Point.me, an online search engine and concierge service that makes it easy to discover real-time reward flight options, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by by Thayer Ventures. The platform checks for flights on 33 loyalty programs across more than 150 airlines to uncover real-time award flight options.
The New York-based startup was founded in 2019 by point.me CEO Adam Morvitz and president Tiffany Fund. Since the platform’s launch in February 2022, Point.me has surpassed 1.5 million users and 7.8 million searches.
“Redeeming points is typically a time-consuming, complicated, and frustrating process,” Morvitz told TechCrunch. “Our mission is to make it as easy as possible for travelers to find the best deals, no matter the loyalty program,”
With Point.me, users can filter search results by program, airline or route to find the best available deals, which will be tailored to their preferences and points balances. The platform offers a variety of services, including access to its self-serve search tool, full-service concierge, and elite status and credit card consulting. Point.me’s self-serve standard plan costs $12 per month or $144 per year and comes with unlimited searches, the ability to sync your reward account balances, step-by-step booking instructions and exclusive monthly destination tips. The service’s self-serve premium plan cost $260 per year and comes with everything in the standard plan, along with 10% discount on all concierge services, a personalized points consult call and five starter passes to gift to friends and family.
The platform also offers a $5 starter pass that gives users access to Point.me’s standard plan for 24 hours. The company notes that this plan is great for people who are planning for a single trip.
In addition to the self-serve plans, Point.me also offers concierge offerings that come with full-service booking that cost $200 per person.
In terms of the new funding, the company plans to use it to support enterprise partnerships with leading U.S. card issuers, expand its concierge service and scale its consumer subscription business.“The funding will support enterprise partnerships with leading U.S. card issuers, scale our consumer subscription business and grow our affiliate relationships for premium concierge services,” Funk said. “Currently, we operate in tandem with providers including American Express, Bilt, Capital One, Chase and Citi, and the funding will both facilitate deeper integrations with existing partners and also forge new partnerships. Additionally, we have some very exciting features planned that will expand the ways consumers think about using their points.”Morvitz said the funding will also go toward B2B operations, including joint platform development, technical infrastructure support for major loyalty programs and integrated employee travel solutions.
The Series A funding round included participation from PAR Capital Ventures, RiverPark Ventures, Plug and Play Ventures and MoreThanCapital. Prior investors, including Gaingels, and David Baggett and Carl de Marcken, the co-founders of ITA Software (now known as Google Flights), also returned for the new funding round.
Point.me’s latest funding round brings the company’s total amount raised to $12 million. The startup raised $2 million in seed funding led by PAR Capital Venture in February 2022.
Regarding the future, Point.me sees itself going beyond search, as the company aims to be the go-to loyalty management site for travelers.“We aim to become the go-to loyalty management site for travelers, using our investment in data to improve the experience for our customers and enterprise partners,” Morvitz said. “This will include AI-based algorithms that highlight redemptions consumers are most likely to book and predictive technology to recommend which awards have the best chance of becoming available. We can empower business partners with data driven analytics to target potential customers and better define the travel experience for their customers using our comprehensive data on award redemption patterns and user behavior.”
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