Congrats on the launch! Been using your free product for a little while. As a fellow traffic hacker, some random comments:
- 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.
Thank you! Love more feedback, especially from travel hackers.
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
> 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.
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?
I tried this product recently and "Last Refresh" was a big pain point. I'm sure there's technical reasons why it's hard to keep things fresh (many airlines don't even appear to update their own listings until you try and book) but it was frustrating to find what looked like good deals and then spend the effort to book only to be told it wasn't an existing offer.
We need to do a better job distinguishing the two.
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.
The biggest lesson is that design and UX is everything for a consumer product in a new category. There is already a lot of education needed with points redemptions, so any small changes to the design including just the color or placement of text, can have a big impact on the user experience.
We get a ton of support tickets when we move something around or make small tweaks to functionality
Edit: not sure if your comment was meant for me or timqin. Leaving it up just for general awareness
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.
My general strategy for a (US based) newbie is:
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.
It can get a bit difficult as the minimum spend requirements can be high. There are many strategies out on the web that can help with this.
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.
Agree 100% everyone should ask what you want to achieve before even considering starting. General archetypical goals of travel hackers I've seen are:
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.
Each one of those goals require a different strategy. If you're aiming for maximum cash back, I personally think the work involved in the CC game would be worth the time but everyone is different. A sign up bonus generally represents 7-10% cash back on the bonus spend so I'm ok with spending a bit of time updating spreadsheets and keeping track.
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.
Flying free is a high aspiration; are there easier goals in that direction? Like substantially discounted flights, or business class flights for the price of economy?
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.
