There’s a new tool for finding space for flight rewards.
Launched in March 2023, the Roame.travel site allows travelers to quickly search for award flights on many airlines and loyalty programs.
In addition to showing an airline’s award prices on a particular route, the site also recommends transfers from credit card rewards programs and takes active transfer bonuses into account.
Perhaps most notable is that the site is fast, displaying search results from a wide range of airlines and frequent flyer programs within seconds.
How Roame.travel started
The site’s co-founder Tim Qin says his inspiration for the site came from years of reading TPG and from the dozens of hours it took him and his co-founder to find prime pricing space for Asia last year.
“We wanted to save ourselves time in the future if we planned to do this again,” Qin told TPG. “Instead of having to search all the websites of different airlines and check out day in and day out, we wanted to create a product for ourselves that was both fast and real-time and capable of searching across multiple programs.”
This “passion project,” Qin explained, is built around speed. Roame searches are returned in an average of 12 seconds, the company claims.
Although free for users, the site also offers paid options with higher caliber features, which is mainly where the site currently makes its money.
Which programs are covered by Roame.travel?
The site performs searches on more than a dozen airline loyalty programs.
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Taking into account airline alliances, Roame considers 122 airlines, including airlines associated with:
- Aeromexico Rewards
- Air Canada Aeroplan
- Alaska Airlines mileage plan
- American Airlines AAdvantage
- Avianca LifeMiles
- Delta SkyMiles
- Emirates Skywards
- Flying Blue (Air France-KLM)
- Free spirit
- Iberia Plus
- JetBlue TrueBlue
- Qantas Frequent Flyer
- United MileagePlus
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
- Virgin Australia Speed
It also uses several credit card rewards programs, including American Express Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Capital One, Citi ThankYou Rewards, and Bilt Rewards, among others.
How does Roame.travel work?
This is what the homepage of Roame.travel looks like.
You can search for free without creating an account or logging in. However, to fully use the site, you will need a free account.
Just like on a booking site, you start by entering the origin and destination of your flight, whether it’s two cities, airports or regions. Then add your intended travel date(s) and the number of travelers. Once you enter the travel information you want, the site will show you the results, the points or miles price, and the best options to transfer points for optimal value redemption.
Keep in mind that the site only analyzes one-way flights, so to search for award space for a round-trip route, you’ll need to search the outbound and return flights separately.
What are the premium options for Roame.travel?
If you’re interested in additional flexibility when conducting searches, Roame.travel offers a number of paid account options.
The least expensive paid option, the Friends of Roame package, costs $9.16 per month or $109.99 per year. It includes the SkyView program, allowing members to enjoy wider date ranges for searches, plus the ability to set flight alerts. You can also search for flights between broader regions, such as a trip from the US to Asia, and then see which cities currently have the best redemption options, similar to searching for cash deals with the Google Flights Explore tool. This can be useful if you’re looking for harder-to-find options, such as a premium economy or business class seat to a coveted destination.
A business plan for up to 20 users is also available starting at $291.66 per month or $3,499.99 per year.
How to find a price with Roame.travel
Below are a few examples to help you better understand how to use Roame.travel to find a reward.
Looking for an economics prize
Let’s say you want to book an award flight from Newark to Paris by coach before the end of February.
Once you have entered your details, click on the search button with the magnifying glass on the right.
Results are displayed quickly as the site searches different airlines. Make sure you wait until the progress bar (below) reaches 100%.
When the results appear, you can change the filters and sort the results so that only your favorite frequent flyer programs appear.
You can do the same with credit card programs. For example, if you’re not a Capital One member, there’s probably no point in seeing recommendations about transferring Capital One miles.
You can also sort the results by schedule, travel time, stops and price.
Once the results are populated, you will see the best option at the top of the results list. In this case, it’s a one-way ticket from Air France for 9,231 points through Virgin Atlantic Flying Club.
To book the flight at the stated award rate, Roame.travel recommends transferring 9,231 points from American Express or Chase Ultimate Rewards to take advantage of the 30% transfer bonuses that some users currently have (but remember: transfer bonuses may be targeted and are not always available to all cardholders).
As for the return journey, the same deal applies for 9,231 points one way.
If you decide to book both options with the 30% transfer bonus that Roame.travel has included in the price, the total for the return flight is 18,462 points.
To continue the booking process, you can click on the American Express or Chase logo next to the price for more information on how to make the transfer.
Once you find the flight you want, go to the airline’s recommended loyalty program website and search for that itinerary and redemption. If it shows up – in this case for 24,000 Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points (the amount needed to take advantage of the 30% credit card portal transfer bonus) plus $372 in taxes and fees – book it.
Looking for an award in the business field
To search for a Premium Cabin Award, follow the same steps as the Economy Award process, but keep in mind that you may need to be more flexible with your search to generate results.
For example, if you want to fly from New York to the Maldives sometime in January 2024, but aren’t tied to a specific date, you can start searching for different dates. If there is no availability on the dates you are trying, you will see this message about a lack of available rewards that meet Roame.travel’s criteria for a good value redemption.
To increase your chances of finding availability, try searching seven-day periods through the paid version of the site. Once you find an option, like this one from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) to Velana International Airport (MLE) in the Maldives, you’ll see a similar breakdown of the points needed and how to book the flight.
For this business class trip with the German leisure airline Condor, you can book via the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan. There would be stops in Frankfurt in each direction, and the cost would be 65,000 miles each way.
As with the Virgin Atlantic option mentioned above, your next step for booking this award flight would be to head to the Alaska Airlines website to see if the deal is available there. In this case, it’s 110,000 Mileage Plan miles plus $329 in taxes and fees, so you follow the prompts to complete the booking process.
Things to keep in mind when using Roame.travel
There are a number of factors to consider when searching for award space on Roame.travel or similar sites.
No bookings are made within Roame.travel
Roame.travel helps you search for award availability, but you don’t book directly on the site. Instead, you have to book elsewhere, usually directly with an airline.
The transfer amounts stated may require some additional attention
When considering credit card transfers for your award booking, it is important to fully understand how Roame.travel arrived at the price shown.
In some cases, the site will show you how many of your credit card points are needed after taking into account a credit card transfer bonus. So make sure you are eligible for the bonus and follow the right steps for using it. to achieve the refund rate that Roame.travel advertises.
There are some limitations to the site
Roame.travel doesn’t use every airline loyalty program, so keep in mind there may be more options than the site shows, especially for routes from Europe to Asia.
For some of the 122 airlines it covers, the site also warns that the data may be incomplete.
Additionally, the site does not currently have the ability to sort by the cost you pay for an award ticket, so you may have to pay hundreds of dollars in fees for some round-trip fares shown on the site. This is especially true for airlines like British Airways. However, Qin hopes to add this sorting feature to the site in the future.
In short
Roame.travel is another tool that travelers can use when searching for award flights as it provides quick search results. However, because improvements are still on the horizon, it may not yet provide a fully comprehensive view of the redemptions available with each airline loyalty program.
Still, Roame.travel is a great time-saving option for travelers. It can help you find redemption options you may not have considered and can even make it easier for you to take advantage of airline loyalty programs, alliances, partnerships, and credit card transfers.
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