Point.me books your flight. We tell you the truth about the whole trip, including when not to spend the points. Here are three redemptions we’ve actually made, with the real numbers, so you can see exactly what the process looks like before you book a call.
230,000 points. Two business class seats to Europe. $225.42 in taxes.
Who: Jeremy and Shana, this site’s founders. We’re using our own trip here on purpose – it’s the one redemption where we can show every number without asking anyone’s permission.
The goal: two Polaris business class seats from the US to Europe, without burning an entire points balance chasing economy math.
What we used: 230,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points (115,000 per traveler), transferred to Avianca LifeMiles.
What we booked: United Polaris business class, Newark to Brussels outbound, Brussels to Washington Dulles return.
What we paid: $225.42 total in taxes and fees for both tickets ($112.71 each). That’s it. No cash fare.
What it would have cost: $17,681 for the pair at retail ($8,840.50 per seat).
What that comes out to: about 7.6 cents of value per point, against the 1 to 2 cents most people get when they redeem Chase Ultimate Rewards points for a portal booking or a cash-back transfer.
How, in plain terms: LifeMiles is one of the few remaining partners where United Polaris award space still prices this well, and finding it takes knowing which transfer partner unlocks the seat, not just which airline you want to fly. That’s the part almost everyone misses – the airline you want to fly and the program you should actually book it through are often two different programs entirely.
What this isn’t: a promise. Award space like this comes and goes, sometimes within hours, and exact pricing moves by route and date. This is a real redemption we made, with real numbers, not a hypothetical.
What we’d do with your points: the same process, on your balance and your trip. We look at what you’re actually sitting on, find where it’s worth the most against the trip you actually want, and hand you the specific booking path, not a generic “transfer to airline X” answer. You book it. We never touch your accounts or your money.
$990 in hotel value. Two nights. One free night certificate and 95,000 points.
Who: Jeremy and Shana, again using our own stay so we can show every number.
The situation: a spring break ski trip to Breckenridge, Colorado, booked about four weeks out on February 18, 2026, for a March 24-26 stay at Hotel Alpenrock Breckenridge, a Hilton Curio Collection property.
What we used: night one, the annual free night certificate from the Amex Hilton Honors Aspire card. Night two, 95,000 Hilton Honors points.
What that would have cost in cash: $495 a night, $990 for the two nights.
What else the card covered: Hilton Diamond status, an automatic Aspire benefit, waived the resort fee, worth roughly $80 a night. The card’s $200 semi-annual resort credit covered $133.74 of on-property charges. Out of pocket for the room itself: zero. We still paid for valet parking and a couple of drinks at the hotel’s speakeasy, because that’s real life, not a redemption.
What that comes out to: about 0.52 cents of value per point on the points night, on top of a full free night we weren’t paying for in points at all. That’s a modest cents-per-point number next to the Belgium trip above, and that’s the honest point: not every good redemption is a headline number. This one is good because the annual fee on one card quietly covered two nights at a property charging peak, ski-season rates.
The honest part: there was no snow. Peak ski season, spring break, and the mountain never got a real storm while we were there. The points math didn’t care. The certificate and the points paid for the room regardless of what the lifts were doing, which is the actual lesson: book the redemption against the cash rate, not the weather.
What this isn’t: a promise that this exact stack is available on your dates. Certificate terms, point costs, and status benefits change by card and by year.
What we’d do with your points and certificates: the same process. Most people are sitting on at least one annual certificate or a stash of hotel points they’ve never matched to the right property or the right week. We find the property where your certificate is worth the most, and the week where the cash rate makes the points redemption worth it, then hand you the exact booking sequence. You book it. We never touch your accounts or your money.
285,000 points. Two people to Portugal and back. $1,247 out of pocket.
Who: Jeremy and Shana, on the points that got us to the Camino Portugues Coastal, a 28-day walk we’d been planning for months.
The problem: we live in Denver, which is not a transatlantic hub. Every clean routing to Europe from a non-hub city either eats a day on a bad connection or needs a positioning flight. We chose to position.
What we used: 285,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points, transferred 1:1 to Flying Blue, the KLM and Air France loyalty program, booked as two separate award tickets.
What we booked: Premium Economy, JFK to Porto via Paris outbound (63,500 points per person plus $163.40 per person in taxes), and Paris to Denver on the return (79,000 points per person plus $301.93 per person). A positioning flight from Denver to New York on cash ($158.40 per person) and a free night at the Hyatt Regency JFK on an annual certificate (World of Hyatt card, no cost) filled the gap between the domestic and international legs.
What we paid: about $1,247 total for two people, across the positioning flight and both sets of award taxes.
What it would have cost: $9,708 for the two award legs at cash fares on the day we booked.
What that comes out to: 3.41 cents per point blended. The outbound leg came in at 1.82 cents per point, solid but not remarkable. The return leg hit 4.68 cents per point, which is where this redemption earns its place on this page.
The honest part: the return leg’s French departure taxes are real money, $301.93 per person, and Denver isn’t a cheap endpoint either way. We modeled the full cost, points plus fees, against cash before transferring a single point, and it still came out ahead. Model yours before you transfer too. Shana’s own note afterward: next time, set a floor on an acceptable point cost and book the moment it appears, instead of watching the calendar for something better that might not come.
What this isn’t: a guarantee that Flying Blue prices this route the same way on your dates. Zone-based award pricing moves, and Denver specifically has thinner long-haul award availability than the coastal hubs.
What we’d do with your points: model the exact routing from your home airport, not a hub you’d have to fly into first, price the outbound and return as separate searches since availability rarely matches on both directions at once, and tell you honestly whether the redemption clears cash fares before you transfer anything. You book it. We never touch your accounts or your money.
Every number above is real – we booked these trips ourselves, on our own points. If you want the same process run against your own balance and your own trip, that’s what the Work With Us page is for. If you already know what you want, go straight to the intake form.