Search for Flights Using Loyalty Points with Point.me, a New Travel Platform

Sign up: Point.me 24-hour trial pass, $5; Point.me self-service annual membership, $129, point.me

Thanks to incredible credit card sign-up bonuses, gathering points has never been easier. However, redeeming those points for award flights has become significantly more challenging. Over the past five years, the majority of airlines have transitioned from fixed award charts to dynamic pricing models. Additionally, a surge in travelers interested in points and miles has heightened the competition for reasonably priced award seats.

While it may seem like the era of converting 55,000 credit card points for a business class flight from Miami to Paris is behind us, that’s not entirely true. The best deals still require flexibility and often necessitate exploring options beyond a single airline’s loyalty program. Even seasoned points enthusiasts like myself have had to navigate award availability and pricing using sophisticated tools like ExpertFlyer and searching across multiple frequent flyer programs.

With the launch of Point.me, this process has become much easier.

Launched in February 2022, Point.me is the inaugural metasearch engine dedicated to award flights. Covering 33 loyalty programs and 150 airlines, it's user-friendly, cost-effective, and a clever resource for determining how to utilize miles and effectively convert credit card points into miles for your preferred tickets. Here’s everything you should know about this innovative tool.

How Point.me Functions

Similar to well-known flight search engines like Google Flights, Kayak, and Expedia, Point.me allows you to input your departure and arrival airports, travel dates, and passenger count. You can also select between one-way or round-trip flights, as well as business or economy class.

The results display point costs across 33 different programs. You can sort these results by shortest flight duration, lowest cost, or by Point.me’s recommendations for the best overall choice. Additionally, you can filter results by the number of stops and exclude specific airlines and programs as you see fit.

What to Expect

The first observation is the significant variation in points pricing among different programs, even within the same airline alliance. Additionally, there are still fantastic deals available.

For instance, on June 5, 2022, we looked for a business-class ticket from New York (JFK) to Frankfurt (FRA) for travel on August 17, 2022. The points pricing varied widely, starting at 57,500 miles with American Airlines AAdvantage (on a Royal Maroc partner flight) and soaring to 1,925,000 miles using Etihad Guest (on its own aircraft). We filtered the 92 results for the fastest flights and found two nonstop options that fit perfectly: one on Singapore Airlines for 85,000 points and another on Delta for 375,000 points. This showcases a remarkable disparity for the same eight-hour journey on comparable business class offerings (and notably, we consider Singapore's business class superior for this route).

Now that we have our sights set on that prize, we turn to Point.me for guidance on acquiring Singapore Airlines miles and enrolling in the KrisFlyer program. Since Point.me provides search results that include ways to use credit card points to obtain those frequent flyer miles, we discover that we can secure our Singapore ticket by transferring points from one or multiple credit card programs. Remember, points accumulated on most general travel cards, including bonus offers and regular spending, are transferable to various airline frequent flyer programs. Whether you're utilizing American Express Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou points, or Capital One points, converting them into specific airline miles is just a click away. In our scenario, we’ll combine Amex and Chase points to reach the required 85,000 points.

Point.me provides a comprehensive step-by-step guide for customers on how to convert credit card points into miles and secure a highly sought-after award seat. After meticulously following the instructions, we successfully booked our flight from JFK to FRA on Singapore Airlines.

Pricing for Point.me

The Point.me self-service search feature provides day passes at $5, monthly subscriptions for $12, and annual plans for $129 (which includes a $15 discount if you pay for the full year upfront). If the process becomes more daunting than thrilling, but you still wish to optimize your current points for prime award seats, Point.me also has a concierge booking service. A Point.me expert will take care of all the details of your award booking, starting at $200.

Members can also link their accounts between Point.me and AwardWallet at no additional cost. For those who may not know, AwardWallet is a platform that helps you track all your points and miles in one location. By linking the two services, Point.me can provide enhanced insights into which award seats are attainable based on your balances.

Point.me is a revolutionary tool, but it’s not without its flaws.

Currently, the main drawbacks are that searches can take up to two minutes—quite a long time in the realm of search engines—and they can only be done for specific dates, unlike Google Flights, which allows you to browse an entire calendar for the best cash fares. The landscape of award availability can shift rapidly; in fact, while I was writing this article, the cheapest seat for our JFK to FRA scenario—57,500 miles through American Airlines AAdvantage on a Royal Maroc partner flight—vanished. It’s likely another astute traveler snatched it up! Furthermore, there will be days when finding a decent deal proves elusive. While good options exist, they often require flexibility with travel dates and airlines.

Point.me explicitly mentions on its website, “Availability and pricing are not guaranteed. Any points transferred are non-refundable.” Point.me aggregates data from various search engines, and not all of them are updated in real time. Therefore, it's essential to follow the site’s detailed booking guide to confirm that the award seat is still available before transferring your credit card points to frequent flyer programs.

Key Takeaways

For anyone looking to maximize the value of their credit card points and frequent flyer miles, Point.me is an innovative and essential award search resource. The $129 annual subscription is minimal compared to the potential savings of hundreds or even thousands of dollars when landing the best points deals.