One of the most common questions we get in emails from TPG readers is, “Can you help me book using my miles?”
Unfortunately, the answer is no because we just don’t have the resources to actually book trips for readers. (It’s a lot of work!)
Instead, we usually refer people to companies that can better help them. Here’s a quick guide to the companies and teams that TPG has used or recommended over the years.
Cranky Concierge
Cranky Concierge is one of our favorite travel-planning services. The service, created by Brett Snyder, initially focused on using points and miles to book dream trips but has since expanded into an all-encompassing travel agency.
TPG has used Cranky Concierge many times over the years to help with some special employee trips, such as a hotel stay at Six Senses Shaharut back in 2022. The company was instrumental in securing the IHG One Rewards points required for the stay, even after the hotel told us the booking didn’t qualify.
The team is also great at finding elusive award inventory for business-class seats. As you can see, it costs $275 for Cranky Concierge to book you a round-trip flight using miles (or a combination of miles and cash). If you are looking to only pay cash for the trip, the fee is slightly lower, starting at $95.
Former TPG staffer Benét Wilson is a huge fan. “I have used Cranky Concierge regularly. I’m going to DPS [Bali’s I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport] on April 16,” she said. “I had booked Emirates out of IAD [Dulles International Airport], but my flight was changed. Plus, with all the unrest in the Middle East, my concierge was proactive in looking at other options. This company is worth every penny!!”
She told me she spent about $375 on the Bali trip and another $225 on a trip to India through this company.
Point.me
Point.me is another service that many TPGers have used over the years. It features incredible search tools that help find elusive awards, and it also offers a concierge service. You might remember two other services, Juicy Miles and PointsPros, that teamed up with Point.me to offer award bookings.
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For $200, you can use Point.me’s full-service option for booking flights with miles.
I have used Point.me to find some incredible flight redemptions, but haven’t had a chance to use its planning features.
“What’s great about our concierge service is the depth of expertise. We’ve been at this for decades now,” Tiffany Funk, co-founder of Point.me, told TPG. “Not only have our team members flown every airline personally, but we also have tons of client experiences to reference, and are able to use our unique data to advise as to what is both possible and practical for your trip.”
Funk also suggested that bargain-hunters subscribe to the company’s Premium service instead. With this option, travelers get a one-on-one points consultation, a 10% discount on concierge services, a $100 annual credit and unlimited access to Point.me’s self-serve tool to both search and set alerts.
TPG reader Jordan Rodriguez told me that he used Point.me for an international business-class booking in December; he said he had an overall good experience as the team helped him book for more than one person with some very specific seating requests using Cathay Pacific Asia Miles and Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles. However, he also said there were some communication issues, and he was told Point.me couldn’t help book some very hard-to-find redemptions, like All Nippon Airways business class.
“This service seems best for people who can’t or don’t have the time to do award searches and/or bookings, aren’t sure [how to] best use their points, or have a challenging request,” Rodriguez said.
Another reader, Laura Ratliff, said, “I use Point.me in conjunction with Amex Platinum, and it’s been great. About a month ago, I got VS [Virgina Atlantic] Upper Class JFK-LHR-CDG for 60k Flying Blue miles.”
JetBetter
Former TPG contributor Juan Ruiz runs JetBetter, which offers award bookings and consultations. Ruiz’s company helps people book award flights starting at $150 one-way or $250 round-trip. It costs $150 one-way or $200 round-trip for each additional passenger. Multicity itineraries start at $175.
Even if you don’t have points and miles, JetBetter can also help travelers plan full trips and book other add-ons using cash, too.
“Award space is out there — you just need to know where to look,” Ruiz told TPG. “At JetBetter, I personally work with you to find and book high-value award flights, including premium cabins and hard-to-find availability — so you can maximize your points without the hassle.”
Travel on Point(s)
Travel on Point(s) is a blog and a popular Facebook group. It also has a booking service, where users can submit a booking request via an online form. Prices start at around $100 but can go up quickly from there.
“You should be ready to book your flights when you receive your results,” the company warns. “Award flight availability is constantly changing, so don’t make a request now if you won’t be ready to book for a few more weeks. Any space we find will likely be gone by then.”
The website also notes that it charges a nonrefundable $100 search fee or 50% of the total paid, whichever is less. If Travel on Point(s) can’t find any availability that meets a traveler’s criteria, it will provide a full refund minus the nonrefundable search fee.
10xTravel
10xTravel helps you find awards, and several TPG readers swear by it. You just fill out an online form and press “Submit.” The company will follow up with you via email.
Unfortunately, it charges a nonrefundable $50 fee to initiate the search, which is frustrating. I couldn’t even tell how much the booking fee would be in the end. I would like to see 10xTravel offer a full quote before charging a nonrefundable fee.
The fee chart is below. If I’m reading it correctly, I would owe $150 for a round-trip booking using my points or miles, plus the $50 booking fee — a total of $200.
If I didn’t trust myself to find a way to redeem rewards on my own, it might be worth it. However, you can see that for a family of four, the costs could quickly add up.
TPG reader Lynn Richter Lott told me in The Points Guy Facebook group, TPG Lounge, that she has used the service and really liked it: “I’ve used 10xTravel twice. Once for a very complicated itinerary & once for AUS/NZ (hard to get tix).” Another reader named Eve Zucker Strauss said she has also used 10x travel to book award tickets, “They found options I couldn’t and were worth the fee.”
“At 10xTravel, our whole mission is to teach people how to maximize their points and miles themselves, and we love it when they do,” a spokesperson for the company said. “But we also know that finding the perfect award redemption can take hours of expertise that most people simply don’t have on a Tuesday night.”
The spokesperson explained that 10xTravel’s award booking service works for two kinds of people: “those who know their points are valuable but don’t have the time to dig through dozens of transfer partners to find the best use of them, and those who are great at earning points but feel overwhelmed when it’s actually time to redeem.”
Essentially, the service works for people who need a bit of extra help making their first booking to really “see how it all clicks together,” the spokesperson added. “Either way, our experts do the heavy lifting so you can focus on the trip, not the research.”
Bottom line
While TPG doesn’t generally offer individual booking advice to readers, there are plenty of resources that will do the work for you. Of course, TPG has plenty of guides and resources if you are more of a DIY-er.
Here are a few:
But let’s face it, many of us don’t have the time or obsession to make a perfect award booking on our own. Hopefully, these tried-and-true companies can help.
Related reading:
Stacie Harris is a local resident and reporter of the Maple Grove area. Stacie reports on medicine and science for the Maple Grove Report.
