The Points Guy debuts its travel rewards app
Travel rewards enthusiasts now have the ultimate travel-hacking tool at their disposal: The Points Guy app. The app, recently launched by Bankrate sister site The Points Guy (TPG), aims to provide a one-stop shop where users can track all their airline, hotel and credit card loyalty points in one place. In addition, you’ll get tips and advice on how to use your credit card rewards strategically towards your travel goals.
If you’ve always wanted to get more value out of your credit card rewards when it comes to booking travel, this app might be exactly what you need. If you want more guidance on maximizing your travel rewards with the TPG app works, here’s what you should know.
What is The Points Guy app and how does it work?
The Points Guy has long been a go-to source for folks looking to get the most out of their credit card rewards for all types of travel accommodations, ranging from airline tickets and hotels to car rentals and upgrades for it all. The app’s features are spread across three main categories: earn, burn and learn.
Earn
First, you can sync all your rewards credit cards and loyalty programs in one place. Your earnings summary will tell you how much you’ve spent in a given month, the points you’ve earned and where you missed opportunities to earn more points. There’s a sign-up bonus tracker that helps you reach your spending goals to get the welcome bonus for any new cards, too.
If you are concerned about syncing your personal information on the app, just know it supports Face ID login as an added layer of security. TPG’s development team also assured us none of your banking or credit card credentials are stored in the app.
Burn
From here, you’ll start to receive insights, tips and recommendations from the app on spending to meet your travel goals. You’ll also get real-time tips on which cards to use.
If you’re planning a certain travel itinerary, you can track rewards points progress towards that goal with easy-to-read charts located in the app.
When you use the app to search for award routes in the “Award Explorer” section, you’ll get estimates for the amount of rewards points you’d need for one or more fare classes. If you’re happy with the award fare, the app will guide you through the steps to book the route you’re interested in.
Learn
You’ll still get access to the content you’ve enjoyed from TPG, but now you’ll be able to customize your homepage with the content categories that interest you most: points and miles, deals, credit cards, hotels, airlines, family travel, luxury travel, beginners, guides and more. You can still stay up-to-date with the latest travel news in a way that makes sense for your travel interests and goals.
Why use the TPG app?
You should use this app if you need a centralized place to track your rewards points and loyalty programs. If you are an avid traveler who relies heavily on award fares and discounts, you’ll get a lot of value from the tracking, reports and recommendations features the app provides.
The framework behind the TPG app is closely aligned with the award strategy of the website’s creators: using rewards for upgraded fares and options for luxury travel accommodations. You’ll also get insight into maximizing rewards, be it through the matrix of travel partners that offer more value for accommodations, taking advantage of things like hopper flights (short flights from small cities to major hubs) or finding great deals on international flights with business and first-class fares.
In other words, the app is designed to help you find transfer partners, valuable routes and fares or travel strategies that are not as obvious as if you were booking on your own—which can make your rewards stretch much farther.
If you aren’t yet an intermediate or advanced traveler familiar with using your rewards in this fashion, downloading the app can help you understand how to move from beginner travel hacking to more advanced levels.
What else you should know about The Points Guy App
As impressive as the app is, there are a few features you might find lacking or not as useful as they could be. For instance, the “Award Explorer” feature doesn’t include the option to include your travel dates. We all know travel pricing depends largely on when you’re traveling and how far out you’re booking.
If you tend to pool points with other members of your household, the “multi-player” mode is not yet available, so you can only track one account per bank or loyalty program. In addition, the app is only available on iOS at the moment.
The TPG team informed us there are plans to address all these issues in successive app updates. Furthermore, they’re asking users to report any problems they experience while using the app so they can fix them.
The development team is also hopeful Android users will have access to the app by the first quarter of 2022. Plus, there are many other great features on the app’s roadmap that will add more value as users provide feedback. We’ll keep this guide updated with the latest the app has to offer as updates are released.
You can download the app from the iOS App Store here.
