Which award search tool is best?

It’s possible to fly domestic economy class for as few as 4,500 miles, or fly premium economy to Europe for as few as 10,500 miles, or fly business class to South Africa for 75,000 miles. It’s easy to dream about enjoying flights like these, but it’s often very difficult to find award availability. That’s where tools can help. Instead of searching day by day and from one airport to another, over and over, you can save a ton of time by letting award search tools do the work…

Modern award search tools let you search for award flights across a wide range of loyalty programs. The best tools allow live searching of a range of dates and multiple airports at once. They also offer a way to discover awards across entire regions and across time. By using pre-cached information, they can (for example) show business-class awards available for a family of 4 traveling to Europe over summer break. The downside of this approach is that some of that pre-cached information will be out of date by the time you see it, so the best of these tools make it easy to refresh results. For more about this type of functionality, see: A new breed of award discovery tools.

Finally, since award space comes and goes over time, the best tools let you set alerts so you’ll be notified when awards of interest become available. I can’t stress this enough. Without an alerts feature, an award search tool is at best half-baked. I’ve booked many great awards thanks to emailed alerts.

Tool Overview

Live search comparison table

Here you’ll find more information about each tool’s live award search capabilities:

Cached discovery comparison table

Here you’ll find more information about each tool’s cached discovery capabilities. This is where tools allow the user to search broadly across cached data. For example, some of these tools allow you to show business class flight awards over the next two months departing from the United States and arriving in Europe.

Supported programs (live search)

No single tool searches all frequent flyer programs. The best tools search most of the useful programs, especially those that are available via common transferable points programs. Additionally, the best tools include results where frequent-flyer miles can be used for partner airline flights. For example, when a Delta flight is bookable with partner miles, I want to see the point price for booking that flight with Delta miles, Air France/KLM miles, and Virgin Atlantic miles.

In previous versions of this post, I listed the frequent-flyer programs each tool claimed to support. That was problematic for several reasons:

• Many tools don’t keep their list of supported programs up to date. The ability for tools like these to run searches often changes as frequent flyer programs alter their technology, require a login before searching, etc.
• A list of supported programs doesn’t tell you whether partner awards are included. For example, search tools that support Turkish Miles & Smiles usually only find results for booking Turkish flights with Turkish miles. They don’t find opportunities to use Turkish miles on partner flights.
• Some tools, like point.me, claim to support certain hard-to-query programs (ANA, JAL, Cathay Pacific, etc.), but rather than actually searching them for award availability, they deduce award availability based on whether other partners of the same airline can book the same flight. There are several problems with this approach, but the biggest issue is that these frequent flyer programs have better access to awards with their own airline’s flights, and tools like point.me can’t find those opportunities.
• A straight-up list doesn’t help identify which programs are most important. Some airline programs, like Aeromexico, have such awful award pricing that it’s not particularly helpful for tools to support it, except in the most extreme cases when it happens to offer a good deal.

Instead of listing which programs each tool claims to support, I ran multiple searches with each tool and identified the programs each actually supported. I looked only for loyalty programs I thought were particularly useful. Please note that this is a snapshot in time based on queries run between April 6 and April 14th. Results will vary as tools improve support for some programs and lose support for others.

US Programs

All of the tools I tested had very good support for the most popular U.S.based programs, but Point.me stood out as the only one that offered up Southwest award results. Roame was the only tool that didn’t consistently show United MileagePlus results, but it looks like they fixed this shortly after I completed my tests.

Key Foreign Programs

This table shows a number of frequent-flyer programs commonly used to book flight awards. Each is available through multiple transferable points programs. These foreign programs are often particularly useful for booking partner awards, so I focused on finding flights that showcased the tools’ ability to find partner awards with these programs.

As you can see above, Virgin Atlantic is the only key foreign program that is widely supported by all of these tools. Points Path, AwardTool, and Seats.aero appear to have the most consistent support for Aeroplan, LifeMiles, and Flying Blue. With the Avios programs, support is extremely spotty across the board.

Additional Foreign Programs

This table shows a selection of foreign frequent-flyer programs available through one or more transferable points programs. Each of these programs is known to offer better award availability to its own members. For the table below, I found flights available only through the program itself, not through partners. For example, I found an ANA flight that was bookable with ANA miles but not with any other Star Alliance miles. Similarly, I found a Cathay flight bookable only with Cathay miles, an EVA flight bookable only with EVA miles, and a Singapore flight bookable only with Singapore miles.

Sadly, none of the tested tools found the ANA or EVA flights I had identified as being bookable with ANA and EVA miles, respectively. Only AwardTool found the Cathay Pacific flight I had identified, and only Point.me found the Singapore Airlines flight.

Which is best?

Best airline program coverage: Points Path

In my award search tests conducted between April 6 and April 14th, Points Path offered the best coverage of the airline programs I deemed most important. AwardTool was very close behind. Here is how I rank the tools for program coverage:

1. Points Path: This was the single best tool for finding awards with the key foreign programs (including being the only tool where I found consistent support for two different Avios programs).
2. AwardTool: AwardTool performed almost as well as Points Path w/ key foreign programs, but didn’t supply Aer Lingus results. AwardTool was the only one to correctly find a Cathay Pacific flight bookable only with Cathay Pacific Asia Miles. The primary reason that AwardTool didn’t win the top spot here is that it showed incorrect results in one of my searches for United awards. I re-ran the same search the next day and found the same results. United showed the business class award to Europe as available for 80,000 points (when I was logged in via an account without status or United credit cards), but AwardTool kept displaying the price as 200,000 points.
3. Seats.aero: After redoing the searches at the last minute, this tool performed nearly as well as Points Path and AwardTool across all key programs, except LifeMiles (and even got the surcharges right on a Flying Blue partner award, where the other tools were inaccurate). Additionally, it was one of only three tools that found a specific Finnair award. One big lapse in coverage that isn’t captured by my current set of searches, though, is that Seats.aero doesn’t seem to consistently find awards with connections.
4. point.me: point.me was the only tool that found Southwest Airlines awards, select British Airways awards, and Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer awards. With those advantages, point.me could have taken the top spot here, but it fell down in other ways. Point.me didn’t consistently find awards available through Air Canada Aeroplan or Air France/KLM Flying Blue.

The rest are difficult to rank as each had significant lapses. The following notes are in alphabetical order:

• Point Hound: Point Hound was one of only three tools to identify Finnair awards. However, it failed to find Avianca LifeMiles awards, and it was inconsistent with Air Canada Aeroplan and Air France/KLM Flying Blue.
• PointsYeah: PointsYeah was one of only three tools to identify Finnair awards. However, it failed to find Air Canada Aeroplan or Air France/KLM Flying Blue awards, and it was inconsistent with Avianca LifeMiles awards.
• Roame: Roame failed to show United awards during my testing period (they have since fixed this issue). Additionally, coverage was inconsistent with Air Canada Aeroplan, Air France/KLM Flying Blue, and Avianca LifeMiles awards.

Best overall: AwardTool

AwardTool offers very strong live search, advanced alerts, and decent cached discovery capabilities.

AwardTool is my go-to tool for live searches when I want to search across multiple airports AND multiple dates at once. AwardTool allows up to 32 simultaneous searches. For example, you can search across 32 days at once; or you can list up to 32 airports with a single date; or you can mix and match: you can search across 2 origin airports, 4 destination airports, and 4 dates with a single search. I also turn to AwardTool for complex alerts. AwardTool lets me set up complex alerts that monitor awards across multiple airports and dates.

My favorite AwardTool features

• 32 simultaneous live searches
• 100 alerts
• Extensive filtering and sorting options
• Strong frequent flyer program coverage
• Strong cached discovery capabilities

Where AwardTool falls short of other tools

• Seems buggy at times

AwardTool Pricing

• AwardTool Standard: Free
  • 4 simultaneous live searches
  • 3 alerts
• AwardTool Pro: $10.99 per month, or $84.99 per year
  • 32 simultaneous live searches
  • 100 alerts
• Link to sign up
  (Disclosure: Frequent Miler will earn a commission if you sign up through this link)
• Get $20 off your first year by using code FREQUENTMILER20

Best live search: Points Path

Points Path integrates with Google Flights so you can see cash and award prices side by side. This makes Points Path both extremely easy to use and extremely powerful. I find myself using Points Path nearly every day.

My favorite Points Path features

• Seamless integration with Google Flights
• Supports multiple origin and destination airports (as many as Google Flights allows)
• Actively alerts the user when any of the covered frequent flyer programs aren’t working. This is huge because you might think that there are no good awards available if you didn’t know that an important program wasn’t showing results.
• Great coverage of domestic frequent flyer programs (Alaska, American, Delta, JetBlue, Spirit, United)
• Pro Features:
  • Very strong foreign frequent flyer program coverage (including two Avios programs: Aer Lingus and Qatar)
  • Alert capability allows easily tracking award prices for any individual flight
  • Points Calendar shows the best prices across 7 days, and the user can easily page forward or back a week at a time.

Where Points Path falls short of other tools

• No way to sort results by the lowest point price (since sorting is controlled by Google Flights)
• Limited alerting capabilities
• No ability to search across multiple airports AND multiple dates at once (you can search multiple airports or multiple dates, but not both)
• No cached discovery capabilities

Points Path Pricing

• Points Path Standard: Free
  • Supports U.S. frequent flyer programs only
  • Limited extra features
• Points Path Pro: $79.99/year or $7.99/month
  • Advanced features include alerts, an award calendar, and more
  • Supports all of the same programs as the free version, plus many foreign frequent flyer programs
  • Link to sign up
    (Disclosure: Frequent Miler will earn a commission if you sign up through this link)
    • Get 15% off your first year with code “FM15” entered at checkout
    • Get 3 months for the price of 2 with code “FM3” entered at checkout

Best cached discovery: PointsYeah

PointsYeah is a well-rounded tool that offers live search, cached search, hotel searches, alerts, and more. PointsYeah’s standout feature is its cached discovery tool, Daydream Explorer. With this tool, it’s easy to find great awards for broad searches. In the image above, I searched for business-class flights for 2 passengers from the United States to Europe for any time in June. As you can see, many attractive results popped up. Further, PointsYeah makes it easy to drill down on those results to run a live search to see whether those awards are still available.

My favorite PointsYeah features

• Daydream Explorer is a fantastic tool for finding awards across broad regions and wide date ranges. Amazingly, the full version of Daydream Explorer is available to free users!
• With live searches, PointsYeah Pro allows simultaneous searches across 8 days with up to 2 origin airports and 2 destination airports. That’s not as flexible as AwardTool, but it’s much more flexible than most other tools.

Where PointsYeah falls short of other tools

• PointsYeah doesn’t consistently show awards available through some key programs: Air Canada Aeroplan, Air France/KLM Flying Blue, Avianca LifeMiles. This is my biggest problem with PointsYeah — it misses a lot.

PointsYeah Pricing

• PointsYeah Standard: Free
  • Get the full power of Daydream Explorer
  • Live search across 4 days at once
• PointsYeah Pro: $11.99 per month, or $99.99 per year
  • Link to sign up
    (Disclosure: Frequent Miler will earn a commission if you sign up through this link)
  • Instead of using our link to sign up, consider clicking through a shopping portal to earn points or miles.

Best for beginners: point.me

While Point.me has improved a lot in the past year or two, it still isn’t my personal favorite tool. It has minimal alert capabilities and doesn’t offer true simultaneous searches across multiple dates or airports. That said, I think it’s excellent for beginners. It offers step-by-step booking instructions from transferring points to actually booking the flight.

Pricing:

•  $12 per month, or $129 per year
• Link to sign up
  (Disclosure: Frequent Miler will earn a commission if you sign up through this link)
• DISCOUNT: Get 4 months free when you subscribe to an annual plan with the code FREQUENTMILER4

Note that there is a limited free version of Point.me:

• American Express: American Express and point.me have teamed up to offer a limited complimentary version of point.me for American Express customers. This version of point.me includes only transfer partners that are available through Amex Membership Rewards. Use this link to log-in: point.me/amex

Best for experts: Seats.aero

Seats.Aero is an awesome, nerdy tool that was originally designed as a cached discovery tool but later added live searches and many other advanced features. Seats.aero is extremely powerful for advanced users. It makes it super easy to find some of the hardest-to-find awards, such as Qatar QSuites, Emirates First Class, and more. If I want to quickly find award availability for a specific airline across the whole year, this is my go-to tool.

Advanced functions:

• • Award search functions: ANA First Class Finder, Delta One Finder, JAL First Class Finder, Lufthansa First Class Finder, Qatar QSuites Finder, booking options.
  • Miscellaneous functions: Fare Class Viewer, Seat Map Viewer, Air Canada eUpgrade Finder, United PlusPoints Finder

Pro Pricing:

• $9.99/month or $99.99 per year
• Link to sign up
  (Disclosure: Frequent Miler will earn a commission if you sign up through this link)

And the rest…

pointhound (good for beginners)

pointhound isn’t as capable as some of the other tools in this list, but it’s an excellent choice for beginners. It’s fast and easy to use, plus it offers good step-by-step booking instructions. One feature that I love is that you don’t have to sign up to use this free tool. Simply go to the web page (pointhound.com) and start searching.

Roame (excellent choice despite not making the “best of” list)

Roame is a very capable award search tool, but it doesn’t offer much that isn’t also available through AwardTool or PointsYeah.

The free version offers a 3-day date range, and the paid version offers 7. SkyView (Roame’s discovery feature) is well integrated with its search capabilities, so you can easily switch back and forth while looking for awards. This goes a long way towards making up for the fact that the live search feature doesn’t allow choosing multiple airports at once. SkyView searches “the top 6,500 popular routes” every 24 hours and caches the results (note: I have no way to verify that number). Paid users can add routes to SkyView by setting SkyView alerts when searching from one specific airport to another. For example, if you’re interested in traveling from Detroit to Lyon, SkyView probably doesn’t already include that route. However, if you search for that specific route in SkyView and then set an alert, that route will be added to the “6,500” routes that the tool searches and caches every day.

Standout features include filtering by aircraft type, SkyView “super alerts” refreshed every 2 to 8 hours, and the ability to add to SkyView routes.

Pro Pricing:

• $12.99 per month; or $109.99 per year
• Save 10% off your first payment with code “FM”
• Link to sign up
  (Disclosure: Frequent Miler will earn a commission if you sign up through this link)

Conclusion

If you’re looking for free award search tools, your best options are:

1. AwardTool for broad airline program support, 4-day searches, and 3 alerts.
2. PointsYeah for its cached explore feature (Daydream Explorer).
3. Points Path for integration with Google Flights.

Each of the above tools has different strengths, so it can make sense to use them all.

Recommending a paid tool is tougher. Even though Points Path Pro is my current favorite paid tool for live searches, it’s missing some of the advanced features that AwardTool Pro offers. Therefore, if you only want one, AwardTool may be your best choice. Supplement AwardTool Pro with the free versions of PointsYeah and Points Path.

Interested in hotel awards? See: Which hotel award search tool is best?

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