At PointsYeah, we’re always building tools to make award travel easier and more personal. Our May 2025 updates help you search smarter, plan faster, and get more from your points.
Seat Alerts Are Here
Tired of checking back to see if the seat you want is available? Now you don’t have to.
With our new Seat Alerts feature, you can set a notification on any search result. We’ll alert you when the seat opens up—whether you’re avoiding the middle seat, trying to sit together as a family, or looking for a better row. It works quietly in the background so you can set it and forget it.
We launched PointsInsider, our new content hub built for travelers who want to go deeper. It’s your go-to space for strategies, tips, and insights—whether you’re just getting started or you’re already optimizing every point.
Expect posts on how to spot hidden value, navigate tricky programs, and stay updated on award trends. We believe smart travelers are informed travelers.
You can now heart airports to save them as favorites. When entering your departure or destination during a live search, your favorited airports will appear at the top of the dropdown. That means fewer clicks and faster decisions—especially helpful if you fly out of the same hubs regularly.
This small change can save real time, especially for frequent flyers juggling multiple searches.
flydubai Now Bookable with Emirates Skywards Miles
You can now search and book flydubai flights through the Emirates Skywards program. Emirates is the only major loyalty program that allows redemptions on flydubai—and now PointsYeah brings that access to your searches.
Why this matters:
flydubai serves over 120 destinations, many not easily reached otherwise
Several routes are monopoly markets, giving you unique redemption opportunities
Coverage includes the Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, and beyond
This adds serious value for anyone trying to reach cities that aren’t well-served by traditional carriers.
With Seat Alerts, flydubai access, smarter airport selection, and our new PointsInsider blog to guide you, there’s never been a better time to run a search.
Award flights don’t last long. The best deals disappear quickly, and wasting time scrolling through options you wouldn’t book can mean missing out on the ones you would.
That’s why PointsYeah lets you personalize your entire search experience. With just a few quick settings, you’ll start seeing results that match your travel habits, your points, and your preferences.
Whether you’re a casual traveler or a points pro, a few smart tweaks can save you hours—and help you book the trips you actually want.
Here’s how to make PointsYeah work for you.
Set Your Home Airport
Most travelers fly from the same few airports again and again. If you live near a major hub like LAX or JFK, you might have dozens of good options. If you’re closer to a smaller airport, you want to avoid seeing results from places you’d never drive to.
By setting your home airport (or multiple home airports), you tell PointsYeah where to focus. Your results will prioritize departure cities that actually make sense for your travel plans. You’ll avoid irrelevant routes and stop wasting time on flights that are logistically impossible.
It’s one of the easiest ways to make your searches faster and more focused.
This setting is all about showing results you can use, not just deals that look good on paper.
If you mostly earn points through Chase, for example, it doesn’t help to see a long list of options that require Amex or Capital One transfers. You can go into your settings and choose only the bank programs you use. Once selected, PointsYeah will filter your results to show only the flights that can be booked with those points.
This is especially useful when you’re trying to book quickly or work within a limited balance. Every result you see is bookable with the points you already have.
Not every airline fits every traveler. Maybe you avoid airlines with high surcharges. Maybe you’ve had a bad experience. Or maybe your elite status is with a specific alliance and you prefer to stay within it.
Whatever the reason, you can remove unwanted airlines from your results entirely. Once excluded, you won’t see their flights in your live search results, keeping your options relevant and aligned with your preferences.
This is a great way to clean up your search results and avoid clutter that slows you down.
This is one of the most powerful features for Premium members.
Instead of using a fixed point value for everyone, you can assign your own custom values for each bank or airline program. This tells PointsYeah how you value your points, and we’ll sort and highlight results based on your personal valuations.
If you think Chase points are worth 1.7 cents and Avianca miles are only worth 1.2, we’ll factor that into your results. Flights that offer strong value based on your settings will rise to the top, and flights that aren’t worth it will move down the list.
It’s a smarter way to evaluate redemptions, especially when you’re comparing programs or trying to decide which points to spend.
The more you personalize, the more relevant your results become. Instead of wading through dozens of options, you’ll zero in on the ones that make sense for you.
You’ll book faster. You’ll make better use of your points. And you’ll avoid the frustration of missing a great deal because your screen was full of flights you wouldn’t take.
Try It for Yourself
It only takes a minute to update your settings, and the benefits are immediate.
If you’re already a Premium member, don’t forget to use advanced tools like custom point values and extra alerts. If you’re not Premium yet, this is one of the best reasons to try it.
Less clutter. Better results. Easier bookings. That’s what personalized travel planning looks like.
We believe traveling with points or miles should be simple. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or just getting started, our tools are designed to make booking award travel as smooth as possible.
To get started, make sure you’re signed in.
Creating a free account unlocks the full power of PointsYeah—and more features than any other award search tool:
Unlimited live searches (up to 4 days at a time for flights, any date range for hotels)
4 Flight Price Point Alerts, 4 Hotel Alerts, and unlimited Explorer Alerts
Custom filters and settings to personalize your results
… and more!
Once you’re signed in, explore the platform using the left sidebar and top header to navigate through our products.
Want to learn more about our tools?
Check out the full guides for each section of the site:
That’s it!Thank you from all of us at PointsYeah for joining our site and becoming part of a global community of travelers. We all believe travel planning should be easy, and we’re building a product that makes that happen—one search or daydream at a time.
Have questions or feature requests? Shoot us a message at yeah@pointsyeah.com, we’d love to hear from you!
Whether this is your first day on PointsYeah or you joined us back in June 2023 when we launched, there is a good chance that you have used our most popular product, our Flights Live Search. This article is built to show you how to navigate the product like an expert. We will start with the most basic features and work our way towards “PointsYeah Expert Mode“, which includes settings and filters suggested by our power users.
Flights Live Search 101
We built this product with all of our users in mind, with speed and simplicity for basic searches combined with best in class filtering and customization for the most advanced needs.
Every search starts with the basics.
Origin airport
Destination airport
Departure dates
If you are using a free account, you can pick 1 origin and 1 destination across 4 departure dates. Our paid members get access to 2 origin and 2 destination airports across 8 departure dates.
Once you are ready, press the YEAH button and our lightning fast search will bring you the results in approximately 20 seconds or less. All of those dates you searched will be displayed across the top, with the lowest priced award ticket shown by day.
Now that you have your dates and route picked, its time to start filtering.
Filters & Sort
We pride ourselves in our customization, knowing that all of our users have unique needs for their travels.
Some of our most popular filters
Cabins, built for both those who prefer to stretch their points further in economy and those who prefer to stretch their legs in business class.
Promotions, perfect for getting more out of your bank points. Want to learn more about active promotions? Click here.
Max points, when you have a budget set and you are sticking to it.
Some of our filters used by expert travelers
Aircraft, when you know which airplanes have certain seats and are a frequent user of the seat map tool.
Connecting airport, for those who have favorite airport lounges in another city.
Flight Quality, when you know that red eye flights are no longer for you.
Flight details
Congrats, you have found a flight that fits all your criteria! Now what?
The down arrow next to the flight will expand details around the journey, including the layover time, the aircraft types and relevant change/cancellation fees.
Expand further, and you will see the complete list of ways to book this flight.
Is it your first time transferring points or you need more information on how to transfer points to a specific program? Check out our comprehensive transfer guide.
If you dont have enough points, check out our “Buy points” section to get linked out directly to the loyalty program site where you can add to your account.
Today, users have the ability to compare the cash price of a ticket to the award price in real time. We currently only offer this feature on routes where the loyalty program for booking the award matches the operating carrier of the flight, like this American Airlines example below.
Search preferences
Once you have used the live search a few times, you should be comfortable with how you want to see your search results. Take the next step and save your search preferences in your account. This way, every live search you perform after this will be customized to your needs from the start.
Thats it! You are now ready to search for flights like an expert. Have any feedback, shoot us a note at yeah@pointsyeah.com
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 Explorerwill 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 theHotel 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
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
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.
Today, we are shining a light on our hotel vertical.
Some of the most memorable parts of a trip come from where you wake up. That’s why using your points for hotel stays is one of the most rewarding ways to travel!
Often missed by many of users, our 3 core hotel products give users the tools to book their next trip in confidence, whether that is with points or with cash.
From overwater bungalows in the Maldives to boutique hideaways in Rome, PointsYeah helps you turn your points into five-star stays, weekend escapes, and once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
Hotel Live Search
Search your next destination and compare Points vs Cash in real time
Starting your search is intuitive, just select your destination and stay window like any OTA. From there, instantly see award nights and cash pricing side by side across loyalty brands like Marriott, Hyatt, Hilton, and more.
Our filter options are extensive, allowing everything from filtering on your favorite loyalty program to only searching for free nights that are given to you based on your status or cobranded credit card.
You can even sort here by CPP, a unique option only available on our hotel product.
Daydream Explorer: Hotel Collection
Get inspired by our hand picked collection of 2,000+ point hotels around the globe
Discover hotel deals from luxury resorts to boutique hideaways and hidden gems, all inside the Hotel Collection.
For those familiar with our Daydream Explorer product for flights, you will find a similar view tied to our hotel collection. In our starting map, search for far flung destinations you have never heard of to get inspired for your next trip.
Prefer visuals of the hotel instead of a map to get started? We have you covered.
Click on the “List view” button to be brought to our hotel collection homepage. Here, you can browse our full collection, with some of our favorite hotels tagged as Featured properties.
One feature that we love to use ourselves is our calendar view. To find this, click on the calendar icon, found on the hotel card at various points in the funnel
From here, we are able to see a comparison of cash vs points across a full month at a time.
This is great for finding those hard to get award nights at some of the most exclusive properties around the world.
Hotel Alerts
Set your alerts and let PointsYeah do the heavy lifting
Similar to flight price point alerts, our hotel alert product is there so that you can avoid constantly checking the hotel website. Whether you
Booked a refundable cash fare and want to book the same room at a lower price
Booked an award room and want to see if it lowers
Are waiting on a price to go below a certain threshold
Hotel Alerts are the product for you. Just click the 🔔 bell icon next to a result, and that’s it! You’re covered.
Free members can track up to 4 hotel alerts. Each unique stay is tracked as 1 alert.Premium users unlock up to 15,great for planning trips or keeping tabs on dream stays.
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.
At PointsYeah, we believe that there is no “one way” to book travel. We built our products with that in mind, building our Daydream Explorer product for those who want to search the globe and be inspired for their next trip. Our Explorer Alert feature is often overlooked and misunderstood, so we want to spend time raising awareness to how you can use these for your next booking.
What are Explorer Alerts?
Explorer Alerts are tied to our Daydream Explorer product. These alerts allow you to find inspiration as broad or narrow as you like, sending these ideas directly to your inbox. We all love new flight ideas and don’t want you to miss any of them.
What is the difference between Explorer Alerts and Points Price Alerts?
Explorer Alerts track flights from the most searched routes globally. Points Price Alerts are more specific to your exact needs, tracking price changes and new seats on almost any route around the globe.
Is there a limit on Explorer Alerts?
No, Explorer Alerts are free and unlimited. You can set up as many as you want in any way you want.
Where do I find Explorer Alerts?
Explorer Alerts can be found in a few places;
In the Alerts tab on the left sidebar. From there, toggle to Explorer Alerts under the flights tab.
In the Daydream Explorer product. Once you navigate to the list view, you will see the alerts icon in the filter section.
How do I set up the alerts?
Similar to Points Price Alerts, you can set up to three departures and arrivals, including continents, regions, countries, or airports for each alert.
How do I get notified?
After creating an alert, you will receive notifications via email and on the Alerts page whenever we find a deal that matches your criteria.
Points Price Alerts – Set Your Own Price The only alert continuously tracking both the price changes of points and the availability of newly released seats with multiple dates.
1. What are the Points Price Alerts – Set Your Own Price?
Unlike other alerts where you either have to enter lots of information to track one flight or only receive an alert once, our Points Price Alerts, we track both points price changes, similar to Kayak or Google’s price alerts, and newly available seats based on the maximum points you wish to spend.
2. How to set up the alerts?
You can set up your alerts via the search result page or under my account page with only a few clicks, follow the steps to customize filters and the maximum points you wish to spend.
3. Is this really free, unlimited, and continuous tracking?
Yes, our points prices alerts offer unlimited and continuous tracking with maximum 4 active alerts. We will keep searching for available options unless the alert is paused or deleted, or the pre-set travel date has passed. You can pause or delete any alert at any time. When an alert is paused or deleted, or the travel date has passed, the limit will be reset. Keep in mind that many award tickets are fully refundable, enabling you to book now and exchange for a better option if the points price changes.
4. How are 4 active alerts counted?
Each day will be counted as one active alert. If you set up alerts for three days in a row, it will be counted as three alerts. However, each alert can be set for all the programs you want to track.
5. How can I get more active alerts?
Upgrade to our membership to have access to 32 active alerts.
6. How do I get notified?
You will receive notifications via email and on the My Points Price Alerts page whenever we detect a change to your alert.
