Around 2019, a new award search tool called Juicy Miles was introduced. It was amazing because it was the first ever user-friendly tool that let users search for award flights across multiple loyalty programs in the same way they were used to searching for paid flights. Juicy Miles eventually was rebuilt as point.me. It was good, but it was oh so slow. It would take nearly 2 minutes to return results. It’s no wonder then that when much faster tools appeared, such as Roame, PointsYeah and AwardTool, many of us abandoned point.me in favor of those other tools.
It had been a long time since I’ve spent much time with point.me, but now I’ve dug in. point.me now begins showing results almost immediately. And its search parameters automatically include a 3 day range. Unfortunately for advanced users, point.me still has a lot of work to do to compete against other modern tools. On the other hand, point.me offers step-by-step booking instructions that can easily make it the single best award search tool for beginners.
Overview
point.me offers a simple web interface for searching for award flights. Simply enter your flight criteria (from/to/dates/number of passengers/class of service) and press “Search”. point.me then searches a large number of loyalty programs to find the flight awards that are available that meet your criteria. Additionally, point.me offers an Explore feature that makes it easy to search pre-cached results across large date ranges and broad destinations. For example, you can search for business class flights for 2 from New York City to Europe across the entire year.
point.me Basics
- Supported programs: AA, Aegean, Aer Lingus, Aeromexico, Air Canada, Air France/KLM, Alaska, ANA, Asiana, Avianca (limited), BA, Cathay Pacific, Delta, El Al, Emirates, Etihad, EVA, Hawaiian, Iberia, JetBlue, Korean, Lufthansa, Malaysia, Qatar, Qantas, SAS, Singapore (limited), Southwest, TAP Air Portugal, Thai, Turkish, United, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Australia
- Subscription price: $12 per month; or $129 per year
- Subscription link: point.me (Disclosure: Frequent Miler will earn a commission if you sign up through this link).
- Limited complimentary versions:
- point.me for American Express Membership Rewards
- Free for American Express cardholders
- Results are limited to programs that are available through transfers from American Express (found here). This means that, among other programs left out, this version does NOT support AA, Alaska, Southwest, or United.
- Includes step-by-step booking instructions
- point.me for Bilt
- Free access via the Bilt Rewards app. Bilt is a rewards program intended for people who pay rent, but anyone can join for free.
- Once you’ve joined and installed the Bilt app on your phone, you can use the limited complimentary version of point.me to search for flight awards (go to Travel… Flights… Transfer Partners).
- This version of point.me is limited to Bilt’s transfer partners (found here). This means that, among other programs left out, this version does NOT support AA, Delta, Hawaiian, JetBlue, or Southwest.
- This limited version DOES NOT include step-by-step booking instructions
- point.me for American Express Membership Rewards
Standout Features
Support for BA and ANA
No other general purpose award search tool supports ANA, and few support British Airways Avios. In both cases, I found that point.me often shows results that match what is available when searching directly via BA or ANA, but not always.
Step by Step Booking Instructions
This is point.me’s best feature. Anyone new to transferring points and booking awards can benefit from point.me’s step-by-step instructions.
When you pick a flight you like from the search results, point.me has you pick whether you want to pay an expert to book it for you or book it yourself:
If you select to book the flight yourself, point.me provides step-by-step instructions starting with an overview of the process:
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Step by step booking instructions
- Unique support for certain loyalty programs like British Airways and ANA
- Fast initial results
Cons
- Very slow to complete a search
- Must search a single date at a time (the interface shows plus/minus 1 day but clicking on the tabs for the day before or after starts another search that takes just as long as the first). Competing tools allow true date ranges.
- Must search a single airport at a time. The tool does allow searching co-terminals (New York, Chicago, Washington DC, London, Paris, Milan, Tokyo, Beijing), but it won’t let you search, for example, to Detroit and Chicago at the same time. In contrast, both PointsYeah and AwardTool allow searching multiple airports.
- No alert feature. I consider email alerts to be a must-have feature for award search tools since award availability changes all the time
- Some of the programs that point.me claims are at least partially supported (like Singapore and Cathay Pacific) don’t seem to actually work at all.
- point.me’s Explore feature doesn’t let you specify a broad origin. For example, you can search for flights to Europe but you can’t search for flights from the United States.
Conclusion
If you’re interested in step by step award booking instructions, point.me is the tool for you. But for everyone else, I’d recommend comparing Roame, PointsYeah and AwardTool to see which best fits your needs. Unlike point.me, each of those tools offers a true date range (even for their fee-free tiers) and emailed alerts. Both features are critical for finding the best award flights.
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It is VERY annoying that the programs that would be MOST valuable — those not widely available on other tools like BA, Singapore, Cathay, and ANA — are the ones that work the worst. Why can’t they focus more on improving those? If they don’t have that, there is literally no reason for a non-beginner to prefer them. Can people protest this more and make a bigger deal of it?
A non-beginner would know that many of the programs you’ve called out require some additional steps to see their award availability. The fact that more reliable and trustworthy platforms don‘t have these programs, yet point.me claims to (despite it not even working), should tell you something. A non-beginner would also know that once you have a rudimentary grasp of the various alliances and card partners, speed is critical. By these accounts, point.me is effectively useless and not worth your time nor your money.
Just use roame.travel, they added Singapore Airlines
Am I misunderstanding this statement: “No other general purpose award search tool supports British Airways Avios and/or ANA.”? I can see BA results on AwardTool, but I did not try to do any sort of comprehensive search. And according to the table on FM’s site, AwardLogic also shows BA, but I did not check this to confirm as I do not have a subscription.
Showing results on BA doesn’t mean the search tool searches BA directly. BA website requires its users to sign in to do any searches, unlike many other airlines supported by such tools.
You didn’t misunderstand. I forgot to double check that statement. I’ll update it.
They lost me when they discontinued the $5 daily charge.
I was skeptical of these tools at first but I now cannot live without my PointsYeah and AwardTool subs. Going back to searching each possible program would be like wiping my butt with my hand. Just like the classic “you need two credit cards to make a mean combo,” I’d love you to write the best two aggregator combo.
Two credit cards combo, to clarify, would be CSR plus Ink. Or Blue Business Plus and a Gold. Or Double Cash and Prestige. What is the best two subscription aggregator?
I love my PointsYeah subscription and the flight/hotel alerts. What does AwardTool offer that makes it a great 1:2 combo?
Is pricing still exorbitant for what you get?
The current pricing is $12 per month, or $129 per year. For a beginner I could imagine it would make sense to do the monthly subscription for a month or two.