SLC on Mar 4. The website shows Flying Blue availability for 15,000 points plus taxes but there isn't availability. The link to the FB website don't work either.
The concept is great, even for those of us that do spend a lot of time searching awards. I have been hoping for something like this. Specifically yesterday I was thinking why can't I just have a tool that gives me all T and U fare space out of DFW on AA on a certain date...This isn't quite that but could be customizable in the future.
Sadly the top results are inaccurate. I need...
The concept is great, even for those of us that do spend a lot of time searching awards. I have been hoping for something like this. Specifically yesterday I was thinking why can't I just have a tool that gives me all T and U fare space out of DFW on AA on a certain date...This isn't quite that but could be customizable in the future.
Sadly the top results are inaccurate. I need to get my wife from DFW-SLC on Mar 4. The website shows Flying Blue availability for 15,000 points plus taxes but there isn't availability. The link to the FB website don't work either.
@ britt44 -- That's a problem, but also one that doesn't make technical sense to me. If you don't mind, click on the little chat icon in the bottom right of the site to send us a bug report?
Once we have your User ID, we can pull your search history and see how we can troubleshoot. Thank you!!
Doing now!
Congrats on the formal launch! I have been using the free Amex member benefit the site has offered for a couple months now and the search function has worked well so far.
What is the free Amex member benefit?
The Amex link only provides awards for programs that Membership Rewards participates in
I tried the Amex link and it provided a bunch of options. Not sure how long the Amex benefit will be available but it's fun to play around with.
This looks really cool, and I'm excited to give it a try! Note that for the standard plan, the monthly rate works out to $144/year, whereas the annual rate is listed as $149/year. I'm not sure if there's a small typo here, but it seemed a bit odd that it would be cheaper to get a monthly subscription.
Looks like a typo. Its $129/yr.
I have a feeling you will be shut down and sued pretty quickly by the airlines over this. Generally, they do not take too kindly from companies scraping their availability data like this seems to be doing.
That being said I love the idea, and it seems like a service worth using if it can last.
Many airlines have award availability on their GDS. This is how services like expertflyer pull them. I suspect that's also how searching and booking partner awards works for many airlines. I'm hoping they're using this and not scraping sites for availability.
100% correct Kevin. Even if they aren't scraping they are using the logos and trademarks of airlines and credit card companies. TPG and their app were just sued for this by American Airlines (in addition to the scraping which AA amounted to computer intrusion). But that's just a slap on the wrist in the legal world, the trademark infringement, unfair competition and Leham Act allegations might sink TPG as the penalty is up to $2...
100% correct Kevin. Even if they aren't scraping they are using the logos and trademarks of airlines and credit card companies. TPG and their app were just sued for this by American Airlines (in addition to the scraping which AA amounted to computer intrusion). But that's just a slap on the wrist in the legal world, the trademark infringement, unfair competition and Leham Act allegations might sink TPG as the penalty is up to $2 million per logo/mark unlawfully used in addition to all profits being impounded.
A lot of interesting information was stated by AA in the complaint against TPG. They even discussed expert flyer which has permission to share AA's data by a contract from years ago, one they insinuated would not be renewed.
Isn't Tiffany a lawyer? I'm pretty sure they know what they're doing.
@ David -- VERY MUCH NOT A LAWYER!! (I do have expertise in political systems and post-nationalist conflict resolution, both of which have been unfortunately relevant in recent years, and might be what you're thinking of).
That said, we have very good *actual* attorneys, along with a host of commercial and legal agreements, including enthusiastic support from a number of loyalty programs. And we're adding more all the time.