Launch HN: Roame (YC S23) – Flight search engine for your credit card points
192 points by zman0225 11 months ago | 130 commentsWe had flexibility with points currency, destinations, and dates. Our only requirement was securing two round-trip flight redemptions in first or business class on the same flight. This flexibility came at a cost: we spent over 30 hours across two weeks manually searching dates and routes on the websites of 10-20 airline transfer partners.
Ultimately, we did find two Japan Airlines first class tickets from Los Angeles to Tokyo for 70,000 points each, returning to New York for 80,000 points each. These flights typically cost between $20,000 to $30,000 roundtrip in cash, but using points, we effectively paid only ~$2,000.
The first class experience was unforgettable, but we didn't want to repeat the tedious search process. So, we decided to build a tool to save time in the future.
I know all this about points might sound a bit like magic, but booking cheap business class flights using points is achievable for the average person. Here's how it works: Credit card sign-up offers range from 50,000 to 150,000 points. These points are either tied to credit card currencies (Chase Ultimate Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards) or specific airlines (Delta Skymiles, United MileagePlus). The most valuable and versatile points are tied to credit card currencies because they can be transferred to various travel partners. This flexibility allows you to choose the best value before transferring points. If you only have points with one airline program, you're limited to their redemptions.
While most people redeem their credit card points through the Chase or American Express travel portals at about 1-1.5 cents per point, transferring to an airline partner can yield 3-8 cents per point for business class or 12-20 cents per point for first class.
The best value for points often comes from non-US airlines like Air Canada, Air France/KLM, Avianca, and British Airways. For example, you can redeem 50,000 points for an Air France business class flight from San Francisco to Paris, which would otherwise cost around $4,000. That's an 8 cents per point value, significantly higher than using the credit card travel portal.
However, the challenges are: 1) most people don't know their credit card points can transfer to airline partners, 2) they don't consider non-US airlines, and 3) manually searching each airline website is time-consuming.
Our tool simplifies this process: Enter your origin airport, destination airport, date, fare class, and number of travelers. After you click search, our tool searches up to 16 different airline loyalty programs in real time and displays the results, including flight information, points cost, and redemption instructions.
The real-time search is free and offers access to 60 days of SkyView, a cached database of the top 6,500 most popular routes categorized by regions (state, country, continent) across two months. The paid version extends access to the full 365 calendar and allows searches up to two months at a time, with email alerts. SkyView is perfect for showing you what is currently available or was previously possible for all your award redemption needs.
We're continuously adding more features and would love to hear your ideas, experiences, and feedback! Thank you in advance!
- misterbwong 11 months agoCongrats on the launch! Been using your free product for a little while. As a fellow traffic hacker, some random comments:
- I've been in the points game for a long time so I may not be your target customer. Take feedback with a grain of salt, I guess. - Commissions & Trust: You should disclose (more clearly?) that you're getting commissions from the CC signups and, ideally, that those may not be the best offers available. (ex as of this comment, referrals are paying 90K to sign up whereas your link is at 60K-an almost $300 difference). I understand this is a huge revenue driver, but that's not an excuse for shilling affiliate links where the user loses out on real, actual money. - Last Refresh: Would be nice to know when the last refresh was. I've clicked a few times for available seats and found that the airline did not actually have the flights available. As a user, this erodes trust in your results. - Slider: Points min/max slider interface isn't great but honestly I can't think of an alternative. 1 AA point is not the same as 1 Asiana point. - Program coverage: Your tool coverage seems similar to the other cached searching tools (Seats.aero, award logic, etc) but, honestly, needs improvement. Most airlines are quickly moving towards releasing more inventory to their own members, so coverage is much more important now than it was two years ago. As an example, Singapore Air very rarely releases ex-US business class awards to partners but releases them much more reliably to their own members. - Alerts: I understand this is part of "SkyView" but you should make it more prominent and clearly marketed. Alerts are *super duper useful* and give your product direct, permissioned access to a user's email and/or SMS that they actually want! This is what differentiates you from Point.me and the airline searches and also what gave ExpertFlyer its edge for so long. My guess is making it more prominent will drive more subscribers.- timqin 11 months agoThank you! Love more feedback, especially from travel hackers.
1) You're right. We have Advertiser Disclosures on all other pages, but will make the disclosures more prominent. Going to push out a change today/tomorrow. Affiliate commissions are not a big revenue driver right now.
2) We're working on a new design so the last refresh is more prominent. Currently, you'll be able to see the "Update ## ago" when you either expand the flight details or click into the full flight details page.
If are using the Roame live search, then it should be the instant you search. Please let me know if you are running into issues with live search results not showing up on the airline website.
If you are using SkyView or Discover cached search, we pull results and save them up to 4 days or so. This is to help users plan and search broadly across regions and dates.
3) Agreed. We try to simplify the UI for points beginners. Thought it would be too confusing to try to estimate AA vs. Asiana vs. United, etc. The value of the points would also depend on which fare class and route you want to take. If you someone only wanted to fly US to Japan in JAL, then AA miles would be gold. But if someone wanted to fly US to Paris, then Air France/Flying Blue miles would be gold even though they are easy to earn because all the CC points transfer to Air France.
4) We're working on adding more loyalty program coverage. Our free tool is in real-time though, so slightly different than the cached tools. We do have a cached tool called SkyView.
5) This is good feedback. Will to work on promoting the ability to set alerts more.
Thank you for the detailed feedback! Please let me know if you see anything else you think would be helpful
- arcticbull 11 months ago> 4) We're working on adding more loyalty program coverage. Our free tool is in real-time though, so slightly different than the cached tools. We do have a cached tool called SkyView.
Many loyalty programs are very prickly about scraping. Are you planning direct integrations, or are you just going to go head-to-head with Akamai's anti-botting tech?
- timqin 11 months agoGood question. Can't get into our secret sauce on a public forum, but can say we are working on addressing those limitations
- timqin 11 months ago
- arcticbull 11 months ago
- nharada 11 months agoI tried this product recently and "Last Refresh" was a big pain point. I'm sure there's technical reasons why it's hard to keep things fresh (many airlines don't even appear to update their own listings until you try and book) but it was frustrating to find what looked like good deals and then spend the effort to book only to be told it wasn't an existing offer.
- timqin 11 months agoWe need to do a better job distinguishing the two.
May I ask, are using the live search or SkyView cached search?
If you are using the live search (SkyView toggled off), all results are in real-time as you search.
If you are using SkyView cached search (SkyView toggled on), results are saved up to 4 days, but you can search 60 days at a time from 1 airport to all of Europe's airports.
- timqin 11 months ago
- moneywoes 11 months agowhat have you learnt overtime
- timqin 11 months agoThe biggest lesson is that design and UX is everything for a consumer product in a new category. There is already a lot of education needed with points redemptions, so any small changes to the design including just the color or placement of text, can have a big impact on the user experience.
We get a ton of support tickets when we move something around or make small tweaks to functionality
- misterbwong 11 months agoEdit: not sure if your comment was meant for me or timqin. Leaving it up just for general awareness
General tips:
My general strategy for a (US based) newbie is:- Never carry a balance, ever. If you do, forget about playing this game because it'll cost you more than you gain. Pay off your CC debt first. - There are many blogs/sites that push "their" link over ones that pay more to the user because they get paid a hefty affiliate fee. Be wary. - Have a goal in mind before you accrue points so you can be more strategic about accruing. I recommend starting with a list of all the trips you'd like to take in the next two years and using that to frame what points you will need to accrue. Don't forget hotels as the cost of hotels can easily outweigh the cost of flights. - Figure out how much work you want to put in. There are levels to the game-the deeper you go, the more work it will be. It will also get that much more rewarding - Prioritize transferable currencies (UR, MR, Cap1, TYP, etc) because devaluations happen often and transferrable currencies help insulate a bit. - Try to get your partner on board if at all possible, having a second (third, fourth, etc...) player (P2-P100+) is a scaling super power - Keep in mind the "burning" side of the equation and use them often. Points and miles are worthless bits of made up paper dressed up as currency and subject to the whims of corporations that don't have your best interests in mind. Treat them as such.
It can get a bit difficult as the minimum spend requirements can be high. There are many strategies out on the web that can help with this.1. Read above, create a strategy and an ordered list of cards 2. Sign up for the credit cards and put all your organic spend on those credit cards to meet spend. 3. Repeat 1 & 2 after meeting spend and gaining sign up bonus 4. If you have another player available, switch between players every time you meet the spend and get the bonus to lower your velocity and appear "safer" 5. You might also want to get a (minimum) 2% everywhere card for everything you can't put on the new cards.For a couple using this strategy, you'll be averaging ~2 new CC's per person per year (which is very safe) and earning ~7-10ish percent back on most spend. After a year or so of doing this, you should have enough for a vacation or two.
- Beijinger 11 months agoThanks, great info.
I never accrued points wiht my CC. Is it really worth it compared to 1-2% cash back? I just collected by flying. You have to ask yourself: What do I want to achieve?
1. Fly free with points
2. Have gold status and access to the lounge, more luggage, faster check-in
1 is hard. It basically makes only sense if you really fly a lot and your company pays for it. 2 is easier, IF you chose the right airlines to collect points. This is a science but take this as a start: https://www.wheretocredit.com/
At one time I had all three alliances gold elite status (or equivalent). But I flew very little for free or discounted with points.
It always depends on your situation. But I had Turkish (Star Alliance) gold. And if I flew via Asia to Europe with Ethiopian Airlines via Addis Ababa (with nice stay overs), TK shitted me with points.
- Beijinger 11 months ago
- timqin 11 months ago
- timqin 11 months ago
- alex_studer 11 months agoThis seems like a cool idea! Some random feedback from using the website:
* I'm not really sure I understood what SkyView is? It seems like you need to enable that to book round-trip flights, and you have to pay for it? But then there's also SkyView Lite?? And that's free but needs an account? Is there no way to book round-trip without paying?
* Maybe ask people what cards they have on the homepage? I found it confusing that it suggested flights with points programs I didn't have, and didn't realize you could filter it at first.
* I don't think I fully understood the difference between this and just using my credit card's travel portal to book flights. Is it that you can compare multiple rewards programs at once? Or the idea that you can earn more value per point by transferring them? Maybe it would be good to clarify that on the homepage, because right now it just feels like a generic "book with points" search engine?
* Is there a way to allow discovering deals in any destination? (So rather than choosing a fixed destination, let it be open to any destination, and then plan a trip somewhere where you can get a good deal on a flight, if that makes sense?)
* On mobile, the filter popup is blocked by the "Log In/Sign Up" buttons on the bottom of the screen. Also on the homepage, the "Create an account" notification appears on top of the expanded hamburger.
- timqin 11 months agoThank you! Always open to feedback.
1) You're right. We have been working on how to best present SkyView to users. Skyview is our cached search product, which lets users search up to 60 days at a time, search from region-to-region, and set alerts.
SkyView Lite is free "intro" version of SkyView, where free users with an account can search the upcoming 60 days of departing flights and search 7 days at a time. Wanted to let free users try it out before upgrading.
We currently do not support roundtrip because often times the lowest-priced points deals are found on different airline programs. With points redemptions 2 one-way flights are the same price as 1 roundtrip. (There are some exceptions like booking on ANA directly, which requires you to search roundtrip). You can open up a second tab to search the different directions though.
2) Totally understand. It was one of the debates we had. We were trying to balance showing users all the live points results out there so they can make their own decisions on whether to get new cards. We find that a lot of users may have one set of points that are not as useful or easy to redeem. They realize that perhaps they should consider another credit card for better access to deals.
We are planning to roll out a saved card programs feature, so you can just turn on to automatically filter.
3) So when you redeem on the Chase or Amex portal, your points are only worth at a set value of 1-1.5 cents per point (cpp) depending on your credit car program and they're all pegged to directly to the cash fare.
Let's use this example:
New York to Paris on Air France business class would cost around $4,000 in cash.
If you were to redeem on the Amex portal, that flight would costs 400,000 Amex points ($4,000 * 100 cents per dollar / 1 cent per point).
However, if you were to use Air France Flying Blue miles and redeem on the Air France website, the flight could be as low as 50,000 points. At 50,000 points you points would be worth 8 cents per point ($4,000 * 100 cents per dollar / 50,000 points). *Amex points can transfer to Air France Flying Blue at a 1:1 ratio.
So you're getting 1 cpp on the Amex portal, but 8 cpp on the Air France website directly. That's a big value increase.
Roame shows all the live availability if you were to redeem your points on the airline directly using their miles. So we would show the flight in the example above with the 50,000 points price.
4) Yes! We have a Discover feature where you can select your city and dates. You will see the cached flight deals from your origin city. We're still rolling this out, so the origin cities are limited right now.
5) Mhmm. Let me take a look at that. Thanks for letting me know
- timqin 11 months ago
- 2arrs2ells 11 months agoCongrats on the launch! Curious how you fit into the landscape of award travel tolls like point.me and seats.aero. What are you doing differently & who’s your target user?
- timqin 11 months agoThanks! In our view, the more tools, the better to help educate and bring more people into the points world.
We're focused on the beginner points user and helping them through the learning curve of points. Want people to use our engine to book their first ever business class flight.
In terms of product, we provide 365 days of free real-time search across all the loyalty programs we cover and any fare class.
- timr 11 months agoHow are you going to deal with the fact that airlines don't want more people in the points world? (Or at least, they don't want people finding inexpensive redemptions, which cost them money.)
The fundamental reason that it's hard to find cheap redemptions is that the economic incentives are aligned against cheap redemptions existing in the first place. Airlines want the revenue stream from points to be as high as possible, and the redemption rate to be as low as possible.
- timqin 11 months agoSo this is an interesting question because there isn't a clear cut answer. The airline industry is fragmented globally, there are tons of national carriers. And each airline team has different incentives.
Airlines, especially US airlines are making billions of dollars a year by selling points to credit card companies. So in theory, they actually want as many people in the world of points as possible because they a consistent high margin revenue from credit card companies.
I believe the real difference between airlines is how they balance loyalty redemptions vs. revenue sales. Airlines full control the pricing of the points redemptions, but they have to balance pricing with capacity and fixed costs. If the flight is only 50% full, then that points redemption is going to help amortize the large fixed costs of operating that half empty flight. So having a bargain points redemption rate, would look attractive.
Now, if that flight is 90% full, then the airline may not offer seats to redeem with points or raise the price to something extremely high like 200,000 points.
- borski 11 months agoThe long term answer to this is easy: the airlines (really just Air Canada, and that will set a precedent) will lose this battle.
They will devalue points, change award charts, play the stupid cat and mouse game of trying to prevent scraping, but they will lose.
Even Southwest is giving up; they’re switching to assigned seats after many decades, because no amount of trying to prevent bots from checking you in has worked, long term, and checking in exactly at the minute and getting a C group number is infuriating. This isn’t a Taylor Swift concert; it’s a goddamn flight to JFK, lol.
- timqin 11 months ago
- timr 11 months ago
- timqin 11 months ago
- MattGaiser 11 months agoI’m a pro subscriber already. Very nice product.
However, do you have a strategy to at least mollify the airlines?
As the reason I am a Roame subscriber is that:
1: Air Canada brought the hammer down on one of your predecessors.
2. Air Canada implemented a bunch of anti scraping tech, breaking my custom version of this tool and it’s been easier to pay for yours.
The last few attempts at this caused enormous problems for Air Canada and eliminated a lot of desirable Aeroplan space, so I can easily see AC being upset again.
- timqin 11 months agoThank you!
We believe that we are ultimately beneficial to the airlines because we increase the value of points and bring airlines, especially non-US airlines more US customers.
When more people find good redemptions for their points, they value their points more, and in turn will be more likely spend money using points earning cards.
Airlines benefit by selling billions of dollars worth of points a year to credit card companies.
- timqin 11 months ago
- davemel37 11 months agoYou lost me at requiring registering an account to see flight availability. You need to give some value before asking for my contact info. Too many free alternatives exist that don't gate their search results.
If your premium features are worth it - I'll register. If you want my info - maybe capture it with an offer for an alert after I do my initial query.
------------ In terms of feedback on the broader platform and idea - I think you may be confusing two different audiences. Travel hackers and average reward consumers are different consumers - Your messaging "free flights using points" and attempt to monetize with credit card offers are targeting average consumers - but your search engine and the headache/problem you are trying to solve is really a travel hacker problem - and honestly - its not really a problem - I kinda Enjoy The Hunt!
- timqin 11 months agoTotally understand. I believe you should be able to access the full real-time results without an account. You can search any date, route, and fare class. Please let me know if the live search is not working for you.
For SkyView Lite, SkyView and Discover, those are the pro features and require an account.
Love the feedback! So yes, there is an inherent tension between travel hackers and the average consumer with points. We are hoping to bridge that gap and flatten the learning curve for the average consumer.
- gaadd33 11 months agoJust curious, what alternatives are there that don't gate search results? I know point.me gates them as well.
- timqin 11 months ago
- xyst 11 months agoProducts like this only support more wasteful air travel. Not a fan of min-maxing “credit card points” either.
These points programs are funded largely due to various fees imposed on the merchants that are often forced to accept the credit cards.
Note: the airline and “signature” cards often impose “premium” card fees in addition to the bevy of other fees (bank, network, transaction, …) associated with accepting debit/credit cards.
- cheeze 11 months agoCounterpoint: I do like min-maxing credit card points, and I love products like this because I know I want to go on a vacation but don't really care where. So I use something like this and see where I can fly international first class.
Haven't used this tool but I've used point.me a handful of times and have had success doing so. Nothing but positives from my end.
- digging 11 months agoThat's not a counterpoint. The root comment says "this harms others for personal gain," and your rebuttal is "but I gain something".
Just to be clear, playing these ridiculous point games isn't something I'm going to come at you over. It's probably not even the most unethical thing you do, intentionally or otherwise, and I won't pretend I'm living a blameless lifestyle either.
And with that out of the way, yes the entire points system is a huge fucking scam and a leech on our economy. The more you "beat the system" and profit off points, the more you care about rewards programs existing at all. That's why "The Points Guy" lobbies for these programs to not get banned. Those wins aren't a loss for the system, they're costs of advertising.
- shiroiushi 11 months ago>And with that out of the way, yes the entire points system is a huge fucking scam and a leech on our economy. The more you "beat the system" and profit off points, the more you care about rewards programs existing at all.
I disagree. Yes, I see how they're really a scam, but I think the scam isn't quite what you think it is: the companies offering points are hoping that you won't use them. Of course, they know that people will use some of them, and that some people will maximize their use of their points, but the whole thing I think is basically trying to get people to use their card/service, but hoping they won't game the system by using all their points, maximizing their usage, etc.
If everyone stopped using the points they accrued, the companies aren't going to lower their fees and make things cheaper for people. They're already in an oligopoly position and don't need to lower fees. So anything that helps consumers make the most of these points, I think, should help reduce these companies' profits.
If everyone was really skilled at maximizing their points usage, I think the companies would have to stop offering them, or make them less valuable, so until that happens, by maximizing your usage, you're basically profiting off all the other people who are too lazy to do so, and also profiting off the companies offering these ridiculous schemes and hoping you won't use them very effectively.
- shiroiushi 11 months ago
- digging 11 months ago
- jaimex2 11 months agoDon't hate the player, hate the game.
These stupid systems have been around forever and we need to exploit them more if you want to see them gone.
You're already paying the fees, may as well get something out of it.
- sofixa 11 months ago> These stupid systems have been around forever and we need to exploit them more if you want to see them gone.
Or, regulations are need to cap the fees. (cf. the EU)
- sofixa 11 months ago
- timqin 11 months agoI get it where you’re coming from, but points travel could actually make air travel more efficient by helping fill capacity on planes.
Airlines would otherwise be flying planes with more empty seats without points redemptions. And airlines don’t like cutting routes because they will lost out to new competitors (JetBlue is a great example of a new entrant) or will lose their airport slots.
- cheeze 11 months ago
- debbiedowner 11 months agoCould you make an onboarding guide for points?
My impression is if you fly for work, you get a lot of employer sponsored points, so it's interesting.
But if I fly 5-10 trips a year personally, why would I try points when I can get 3-5% cash back on my various cards?
- timqin 11 months agoGreat question. So the corporate travelers actually do not get the most value/benefit from points travel because corporate travelers already fly on business. Flying on business class is just a given. Corporate travelers also do not have as much flexibility with their travel schedule or destinations.
It's really the average consumer who has never flown business class that gets the most value and just 1 credit card bonus offer of 60,000 points can get them that flight. Some sign up offers are 150,000 points or more. To the average consumer, flying on business class is a dream experience.
In terms of math:
When flying on points, you can redeem business class flights at 4-8 cents per point. So if you're earning your points 1.5 cents per dollar (eg. Chase Freedom Unlimited), each dollar you spend can earn you 6%-12% back (1.5 points earned * 4-8 cents per point). You can redeem first class for even more at 12-20 cents per point.
This is just the low end. You also have category multipliers like 3X points earned on travel or 5X points on flights with some cards.
The problem is that these saver fare business and first class flights using points are hard to find and can take a lot of time. So Roame is stepping in to make it easier.
We have a guide on valuing points: https://roame.travel/guides/cents-per-point-calculations
We also have a Points 101 guide for the basics: https://roame.travel/guides/points-101
- abadpoli 11 months ago> corporate travelers actually do not get the most value/benefit from points travel because corporate travelers already fly on business. Flying on business class is just a given.
I’m not sure what your background is, but this seems like a starkly false assumption to me. I’ve worked in multiple industries, including consulting (the one most famously known for frequent corporate travel) and I wouldn’t even come close to saying it’s a “given”. Only very high levels executives or the very elite companies fly their employees business class. In my years and years of weekly travel for consulting, my company paid for business class a grand total of 0 times (I’ve flown business a handful of times, but always upgraded with my own points). My colleague has only flown business paid for by the company once on a particularly long international flight.
I think you’re really shooting yourself in the foot by not paying more attention to corporate travelers. Corporate travelers are by _far_ the most likely to have credit card or loyalty points to spend, but it seems like you’re just brushing them off.
- fwip 11 months ago> To the average consumer, flying on business class is a dream experience.
Is this true? I feel like the "average" person cares a lot more about their destination than the experience of the flight.
Going to Disney World or the Carribean might be a dream experience, but having a bit more legroom and drinks on your flight is way, way down the list.
- borski 11 months agoFor you, maybe.
For my diabetic mother who has really bad legs, or for me who has had back issues his whole life, or for someone who is treated like they deserve to be there in first class instead of being cattle called into a tiny seat with a bag of pretzels for fourteen hours…
Different priorities.
Flying business or first class is not something I do often (I’ve flown a single digit number of times on either, and all but once on points) but when I do the amount of stress that is relieved is actually very significant. It’s hard to understand until you’ve done it.
And it may not matter to you! And that’s also okay.
- timqin 11 months agoI don't have readily available hard data, but flying first or business class is glamorous and an aspirational luxury product. I believe the reason why the average consumer wants to buy luxury goods like Hermes, Chanel, Gucci, etc., is the same reason they would want to experience first and business class.
- borski 11 months ago
- abadpoli 11 months ago
- timqin 11 months ago
- borski 11 months agoA list of common competitors:
4. https://www.pointsyeah.com/
I’d love to know what the real competitive differentiator is between Roame and PointsYeah/AwardTool.
I’ve used every single one of the tools listed above (and others) at various times, including Roame, but I can’t figure out why, in particular, I’d use Roame over the others.
That’s not a dig; it’s a genuine question. I like the UX. :)
[edit] I just want to be really clear: this isn’t a problem only Roame has. I don’t know the difference between PointsYeah and AwardTool either. They both have a similar Google Flights-style UX, return similar results, etc. Neither explains their differentiators well.
Perhaps if Roame did, that might be a differentiator in and of itself! :p
- pradn 11 months agoQuite helpful, thanks!
- pradn 11 months ago
- dc_rog 11 months agoThis is not shade because I like this space, but how did you decide YC/venture path was right for Roame? I see many bootstrapped builders in travel (or have a lower margin business around content/affiliate revenue) and would love to know why you chose to raise venture capital or if you could share your thoughts around this topic.
- timqin 11 months agoNone taken! We're focused on speed and providing the best travel product to our users so they can save time/money. Like PG says, only raise money if it will accelerate your growth.
- timqin 11 months ago
- mauz 11 months ago> While most people redeem their credit card points through the Chase or American Express travel portals at about 1-1.5 cents per point, transferring to an airline partner can yield 3-8 cents per point for business class or 12-20 cents per point for first class.
Are there any indicators on your website of how many cents per point a particular booking would be for?
- timqin 11 months agoWe have that on our list to add! Would require also pulling in the matched cash fares
- timqin 11 months ago
- arjvik 11 months agoI once had a VC tell me they would never fund travel startups, because the only good founder of a travel company is someone who travels regularly, and that would imply they are too distracted to be working on their own company.
Hope this doesn't match what you've experienced?
- borski 11 months agoVCs will say a lot of things when they are not investing. 99% of what they say is nonsense when not investing, because the real factor is “will it make lots of money?” and/or “can it scale to hundreds of millions of people?”
Almost anything else doesn’t matter. Travel a lot? I guarantee you that if your company is running well and printing cash, VCs will not give a second thought to how much you travel.
But if you’re not making money or sales… that’s a different story.
- timqin 11 months agohaha, sounds like the chicken and egg dilemma!
- fakedang 11 months agoI once saw a YC video stating that they hate discovery type startups, calling them tarpit ideas. Yet here we are...
VCs are shiftier turncoats than Benedict Arnold and Judas.
- borski 11 months ago
- thecleaner 11 months agoI am happy simply because this isnt AI this-that. Congrats on the launch, will definitely use as I am someone who frequently forgets that points exist. For me, Qatar or any of the mid-east carriers have been the worst since their websites are awful.
- timqin 11 months agoThank you!
May I ask, where do you typically store your points / where would like you to go? Not sure if you're an expert or more intermediate, but I can offer some general thoughts / tips if you would like.
- thecleaner 11 months agoI signed up for Star Alliance which is typically linked to your user account. Atleast for Qatar airways I've had issues with redeeming because sign-in is not reliable. Most of the time I just don't want to go through the rather tedious sign-in process for most airlines. I've also traveled with JetBlue where I found the process was a lot smoother. Not sure if I am just bad with money / lazy.
- thecleaner 11 months ago
- timqin 11 months ago
- throw03172019 11 months agoI’ve been looking for something like this.
I don’t see many options for Brex points. Are those harder to transfer and take advantage of? Is Brex too new?
Small feedback: Skyview is a very confusing subscription term. Why not Roame Lite/Pro/Enterprise/etc
- timqin 11 months agoHope our tool serves your needs!
So Brex only has 7 airline transfer partners right now, so results where Brex points can transfer to will be limited depending on the routes you are searching for.
Brex's current transfer partners:
1. Air France/KLM Flying Blue - Really good for Europe
2. Aeromexico Club Premier
3. Avianca LifeMiles
4. Cathay Pacific Asia Miles - US to Hong Kong flights are still significantly below 2019 levels.
5. Emirates Skywards
6. Qantas Frequent Flyer
7. Singapore Airlines
- timqin 11 months ago
- jjallen 11 months agoI'm trying to actually find a bookable first class flight that isn't twice as long or more than two stops. (Say ZRH->ATL). All of the flights I have tried mysteriously disappear when I go to United.
How many people have actually booked long haul flights that aren't absolutely terrible (stops/duration) for less than 100k? I am trying to find a single one that actually lets me book it for any date in September. If I have to spend hours manually searching because United makes these magically disappear there is 0 value in this search engine.
- timqin 11 months agoHappy to help here. This is where we get into the complex world of points.
So with United, you're going to have a very hard time finding a first class flight for Zürich to Atlanta route in September. The only possibility is Lufthansa first class with a connection, but Lufthansa doesn't release their first class product to partner Star Alliance airlines (like United) until a few days before departure.
United does not have international first class anymore. SWISS almost never releases their First Class to partners.
You cannot book Air France first class with United because Air France is part of SkyTeam and United is part of Star Alliance.
You cannot book British Airways first class because BA is part of OneWorld. Not that you would want to, British Airways first class usually carries fees around $800-$1,000.
If you are married to just United, then the best tool is the United website award search. Roame shines when you need to search across multiple airline website at the same time.
- jfdjkfdhjds 11 months agoi would pay if the search showed me this type of info (and alternatives!)
- jfdjkfdhjds 11 months ago
- timqin 11 months ago
- digitcatphd 11 months agoWhen I book on Amex Travel, they give me 25% of my points back, but I only use it for economy, is the primary value the bonus in excess of this? If so for business/premium or all flights?
- timqin 11 months agoSo, if you're only booking economy flights, there could be a cash where the 25% points back makes. But we boil it down, Amex offers 1 cent per point and with the 25% back, you get 1.25 cents per point.
1.25 cents per point is decent for economy, but you can often find economy flights for 1.5 cents per point when you transfer to an airline partner (sometimes even higher).
The real delta in value comes from business or first class redemptions where sometimes you can realize 5-8 cents per point for business and 12-20 cents for first class.
From a pure numbers approach, you're usually losing out when redeem points on the credit card travel portals. BUT you get to save time by booking any cash fare availability.
- 11 months ago
- digitcatphd 11 months agoCool. Had no idea about this.
- 11 months ago
- timqin 11 months ago
- toomuchtodo 11 months agoIf credit card rewards affiliate programs sunset, what is your business model?
https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_credit-ca...
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/183...
- timqin 11 months agoRight now card affiliate programs are a really small portion of our business and we make the vast majority of revenue via subscription access to advanced toolset.
Our focus is to help the average consumer book their first business/first class flight. There are a lot of points sitting in everyone's accounts, but most people do not know how to redeem them for the best value.
Some data on the Americans with points: - Seven in ten (71%) people say they have a rewards, points or cashback credit card of some sort (Ipsos May 2024) - In 2018, the McKinsey consulting group estimated the number of unredeemed airline miles sitting in accounts at 30 trillion
- ec109685 11 months agoThat legislation isn’t about referral fees but instead about lowering the commissions on credit card transactions, which would decimate the reward points industry.
- toomuchtodo 11 months agoGreat plan, thanks for sharing, wishing y’all success.
- timqin 11 months agoThank you!
- timqin 11 months ago
- ec109685 11 months ago
- timqin 11 months ago
- nerdbert 11 months agoSo is all this data scraped by creating fake frequent flyer accounts and then making new ones as each one gets banned by the airline? Doesn't seem sustainable in the long term. As soon as it starts to meaningfully impact their ability to do whatever value maximization they have in mind, they are going to clamp down on this activity, right? They could require you to have some actual mileage activity before you can do searches, for example.
- flippyhead 11 months agoI'm excited about this. However, when I attempt to find some of the best-seeming deals, I cannot find them on the airline site. You list a flight from SEA to TYO on 10/16/24, booked via AA that appears to use Alaksa to SFO, then JAL to TYO for 80k points one way. That's great! However, following the links on your site, the lowest point option is 275k points. This is just one example of several I found.
- timqin 11 months agoGot it. I just checked and don't see it on Roame live search.
80K points booked via AA and including JAL leg to Tokyo, sounds like a JAL First Class from SFO to Tokyo saver fare with an Alaska domestic leg thrown in.
If that is the case, it could be that the flight was booked or in someone's cart in between your search and going to the website. Japan routes are extremely popular right now.
Please let me know if you run into this again.
- splonk 11 months agoI had similar issues with SFO-LHR on August 14th, and the issue (probably) was that the result had mixed cabins (business SFO-LAX, economy LAX-LHR), and the airline site (Qantas) didn't obviously display the same result. Probably it would have if I'd finessed the search on Qantas bit more, but I don't think your target novice user would figure it out.
As a side note, I despise seeing mixed cabin results for routes like that when I'm searching for business/first, where it's one hour in business and then 10 hours in economy. As far as I'm concerned that's an economy flight, or "economy mixed" at best. I know this is a standard practice for travel sites, this is just my particular hobbyhorse to rant about when searching for points flights. I'm guessing the "premium" slider somehow is supposed to deal with that since bumping it up removes that route from the search results, but the intended use of that slider is pretty nonobvious to me.
- timqin 11 months agoYea, I've noticed that airlines categorize mixed cabins differently.
Appreciate the feedback. We need to add a tooltip to the premium percentage slider.
- timqin 11 months ago
- splonk 11 months ago
- timqin 11 months ago
- asdev 11 months agoare you working directly with airlines? what are you going to do to avoid situations like this: https://awardwallet.com/blog/air-canada-sues-seats-aero/
- timqin 11 months agoSo we are focused on consumers and helping points beginners. We actually provide tons of value especially to non-US airlines who would like to gain access to the US consumer. Normally, a US consumer would never create an Air Canada loyalty account, but we show them the value.
We are open working with any airline that approaches us on better serving their customers and acquiring new loyalty members.
With regards to the Air Canada lawsuit as someone on the outside, I don't know the reason why Air Canada pursued it.
- pimlottc 11 months agoYou're "open [to] working" with airlines... sounds like all the current data is being scraped without direct agreements, then.
- pimlottc 11 months ago
- smashah 11 months agoIt's imperative for an open internet that Air Canada lose this case.
- timqin 11 months ago
- sanj 11 months agoLove the idea!
If a user has entered what points they have, can you limit the results and prices to just that card?
- throw03172019 11 months agoIt was unclear to me at first but you can filter down by which cards you have.
- timqin 11 months agoThank you for help out
- timqin 11 months ago
- timqin 11 months agoThank you! After you search, you can filter by card program.
- throw03172019 11 months ago
- ijustwanttovote 11 months agoI won't be traveling for a while due to having a young family, but definitely bookmarked.
- timqin 11 months agoLet me know if you have any questions or feedback in the future
- timqin 11 months ago
- lanstein 11 months agoThis backstory seems strange. You definitely would have used seats.aero or point.me if you really know P&M.
- borski 11 months agoRoame has been around for a little while; I’ve used it in conjunction with point.me and pointsyeah.com.
This “launch HN” is really a launch just for HN, it seems; it’s been around a lot longer than today.
- borski 11 months ago
- pukka2 11 months agoFeedback: if I select business/first as my search, please start by listing business/first flights.
As it stood, it started by listing off flights that were like: 85% economy / 15% business.
That's not what I was looking for.
- timqin 11 months agoI get it. So we categorize any mixed fares by the highest class. We do offer a premium percentage filter to sort based on the percentage of the itinerary in business or first class
- timqin 11 months ago
- physhster 11 months agoI've been subscribed for a while, this is truly a fantastic service.
- timqin 11 months agoThank you!
- timqin 11 months ago
- sireat 11 months agoCool idea!
Is this product of interest to Europeans?
It is unclear from the signup page.
- splonk 11 months agoIt seems the search would be useful for Europeans who manage to gather airline points, but that would be much less common in Europe than in the US, due to the lack of credit card awards programs.
- timqin 11 months agoThank you! On the European side, we do support Flying Blue (Air France & KLM), SAS, and Virgin Atlantic loyalty programs.
- splonk 11 months ago
- nsgoetz 11 months agoDoes the website take into account the seasonality of certain flight routes?
- timqin 11 months agoSo Roame only shows your flights that are ready to book for the date you search for. We are pulling live points data from the airlines, so if the flight does not exist during a particular period of time, then Roame would not be able to pull it.
Roame does not hardcode any of the points prices.
- timqin 11 months ago
- lokar 11 months agoYou seem to show Amex MR -> AA as an option, which I think is wrong
- timqin 11 months agommhmm. That shouldn't happen. Could you let me know where you are seeing this? Because I just did a quick search and didn't see that transfer option in the flight details.
- timqin 11 months ago
- tamiral 11 months agolove the release, ive tried roame a couple of tiems, its hard as a non US card holder sometimes to see all those sweet deals roll by. Keep up the good work team!
- 11 months ago
- galnagli 11 months agoSeats.aero is better
- ninjastar99 11 months agoLove this! Design is stellar. Very well done!
- timqin 11 months agoThank you! If you have any questions, please let me know
- timqin 11 months ago
- moneywoes 11 months agocan i use this with canadian tax residency
- timqin 11 months agoI'm not sure about the tax implications of Canadian tax residency, but we do cover Air Canada Aeroplan, so as a Canadian, you would be able to use us for Air Canada.
- timqin 11 months ago
- howon92 11 months agoI love the landing page. Great job!
- timqin 11 months agoThank you!
- timqin 11 months ago
- teaearlgraycold 11 months agoGoogle auth didn’t work for me
- timqin 11 months agoMay I ask what browser / device you are using? I can take a look.
- teaearlgraycold 11 months agoThat would have been Firefox on MacOS
- teaearlgraycold 11 months ago
- timqin 11 months ago
- sdfsdf12 11 months agoWow I love this!!!!
- timqin 11 months agoThank you! If you have any questions or feedback, please let me know
- timqin 11 months ago
- heyrikin 11 months agoSuper great idea!
- timqin 11 months agoThank you! Let me know if you have any questions or feedback
- timqin 11 months ago
- 11 months ago
- TZubiri 11 months agolol
- J7jKW2AAsgXhWm 11 months agoFree alternative: https://www.awardhacker.com/
- timqin 11 months agoGlad you brought up one of the classics!
So the difference between Roame and Awardhacker is that AwardHacker shows you all the theoretical possible redemptions and routes. So even if a route is "theoretically" possible, they may never exist for you to book.
Roame shows the redemptions that are live and bookable now.
- maxverse 11 months agoThis doesn't seem to work for me.
- rmacqueen 11 months agoYea this was more accurate for me too, at least for the one route I checked (NYC-LON)
- sdfsdf12 11 months agoEh this looks kind of sketchy to me lol
- timqin 11 months ago
- careofchildren 11 months ago[flagged]
- aurareturn 11 months ago>how is it positioned with environnemental effects of aviation?
In my opinion, OP should not have to answer this question.
It's the equivalent of asking someone how did you offset the environmental impact of you taking a 5 minute shower instead of a 1 minute one?
- hirako2000 11 months agoAlso felt that but no less value than Groupon.
- aurareturn 11 months ago
- Brechreiz 11 months ago[flagged]
- aurareturn 11 months agoHow does HN deal with troll accounts like Brechreiz? If you look at this user's history, it's all one sentence trolling, baiting, criticizing anyone and anything.
These users are allowed to roam on Reddit. Does HN do permabans for these types of users or does HN simply let downvotes take care of everything?
- Brechreiz 11 months ago[dead]
- Brechreiz 11 months ago
- aurareturn 11 months ago