Pointimize is a new award travel search engine. Looks good, can be used for both hotel & flight searches and they also show you the cash price alongside the price in miles/points. Would love to get some reader feedback on this, if anybody tries it out let me know in the comments below. We’re hoping to do some cool things with the data Pointimize collects in the future as well (points valuations, best use of points etc) so stay tuned for that.
SHAME: New York Hotels Denigrate 9/11 in New Political Ad Against Airbnb by View From The Wing. Disgusting ad attack ad and like Gary mentions it doesn’t even make sense given that terrorists have stayed at hotels in the lead up to attacks and that the attacker in Manchester didn’t even use a property listed on AirBnB. Whoever approved this ad and put it together should be ashamed of themselves.
I agree with you on the Primitive Technology guy. I hate clicking on his videos because I end up watching several in a row and spending far more time than I intended.
How does this patreon thing work? I think it’s some type of donation service but I’ve never used it.
You basically pledge to give them a set amount every month/new video they post. Basically just a donation but like I said I find it relaxes me so he can have the money.
Scott75219 (@guest_451256)
August 1, 2017 22:41
#451256
I signed up for Pointmitize to do an award search. It seems that you cannot do a one-way flight award search, so that’s a key functionality weakness.
Abey (@guest_450940)
August 1, 2017 15:13
#450940
Thanks for the articles. I learned a lot and loved the mock draft transcript.
Rich (@guest_450914)
August 1, 2017 14:31
#450914
I just tried the search engine and quickly found a low cost hotel option (3k SPG points a night) I had not already identified for an upcoming trip. I call that a success. The most convenient part was searching each hotel point chain on a sliding scale. I’ll definitely try the site again!
Elmer (@guest_450896)
August 1, 2017 13:56
#450896
Seems people in this hobby pay a lot of money for subscriptions to Expert Flyer and other tools to earn “free” flights. Interesting how often people forget to add in the costs of the MS or the costs of the tools and subscriptions you have to get the “free” travel.
ExpertFlyer and AwardWallet are both reasonably cheap. I could probably do without the paid AwardWallet subscription but I don’t mind supporting an excellent product that I get serious use out of (I literally keep an AwardWallet tab open at all times on Chrome).
But ExpertFlyer is a necessity once you get into the award travel part of the game. I held off for a long time but the “Aircraft Change Alerts,” “Seat Alerts,” and obviously, “Award Availability” is just so good and so easy with ExpertFlyer. After you learn its power, its another tool that you don’t mind supporting in pursuit of “free” travel.
DaWoodMan1 (@guest_450840)
August 1, 2017 12:27
#450840
Another fantastic service that I use that is similar to Pointimize is called TheEarthAwaits.com and it takes the travel planning process up one level back to the CC sign-up selection process.
So for example, lets say you want to go to Hawaii, there are obviously lots of options, but if you are someone who is new to the game, you don’t know where to begin and there is so much information to read and its all overwhelming. I never used TheEarthAwaits.com for this purpose because I was already in the game, but for a newbie, the service (which is totally free BTW, income derived from affiliate sign-ups) will help you decide on a CC to get you where you want to go.
The site goes one step further and can do cost-of-living analyses as well, so it can help you travel to a place via CC but it can also help you to decide if living in a place is feasible. I’ve even combined the two features together to contemplate whether living in a place COMBINED with traveling back home to see friends and family is feasible.
Plus I emailed with the owner of the site and asked him to add in some more places that weren’t originally listed and he did! All of his data is derived from Numbeo which is a database for many cities around the world probably being used by the insurance industry, I’m guessing. I’ve tried to give him some of my CC sign-up business but obviously if a bonus isn’t public then I’m not going to use an affiliate link to an inferior bonus. Also, I don’t work for TheEarthAwaits.com either. The owner’s name is Robert and my name is James and I’m just a bartender/IT Consultant in Las Vegas.
I bartend on the Strip at Planet Hollywood and Tropicana. Previously Carnaval Court at Harrah’s and the Go Pool at Flamingo.
But I’m born and raised in CT and graduated from UConn in ’07 with an MIS business degree. I worked for Ernst & Young back east in CT and NY, NJ, MA, doing IT audit/consulting. But then got laid off and moved to Vegas in ’09. I worked directly for Caesars Entertainment IT from ’11 to ’13 but it was so unprofitable that I went back bartending and just do some consulting work on the side and created “dba Eastwood Consulting” to get some sweet business CCs 😀
DaWoodMan1 (@guest_450827)
August 1, 2017 12:09
#450827
I’ve had great luck with Pointimize and here’s why…
I used to read TPG all the time (they were the blog that started it all for me, but then they got silly, over-affiliated, and not enough attention to detail) and they covered Pointimize over a year ago. Because Pointimize was still in their infancy, they were offering free Diamond Status, upgraded service within the app, to the initial batch of users. So I signed up for it and have been enjoying the best that Pointimize has to offer until the end of 2019! After that I’ll have to pay for the upgraded status and usability, thereof. With my purchases of ExpertFlyer, AwardWallet and other subscriptions, I may forgo paying for the upgraded service of Pointimize but for now, free status is working out great.
I love that Pointimize integrates with AwardWallet so it can check my points balances and that it works with the flexible travel currencies too. For example, even though I have almost no United miles at all, Pointimize knows that I have oodles of UR points so I get United award flight options in my search results. Or for Hyatt for example, I have no Hyatt points but tons of UR points and so Pointimize will give me Hyatt options using UR points. The only thing about the flex currencies is that the CPP ratio is presented in terms of post-transfer miles/points not the originating flexible points so you just have to understand the difference in valuations pre and post-transfer. Pointimize uses TPGs point valuations but you can set your own valuations too.
Additionally, it is very important to understand that Pointimize doesn’t actually search for award AVAILABILITY. You’ll need ExpertFlyer or a hotel website for that. But what Pointimize does is basically compile all of the various Award Charts, Transfer Partners Master List, personal points/miles inventory and even CC hotel elite programs (Amex FHR, Visa Sig./Inf. LHC) into one place and makes it searchable. So for me, if I’m planning a relatively straightforward round-trip, it is a great place to start because I can search Pointimize to find my best value (in terms of fewest cheapest points required OR in terms of highest point value per dollar) and then look on ExpertFlyer for actual availability. And the same goes for hotels. Then I just prioritize my bookings based on best value and availability.
Obviously, once I start planning more complicated itineraries, I’ll have to KISS for Pointimize and break down each leg individually OR just go straight to the TravelisFree award chart and routing rules resources and plan it out that way but in the meantime, for simple itineraries, Pointimize has worked great for me.
I would highly recommend Pointimize as its gotten cleaner, faster and way less buggy than when I first signed up for the service. No I don’t work for them, I’m just a bartender/IT Consultant in Las Vegas.
Mark (@guest_450779)
August 1, 2017 10:58
#450779
Pointimize was awful. A sales pop up before I did anything, and then after it makes me enter all the info it won’t search unless I sign up for an account. No thanks.
I agree with you on the Primitive Technology guy. I hate clicking on his videos because I end up watching several in a row and spending far more time than I intended.
How does this patreon thing work? I think it’s some type of donation service but I’ve never used it.
You basically pledge to give them a set amount every month/new video they post. Basically just a donation but like I said I find it relaxes me so he can have the money.
I signed up for Pointmitize to do an award search. It seems that you cannot do a one-way flight award search, so that’s a key functionality weakness.
Thanks for the articles. I learned a lot and loved the mock draft transcript.
I just tried the search engine and quickly found a low cost hotel option (3k SPG points a night) I had not already identified for an upcoming trip. I call that a success. The most convenient part was searching each hotel point chain on a sliding scale. I’ll definitely try the site again!
Seems people in this hobby pay a lot of money for subscriptions to Expert Flyer and other tools to earn “free” flights. Interesting how often people forget to add in the costs of the MS or the costs of the tools and subscriptions you have to get the “free” travel.
ExpertFlyer and AwardWallet are both reasonably cheap. I could probably do without the paid AwardWallet subscription but I don’t mind supporting an excellent product that I get serious use out of (I literally keep an AwardWallet tab open at all times on Chrome).
But ExpertFlyer is a necessity once you get into the award travel part of the game. I held off for a long time but the “Aircraft Change Alerts,” “Seat Alerts,” and obviously, “Award Availability” is just so good and so easy with ExpertFlyer. After you learn its power, its another tool that you don’t mind supporting in pursuit of “free” travel.
Another fantastic service that I use that is similar to Pointimize is called TheEarthAwaits.com and it takes the travel planning process up one level back to the CC sign-up selection process.
So for example, lets say you want to go to Hawaii, there are obviously lots of options, but if you are someone who is new to the game, you don’t know where to begin and there is so much information to read and its all overwhelming. I never used TheEarthAwaits.com for this purpose because I was already in the game, but for a newbie, the service (which is totally free BTW, income derived from affiliate sign-ups) will help you decide on a CC to get you where you want to go.
The site goes one step further and can do cost-of-living analyses as well, so it can help you travel to a place via CC but it can also help you to decide if living in a place is feasible. I’ve even combined the two features together to contemplate whether living in a place COMBINED with traveling back home to see friends and family is feasible.
Plus I emailed with the owner of the site and asked him to add in some more places that weren’t originally listed and he did! All of his data is derived from Numbeo which is a database for many cities around the world probably being used by the insurance industry, I’m guessing. I’ve tried to give him some of my CC sign-up business but obviously if a bonus isn’t public then I’m not going to use an affiliate link to an inferior bonus. Also, I don’t work for TheEarthAwaits.com either. The owner’s name is Robert and my name is James and I’m just a bartender/IT Consultant in Las Vegas.
on the strip or off? cool u do both bartending and IT consulting.
I bartend on the Strip at Planet Hollywood and Tropicana. Previously Carnaval Court at Harrah’s and the Go Pool at Flamingo.
But I’m born and raised in CT and graduated from UConn in ’07 with an MIS business degree. I worked for Ernst & Young back east in CT and NY, NJ, MA, doing IT audit/consulting. But then got laid off and moved to Vegas in ’09. I worked directly for Caesars Entertainment IT from ’11 to ’13 but it was so unprofitable that I went back bartending and just do some consulting work on the side and created “dba Eastwood Consulting” to get some sweet business CCs 😀
I’ve had great luck with Pointimize and here’s why…
I used to read TPG all the time (they were the blog that started it all for me, but then they got silly, over-affiliated, and not enough attention to detail) and they covered Pointimize over a year ago. Because Pointimize was still in their infancy, they were offering free Diamond Status, upgraded service within the app, to the initial batch of users. So I signed up for it and have been enjoying the best that Pointimize has to offer until the end of 2019! After that I’ll have to pay for the upgraded status and usability, thereof. With my purchases of ExpertFlyer, AwardWallet and other subscriptions, I may forgo paying for the upgraded service of Pointimize but for now, free status is working out great.
I love that Pointimize integrates with AwardWallet so it can check my points balances and that it works with the flexible travel currencies too. For example, even though I have almost no United miles at all, Pointimize knows that I have oodles of UR points so I get United award flight options in my search results. Or for Hyatt for example, I have no Hyatt points but tons of UR points and so Pointimize will give me Hyatt options using UR points. The only thing about the flex currencies is that the CPP ratio is presented in terms of post-transfer miles/points not the originating flexible points so you just have to understand the difference in valuations pre and post-transfer. Pointimize uses TPGs point valuations but you can set your own valuations too.
Additionally, it is very important to understand that Pointimize doesn’t actually search for award AVAILABILITY. You’ll need ExpertFlyer or a hotel website for that. But what Pointimize does is basically compile all of the various Award Charts, Transfer Partners Master List, personal points/miles inventory and even CC hotel elite programs (Amex FHR, Visa Sig./Inf. LHC) into one place and makes it searchable. So for me, if I’m planning a relatively straightforward round-trip, it is a great place to start because I can search Pointimize to find my best value (in terms of fewest cheapest points required OR in terms of highest point value per dollar) and then look on ExpertFlyer for actual availability. And the same goes for hotels. Then I just prioritize my bookings based on best value and availability.
Obviously, once I start planning more complicated itineraries, I’ll have to KISS for Pointimize and break down each leg individually OR just go straight to the TravelisFree award chart and routing rules resources and plan it out that way but in the meantime, for simple itineraries, Pointimize has worked great for me.
I would highly recommend Pointimize as its gotten cleaner, faster and way less buggy than when I first signed up for the service. No I don’t work for them, I’m just a bartender/IT Consultant in Las Vegas.
Pointimize was awful. A sales pop up before I did anything, and then after it makes me enter all the info it won’t search unless I sign up for an account. No thanks.
I was able to search for hotel without signing up. To my surprise hotel search seems to include actual availability, pretty useful if it’s accurate.
Flight requires logging in though and it takes a while to see results. I guess that’s why it still has the beta sign.
That shouldn’t be happening I don’t think.
Mock Draft was disappointing. Thought they could have formatted it better and some of the picks were head scratchers
I thought the format could have used some work, but I enjoyed the different picks and strategies.