While award search tools are a fairly new addition to the travel landscape, I can’t imagine not using them.
Roame.Travel and similar platforms allow complete novices to find award fares with the skill and efficiency once reserved for the most experienced award travelers, and in a fraction of the time.
In this review, I’ll tell you about Roame.Travel’s features, compare it to PointsYeah (my pick for the best free overall award search tool), and help you determine whether it’s the right one for you.
Roame.Travel’s best feature is its ability to search for award flights within a 60-day window. You can also search multiple airports or regions simultaneously, and set up to five alerts to track changes in availability on your desired routes.
Roame.Travel also has a valuable discovery tool, allowing you to see destinations you can fly to using your award points. For example, you can see all business class award flights leaving a specific city within a set departure window.
How it compares: Roame.Travel searches slightly fewer loyalty programs than PointsYeah (our top-ranked tool), and its discovery tool is more limited. Its main advantages are that it offers a monthly subscription option (as opposed to PointsYeah’s annual subscription) and a 60-day search window (as opposed to PointsYeah’s 8-day window).
Best for: Travelers who have very flexible schedules and are interested in finding specific award flights from their bucket list.
- The free version delivers fast and accurate results.
- The monthly subscription lets you try the paid version without making a long-term commitment.
- You can search by specific airports or entire regions (e.g., Europe).
- With the free plan, you can only search for travel dates one day at a time for flights over 60 days out.
- Features like award alerts and multi-airport search are only available on the paid version.
- Offers limited filters for search results and alerts.
What You Can Do With Roame.Travel’s Free Version
Using the free version of Roame.Travel requires you to sign up with your email address. Once signed in, you can access the award search tool without entering any payment info.
If you’ve used sites like Google Flights or Kayak, Roame.Travel will feel very familiar.
Let’s say you want to travel from Chicago O’Hare Airport to Miami International Airport. In this case, you can enter the details into the search bar, and the site will then show you what loyalty programs have this route available, as well as the number of points required. See the screenshot below for an example.
The free plan searches all of the loyalty programs available on Roame.Travel. Its big limitation is that it can only search one day at a time.
Enabling the “SkyView Lite” feature (see the toggle in the right-hand corner of the image below) — which does not cost extra, but which requires an extra step after you perform a search — allows you to see flights within a 7-day window, but it’s limited to searching only within the next 60 days.
Roame.Travel’s Discover Tool
If you’re new to award travel, it’s easy to think that the luxurious business class awards you see on Instagram are just a few clicks away. But it’s not always that easy.
While business class deals are available, they’re not accessible from every airport and with every loyalty program. Rather, they’re typically available on specific routes and through certain loyalty programs. In travel hacking, we call these “sweet spots.”
Roame.Travel has curated high-value business class awards from many major airports in the U.S. and worldwide, and the platform’s “Discover” tool makes these flights easily viewable.
On the free plan, you can “Discover” available awards 60 days out, while the paid plan allows you to search up to 365 days in advance.
Let’s say you’re near O’Hare Airport in Chicago and you want to see where you can fly business class over next year’s Christmas break.
Roame.Travel will curate all your available options for business and first-class flights that leave during your desired dates (see examples in the screenshot below).
This is ideal for those in the beginning stages of travel planning and who have not yet selected a destination.
Unfortunately, the Discover feature only works for Business Class and First Class travel. It also doesn’t allow you to add filters, such as the number of tickets available, fees, or destination preferences (beach, mountains, etc.) as is possible with some of the alternatives.
Roame.Travel’s Paid Features
My favorite Roame.Travel feature is the ability to search 60-day windows of award availability over the next 365 days.
For example, if I want to go from Chicago to Miami, I can see availability across all award programs for any 60-day period. For instance, if I want to take that trip in the summer, I can search June 1st through July 30th all at once, as early as a year in advance.
In addition to this excellent search capability, I’ve also gotten a lot of value out of alerts.
Loyalty programs sometimes release last-minute award availability. I often book an award flight far in advance, but that may not be the best flight or the cheapest option that will ever become available. By setting up an alert, I can get notified if a better deal becomes available.
For example, on a recent international trip to Costa Rica, alerts helped me switch from an inconvenient red-eye with a layover to a non-stop mid-morning flight that cost 35% fewer points a week before my departure date.
Alerts can also help you find award availability to specific destinations that are hard to come by. For instance, if you want to fly business class to New Zealand, which is rarely available,
alerts can help you snag these flights immediately when they open up.
Loyalty Programs Available on Roame
In total, there are 15 different programs that can be searched on Roame.Travel:
- AeroMexico Club Premier
- Air Canada Aeroplan
- Air France
- Alaska Mileage Plan
- American Airlines AAdvantage
- Avianca Lifemiles
- Delta SkyMiles
- Emirates Skywards
- Jetblue True Blue
- KLM Flying Blue
- Qantas
- Spirit
- United Airlines MileagePlus
- Virgin Atlantic
- Virgin Australia Velocity
The most notable omissions are Southwest, British Airways, Etihad Guest and Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles.
Roame.Travel vs. PointsYeah
Among the paid award search tools I’ve tested — which are PointsYeah, Point.me, Roame.Travel and Seats.aero — PointsYeah is the one I consistently turn to.
There’s a lot to like about Point.Me, but its slower search speed compared to PointsYeah is a drawback. This is because Point.me doesn’t cache results and instead provides real-time searches.
In contrast, PointsYeah and Roame.Travel cache their results, leading to faster but potentially less accurate searches. However, it’s worth noting that I rarely encounter accuracy issues on these platforms.
I do like Seats.Aero, but it’s not great for beginners. Instead of a Google Flights style interface, it’s more like accessing a database with the available award flight routes. It then allows you to set highly-specific alert filters, which is helpful in certain situations (like when trying to book for large groups).
That said, if you’re considering Roame.Travel, the closest alternative is PointsYeah. The table below shows that as of today, PointsYeah does have some advantages.
| Feature | Roame.Travel | PointsYeah |
| Pricing: | Free version available. Paid version is $109.99 annually or $12.99 monthly. | Free version available. Paid version is $89.99 per year, with no monthly option available. |
| Loyalty programs available to search: | 15 | 21 |
| Search window: | Search 1 day at a time on the free plan. Search 60 day-windows on the paid plan. | Search 4 days at a time on the free plan. Search 8-day windows on the paid plan. |
| Number of days out you can search: | 60 days on the free plan. 365 days the paid plan. | 365 days on both the free and paid plans. |
| Alerts: | 0 with the free plan. 5 on the paid plan. | 4 on the free plan. 24 on the paid plan. |
| Discover feature: | Yes, but it’s limited to certain airports and 60 days out. | Yes. It’s available for all airports and can be searched for 365 days out. |
| Hotel searches: | Not available. | Limited capability. |
The Bottom Line on Roame.Travel
While the free version of Roame.Travel is somewhat limited — as you can only search 7-day windows leaving within the next 60 days, or one day at a time if searching further than 60 days out — the paid version is a good option for travelers with a lot of flexibility.
For example, if you’re looking to take a summer trip, Roame.Travel allows you to browse the availability within a two-month window, to and from specific destinations and entire regions.
To perform a 60-day search on PointsYeah, as they have an 8-day search window, you’d have to conduct nine separate searches.
This means you could find business class awards from all over the U.S. to Asia over 60 days. If the flight isn’t available yet, you can set an alert for when a flight does become available under specific parameters, such as the number of miles needed.
This feature is unique in the award search tool space and makes the tool worthwhile for those looking to secure some of their bucket list trips.
For those new to this type of travel planning, our Beginner’s Guide to Travel Hacking and Award Travel can offer tips on leveraging tools like Roame.Travel for maximum benefit. You can also sign up for our free email course below to learn the basics of maximizing your points and miles step-by-step.
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