PointsYeah has quickly become my go-to award travel search tool, saving me countless hours and a significant number of points.
For example, on a recent trip to Costa Rica, my family and I were initially set to depart from Chicago at 5:30 a.m., with a brief stopover in Charlotte before heading to Liberia. However, two weeks prior to our trip, PointsYeah’s alert system found a non-stop route in the mid-morning that shaved off hours of travel time and cost fewer points.
In fact, we were able to switch from paying 19,500 points per ticket to 12,500. While I did pay $250 total in change fees to switch all five of our tickets, we saved 35,000 points and a few hours of travel time.
In this review, I’ll explain why PointsYeah’s free plan is better than many paid alternatives, as well as how I’m using its paid features to save more time and money.
PointsYeah lets you search award flights across 25 loyalty programs for any given 4-day window (on the free plan) or any given 8-day window (on the paid plan), and up to 365 days in advance. It also offers price alerts on both plans (4 on free and 25 on paid), allowing you to track changes in award availability and pricing for specific routes.
Both the free and paid plans also include a discovery tool that allows you to see possible award fares leaving certain airports. You can then use PointsYeah's best-in-class filters to narrow your search and plan the perfect trip according to your points budget.
Verdict: The free version offers plenty of functionality for award searches, and if you’re just planning a single trip, there’s little reason to upgrade. However, the paid plans give you more active alerts, which could justify the subscription fee for frequent travelers.
- Fast and accurate search results across multiple loyalty programs.
- Comprehensive filters, including max flight duration and airline surcharges.
- Price alerts are available on both free and paid plans.
- Free hotel award search feature.
- Alert limits can be reached quickly, because each day and each airport counts as a separate alert. (I.e., searching across eight days and two airports would utilize 16 of the 24 credits on the paid plan.)
- Only offers annual billing (there’s no monthly option to test out paid features).
- Doesn’t search Southwest flights.
What’s Possible with the PointsYeah Free Version?
Once you enter your desired destination to begin your search, the first thing that stands out about PointsYeah is its speed.
Since the results are cached — meaning that PointsYeah runs searches constantly and shows you what they have stored in the backend — the results often populate in 15 seconds or less, even for multi-day and multi-airport searches.
While this is a benefit compared to other sites that search in real time and are thus much slower, it also means that the platform’s results can’t be considered as accurate as award search tools like Point. me, which runs searches on demand.
Despite this, I haven’t yet had a situation where PointsYeah displayed inaccurate results. So it’s been a net positive that the results are cached. (Of course, always check the airline’s loyalty program to confirm price and availability before transferring points.)
Another thing that stands out about PointsYeah is the ability to filter awards. You can narrow results by:
- Arrival airports
- Departure airports
- Connecting airports
- Airline programs
- Aircraft (airplane model)
- Bank programs
- Max flight duration
- Max points
- Max taxes
- Number of stops
- Premium cabin % (Allows you to filter award flights where a significant portion is in business/first class, which is helpful for international flights with layovers.)
- Specific airlines
- Departure time
As someone who flies with young kids, there are certain things I’m not willing to do, such as schedule an exhausting two-stop layover. Furthermore, there are certain things I don’t have, like a lot of AAdvantage miles.
Filters allow me to quickly eliminate options that are not a good fit. While this seems basic, it isn’t something every award tool has.
List of Loyalty Programs on PointsYeah
The list of programs PointsYeah searches are the same whether you’re searching on the free paid or paid plan. These include:
- AeroMexico Club Premier
- Air Canada Aeroplan
- Air France/KLM Flying Blue
- Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan
- American Airlines AAdvantage
- Avianca Lifemiles
- Copa ConnectMiles
- Delta SkyMiles
- Emirates Skywards
- Etihad Guest
- Frontier Airlines Miles
- Iberia Plus Avios
- JetBlue TrueBlue
- Qantas Points
- Spirit Airlines Miles
- SAS EuroBonus
- Tap Miles & Go
- Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles
- United Airlines MileagePlus
- Virgin Australia Velocity
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
Southwest and British Airways Avios are the notable loyalty programs that are missing from that list.
I always check British Airways separately anyway, as I’ve found that most award search tools fail to work reliably with Avios. However, something to keep in mind is that if you find award space on Iberia, there’s a good chance the flight is also available on British Airways, as they share a single currency (Avios).
PointsYeah Daydream Explorer
The PointsYeah free plan also includes access to “Daydream Explorer,” a feature that shows you all the possible destinations you could reach with the amount of points or miles you currently have.
How I like to use this tool is to start very broad, then use the filters to narrow down my searches.
While the award search tool allows you to search from two airports at a time, with Daydream Explorer, you can do things like enter “United States” in the departure field and another broad category, like Asia, in the destination field.
Pro tip: While entering your home airport is a good starting point, a positioning flight to a major airport will give you more options. For example, someone in the northeast might consider entering JFK as their home airport, even though it’s not the closest airport.
Where this tool shines above alternatives is all the filters you can use.
For instance, you could have it look for a beach destination, fly business class, pay less than $500 in fees, fly less than one stop, and not have to pay more than 60,000 points. (See the screenshot below for an example.)
Combining Deal Alerts with Daydream Explorer
PointsYeah has a feature called Deal Alerts (which is separate from Price Alerts). These alerts notify you any time a new deal that fits your criteria pops up in Daydream Explorer.
For example, you can tell the service to alert you any time there’s business-class award to a new beach destination, leaving on specific dates from a particular airport.
Notably, Deal Alerts are free and unlimited on both the free and paid plans.
PointsYeah Hotel Search
PointsYeah’s hotel search is new, and I wouldn’t yet consider it best in class.
While it’s a great starting point for determining which loyalty programs offer options at your potential destination, it lacks key features like the ability to set up alerts or view room types.
For example, if you wanted to use suite upgrade awards from Hyatt, PointsYeah doesn’t tell you if any standard suites are available. This feature is included in the free version of the hotel award search tool MaxMyPoint, although you only get one alert unless you upgrade to the paid plan.
What PointsYeah does allow you to do is see the availability of hotels from the following programs in specific destinations:
- Hotel Programs
- Hilton Honors
- Hyatt World of Hyatt
- Marriott Bonvoy
- Wyndham Rewards
For example, if you plan to visit Kauai, you can go to PointsYeah and see all the awards stays available on the dates given by the above programs, as shown in the screenshot below:
PointsYeah’s Paid Features
At $89.99 per year, the premium version of PointsYeah expands the search window to 8 days and allows for up to 24 active price alerts.
As I mentioned in the introduction, PointsYeah found me a better deal on an existing award flight two weeks before departure, which saved me a lot of time and points. And this was when I was using the free version.
I had a handful of trips planned out over the next year, so I upgraded to the paid plan and now have alerts on every trip I’m set to take.
Our travel dates aren’t the most flexible because we’re limited by our kids’ school schedules. As a result, I haven’t found much use of the expanded eight-day search window. However, people with more flexible schedules would get more value from this benefit.
The biggest benefit to the paid plan has been the alerts. Beyond searching for last-minute award availability, I’ve also found them helpful in discovering when award flights are first released on partner airlines.
Since we know our schedule, I book trips nearly a year in advance. And since airlines often release a very limited amount of award availability to partner airlines at the same time they first release awards (typically 330 days out), I can book this limited award space with partners right when it becomes available.
Overall, while it’s unnecessary to upgrade to the paid version — and I wouldn’t if I was just planning a single trip — it’s been worth it, as a frequent award traveler, to have access to the alerts.
Comparing PointsYeah to Alternatives
The table below highlights key differences between three of the main platforms. You can learn more about how they compare in my list of the best award flight search tools.
| Feature | PointsYeah | Roame.Travel | Point.me |
| Cost: | Free version available. $89.99 per year for premium. | Free version available. $109.99 per year or $12.99 per month. | $12 per month or $129 per year for the standard plan. $260 per year for the premium plan. |
| Loyalty programs searched: | 25 | 15 | 30 |
| Search window (free version): | 4-day window, up to 365 days out. | 7-day window, up to 60 days out. 1-day window for 365 days out. | None. |
| Search window (paid version): | 8-day window, up to 365 days out. | 60-day window, up to 365 days out. | 1-day window, up to 365 days out. |
| Alerts (free version): | 4 | None. | None. |
| Alerts (paid version): | 24 | 5 | None |
| Discovery feature: | Included in both free and paid versions. | Included in both free and paid versions, but limited in free version. | Explore tool available to all users, including those on the free plan. |
| Hotel searches: | Basic search available. | Not available. | Not available. |
| Unique features: | Comprehensive filters, price alerts, hotel search. | Monthly subscription option, 60-day search window in the paid version. | Step-by-step booking instructions, most loyalty programs, real-time results. |
The Bottom Line on PointsYeah
PointsYeah has become my default award search tool and a key tool in my travel hacking toolbelt, thanks to its fast results, comprehensive filters and price alerts.
The free version is so good that, except for a few edge cases, there’s little reason to consider many paid alternatives over PointsYeah.
While some limitations exist — such as the alert limits and a few notable loyalty programs yet to be included — PointsYeah continues to innovate and improve its offering. I’m excited to see how the tool evolves and what new features will be added.
Try the free version and see for yourself how it can help you maximize your points and miles.
I’d love to know what features you find most valuable and what improvements you would like to see. Share your thoughts below.
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