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PointsYeah Award Search Review: A Great Tool for Points Collectors
With both a free and paid version and the ability to search for airline and hotel award availability, PointsYeah is one of the most valuable award-search tools out there.
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Craig Joseph is a NerdWallet credit cards and travel rewards expert. He has degrees in geology from West Virginia University and oceanography from Oregon State University and has published in academic journals, newspapers and blogs. Craig is passionate about personal finance and wants to enhance the financial literacy of everyone he meets. He'll probably also try to convince you why rocks are cool.
Claire Tsosie is a managing editor for the Travel Rewards team at NerdWallet. She started her career on the credit cards team as a writer, then worked as an editor on New Markets. Her work has been featured by Forbes, USA Today and The Associated Press.
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Credit card spending is the most efficient way to earn a stash of miles and points. But figuring out ways to redeem those rewards can be a chore.
PointsYeah, a travel planning and award search engine, aims to make things easier. It’s my go-to tool for finding ways to redeem airline miles. Recently, it also added the ability to search for hotel awards.
The user interface is straightforward, and you can set alerts to get notified when specific award space becomes available. For people with open-ended wanderlust, the “Daydream Explorer” tool lets you find award availability without setting an exact destination.
There are both free and paid versions of PointsYeah. According to the company, the free version offers 80% of the functionality of the $99.99 per year premium version, which provides multi-day and multi-airport search capabilities and the ability to set more alerts. If you only need to find award availability for one trip, PointsYeah also offers a monthly subscription for $11.99 per month.
While the premium version is cheaper than competitor award search tool Point.me ($129 annually), PointsYeah has access to the award availability from fewer airlines. Additionally, PointsYeah lacks the ability to search for very specific award availability, such as Singapore Airlines Suites or Qatar QSuites — you'll need to use a tool like Seats.aero for that.
You’ll need to create a login to access both the free and paid version of PointsYeah. Here's an overview of some of the differences between PointsYeah Basic and PointsYeah Premium:
PointsYeah Basic
PointsYeah Premium
Annual cost
$0.
$99.99.
Number of airline programs
21.
21.
Number of hotel programs
6.
6.
Number of bank programs
6.
6.
Search capabilities
Unlimited four day one-way searches.
Unlimited four day round-trip searches.
Unlimited four day multi-city searches.
Four active flight price alerts.
Four active hotel price alerts.
Access to Daydream Explorer.
Unlimited eight day one-way searches.
Unlimited eight day round-trip searches.
Unlimited eight day multi-city searches.
32 active flight price alerts.
15 active hotel price alerts.
Access to Daydream Explorer.
Both the free and paid versions offer access to the same number of airline and hotel loyalty programs. However, PointsYeah Premium can search over an eight-day window versus four days with the free version; complete multi-airport searches; and let you set more flights and hotel price alerts.
Airline programs included in PointsYeah Airline programs included in PointsYeah
Aerolineas Argentinas.
Aeromexico Rewards.
Air Canada Aeroplan.
Air France / KLM Flying Blue.
Alaska Atmos Rewards.
American Airlines AAdvantage.
Avianca Lifemiles.
Delta SkyMiles.
Emirates Skywards.
Ethiad Guest.
Frontier Airlines.
Iberia Plus.
Jetblue True Blue.
Qantas Frequent Flyer.
SAS Eurobonus.
Spirit Airlines Miles.
TAP Miles&Go.
Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles.
United Airlines MileagePlus.
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club.
Virgin Australia Velocity.
Hotel programs included in PointsYeah Hotel programs included in PointsYeah
Choice Privileges.
Hilton Honors.
Marriott Bonvoy.
World of Hyatt.
Wyndham Rewards.
Transferable bank programs included in PointsYeah Transferable bank programs included in PointsYeah
American Express Membership Rewards.
Bilt Rewards.
Capital One Miles.
Chase Ultimate Rewards.
Citi ThankYou Points.
Wells Fargo Rewards.
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Award search tools are most useful for people with transferable points or a stash of miles spread across different loyalty programs. Simply find award availability with the search tool, then book your travel directly through the airline or hotel website. If you only have rewards with one loyalty program, such as United Airlines, you’d probably be better off using the airline or hotel website to search for award availability.
How to search for award flights with PointsYeah
The PointsYeah user interface is similar to an online travel agency like Kayak or Priceline. Users select their travel dates, destination and which airline or bank points to redeem. If you have transferable points like Chase Ultimate Rewards® or AmEx Membership Rewards, PointsYeah will search all eligible transfer partners for those programs. If you’re looking for extra value from your miles, you can even limit your search to bank programs that are offering a transfer promotion.
The website takes about 20 seconds to display search results. Once the search is complete, you can filter by cabin type, number of stops and the maximum number of points you want to spend or fees and taxes you want to pay.
If you’re looking for business or first class seats on a multi-leg itinerary, the search tool will often return mixed-cabin results, where one flight may be in economy and another flight in the premium cabin. If you only want premium cabin tickets, it’s as easy as filtering the “premium cabin percent” to 100.
What PointsYeah does well
Easy to compare cash and points rates
A feature I really like is the ability to see the cash price next to the redemption cost. In the example below from Newark (EWR) to Dublin (DUB), PointsYeah found 3,737 flight options. Of those, 74 are nonstop flights. The cheapest option is to use 22,500 Alaska Atmos Rewards points (which can be transferred from Bilt Rewards) to fly on Alaska's partner airline Aer Lingus, which otherwise would cost $730. With this redemption, you’d effectively get a value of 3.2 cents per mile. Clicking on either the “cash price” or the “mile price” will take you directly to the airline’s website.
Unlike some other award search tools, PointsYeah allows you to search for hotel award space. Simply enter your travel details and dates and select the loyalty program and parameters you want. Results can be shown in either list or map view.
NerdWallet's ratings are determined by our editorial team. The scoring formula takes into account the type of card being reviewed (such as cash back, travel or balance transfer) and the card's rates, fees, rewards and other features.
NerdWallet's ratings are determined by our editorial team. The scoring formula takes into account the type of card being reviewed (such as cash back, travel or balance transfer) and the card's rates, fees, rewards and other features.
NerdWallet's ratings are determined by our editorial team. The scoring formula takes into account the type of card being reviewed (such as cash back, travel or balance transfer) and the card's rates, fees, rewards and other features.
NerdWallet's ratings are determined by our editorial team. The scoring formula takes into account the type of card being reviewed (such as cash back, travel or balance transfer) and the card's rates, fees, rewards and other features.
Got the travel bug but not sure where you want to go? The Daydream Explorer feature lets you select up to three airports, continents, regions or countries at a time. You can even choose “anywhere” as a destination, or select an activity like scuba diving, skiing or golf. The tool is available in both the free and paid versions.
In this example, PointsYeah came up with almost 50,000 ideas within our selected dates to go from New York to anywhere, including economy, premium economy and business class flights to Italy, Morocco and Mexico.
Easy alerts
Creating alerts to get notified when award space opens for flights and hotels is easy. The free version of the tool lets you set alerts for specific routes and date ranges on up to four airline and four hotel redemptions at a time. If you need more than four alerts, consider the Premium version, which offers 32 active flight alerts and 15 active hotel alerts.
For more novice travel hackers, PointsYeah offers step-by-step guides on how to link your loyalty accounts and transfer points from all the major credit card rewards programs, including AmEx Membership Rewards, Capital One Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards® and Citi ThankYou points.
Multi-city airlines searches are limited to two flight segments, which could be restrictive if you’re looking for a more detailed itinerary. You also won’t be able to search for airline-specific multi-city benefits, such as the United Excursionist perk, which offers a free one-way flight on a multi-city award ticket.
Phantom award space
Similar to other award search tools, PointsYeah can struggle with showing award seats that appear online but aren’t actually bookable. This “phantom award space” occurs when partner airlines show the wrong inventory, or when award space gets booked and the website doesn’t update in real time. This primarily impacts people who plan to transfer points to a specific airline, so be sure to check the availability with that airline before your transfer.
Should you sign up for PointsYeah?
You should give PointsYeah a try if you have two or more credit cards that earn transferrable points, use multiple airline and hotel loyalty programs, or take at least a couple of trips per year on miles and points.
The free version of PointsYeah is a game-changer among award search tools. The interface is user friendly and searches are very fast. The Daydream Explorer tool can give you new ideas for how to use your miles and points. If you don’t want to learn the nuances of award travel, this is a good way to quickly see what you can do with your rewards.
The premium version of PointsYeah is built primarily for people who want to set up more alerts or search for more complex itineraries. Being able to search for award availability over eight days instead of four can save a lot of time. But before you splurge, give the free version a try, then upgrade if you decide the additional features would be worthwhile.
To view rates and fees of the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card, see this page.
To view rates and fees of the Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card, see this page.
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