This is more about handling travel point hacking, credit card points and their transfer partners, comparing cash vs point prices, etc.
Plus, I like Atlas Obscura more than general internet searches for 'what to do' :)
callumprentice
As someone who do the whole mileage actual thing for many years (millions of Chase and Amex points) but also a family and a full time job - IE 3 seats vs 1 and can’t leave for a trip at the drop of a hat - I’m always astonished by how worthless my miles seem to be.
I’m not convinced it’s all one big scam but a teensie bit hopeful your solution can help. Looking forward to trying. Thank you.
borski
Oh man, do I hear that. I suspect you’ll like this; let me know what you think! Feedback greatly appreciated
Aboutplants
Spoiler alert, it’s basically a scam
SFO_SIN
good idea, but would've been useful 10 years ago when points and the churning game were peak.
in 2026, the optimal strategy is now:
- "want first, buy first" (pay cash when you want business class) and,
- "team cash back" for credit cards without playing the coupon book game
not worth the effort to optimize 1.5 vs 2.0 cent redemption unless it's a hobby
borski
Nope. I just booked biz class flights to Scandinavia in August for 140k pts.
Cash was about $7k for the same flights.
In part, the reason I built this wasn't exactly to optimize 1.5cpp vs 2cpp, although that can be useful too... but rather to help me make the choice between using points vs. cash. (which, yes, is based on the cpp value).
But if you don’t find it useful, I’d love that feedback too!
royschwartz
Nice! Can't wait to try it out!
weiyong1024
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yodahuang
This looks very nice and useful!
While Trivago covers major hotel sites, I sometimes find “shady” small sites often times offer better prices for hotels. I’ve been using super.com and vio.com and they seems great.
Another complication is credit card companies’ own portal. E.g. we need to take into account Amex’s FHR or Capital One’s premier collection. They offer credits and sometimes special “stay two nights, one night free” stuff. If we are in the credit card game, then there’s also “I have X credits in the first half of the year so it’s free” situation (e.g. Hilton resort credit).
In my personal instance I actually have added the list of Chase The Edit as well as AmEx’s FHR/HC hotels. The problem is there’s no easy way to to search AmEx/Chase for those.
I’ve never booked on super.com usually because I’m not into the “any room, run of the house” that usually requires, but please lmk if I’m missing something!
And please, I am very open to PRs that improve it. :)
This is more about handling travel point hacking, credit card points and their transfer partners, comparing cash vs point prices, etc.
Plus, I like Atlas Obscura more than general internet searches for 'what to do' :)
callumprentice
As someone who do the whole mileage actual thing for many years (millions of Chase and Amex points) but also a family and a full time job - IE 3 seats vs 1 and can’t leave for a trip at the drop of a hat - I’m always astonished by how worthless my miles seem to be.
I’m not convinced it’s all one big scam but a teensie bit hopeful your solution can help. Looking forward to trying. Thank you.
borski
Oh man, do I hear that. I suspect you’ll like this; let me know what you think! Feedback greatly appreciated
Aboutplants
Spoiler alert, it’s basically a scam
SFO_SIN
good idea, but would've been useful 10 years ago when points and the churning game were peak.
in 2026, the optimal strategy is now:
- "want first, buy first" (pay cash when you want business class) and,
- "team cash back" for credit cards without playing the coupon book game
not worth the effort to optimize 1.5 vs 2.0 cent redemption unless it's a hobby
borski
Nope. I just booked biz class flights to Scandinavia in August for 140k pts.
Cash was about $7k for the same flights.
In part, the reason I built this wasn't exactly to optimize 1.5cpp vs 2cpp, although that can be useful too... but rather to help me make the choice between using points vs. cash. (which, yes, is based on the cpp value).
But if you don’t find it useful, I’d love that feedback too!
royschwartz
Nice! Can't wait to try it out!
weiyong1024
[dead]
yodahuang
This looks very nice and useful!
While Trivago covers major hotel sites, I sometimes find “shady” small sites often times offer better prices for hotels. I’ve been using super.com and vio.com and they seems great.
Another complication is credit card companies’ own portal. E.g. we need to take into account Amex’s FHR or Capital One’s premier collection. They offer credits and sometimes special “stay two nights, one night free” stuff. If we are in the credit card game, then there’s also “I have X credits in the first half of the year so it’s free” situation (e.g. Hilton resort credit).
In my personal instance I actually have added the list of Chase The Edit as well as AmEx’s FHR/HC hotels. The problem is there’s no easy way to to search AmEx/Chase for those.
I’ve never booked on super.com usually because I’m not into the “any room, run of the house” that usually requires, but please lmk if I’m missing something!
And please, I am very open to PRs that improve it. :)
Nice work :)
There's such a huge world of agentic automation out there outside of the hype cycle that is OpenClaw. Glad to see you putting this out there
Just sent this to my partner. He’s super into travel hacking and this will be a nice add to his toolkit.
Excellent stuff, excited to try it out for an upcoming trip.
Claude itself advertises this application. https://claude.com/resources/use-cases/create-a-daily-travel...
For creating an itinerary, for sure!
This is more about handling travel point hacking, credit card points and their transfer partners, comparing cash vs point prices, etc.
Plus, I like Atlas Obscura more than general internet searches for 'what to do' :)
As someone who do the whole mileage actual thing for many years (millions of Chase and Amex points) but also a family and a full time job - IE 3 seats vs 1 and can’t leave for a trip at the drop of a hat - I’m always astonished by how worthless my miles seem to be.
I’m not convinced it’s all one big scam but a teensie bit hopeful your solution can help. Looking forward to trying. Thank you.
Oh man, do I hear that. I suspect you’ll like this; let me know what you think! Feedback greatly appreciated
Spoiler alert, it’s basically a scam
good idea, but would've been useful 10 years ago when points and the churning game were peak.
in 2026, the optimal strategy is now:
- "want first, buy first" (pay cash when you want business class) and,
- "team cash back" for credit cards without playing the coupon book game
not worth the effort to optimize 1.5 vs 2.0 cent redemption unless it's a hobby
Nope. I just booked biz class flights to Scandinavia in August for 140k pts.
Cash was about $7k for the same flights.
In part, the reason I built this wasn't exactly to optimize 1.5cpp vs 2cpp, although that can be useful too... but rather to help me make the choice between using points vs. cash. (which, yes, is based on the cpp value).
But if you don’t find it useful, I’d love that feedback too!
Nice! Can't wait to try it out!
[dead]
This looks very nice and useful!
While Trivago covers major hotel sites, I sometimes find “shady” small sites often times offer better prices for hotels. I’ve been using super.com and vio.com and they seems great.
Another complication is credit card companies’ own portal. E.g. we need to take into account Amex’s FHR or Capital One’s premier collection. They offer credits and sometimes special “stay two nights, one night free” stuff. If we are in the credit card game, then there’s also “I have X credits in the first half of the year so it’s free” situation (e.g. Hilton resort credit).
I like your inclusion of Obscura. I have a blog post of how I pick where to go to: https://blog.yanda.rocks/posts/how-i-plan-my-trips/ and my hope is one day I could automate that.
In my personal instance I actually have added the list of Chase The Edit as well as AmEx’s FHR/HC hotels. The problem is there’s no easy way to to search AmEx/Chase for those.
I’ve never booked on super.com usually because I’m not into the “any room, run of the house” that usually requires, but please lmk if I’m missing something!
And please, I am very open to PRs that improve it. :)
hey, check it out :) https://github.com/borski/travel-hacking-toolkit/pull/1
I don't know anything about capital one so can do that at a later point
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Nice work :)
There's such a huge world of agentic automation out there outside of the hype cycle that is OpenClaw. Glad to see you putting this out there
Just sent this to my partner. He’s super into travel hacking and this will be a nice add to his toolkit.
Excellent stuff, excited to try it out for an upcoming trip.
Claude itself advertises this application. https://claude.com/resources/use-cases/create-a-daily-travel...
For creating an itinerary, for sure!
This is more about handling travel point hacking, credit card points and their transfer partners, comparing cash vs point prices, etc.
Plus, I like Atlas Obscura more than general internet searches for 'what to do' :)
As someone who do the whole mileage actual thing for many years (millions of Chase and Amex points) but also a family and a full time job - IE 3 seats vs 1 and can’t leave for a trip at the drop of a hat - I’m always astonished by how worthless my miles seem to be.
I’m not convinced it’s all one big scam but a teensie bit hopeful your solution can help. Looking forward to trying. Thank you.
Oh man, do I hear that. I suspect you’ll like this; let me know what you think! Feedback greatly appreciated
Spoiler alert, it’s basically a scam
good idea, but would've been useful 10 years ago when points and the churning game were peak.
in 2026, the optimal strategy is now:
- "want first, buy first" (pay cash when you want business class) and,
- "team cash back" for credit cards without playing the coupon book game
not worth the effort to optimize 1.5 vs 2.0 cent redemption unless it's a hobby
Nope. I just booked biz class flights to Scandinavia in August for 140k pts.
Cash was about $7k for the same flights.
In part, the reason I built this wasn't exactly to optimize 1.5cpp vs 2cpp, although that can be useful too... but rather to help me make the choice between using points vs. cash. (which, yes, is based on the cpp value).
But if you don’t find it useful, I’d love that feedback too!
Nice! Can't wait to try it out!
[dead]
This looks very nice and useful!
While Trivago covers major hotel sites, I sometimes find “shady” small sites often times offer better prices for hotels. I’ve been using super.com and vio.com and they seems great.
Another complication is credit card companies’ own portal. E.g. we need to take into account Amex’s FHR or Capital One’s premier collection. They offer credits and sometimes special “stay two nights, one night free” stuff. If we are in the credit card game, then there’s also “I have X credits in the first half of the year so it’s free” situation (e.g. Hilton resort credit).
I like your inclusion of Obscura. I have a blog post of how I pick where to go to: https://blog.yanda.rocks/posts/how-i-plan-my-trips/ and my hope is one day I could automate that.
In my personal instance I actually have added the list of Chase The Edit as well as AmEx’s FHR/HC hotels. The problem is there’s no easy way to to search AmEx/Chase for those.
I’ve never booked on super.com usually because I’m not into the “any room, run of the house” that usually requires, but please lmk if I’m missing something!
And please, I am very open to PRs that improve it. :)
hey, check it out :) https://github.com/borski/travel-hacking-toolkit/pull/1
I don't know anything about capital one so can do that at a later point
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