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Tired of searching flight award inventory for hours on end, only to be disappointed by the results? Let an online tool do all of the heavy lifting for you. Point.me searches dozens of award programs for flight award space on the route of your choosing, all at the click of a button.
I put the website to the test. Here's my full review of Point.me.
Page Contents
What is Point.Me?
Point.me bills itself as “a better way to book with points.” In many ways, this statement is spot on. The website tool takes a few key user inputs and searches for flight awards on more than 100 different airlines. And it does so via more than 30 different frequent flier programs.
Even better, most major transferable points programs are incorporated into Point.me as well. As a hotel loyalty program, Marriott Bonvoy isn't listed but is still supported. And I expect that Wells Fargo will be added once Wells Fargo launches transfer partners.
Point.me Membership Options
Point.me gives award travel searchers a few different membership options — allowing prospective users to purchase temporary access all the way up to a full year at once.
- Standard Plan:
- $12/month or $129/year. That's about a 10% discount to pay by the year instead of by month.
- Get the Standard Plan for just $5 for your first month using Point.me promo code AWARDWALLET.
- Or save 20% off a full year using promo code AWARDWALLET20. That drops a full-year subscription from $129 to $103.
- Premium Plan: $260/year (or $208 with promo code AWARDWALLET20) — includes everything in the standard plan, plus:
- 10% off concierge services
- A personalized call regarding points strategy
- 5 annual starter passes to gift to others
- Starter Pass: $5 for 24-hour access
Free ways to use Point.me
If you have an American Express Membership Rewards-earning card, you can use a scaled-down version of Point.me for free. Eligible Amex cardmembers can search live availability on Amex transfer partners for free after logging in through a special Amex-Point.Me link.
Additional Point.me services
Point.me offers additional award travel services as well. Most of these services start at $200 per passenger. Experienced award travelers might not need such personalized services, but newcomers to the hobby — or others who are looking to outsource these tasks — might be interested.
Full-service bookings, elite status-focused mileage run designs, and points strategy consulting are all advertised services on Point.me. Additional specialized services are available, too.
Step-by-Step Guide to Searching Through Point.me
Before conducting a search, users have the opportunity to personalize their Point.me experience. Users have the option to add credit card and loyalty programs, along with balances in each (optional), to help filter results to only those specific programs.
Next, it's time to conduct a search. As an example, I searched the route from Boston to London in business class for a random date far in the future. This route is one of the few international routes that are flown by a multitude of airlines.
Search results can be ordered in three different ways:
- Quickest Flights
- Points Low to High
- Point.me Picks
Results show up in a very clean, clear way:
Point.me warns users that searches can take as long as two minutes to conduct. In my experience, these searches consistently took about two minutes each, though it could take longer depending on the route searched.
With that said, even if searches took five minutes, Point.me searches far and wide for award space in a much more efficient manner than one individual could do alone.
Once you decide on the program to book through, Point.me still offers more guidance. Click any of the “select deal” options from above brings up step-by-step booking instructions. These instructions not only describe the process but lists each step of the process and then include screenshots of what to expect along the way.
Step-by-step instructions will help first-time award travelers immensely, but they can also be useful for seasoned veterans, too. Even the most experienced travelers might book flights through a new program, in which case a little guidance never hurts.
Note that in the bottom-left corner of the screenshot above, Point.me warns that award availability can change quickly. This is especially important to remember when planning and booking award travel. While a transfer time indicator does show on this screen, AwardWallet keeps track of transfer times too, and with more detail.
Point.Me Features
Apart from the efficiency of Point.me, the tool offers a number of features that stand out that make it even that more appealing.
Transfer bonuses are incorporated
When conducting some sample searches, American Express offered a multitude of transfer bonuses to various programs. Pleasingly, Point.me reflected these transfer bonuses in the corresponding search results. For instance, a 30% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic existed when the below search happened:
Instead of needing to factor in the transfer bonus, users enjoy the seamless incorporation of any existing transfer bonuses into search results. This eliminates the need for users to do any math on the back end, a step with the potential to go awry.
Complete booking options
Not only does Point.me identify flights that are available on points, but also it identifies the long list of possible programs travelers can use to book such flights.
For example, you can book British Airways award flights between Boston and London using AirFrance/KLM Flying Blue or a long list of other programs. Selecting such an award flight result brings up a menu that lists off some of the top options, as well as a button to click to show even more.
Mixed-cabin indicator
Another exemplary feature of Point.me comes in the form of its many indicators. A big plus of what shows in the screenshot below appears in the top-left corner for each option below: a mixed cabin indicator.
Not only does Point.me identify mixed-cabin itineraries, but also it shows the percentage of the journeys spent in a premium cabin. Some frequent flier programs do not identify mixed cabin awards or do not show how much of the journey is in which class of cabin. With Point.me, prospective travelers are not left to wonder about search results. Curiously, these two itineraries involve the same routing, with the transatlantic flight in business and the short hop within Europe in economy, but the percentage premium varies slightly.
QuickLook tool
For those impatient award travelers, who want even quicker search results, Point.me offers their QuickLook tool. Instead of actively searching award space, QuickLook shows what other Point.me users have found in the past seven days of searching. Typically, if QuickLook exists for a particular route, a separate search button appears beneath the standard one. Then, when viewing QuickLook results, the following warning pops up at the top of the results screen:
Regardless of whether it's QuickLook or regular results, users should always be aware that award availability is fickle and can change moment to moment.
Explore opportunities
Points collectors without destination in mind will rejoice thanks to the “Explore” options offered by Point.me. Though an open-ended search tool, the Explore option requires an origin airport and a date or month range for travel to get started. Users may further narrow down results with a preferred cabin and a destination type as well. Results populate accordingly on the screen below, with pictures of each destination to help entice travelers.
While this won't show would-be travelers every possible destination, it will help those struggling for ideas to get some inspiration for future adventures.
Point.me Areas for Improvement
While many features of Point.me stand out as positives, some opportunities for improvement still exist. That's only natural for a tool still undergoing refinement – it would be unrealistic to expect absolute perfection.
No option to search multiple days at once
One of my biggest complaints about Point.me is the lack of multi-day search functionality. Even when searching for a specific date, nearly every major frequent flier program returns results for multiple days. These results may not appear all at once, but the option exists to toggle a day (or a few) in advance or in arrears.
No such functionality exists for Point.me. Adding something like this to the tool would potentially make searches take even longer, but it would still be a nice option to have. Flexibility remains a key factor for award travelers looking to score that ideal redemption. A search option that captures such a flexible schedule would be a nice feature to have. Sure, the Explore function allows for searching months at a time, but results are not tailored to a specific route.
No ability to search multiple origin/destination airports
When I use Google Flights to search for paid flights, I like to include multiple origin and/or destination airports. Again, flexibility only expands flight options for travelers, and that includes airports. Unfortunately, Point.me does not allow users to choose multiple airports when searching for award flights.
Depending on the airline, search results for a specific airport in a metro area with multiple airports will return flight options for all of those airports. For instance, searching from JFK to ORD returns results from a multitude of New York area airports:
While users might appreciate the fact that search results return so many additional airports, others might not. Two major airports could be part of the same metro area, but be on completely opposite sides of that metro area. Plus, while there are filters for airlines, number of stops, times, and programs, no such filter exists for the actual airport results.
Potentially misleading search results
The available routes matched between Point.me search results and search results from corresponding frequent flier programs in nearly all cases I tested.
However, this did not hold true in all cases. In particular, the search results through the Aadvantage program did not always match up to what Point.me showed. When originally searching the Boston to London route, Point.me results indicated only two itineraries existed through American Airlines for under 113,000 points – both with excessive taxes and fees.
However, searching the same route and date on the American Airlines website paints a different picture. Options exist at a lower points cost than 113,000, as well as for much lower taxes and fees.
Admittedly, this route has an overnight layover and requires a full 24 hours of travel from origin to destination. Still, without having searched on the American website, Point.me users would have no idea such a booking option exists.
In any case, a best practice would be to actually search for the award space in question with the particular program in question to replicate results, especially before making any point transfers.
Our Take
Point.me is a game changer for people searching for flight award space. Particularly for those who don’t enjoy conducting searches upon searches, this can be a really useful tool and could potentially save thousands of points for award travelers.
The efficiency of the tool alone makes it a game-changer and well worth its cost. Turning a single, hour-long search for award flights into a five-minute endeavor could be worth the monthly cost of a subscription, depending on how much you value your time. Multiply that time savings by the number of different award searches you do in a month — which could be lots — and the value of Point.me becomes more and more apparent.
Point.me has added functionality since its launch, as well. The Point.me QuickLook tool lets users expedite their searches to an even further extent, and the Explore functionality offers inspiration to those with travel windows in mind, but not necessarily destinations.
Still, the site is not without its faults. Limitations such as single-day searches, single airport searches, and periodic misleading estimations of award taxes and fees hamper the usefulness of this tool.
In my opinion, the pros outweigh the cons; the perfect award search tool may never exist. Those new to award travel, as well as those with plenty of experience, stand to benefit from Point.me. If you decide to sign up, use the Point.me code AWARDWALLET to get the Standard Plan for just $5 for your first month.
Will you be signing up for Point.me?
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