Category: PointsYeah Guides

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  • ✈️ Introducing the all-new Daydream Explorer

    ✈️ Introducing the all-new Daydream Explorer

    April 2025

    The way you explore with points just changed completely.

    We didn’t just update Daydream Explorer, we reimagined how award travel should feel.

    It now starts with a first-of-its-kind map that lets you search from anywhere to anywhere, across both flights and hotels. Toggle between them, zoom into regions, and start spotting possibilities instantly.

    When you hone in on a destination, you’ll drop into a list view that feels familiar to Daydream of the past, letting you compare cabins, airlines, transfer partners, and more side by side.

    You might start out looking for a trip to Paris… and end up planning something entirely different. That’s the magic of Daydream.

    Whether you’re ready to book or just playing around, it’s the most inspiring way to use your points.

    Explore Like Never Before


    No departure city? No destination? No problem.


    Start by choosing a region, or just hit “Anywhere”, and Daydream Explorer will instantly find flight and hotel options based on your filters. You can have up to three continents, Regions, countries, States or airports in each departure and arrival

    It’s built for open-ended exploring, flexible planning, and those “just browsing” moments that turn into real trips.

    And it’s not just about flights. Daydream also includes access to the Hotel Collection, a curated set of inspirational stays you can book with points. From beachfront escapes to boutique hideaways, it’s your gateway to unforgettable hotel experiences.

    Cabin Class Colors on the Map

    A quick visual guide to help you scan with confidence.

    Every cabin type is color-coded on the map, so whether you’re browsing one class or all of them, it’s easy to compare. It’s a fast, intuitive way to spot the cabins you care about most, especially if you’re casually browsing or comparing options across the world.

    🔵 Blue – Economy
    🟢 Green – Premium Econ
    🟣 Purple – Business Class
    🟠 Orange – First Class

    Filters That Actually Matter

    Daydream Explorer lets you fine-tune your search to match exactly what you’re looking for.

    On the flight page, you can filter by:

    • Cabin class
    • Airline program
    • Bank program
    • Number of stops
    • Max points
    • Max taxes
    • Trip themes like beach, city, honeymoon, golf, family, and even to the moon

    Whether you’re trying to find nonstop flights to Tokyo or a luxury stay in Rome, it’s all right there.

    From Dreaming to Doing

    Once you’ve found a destination you’re excited about in Daydream, you’ll land on a search card, a smart summary that shows you everything available for that specific route.

    Here’s what you’ll see:

    • All currently available award options
    • Points pricing across multiple days
    • All airline program options for that route
    • Clear cabin labels (economy, business, etc.)
    • Latest updated time

    It’s a bird’s-eye view of what’s possible with your points.

    And when one of those options looks right, just click to preview and tap ‘Real-Time Search’ to confirm availability instantly.

    Explorer Alerts: Your travel sidekick

    Not ready to book yet? That’s what Explorer Alerts are for.

    You’ll find the orange bell icon at the top near the search filters or next to any deal you want to keep an eye on.

    Click it, and you can customize your alert with flexible settings like:

    • Where you’re departing from
    • Travel dates
    • Number of seats
    • Travel theme
    • Airline program
    • Bank program
    • Maximum taxes

    Set it and let it run in the background. We’ll let you know when something hits your criteria, so you don’t have to keep checking back. You can track these alerts alongside your Price Point Alerts and Hotel Alerts in your account.

    Explorer Alerts are free, unlimited, and built for travelers who like to keep their options open. Learn more about Explorer Alerts.

    A few ways to use Daydream Explorer

    Whether you’re browsing the map, diving into a search card, or setting up alerts, every part of Daydream is designed to turn ideas into action, and points into travel

    • ✈️ Fly to London in business class for just 29,000 points
    • 🛄 Find a 5k or less award flight
    • 🌴 Book an overwater villa in the Maldives
    • 💼 Find nonstop business class to Asia under 75,000 points
    • 🏙️ Explore hotels in Tokyo for a perfect stay

    From planning to playing around, Daydream helps you turn “maybe someday” into “I’m doing this”.

    🚀 Ready to Try It?

    The most visual way to plan award travel is live now.
    Explore freely. Toggle between flights and hotels. Get inspired.

    See where your points can take you →

    Not loving the new Daydream Explorer flow? You can toggle back to the old view at any time by pressing “Detail view” button. You can even set this as your preference in your user settings.

  • How award searches work today: The PointsYeah origin story

    How award searches work today: The PointsYeah origin story

    Our goal is to create the simplest and best award search site to make award planning easier for everyone. However, achieving this is not easy, we have devoted countless hours to ensuring accuracy, reliability, and speed simultaneously. As a real-time search site, we don’t have much room for errors as we do understand the trust from all of you. With that trust, we built our product without shortcuts, ensuring that every live search is reflective of what you will see on direct sites. We DON’T falsify results nor do we use partner A results for partner B without actually searching B.

    I am sure all of us know, when we are searching for revenue tickets, there are times you see “sorry, your fare no longer available, XXX is our new price or please select different flights.”

    The reality for award search is far more complicated than revenue ticket, and we have decided to share some stories about how the award travel search system works in 2025.

    Every airline has designed its system differently from another, making a one-size-fits-all solution impossible. Some airlines have very sophisticated systems using the newest technology, while others are legacy systems. To make matters more complicated, sometimes these airlines with technology miles apart are partners who share inventory.

    Partners no longer share the same inventory space as they did five years ago due to changes in financial models and system. Delta was the first mover, with Virgin Flying Club, Delta and Air France and KLM Flying Blue also implementing changes. As travel advances, these practices are likely to be implemented by other airlines/alliances over time.

    Even if they share inventory spaces on some routes/some alliances(old system vs newer one), the differences in each airline’s system setup may cause discrepancies. For example, Iberia has married segment restrictions only on their and British Airways flights, not on some partners. British Airways, on the other hand, has them on almost all partners. So, some SEGMENTS redeemable on Iberia Avios may not be visible on British Airways Avios because Iberia Avios allows multi-segment mixed matches.

    Airlines’ front ends are also built differently. While we get results from the backend, airline frontends may miss airport codes. We have 9000+ airport codes, but many airlines don’t have that many as they were not designed for award search. For example, Iberia Avios doesn’t have IST code, and used BUE instead of EZE or AEP for Buenos Aires or Qantas Frequent Flyer, Etihad Guest don’t have some airports too. As we built our airport code repository, our team even missed many airports that were discovered by our amazing users.

    How you search on airline sites will yield different results. For instance, Lifemiles and Turkish Airlines, when searching for their partners, lifemiles.com may not show all Star Alliance results if you use all partners, for lifemiles.com select Star alliance  BEFORE  Search or Carrier BEFORE search on top of departure airports. Turkish Airlines has two places to search for Star Alliance, each with different results. The accurate one is under my account-miles transactions-star alliance awards. Not the standard alliance search from front.

    • Frontend blocking: Some airlines block redemption from the frontend for specific routes or carriers for various reasons.
    • Sync delay:  Internal systems have sync delays between partners or even within the same company but different sites. For example, the Air France site may have a delay compared to the KLM site, and the same goes for their apps
    • Phantom inventory:  This issue has persisted for over 20 years between partners.
    • Request Timeout :  There are two types of timeouts—either the request is timed out by the receiver, or we timeout the request. Regardless of the type, you just need to search one more time.

    With over 50 systems interacting simultaneously, we cannot guarantee 100% accuracy. Nevertheless, we are doing our best to achieve as close to 100% accuracy as possible.

    We want to thank you again for your understanding and we and the airlines are continuing to improve to make your points travel planning effortless.

    -PointsYeah team