from Hacker News

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

by zman0225 on 7/29/24, 12:56 PM with 130 comments

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!

  • by misterbwong on 7/29/24, 5:11 PM

    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.

  • by alex_studer on 7/29/24, 3:00 PM

    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.

  • by 2arrs2ells on 7/29/24, 2:46 PM

    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?

  • by MattGaiser on 7/29/24, 5:31 PM

    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.

  • by davemel37 on 7/29/24, 2:50 PM

    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!

  • by xyst on 7/29/24, 8:22 PM

    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.

  • by debbiedowner on 7/29/24, 7:11 PM

    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?

  • by borski on 7/29/24, 7:08 PM

    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

  • by dc_rog on 7/30/24, 11:52 AM

    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.

  • by mauz on 7/29/24, 9:15 PM

    > 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?

  • by arjvik on 7/29/24, 6:26 PM

    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?

  • by thecleaner on 7/29/24, 5:38 PM

    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.

  • by throw03172019 on 7/29/24, 6:32 PM

    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

  • by jjallen on 7/30/24, 6:30 PM

    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.

  • by digitcatphd on 7/30/24, 11:33 AM

    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?

  • by toomuchtodo on 7/29/24, 5:30 PM

  • by nerdbert on 7/29/24, 11:53 PM

    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.

  • by flippyhead on 7/29/24, 11:17 PM

    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.

  • by asdev on 7/29/24, 3:22 PM

    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/

  • by sanj on 7/29/24, 2:47 PM

    Love the idea!

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

  • by ijustwanttovote on 7/29/24, 9:50 PM

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

  • by lanstein on 7/29/24, 4:00 PM

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

  • by pukka2 on 7/29/24, 10:55 PM

    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.

  • by physhster on 7/29/24, 10:11 PM

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

  • by sireat on 7/29/24, 7:40 PM

    Cool idea!

    Is this product of interest to Europeans?

    It is unclear from the signup page.

  • by nsgoetz on 7/29/24, 4:00 PM

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

  • by lokar on 7/29/24, 11:43 PM

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

  • by tamiral on 7/30/24, 7:58 PM

    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!

  • by galnagli on 7/30/24, 10:30 AM

    Seats.aero is better

  • by ninjastar99 on 7/29/24, 2:56 PM

    Love this! Design is stellar. Very well done!

  • by moneywoes on 7/29/24, 8:24 PM

    can i use this with canadian tax residency

  • by howon92 on 7/29/24, 3:14 PM

    I love the landing page. Great job!

  • by teaearlgraycold on 7/29/24, 4:19 PM

    Google auth didn’t work for me

  • by sdfsdf12 on 7/29/24, 5:12 PM

    Wow I love this!!!!

  • by heyrikin on 7/29/24, 6:11 PM

    Super great idea!

  • by TZubiri on 7/30/24, 5:48 AM

    lol

  • by J7jKW2AAsgXhWm on 7/29/24, 2:30 PM