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Editor's Note: Since writing this post, the author has started a role at Rove Miles and is offering an elevated referral bonus for AwardWallet readers.
We've all heard of American Express Membership Rewards, Capital One miles, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou Rewards, Wells Fargo Rewards, and Bilt Rewards. These huge programs are mostly bank-driven and offer credit cards that pair with their flexible point currencies. And we love them. Creating a wide variety of partnerships for transfers means that us users can get the best value from all the points we earn.
But it's challenging to create a new transferable currency, which is why we're so intrigued by Rove. Launched in April 2025, Rove boasts itself as “the first universal airline mile.” But does it hold up? Let's take a look at Rove, how it works, the rewards it earns, and whether it's worth the investment.
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What Is Rove?
Unlike programs such as Amex Membership Rewards and Chase Ultimate Rewards, Rove isn't tied to a bank or loyalty program. Instead, it relies on a travel portal and a shopping portal to allow users to earn Rove Miles — which are currently transferable to 12 hotel and airline partners.
Its closest competitor is Bilt Rewards, whose program allows you to earn rewards without needing to sign up for a credit card.
Using its travel portal, you can book both flights and hotels. This is similar to what you'll find with Capital One Travel or Expedia, both of which allow you to earn rewards on your bookings.
Its shopping portal, meanwhile, has both a Chrome extension and a website link, much like you'll find with sites like Rakuten.
So what's the big deal? How is Rove different from the competition — and how does it expect to stick around?
How to Earn Rove Miles
Rove's biggest differentiator is the sheer number of miles you can earn on bookings. According to Max Morganroth, co-founder and CEO of Rove, “While platforms can’t publicly undercut the rates each individual hotel sells their rooms for, we can charge you the same rate as the hotel and give our entire commission back in the form of miles. When you're using the miles, we give you a discount as this restriction applies only to cash.”
According to Rove, you can earn rewards at the following rates:
- Hotels: Up to 25x miles per $1 spent
- Flights: Between 1x and 10x miles per $1 spent
- Shopping: Changes based on vendor
Earn Rove Miles on hotels and flights
It looks like you may actually the best luck on your earnings with hotels, depending on where you're staying. Here's an example of a two-night stay in Las Vegas in August.
In this example, you'll be able to earn up to an insane 62.7x miles per $1 spent at the Vdara, while the Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa sits at 36.5x miles per $1 spent.
One of the handy things about Rove is that it has a feature allowing you to sort results by the number of miles earned on your booking, making it easy to spot the best bang for your buck.
Even better, the miles that you earn for your nonrefundable hotel bookings post instantly. This means that if you spot an awesome flight on Air France but don't have enough Flying Blue miles for it, you can book a hotel for a future stay, collect the miles, and then transfer them right over. No one else does that.
You'll also earn between 1x to 10x on flights, and interestingly, you'll also earn Rove Miles on any taxes and fees that you pay.
Earn Rove Miles for online purchases
Rove also allows you to earn Rove Miles from shopping, whether you're using its desktop site or its extension.
Note at the bottom of the screenshot that Rove is offering 3.2x miles per $1 spent on Visa and Mastercard gift cards. Although you'll need to pay the $5.95 activation fee, buying these cards with something like the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit card will earn you an additional 2x Capital One Miles for every dollar you spend. In the right circumstances, that's pretty compelling.
Right now, Rove has a referral offer going on for new signups. Those who've signed up with a referral offer typically get 500 miles. However, if you sign up through AwardWallet's referral link, you'll get 1,000 miles.
Rove Transfer Partners
Along with the ability to earn gobs of miles on your activity, Rove's biggest seller is that the miles it earns are transferable.
Rove also has some interesting transfer partners:
- Air France-KLM Flying Blue
- Air India Maharaja Club
- Accor Live Limitless
- Aeromexico Rewards
- Cathay Pacific Asia Miles
- Etihad Guest
- Finnair Plus
- Hainan Airlines Fortune Wings Club
- Vietnam Airlines Lotusmiles
- Qatar Airways Privilege Club
- Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus
- Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles
Each of these transfer at a 1:1 ratio with the exception of Accor Live Limitless (ALL), which transfers at a 1.5:1 ratio. Rove now requires a minimum transfer of 2,000 miles, but you can transfer in increments of 100 miles after satisfying that minimum.
Best Rove transfer partners
We see some common favorites in Rove's list of transfer partners, including Flying Blue and Avios (from both Finnair and Qatar Airways). Both of these programs offer excellent redemption rates on award flights, and with partnerships with all the other major flexible currencies, it makes them easy to earn.
But we also see some unusual options, including several that have no other U.S. partner, such as Air India, Hainan Airlines, and Vietnam Airlines. And while airlines such as Air India may not be at the front of your mind for bookings, they should be.
Here's an example of a one-way United Airlines flight from Ontario, California (ONT) to San Francisco (SFO), booked through Air India.
Air India will charge you just 3,500 points for this flight. Meanwhile, United Airlines MileagePlus is charging 5,000 miles for the same exact flight.
If you were to try and book with another common favorite, Air Canada Aeroplan, you'd pay 10,000 points each way.
Other Ways to Redeem Rove Miles
Rove miles can be redeemed for travel either within Rove's travel portal or via transfers to its partners. Within the portal, you'll see a variable value for your points — and wow, do those values vary.
Hotels
Here's an example of a one-night stay in New York City next year. To the right of the cost in cash, you'll see how many Rove Miles you'll need to spend for a night at the hotel.
Sorting by the value of cents per mile shows us that, at best, you'll be getting 4.07 cents in value. That's pretty significant, and it blows out of the water its closest competition, including Chase's new Points Boost feature with offers premium cardholders up to 2 cents per point.
But just under the 4.07 cent option, you'll see that the value drops to 2.50 cents, and then to 2.49 cents. That's far less, but still way above anything you'll find elsewhere.
Flights
Rove has a nifty flight search tool built into its platform, allowing you to search for flights in a variety of ways, including the ability to search from your home airport to anywhere (much akin to Google Flight's Explore feature).
When you do conduct a search, Rove has a unique way of presenting its results. It'll show you all available flights to a destination and will differentiate them according to whether you'll be booking within Rove's travel portal (direct booking) or with an airline partner (transfer booking). You'll also be able to see how good of a value you'll be getting from your points.
There are some limitations to the search tool, however. Much like Bilt and Amex (in partnership with Point.me), Rove is only going to show you transfer booking options for the award currencies it supports. That makes sense, but it does mean that you may end up paying more in miles if you don't know any better.
Here's an example of a one-way flight from San Diego (SAN) to Washington, D.C. (IAD). On Rove's tool, it shows that you'll need to spend 28,000 Etihad Guest miles for this American Airlines flight.
But on American's own site, you can find the same flight for just 14,500 miles:
Of course, that's how it goes with award programs and flexible point currencies, and it's a big reason why earning points from as many partners as possible is important (although American Airlines doesn't partner with any major currencies).
Just keep in mind that Rove's search tool is limited to its transfer partners when it comes to transfer bookings. The same limitation isn't the case for cash bookings: You'll be able to find all available flights on Rove's platform.
Is Rove Worth It?
This all sounds great in theory, where you end up earning a lot of miles and redeeming them for a better value than you'll find elsewhere, but does this hold up in truth? There are a few things you want to keep in mind before booking with Rove:
- Rove is a third-party provider, which means you won't get hotel elite benefits or credits when using the platform.
- Flights still earn elite credit, and elite benefits still apply.
- Before online shopping, it's worth comparing earning rates with a site like Cashback Monitor to ensure you get the most rewards.
The biggest blow here is the lack of elite benefits when booking hotels. But with advertised returns of up to 25x per $1 spent (or 62.7X in examples I found), it can absolutely be worth it. And to make sure that you're not just paying an increased price for these miles (essentially buying miles, like with AAdvantage Hotels and Rocketmiles), we took a look at pricing elsewhere.
Here's an example of a one-night stay at the Monumental Hotel Orlando available via Rove's platform for $119.10 all-in (or 5,000 Rove Miles):
Compare that to the same booking directly on the hotel's website:
It's the same price, but via Rove you're earning 4,262 miles on your booking. That's more than enough for a one-way domestic United flight booked via Air India. And that's before you take into account the rewards you'll earn with your credit card.
Rove notes that their bookings code as lodging, so you'll want to use a card such as the Citi Strata Premier® Card to pay, which earns 3x Citi ThankYou points per $1 spent on hotels.
- Earn 60,000 bonus ThankYou® Points after spending $4,000 in the first 3 months of account opening, redeemable for $600 in gift cards or travel rewards at thankyou.com.
- Earn 10 Points per $1 spent on Hotels, Car Rentals, and Attractions booked on CitiTravel.com.
- Earn 3 Points per $1 on Air Travel and Other Hotel Purchases, at Restaurants, Supermarkets, Gas and EV Charging Stations.
- Earn 1 Point per $1 spent on all other purchases.
- $100 Annual Hotel Benefit: Once per calendar year, enjoy $100 off a single hotel stay of $500 or more (excluding taxes and fees) when booked through CitiTravel.com. Benefit applied instantly at time of booking.
- No expiration and no limit to the amount of points you can earn with this card.
- No Foreign Transaction Fees on purchases.
- 10X on Hotels, Car Rentals, and Attractions booked through CitiTravel.com
- 3X – Earn 3 Points per $1 spent on Air Travel and Other Hotel Purchases
- 3X – Earn 3 Points per $1 spent on Restaurants
- 3X – Earn 3 Points per $1 spent on Supermarkets
- 3X – Earn 3 Points per $1 spent on Gas and EV Charging Stations
- 1X – Earn 1 Point per $1 spent on All Other Purchases
Bottom Line
Rove is a new and flashy transferable point currency offering big rewards on your spending. With no ties to a credit card, it makes earning flexible points accessible to more travelers. However, before booking, be sure to do the math and make sure that the miles you're earning outweigh any loss in benefits from hotels.
For rates and fees of the cards mentioned in this post, please visit the following links: Citi Strata Premier® Card (Rates & Fees)
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