Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Launch HN: Roame (YC S23) – Flight search engine for your credit card points

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 137 posts

Re: Launch HN: Roame (YC S23) – Flight search engine for your credit card points

#33

Post by MattGaiser »

I’m a pro subscriber already. Very nice product.

However, do you have a strategy to at least mollify the airlines?

As the reason I am a Roame subscriber is that:

1: Air Canada brought the hammer down on one of your predecessors.

2. Air Canada implemented a bunch of anti scraping tech, breaking my custom version of this tool and it’s been easier to pay for yours.

The last few attempts at this caused enormous problems for Air Canada and eliminated a lot of desirable Aeroplan space, so I can easily see AC being upset again.

Re: Launch HN: Roame (YC S23) – Flight search engine for your credit card points

#35

Post by thecleaner »

I am happy simply because this isnt AI this-that. Congrats on the launch, will definitely use as I am someone who frequently forgets that points exist. For me, Qatar or any of the mid-east carriers have been the worst since their websites are awful.

Re: Launch HN: Roame (YC S23) – Flight search engine for your credit card points

#36

Post by nharada »

misterbwong wrote: post #28

Congrats on the launch! Been using your free product for a little while. As a fellow traffic hacker, some random comments: - I've been in the points game for a long time so I may not be your target customer. Take feedback with a grain of salt, I guess. - Commissions & Trust: You should disclose (more clearly?) that you're getting commissions from the CC signups and, ideally, that those may not be the best offers avai…

I tried this product recently and "Last Refresh" was a big pain point. I'm sure there's technical reasons why it's hard to keep things fresh (many airlines don't even appear to update their own listings until you try and book) but it was frustrating to find what looked like good deals and then spend the effort to book only to be told it wasn't an existing offer.

Re: Launch HN: Roame (YC S23) – Flight search engine for your credit card points

#37

Post by timqin »

misterbwong wrote: post #28

Congrats on the launch! Been using your free product for a little while. As a fellow traffic hacker, some random comments: - I've been in the points game for a long time so I may not be your target customer. Take feedback with a grain of salt, I guess. - Commissions & Trust: You should disclose (more clearly?) that you're getting commissions from the CC signups and, ideally, that those may not be the best offers avai…

Thank you! Love more feedback, especially from travel hackers.

1) You're right. We have Advertiser Disclosures on all other pages, but will make the disclosures more prominent. Going to push out a change today/tomorrow. Affiliate commissions are not a big revenue driver right now.

2) We're working on a new design so the last refresh is more prominent. Currently, you'll be able to see the "Update ## ago" when you either expand the flight details or click into the full flight details page.

If are using the Roame live search, then it should be the instant you search. Please let me know if you are running into issues with live search results not showing up on the airline website.

If you are using SkyView or Discover cached search, we pull results and save them up to 4 days or so. This is to help users plan and search broadly across regions and dates.

3) Agreed. We try to simplify the UI for points beginners. Thought it would be too confusing to try to estimate AA vs. Asiana vs. United, etc. The value of the points would also depend on which fare class and route you want to take. If you someone only wanted to fly US to Japan in JAL, then AA miles would be gold. But if someone wanted to fly US to Paris, then Air France/Flying Blue miles would be gold even though they are easy to earn because all the CC points transfer to Air France.

4) We're working on adding more loyalty program coverage. Our free tool is in real-time though, so slightly different than the cached tools. We do have a cached tool called SkyView.

5) This is good feedback. Will to work on promoting the ability to set alerts more.

Thank you for the detailed feedback! Please let me know if you see anything else you think would be helpful

Re: Launch HN: Roame (YC S23) – Flight search engine for your credit card points

#39

Post by timqin »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #32

If credit card rewards affiliate programs sunset, what is your business model? https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_credit-ca... https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/183...

Right now card affiliate programs are a really small portion of our business and we make the vast majority of revenue via subscription access to advanced toolset.

Our focus is to help the average consumer book their first business/first class flight. There are a lot of points sitting in everyone's accounts, but most people do not know how to redeem them for the best value.

Some data on the Americans with points: - Seven in ten (71%) people say they have a rewards, points or cashback credit card of some sort (Ipsos May 2024) - In 2018, the McKinsey consulting group estimated the number of unredeemed airline miles sitting in accounts at 30 trillion

Post reply on HN