Photo: A_B_C (Shutterstock)
You’ve been saving your frequent flyer miles up to plan a dream trip, but when it comes time to use them you either a) can’t find availability, b) it costs three times as many miles as you have, or c) there are five layovers in each direction, there’s a new tool that can help: point.me.
(Side tip: Instead of earning frequent flyer miles with one airline, consider earning flexible bank points like Chase Ultimate Rewards—you’ll have a lot more flexibility when it comes time to redeem.)
What is point.me?
Point.me automatically searches routes on over 150 airlines for availability and is compatible with more than 30 loyalty programs, so you don’t have to spend time jumping around to different websites. For example, if I wanted to use my miles to fly from Grand Rapids, MI (GRR) to Istanbul, Turkey (IST), I’d normally want to check a lot of different reward programs, considering I have airline miles with several different airlines, and bank points with a few different banks. With point.me, I can run one search for each date I am available to travel.
Screenshot: Point.me
From there, point.me gives me the ability to filter my results by points, quickest flights, and point.me picks. After filtering by points, I find that the least expensive option for my travel date is to spend 30,000 American Airlines miles plus $57 for a two-stop itinerary. Not too bad for departing from a small airport and across the Atlantic to Istanbul.
Screenshot: Point.me
You can also connect your rewards programs to point.me if you have an Award Wallet account (and every traveler really should have one). If you have your accounts linked, point.me can automatically exclude any flights that you don’t have enough miles to book.
How much does point.me cost?
In addition to only being able to search one departure, destination, and date at a time (which can be limiting if you’re flexible)—point.me isn’t free.
Point.me’s standard plan costs $129 per year or $12 per month. If you’re a frequent miles user, paying the annual fee may make sense, but if you just travel once or twice per year, paying the $12/month could be well worth it to save a lot of time and find better redemption options for your miles—especially if you have miles with many different programs or flexible bank points. Point.me also offers a $260-annual premium plan which provides discounts on its concierge service.
