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New York-based point.me, the makers of an online search tool that makes it easy to discover real-time reward flight options, has raised $ 2 million in seed funding led by PAR Capital Ventures. The tool, which is now launching out of beta, searches routes on more than 150 airlines to uncover reward travel options that the company says would have been difficult to find otherwise. The site additionally provides information on how to maximize your airline miles and points.
Point.me CEO and co-founder Adam Morvitz told TechCrunch that the startup was created based on his personal experience with booking flights. In 2011, Morvitz was traveling frequently, earning lots of credit card points and airline miles along the way. As a financial consultant for much of his career, Morvitz says he loved researching the best flights he could find using his points. When his colleagues began asking him how he was taking business class flights to Europe for a few thousand points, he saw the opportunity to create a business. That same year, Morvitz launched Juicy Miles, a concierge reward flight booking service.
As the company grew to 60 agents, Morvitz knew they needed a way to search all the loyalty program options instantly instead of conducting manual searches. That led to the creation of point.me in 2019, which Morvitz co-founded with long-time friend and travel expert Tiffany Funk, who had previously worked in executive roles at luxury travel blog One Mile at a Time and consulting service PointsPros. To build their metasearch engine, the duo reimagined the possibilities of displaying points flights in an easy-to-read way.
Point.me is compatible with more than 30 loyalty programs, including numerous credit card reward programs. Customers can filter search results by program, airline or route to find the best available deals, which will be tailored to their preferences and points balances. The site offers a variety of services, including access to its self-serve search tool, full-service award concierge and elite status and credit card consulting.
The company’s standard plan costs $ 129 per year and comes with unlimited searches, customized results, access to rewards deals and tips for replenishing your points. Point.me also has a premium plan that costs $ 260 per year that includes everything in the standard plan, along with a 10% discount on all concierge services, an annual personalized miles and points checkup feature, and more. The company also offers a starter pass for $ 5 that gives users standard plan access for 24 hours.
Image Credits: point.me
“Before point.me, customers had to manually search airline loyalty programs individually to find flight options that they could book with their points, which meant a lot of time, frustration and often getting only a tiny fraction of what their points were actually worth, ”point.me co -founder and CMO Tiffany Funk told TechCrunch. “Once you’ve selected a flight, you’re taken to one of the things we’re most proud of, our comprehensive and incredibly detailed booking instructions. Again, the interface isn’t complicated, but we tell you exactly how many points you need to transfer and then our product team has created these step-by-step flows that really guide you through everything. ”
With the new funding, point.me plans to continue to expand its product range and enhance the capabilities of the search engine, which will require a deeper engineering team. The funds will go toward hiring front-end and back-end engineers to help improve the core product. The startup will also hire additional customer service agents to enhance the customer experience.
WndrCo Holdings invested in the seed round, with participation from former DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, Dropbox Business founder Sujay Jaswa and former DreamWorks Animation president Ann Daily. Skinnygirl founder and CEO Bethenny Frankel and her fiancé, real estate executive and film producer Paul Bernon, are also investors in point.me, along with David M. Baggett and Carl de Marcken, co-founders of ITA Software (which became Google Flights following its acquisition).
Regarding the future, Morvitz says point.me will be focused on adding a variety of new functions to the service. The company plans to show the cash price for the flight you’re interested in, so you can see an immediate comparison of the value you’re getting for miles. Point.me also wants to allow users to search several days of flights at once. And it plans to focus on personalized recommendations and results, while also suggesting alternatives that would help customers have a better flight experience.
“Longer-term, we believe we can fundamentally change the loyalty space from both a consumer and business standpoint,” Morvitz said. “The combination of our proprietary technology with our unique knowledge set allows for a world where search points are easy, seamless and valuable for everyone across all global loyalty currencies. Our vision for point.me goes beyond search. We aim to become the go-to loyalty management site, using our investment in data to improve the experience for our customers and enterprise partners, including AI-based algorithms to highlight redemptions that clients are most likely to book and using predictive technology to recommend which awards have the best chance of becoming available. ”
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