Tools to Maximize Your Points & Miles

 If you don't know what Rove Miles is, it's a new platform where you can earn miles through shopping, booking flights, and hotels and you can REALLY earn a ton of points especially with hotels.  I have a full write-up HERE (and you can also get 500 Rove Miles for signing up).

Loyalty eligible hotels is a great new concept for a 3rd party booking. Because this way, you can book through Rove, get the extra points, and get your nights towards status and use the benefits you get with your existing status as well.

ON TOP of all of that, the purchase codes as "hotel," so, if you have a credit card that earns extra points on hotels like the Chase Sapphire Preferred or Citi Strata Premier, you will ALSO earn 3x points!

You can take a look HERE

Right Now there is a 50% Discount on both annual and lifetime plan Until Cyber Monday (December 1)

Once you have more than one card with benefits, it starts to get hard to remember all the benefits you get with each one and  how much you earn on purchases in each category . One app I use is CardPointers.

With CardPointers, you can input each card that you have and it will remind you of all the benefits it has. No more forgetting about that restaurant credit or $200 airline credit, and so on. You can even link it to your AmEx card so that it can auto-add your offers.

Buying during a sale is such a killer deal. If you buy the Lifetime subscription, it's $140, but you also get a $100 credit you can use in their portal towards a hotel. So, for us travel-lovers, that's basically like $100 cash, meaning a lifetime subscription is essentially $40.

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Savewise is a great free tool to help you ensure you’re earning the most amount of points possible on each purchase. There are so many shopping portals and it’s hard to know which one has the best earn rate. With Savewise, you just search the retailer and you see who will give you the most points for your purchase!

And that’s not all. If you get the pro version, then you can automatically add deals to your credit cards! Savewise will then track and let you know which card you should use so that you (1) earn the most amount of points on your spend and (2) can stack to earn money back with any card offers you might have

Here’s an example in the graphic. Let’s say you want to get flowers from “The Bouqs Company.” Once I run a search, I now know I can earn 20x Miles though Capital One. On top of that, I have a card offer where I’ll get $20 back. It’ll even show me which card I have the offer on, so I can make sure and use that card. 

A $100 purchase now will cost me $80 (due to the cash back) and I can earn 200 points. Without Savewise, I wouldn’t have checked each shopping portal and would’ve just purchased and paid without realizing.

You can even track trends with the pro version. It will let you know the highest points/ $ is offered with a certain program and can email you if you set an alert when it goes to the highest available.

There’s a common saying among travelers who try to save money- “Follow the deal, not the destination!”

This exemplifies the idea that there are multiple places one would be willing to visit, so do you really need to follow a list? Instead, maybe visit a location you already wanted to go to that has a deal NOW.

There are a couple of great services that offer this depending on whether you’re looking to book on cash or points.

1. Thrifty Traveler

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This is a service I have used for years. They often send out great points and cash deals to both domestic and international destinations. You can adjust your settings so that you get the types of alerts you most want.

When I first signed up, I thought maybe I’d get an alert once a month. Instead, I’m getting alerts multiple times a week! There are even times I’ll get multiple in one day. I absolutely love these, even though I’ve only booked a handful of these. That’s because it lets me know what deals are out there, and how low points prices can get, even if I’m not ready to book. (And yes, I have found deals just as good later on).

These also don’t just let you know about the deal, they tell you exactly what dates are available for 2+ people and how to book the deal with written step-by-step instructions (and even video tutorials).

On the right are screenshots from one of my most-recent deal alerts. As you can see, everything you would ever need is included.

Not sure if it’s right for you? Well, they have a 100 days money-back guarantee! So, if you sign-up and decide it’s not your cup-of-tea, you can unsubscribe and get your money back.

2. Ashley Gets Around Email Service

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Ashley has an email list that sends out great deals on business class flights (and sometimes premium economy). These are often mistake fares, but this is a great list for people who don’t have a ton of points (but also don’t want to spend the time with learning all the ins and outs of earning and redeeming credit card points).

Below are some examples of the deals this list has sent out 

 If you want to be able to find deals for specific trips you want to take, points search tools can be a complete game-changer. Think Expedia or google flights, but for points deals! There are two points search tools that I use, so I’ll start with those.

It is important to note that no search engine is 100%. You’re never going to get the same results with search tools as you would if you searched yourself. That being said, searching every airline individually can be time consuming and tedious. So, using search tools can help. 

You always want to verify the deals are actually there before transferring any points over. With any search tool, I have run into issues with either not finding availability they showed me, or finding availability that was not shown.

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This search engine is more beginner friendly.  This is because the interface is a bit easier to use for those just starting out. You can search by individual airport to individual airport and this will give you “live” results, and, therefore is more accurate. 

However, you can search from region to region using “Skyview,” giving you many more options if you are willing to fly out of a different airport than your home airport or into a location that is not your ultimate destination.

There are different search functions you will get access to on the Free v. Pro versions. I prefer Pro, because that gets you access to “Skyview” that allows you to search regions, making it a lot easier to find deals. Also, with Pro, you can set alerts where you will get an email and a text when a deal pops up.

I am an affiliate partner with Roame, so my link gets you a discount.

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This is a really amazing tool that can be used to help find deals. The only downside is that it is a bit advanced. You definitely need to take some time to learn it, but it can pay off. 

You can use it for free, but you will only get results for flights 60 days out. You also are limited as to some other features you can use (like text alerts when a flight is available and being able to search more than +/- 7 days) from a particular date.

My favorite way to use it is to search regions. I’ll often start “WST” to “EUR” for example. That gives me all the deals from the west coast to Europe. I find this useful because I don’t mind a quick flight to major airports on the west coast like LAX, SFO, DEN, SEA, PHX. 

If I’m willing to fly further in hopes of finding a better deal, I’ll even expand to “WST” and “MIW” thereby adding major Midwest airports to the search. Or, if there are particular airports I'd prefer to fly out of, I use those airport codes.

Reginal searches are often the key to finding good deals.

Part of Seats.Aero is Rooms.Aero. This is a search engine where you can find hotels on points and is completely free and does alert you when a particular hotel becomes available on points. This is incredibly valuable because it is taxing to keep checking if a hotel you want to book on points has become available.

There is also a new AI feature.  You can put in exactly what you’re looking for and the bot will put out what it found or advice for searching flights. 

Seats.Aero does have an app as well, but I find it to not work well. Personally, I only use seats.aero on a desktop or laptop. I have done a few videos on examples of how to use a couple of different features of the site. You can find them below:

Using Q-Suites Finder

Searching Virgin Deals Using Seats.Aero

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Pro is $99 for the first year + Free T-shirt right now

On Black Friday ONLY (November 28th) you will get

$99 for the first year of Pro, AND

Free year of MaxRewards Gold 

Starting Saturday (November 29th) and Ending on Wednesday (December 3rd), Pro will be 50% Off- IT’S LOWEST PRICE EVER!

This search tool is very different than the other two for two reasons. First, it has a community element to it. There are chat rooms where you can chat with other users and points pros about your trip, general advice, or points searches. Second, you can search cash deals in addition to points deals.

The only downside to it is that you can only search from one location to another. While you can search a city (i.e. London, Chicago) and search to/from all airports in that city, you cannot search a region (i.e. Europe, United States) like you can with other engines. 

The benefit, however, is that all searches are live, making the results more reliable. I do think that what sets Daily Drop Pro apart from the others is the community element. You can ask advice of others on booking flights or even travel tips. There is an option for a free trial to check it out.

However, Pro comes with quite a few benefits including:

- Unlimited deal alerts from up to 10 home airports
- A full points wallet to track cards & loyalty programs
- Personalized one-on-one redemption support
- The private Pro Lounge community
- A free Lonely Planet eBook
- And right now… a free airport tee

@marionthemap and I started an online course with over 42 modules and counting! However, right now, doors are closed as we focus on providing support to our current students in our private, group coaching. Once we open doors again we'd love to let you know!

Please sign up here to get on the waitlist HERE

You definitely don’t need tools to find deals. For a very long time, I didn’t use any tools and would just search each site. This takes a ton of time, learning, and strategy though. Not only are these tools timesavers, but they can really help with learning.