Award search tools compared: free search, plans, alerts

The table sets seats.aero, PointsYeah, point.me, Roame, Pointhound, ExpertFlyer, AwardTool, SeatSpy, AwardFares, AwardHacker, Award Travel Finder, Award Nexus and Reward Flight Finder beside MilesZone. Each competitor fact is what we recorded on the date shown, nothing more; where our notes hold nothing, the cell says so. Plans change, so check a tool's own site before paying for it. One-to-one pages are on compare.

• MilesZone: Free with an account for departures in the next 60 days, no card.
• seats.aero: Free search with no account; its help centre puts the window at up to 30 days, its homepage at two months.
• PointsYeah: Free plan with unlimited live searches, up to 4 days at a time.
• point.me: Free Forever plan: search up to 60 days out, 15 results per search, no live search and no alerts per its help centre.
• Roame: Free plan with a 4-day flexible live search and SkyView Lite, a 7-day window on flights within 60 days.
• Pointhound: Search and booking instructions free for everyone, no sign-up, up to a year out.
• ExpertFlyer: Free account with seat maps and 1 seat alert; no award or upgrade availability.
• AwardTool: Free tier with ads: 4-entry real-time search, 90 days of route data, 1 route refresh every three days.
• SeatSpy: Free searches without signing up, capped each week; the cap is not stated on its pages.
• AwardFares: Basic is free with no card: a cached preview of one programme at a time, no live search, no alerts.
• AwardHacker: No free search: the site shut down in spring 2026 and is now a farewell page.
• Award Travel Finder: Free tier: 3 economy award searches a day and 1 route alert, no card.
• Award Nexus: Free only for FlyerTalk and MilePoint members: 200 points at sign-up, 100 more every 90 days.
• Reward Flight Finder: Bronze is free: economy day-to-day availability and Avios pricing, 1 alert checked daily.

For business class, a cap on dates matters more than a cap on searches. In the October 2026 study, LifeMiles had the lowest typical price but a seat on only 17% of dates, so a free tier that shows a narrow window can miss the cheap seat entirely.

Pro monthly and Pro yearly include the same alerts; they differ only in how often you are billed. The 7-day trial needs a card up front, and you are emailed before it converts. The full terms are on pricing.

• When you book further out than 60 days. On MilesZone, only a paid plan searches beyond that.
• When the seat you want is scarce. An alert watches a route for you and, on MilesZone, re-checks the seat before it emails. How price and availability pull against each other is in cheap programs against available programs.
• Not when your trip is within 60 days and your dates can move: the free search reads the same programs.
• Not when the program you need is not one MilesZone reads (EL AL Matmid, Atmos Rewards, Air France-KLM Flying Blue, LifeMiles, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, Thai Royal Orchid Plus, British Airways Club, United MileagePlus, Delta SkyMiles, Air Canada Aeroplan and Qantas Frequent Flyer), or when you want someone to book for you: MilesZone does not hold miles, sell tickets or book.

Monthly prices where a tool lists one in US dollars: seats.aero at $9.99 a month, PointsYeah at $10 a month, point.me at $19.99 a month, Roame at $12.99 a month, ExpertFlyer at $6.99 a month, AwardTool at $9.99 a month, SeatSpy at $3.99 a month and AwardFares at $9.99 a month. MilesZone's own plans, in your currency, are on the pricing page.

• seats.aero: seats.aero reads 26 programmes, far more than we do, needs no account to search, and has apps, an MCP server and an API.
• PointsYeah: PointsYeah reads 20+ airline programmes, more than we do, runs unlimited live searches with alerts on its free plan, and adds hotel search and a 365-day Explorer map.
• point.me: point.me reads 30+ programmes and 150+ airlines, far more than we do, runs real-time search on its paid plans, and offers concierge booking from $200 per passenger.
• Roame: Roame searches 25 programmes live, more than we read, adds SkyView region-to-region discovery, and has an iOS app, hotel search and rebates.
• Pointhound: Pointhound searches about 150 airlines with no sign-up up to a year out, adds transfer instructions to every result and sells concierge booking.
• ExpertFlyer: ExpertFlyer reads award and upgrade booking classes per airline in real time, and adds upgrade search, seat maps, fare rules and up to 250 alerts.
• AwardTool: AwardTool reads 28 programmes, mixes real-time search with Panorama exploration over 50,000+ routes, and adds hotels, seat maps and 100 alerts with SMS on Pro.
• SeatSpy: SeatSpy starts with a 14-day trial, shows almost a year of dates in every cabin and sends alerts by Telegram, WhatsApp and SMS.
• AwardFares: AwardFares reads 17 programmes, more than we do, refreshes live search hourly on Gold and every minute on Diamond, and adds a journey planner, seat maps and flight schedules.
• AwardHacker: AwardHacker has shut down. While it ran it was free and answered one question we do not: what each programme's award chart asked for a route, with the credit card points that transfer to it.
• Award Travel Finder: Award Travel Finder is built for AI agents, with an MCP server, an API and a Chrome extension, and searches up to 355 days ahead.
• Award Nexus: Award Nexus searches 50+ airline sites live across all three alliances, against our programmes read on a schedule, and backs Premium with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
• Reward Flight Finder: Reward Flight Finder shows a whole year of British Airways and Iberia reward seats, flight by flight on Gold, with taxes and surcharges and instant SMS alerts, from £3.33 a month billed yearly.

Search a route you already know well, for dates you could really fly, and look for five things:

1. Does each result say when the seat was last checked? Without a time, you cannot tell a fresh seat from a stale one.
2. Is the cash shown next to the miles, and does the tool say when that cash may be incomplete?
3. Can you see the airline that flies the seat, not only the program that sells it?
4. Does a search for two travellers return fewer seats than a search for one? If not, the tool may not be checking party size.
5. Pick one result and find it on the program's own site. If it is not there, read how fresh award availability is before trusting the rest.

Start from the programs you can pay with, then your dates. A tool that reads twenty programs is no help if none is one you hold points in or can transfer to.

• Flying within a free window: a free tier may be all you need.
• One balance, many routes: check the tool reads that program and the airlines it sells.
• A rare seat on a fixed route: compare alerts on how many routes they watch and whether the seat is re-checked before you hear about it.
• Working through an AI assistant: check for an MCP server or an API. Our notes record one for Award Travel Finder; MilesZone has neither.

How a single search across programs works on MilesZone, and where it falls short, is in award flight search across programs.

Which award search tool is free?

Of the tools we recorded, seats.aero, PointsYeah, point.me, Roame, Pointhound, ExpertFlyer, AwardTool, SeatSpy, AwardFares, Award Travel Finder, Award Nexus and Reward Flight Finder offer some free search with limits, and MilesZone is free with an account for departures in the next 60 days. AwardHacker needs a subscription to search.

Does MilesZone have an API or an MCP server?

No MCP server or API. The public pages are open to AI search crawlers.

Does the Pro trial need a card?

Yes. The 7-day trial needs a card up front; nothing is charged during the trial, and we email you before it converts.

• Award flight search: how to check every program at once
• Award availability: how fresh is it on a search tool?
• Check award availability before transferring points

The study is a frozen month. A search shows the seats each program has now, in miles and cash, free with an account. Every guide is on guides.