Award travel doesn’t have to be complicated. PointsYeah’s Daydream Explorer makes it easier to spot real flight options using your points.
PointsYeah.com is an online award search tool that makes finding flights and hotel stays simple and stress-free. Signing up is free for the basic membership, but you can opt for an upgrade anytime with the paid version which allows for expanded searches and increased alerts if needed.
I have been using the free version and have been very satisfied with the access it gives, showing availability with real-time searches to ensure not getting overly excited about bookings that are no longer available. The free version allows you to search between specific airports within a 4 day date range, while being able to fully customize the request by choosing preferred loyalty programs, numbers of seats, cabin class, and number of stops.
Flexible search options and the new tool for travelers
My favorite feature of PointsYeah is the Daydream Explorer tool which is a search option for those who have more flexibility in their vacation ideas. Searchable as far as a year out, you can select date ranges of up to two months at a time and view flight availability based on your selections, with start and end destinations being as broad or specific as you would like.
Since I exist in a constant state of trip-planning fantasyland , the Daydream Explorer tool has been an invaluable tool to keep tabs on how far my points and miles will get me at any given time in the following calendar year.
The fully customizable format allows you to set up to 3 departing and arriving locations. However, those ‘locations’ can be as specific as an airport, but can also be a region, continent, or ‘anywhere’ to get the full view of world-wide availability.
Further customization allows for specificity for the following features:
- Cabin class
- Number of stops
- Bank-based points programs
- Airline points programs
- Percentage of premium class desired
- Flight duration
- Number of seats
- Maximum number of points needed
- Maximum amount of taxes
- Weekends Only
The website recently rolled out a mapview, complete witha color-coded key for fare class.
Website navigation and award booking
Pointsyeah’s website is easy to navigate, even for the award booking novice. Both in the Daydream Explorer tool and in the basic award searches, the top of the search page allows you to toggle forward and backwards, showing how prices might change by shifting a flight by a few days or more, ensuring you get the best price.
The site also makes it simple to understand which loyalty programs can be utilized, as well as shows what the cash price would be for the ticket to get a basic sense of how good of a deal you are getting or what you might be paying if you need to purchase additional tickets.
The site will also walk you through the process of transferring your points to the necessary program in order to book the award travel if you do not already have the necessary points in that specific loyalty program.
Pointsyeah’s award search tools are impressive in their ease of use and level of detail in information available for flights as far out as a year. For die-hard points veterans, having the access to live seat maps is a game-changing luxury as award bookings in years past have required cross-references of aircraft layouts and award booking sites, not to mention the fear that the seats may be phantom award space.
Pointsyeah has been my go-to online award search tool and it has helped me book business class flights to Vietnam, as well as incredible premium economy flights for my return home.
The Daydream Explorer tool has been a fun addition to trip planning, allowing me to optimize points and making sure I’m getting the best value year round, while also making me consider destinations that were not on my immediate bucket list but might be worth checking out for the right price.
