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Revolutionize Your Travel: Must-Have Tools to Plan, Book, and Organize Your Points & Miles Game (Ep. 69)
Have you ever wondered what tools a points and miles expert uses to book smarter, earn faster, and stay organized while traveling?
In this solo episode of Revolutionizing Your Journey, host DeAndre Coke breaks down his personal travel toolkit—from the apps that help him choose the right credit card at checkout, to the tools he swears by for booking award flights and organizing itineraries. From automating credit card offers with Card Pointers to searching for award flights with tools like PointsYeah and Seats.aero, DeAndre walks listeners through each step of his travel planning process. He also discusses the value of platforms like Zil Money for earning points on business expenses, and apps like TripIt for keeping itineraries organized. This episode offers practical insights for travelers looking to simplify and optimize their rewards-based travel.
This post contains affiliate links for some of the products mentioned, but we personally use and pay for most of these services ourselves because we believe in their value. We want to share the best points and miles tools that have helped us maximize our travel rewards.
Key Highlights:
- Card Pointers: An app that helps users choose the best credit card for each purchase and automatically loads Amex and Chase offers without logging in.
- Zil Money: Platform that lets businesses earn points by processing payroll through credit cards—useful for hitting sign-up bonuses and earning high multipliers.
- Travel Freely: This tool tracks credit card annual fees and sign-up bonuses and helps users comply with Chase’s 5/24 rule.
- PointsYeah: Award flight search engine with features like Daydream Explorer and live seat maps, making it easier to spot high-value redemptions.
- Seats.aero: A power-user tool for finding award seat availability, especially useful for last-minute and expert-level searches.
- Points Path: The first award flight search engine that runs directly in Google Flights, and provides both the cash price and points price of many flights.
- FlightConnections: Visualization tool showing all direct routes between airports—great for mapping international travel and alliance-specific itineraries.
- Boldly Go Calculators: Transfer Bonus Calculator and Point Redemption Calculator simplify reward math and show real point value.
- Point.me: Beginner-friendly award search tool that includes step-by-step guides and Amex cardholder access for free.
- Thrifty Traveler: Subscription service that sends alerts for award availability, mistake fares, and significant cash deals.
- TripIt: Travel organization app that builds an itinerary from confirmation emails and syncs across devices—even offline. Helpful for keeping track of complex trips and flight changes.
Episodes Mentioned:
- Episode with Zac Hood – Travel Freely Founder
- Earn Big on Payroll – Zil Money
- Points Path Founder – Julian Kheel
Resources:
- Start here to learn how to unlock nearly free travel
- Sign up for our newsletter!
- This month’s best current card offers
- LTH Online Points & Miles In Depth Course:
- Use coupon code “BOLDYGO” for a 50% discount!
- BoldlyGo Travel With Points & Miles Facebook Group
- Truicity Wealth Management
Connect with DeAndre Coke:
Mentioned in this episode:
Check out the new Smart Travel Podcast!
This week's show is supported by the new Smart Travel Podcast. Travel smarter — and spend less — with help from NerdWallet. Check out Smart Travel at the Link below:
