In episode 37 of Miles Ahead: The Canadian Points Podcast, Daniel, Jeff, and Josh from FrugalFlyer.ca discuss the main tools they use to find and book flight and hotel redemptions. For flights, they cover FlightConnections and FlightsFrom for mapping airline routes and alliance options, plus they look at pairing Google Flights with Points Path to compare cash vs points.
The team highlights Seats.aero as a primary paid award-search and alerts tool, including fare class viewing and planning strategies like searching regions instead of specific cities, and they note AwardTool as a helpful supplemental tool that can surface award space that other tools miss. After booking, they use AeroLopa for detailed seat maps and seat selection to find the best seats on the plane.
For hotel award searching, the team starts the discussion by using Google Maps to see what hotel chains are available in their desired destination. They discuss rooms.aero and MaxMyPoint, emphasizing the value of setting alerts for aspirational properties, plus MaxFHR for browsing Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts when looking to use credits.
They also discuss tools that are adjacent to award travel, including TripIt for itinerary organization, and Flighty, ByAir, FlightAware, and FlightRadar24 for tracking flights.
(01:53) Route Mapping with FlightConnections
FlightConnections is an excellent tool for planning out flight routes, particularly if you are interested in determining which airlines fly between two airports or if you want to map out where each specific airline flies.
- Read More: How To Use FlightConnections To Plan Travel
(03:58) FlightsFrom: A Free Alternative to FlightConnections
FlightsFrom offers many of the same functionalities as FlightConnections, but with no paid version or paywall.
(05:54) Google Flights For Broadly Searching Flights
While it skews more towards cash fares, using Google Flights can help you quickly get a broad understanding of the landscape for any flights you are considering booking.
- Read More: How To Use Google Flights
(08:03) Points Path: Chrome Extension For Google Flights
Points Path, an extension for the Google Chrome browser that works with Google Flights, will compare the points redemption price against the cash price while searching.
(11:03) Seats.aero: The Best Flight Award Search Tool
Seats.Aero is arguably the most popular flight award search tool, and for good reason. This is the best tool for searching large chunks of award availability at a time, coupled with the ability to set alerts, if you want to best set yourself up for success when looking to book your next award flight redemption.
- Read More: Your Guide to Seats.Aero
- Sign Up For Seats.Aero
(18:40) AwardTool: A Great Tool To Fill The Gaps
AwardTool is another great option for flight award searching, and it fills the gaps with many programs that Seats.Aero doesn’t pull results from.
- Read More: Your Guide to AwardTool
- Read More: Flight Award Search Tools Compared
- Sign Up For AwardTool
(21:58) AeroLopa: Seat Maps & Finding The Best Seat
AeroLopa is the best seat map database, which is essential to utilize if you want to ensure you are choosing the best seat on the aircraft.
- Read More: How To Find The Best Seat On The Plane
(25:39) Hotel Planning with Google Maps & Google Hotels
Searching for hotels with Google Maps can be a great starting point if you are interested in visiting a new destination for the first time, rather than searching with each individual loyalty program.
- Read More: How To Use Google Hotels To Save Time
(27:50) Marriott App For Redeeming Free Night Awards
While we all tend to download apps for loyalty programs, Daniel really appreciates how the Marriott Bonvoy mobile app makes it easy to redeem free night awards compared to the desktop site.
(29:41) Rooms.Aero Overview
Rooms.Aero is the hotel version of Seats.Aero, and it is included in the paid membership for Seats.Aero. If you have access, it can be worth checking out.
(31:06) MaxMyPoint: The Top Hotel Award Search Tool
MaxMyPoint might be the best hotel award searching tool out there. It might not be as necessary as flight award search tools, but it can be incredibly useful for monitoring availability for in-demand properties or for monitoring pricing drops after booking.
- Read More: Guides to MaxMyPoint & MaxFHR
(35:06) MaxFHR: Luxury Hotel Hunting With Credits
MaxFHR is an excellent tool for finding good redemptions to use Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts and The Hotel Collection credits offered on several US cards.
- Read More: How To Maximize The Amex $300 Hotel Credit
- Read More: Guide to Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts
(38:22) TripIt: Organizing Your Travel Itinerary
TripIt is a platform that lets you organize your travel itinerary across multiple flights and hotels.
- Read More: TripIt Review
(42:30) Flighty & ByAir: Flight Tracking & Aviation Stats
Flighty (for Apple devices only) and ByAir (for all devices) are neat mobile apps that can be used to track flights, including historical travel, to keep track of everywhere you have been in the world.
(45:10) FlightAware: Inbound Flight Monitoring
FlightAware, and other websites like FlightRadar24, are great tools for watching inbound flights so you can be aware of any potential delays, typically before they are communicated by the airline.
(46:56) AI Tools & Award Travel Limits
Keep an eye out for an article coming from Kirin in the next few weeks related to AI tools and award travel.
(50:59) Conclusion
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