- 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 never accrued points wiht my CC. Is it really worth it compared to 1-2% cash back? I just collected by flying. You have to ask yourself: What do I want to achieve?

1. Fly free with points

2. Have gold status and access to the lounge, more luggage, faster check-in

1 is hard. It basically makes only sense if you really fly a lot and your company pays for it. 2 is easier, IF you chose the right airlines to collect points. This is a science but take this as a start: https://www.wheretocredit.com/

At one time I had all three alliances gold elite status (or equivalent). But I flew very little for free or discounted with points.

It always depends on your situation. But I had Turkish (Star Alliance) gold. And if I flew via Asia to Europe with Ethiopian Airlines via Addis Ababa (with nice stay overs), TK shitted me with points.

  1. Maximum number of trips
  2. Minimum cost for trips (cheap or free travel)
  3. Free or discounted luxury travel (business class, luxury hotels, etc)
  4. Maximum cash back (to the point of being a full time job)
  5. Maximizing elite status (for business travel, etc)
  6. Short term, saving up for one or two big bangs (honeymoon, bucket list item, etc)
  7. Any combination of above and more.

On the other hand, I have some friends who do not want to bother due to the stress and overhead involved (finances can be difficult). For those types, I usually recommend foregoing the CC game and putting everything on a no annual fee 2% card.

There are airlines where you could fly for free, including paying ticket taxes with points (e.g. Aeroflot), there are airlines that are okay, for example Turkish. I once flew extremely cheap with TK from Europe to Colombia. This being said, the ticket prices change tremendously if you switch to "buy with points" at TK. Terrible experience with points: Lufthansa. Lufthansa is also pretty good with "this flight earned you 0 points.

You really have to do your research. If you have a lot of international business class flights paid by your employer, it becomes easier.

You have to sort everything out. What do you want to achieve? How? Where do you earn points? Remember, even if you fly most with airline X, it may, depending on your situation, makes sense to collect points with airline Y, as long as they are in the same alliance.

Aeroflot was great. Since they are kind of closed now, I collect SkyTeam with Delta, but I am not sure if this is the best option. But Delta is a really good airline.

This as a last bonus to get you rolling: https://statusmatcher.com/

Got Latam and TK Gold via status match (and then flew a lot of cause)

* 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.

Airlines, especially US airlines are making billions of dollars a year by selling points to credit card companies. So in theory, they actually want as many people in the world of points as possible because they a consistent high margin revenue from credit card companies.

I believe the real difference between airlines is how they balance loyalty redemptions vs. revenue sales. Airlines full control the pricing of the points redemptions, but they have to balance pricing with capacity and fixed costs. If the flight is only 50% full, then that points redemption is going to help amortize the large fixed costs of operating that half empty flight. So having a bargain points redemption rate, would look attractive.

Now, if that flight is 90% full, then the airline may not offer seats to redeem with points or raise the price to something extremely high like 200,000 points.

They want to sell as many points as possible, for as much as they can, and redeem them for as little as they can. (And in the middle, they want you to keep them as long as possible while they collect interest on the float while depreciating their value.)

> If the flight is only 50% full, then that points redemption is going to help amortize the large fixed costs of operating that half empty flight. So having a bargain points redemption rate, would look attractive. Now, if that flight is 90% full, then the airline may not offer seats to redeem with points or raise the price to something extremely high like 200,000 points.

I suspect the market for flight redemptions reflects this. The airlines would prefer that you can't redeem your points until the flight is absolutely unbookable by any more valuable means -- and for the airlines, essentially every form of cash booking is more valuable than points, since a "point" in your wallet means cash on their balance sheet. It's not in their interest to make cheap redemptions easy to find.

If I had to guess, the airlines that do early releases of award seats treat it as marketing expense. All things equal, they'd prefer that you have to hunt for them like truffles.

Also, if airlines get too greedy with their points/miles, US government will step in to try and regulate and airlines certainly do not want that. (https://thepointsguy.com/news/congressional-investigation-ai...)

I don't mean to be argumentative; this is a hard question. I only bring it up because you're probably going to hear it from investors. I assume you have an answer that you don't want to say publicly, which I respect.

They will devalue points, change award charts, play the stupid cat and mouse game of trying to prevent scraping, but they will lose.

Even Southwest is giving up; they’re switching to assigned seats after many decades, because no amount of trying to prevent bots from checking you in has worked, long term, and checking in exactly at the minute and getting a C group number is infuriating. This isn’t a Taylor Swift concert; it’s a goddamn flight to JFK, lol.

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.

I disagree. Yes, I see how they're really a scam, but I think the scam isn't quite what you think it is: the companies offering points are hoping that you won't use them. Of course, they know that people will use some of them, and that some people will maximize their use of their points, but the whole thing I think is basically trying to get people to use their card/service, but hoping they won't game the system by using all their points, maximizing their usage, etc.

If everyone stopped using the points they accrued, the companies aren't going to lower their fees and make things cheaper for people. They're already in an oligopoly position and don't need to lower fees. So anything that helps consumers make the most of these points, I think, should help reduce these companies' profits.

If everyone was really skilled at maximizing their points usage, I think the companies would have to stop offering them, or make them less valuable, so until that happens, by maximizing your usage, you're basically profiting off all the other people who are too lazy to do so, and also profiting off the companies offering these ridiculous schemes and hoping you won't use them very effectively.

> So anything that helps consumers make the most of these points, I think, should help reduce these companies' profits.

I mean, no - the answer isn't "try to bleed them dry by exploiting points," any more than "launch barrels of water into space" is the answer to sea level rise. Use your points while you have them, but the correct solution for societal good is to ban the whole system.

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.

For my diabetic mother who has really bad legs, or for me who has had back issues his whole life, or for someone who is treated like they deserve to be there in first class instead of being cattle called into a tiny seat with a bag of pretzels for fourteen hours…

Different priorities.

Flying business or first class is not something I do often (I’ve flown a single digit number of times on either, and all but once on points) but when I do the amount of stress that is relieved is actually very significant. It’s hard to understand until you’ve done it.

And it may not matter to you! And that’s also okay.

Maybe it's different when you only talk to people who make at least six figures.

Often, people buy these things because it makes them feel better, in that they feel they’ve earned the right to have something nice.

And that is one of the reasons that people tend to make decisions that don’t get them out of poverty. Because sometimes feeling spendy makes people happy, in the short term.

It’s why you see so many lower-middle class people driving around in a used/leased Lexus or BMW. It isn’t that a Ford or Mazda wouldn’t suffice.

Moreover, if you can get it for free, with points, that feel like they cost you nothing? Hell yeah.

(This is also why the Marlboro/Parliament catalogs which made people collect UPC codes for various items were so popular. Nobody needed that junk. But a duffel bag and a laptop for nothing but these random barcodes I’ve collected?! Hell yeah, I’m rich!)

1. https://www.point.me/

2. https://seats.aero/

3. https://www.awardtool.com/

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.

Appreciate the feedback. We need to add a tooltip to the premium percentage slider.

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.