▲ 192 points

Launch HN: Roame (YC S23) – Flight search engine for your credit card points

by zman0225·2y ago·130 comments·view on hn ↗

Hi HN! We're Tim and Zi from Roame (https://roame.travel). Roame is a flight search engine that lets you find and redeem business class flights using points and miles, rather than exorbitant amounts of cash. Here's a demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fixXuyhofgo We have been flying around the world in first and business class using points for years—Tim for more than a decade and Zi more recently. A little over a year ago, we were trying to find cheap round-trip tickets in first or business class to Asia and back using points. We had tons of points across Chase, American Express, and Citi, but finding a good redemption is always a pain.

We 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!

130 comments

Congrats 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.

Thank 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

I 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.

what have you learnt overtime

This 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.

Thank 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

Congrats 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?

Thanks! 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.

I’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.

Thank 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.

You 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!

Totally 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.

Just curious, what alternatives are there that don't gate search results? I know point.me gates them as well.

Products 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.

Counterpoint: 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.

Could 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?

A list of common competitors:

1. https://www.point.me/

2. https://seats.aero/

3. https://www.awardtool.com/

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

This 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.

> 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?

I 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?

I 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.

I’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

I'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.

When 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?

If 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...

So 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.

I'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.

are 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/

Love the idea!

If a user has entered what points they have, can you limit the results and prices to just that card?

I won't be traveling for a while due to having a young family, but definitely bookmarked.

This backstory seems strange. You definitely would have used seats.aero or point.me if you really know P&M.

Feedback: 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.

I've been subscribed for a while, this is truly a fantastic service.

Cool idea!

Is this product of interest to Europeans?

It is unclear from the signup page.

Does the website take into account the seasonality of certain flight routes?

You seem to show Amex MR -> AA as an option, which I think is wrong

love 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!

Seats.aero is better

Love this! Design is stellar. Very well done!

can i use this with canadian tax residency

I love the landing page. Great job!

Google auth didn’t work for me

Wow I love this!!!!

Super great idea!

lol

Free alternative: https://www.awardhacker.com/