From Miles to Smiles Stylish travel for professionals seeking luxury at affordable prices
How do travel hackers book flights? Well there’s a good chance that you either seek the cheapest flight and then check to see what airmiles you might earn. Or you are picking your preferred loyalty scheme first and then searching for the best deal from airlines within that scheme. This assumes, of course that you are not using points to pay for your flights!
To be fair, it’s a bit of a nuisance having to search by price and then trying to establish how many airmiles you might earn. How much easier would it be to search for flights and see exactly how many airmiles you could potentially earn at the same time? This is where Tripstreak comes in – this site combines a flight search feature with details of what miles you will earn. Here’s an example.
So let’s put this to the test and see how the site compares with other flight search websites. I’m going to use the example of a trip I’m currently planning to China and Hong King for later this year.
China and Hong Kong
My desired trip is Manchester, UK to Beijing on the 9th November, flying on to Hong Kong on the 20th November before returning to Manchester on the 24th November. So I head over to TripStreak and using the flight entry fields, select results including those from nearby airports as sometimes smaller airports can offer much better deals. As you can see, I also can combine multi-city itineraries which prevents me back-tracking and saves time.
Once you click on the search button, the results will come up as below.
I really like the clean layout and I like the prices even better! £470 for flights to China and Hong Kong seems like a great deal to me! Of course, in the interests of ensuring it is a great deal, I’ve run the same search through both Skyscanner and Expedia and here are the results.
As you can see Expedia is the best value overall on price but only by 44 pence. I think it is worth paying an extra £0.44 just to see the mileage and price information combined in one place.
Of course, flight prices often vary across booking sites, depending on the inventory. What time you search will determine what price you are quoted so sometimes one site will be higher and sometimes it will be lower, but it will probably only be a few pounds’ (or pennies) difference. Personally, I think it is worth paying an extra £0.44 just to see the mileage and price information combined in one place.
Airmiles comparison
Let’s take a look at that feature in a little more detail. You can see the miles highlighted below (please note you will need to be signed in to be able to see the mileage options). A quick scroll down the page shows some marked differences between mileage options with the best being 10,411 and the worst being 3,017.
It is incredibly useful to be able to see this so easily, as surely a few pennies extra in price is worth paying if it allows you to earn twice as many miles! Beware though, not all miles are created equal. 80,000 miles in the Miles and More program have the potential to go much further than in the British Airways Executive club, especially when Lufthansa runs their half price business class redemption offers.
If you want more detail on the mileage, click on the down arrow. TripStreak shows a breakdown of how many airmiles you can earn, and what type. This really helps to save time!
Once you have found a price and mileage option that you like, simply click book. I’m sure you savvy travellers know the deal!
Hotels and car rentals too
If you are someone who likes to use one site to book your flights, hotels and car rentals, then you also will not be disappointed. TripStreak has thought of it all and allows you to do just that. Just scroll down below the flight search option and enter your requirements.
How I rate the Tripstreak site
In this search, Tripstreak prices came out slighter higher but with such a little difference that it would be unlikely to sway me. This tiny difference is more than made up for by the ability to see both the flight prices and mileage at the same time. I am unaware of any other site that allows you to research both this information and book flights, without paying a fee for the privilege.
Have you used the site?
Maybe you have used the site and would like to share your views. Feel free to have your say below as I would love to know what you thought.
I signed up for tripstreak, but they did not give me flight information when asked. Do not know what is going on there.
I always find points so confusing, especially as I never have enough for a flight! This is a great tool to check how many points you need per flight next to the price. I’ve searched for others before & had to do two different searches for paying in money, and another for paying points, it’s such a pain, but Tripstreak solves that problem!
I’ve never heard of this aggregator before, will check it out nw. Showing potential miles accrual is a good perk, it could actually influence my decision-making! Thanks for this review.
Never heard of tripstreak before but looks like a brilliant idea. Thats one reason I haven’t even signed up for any airline mile programs coz I don’t even know how many miles I will earn viz a viz another flight. Nifty site for sure.
That’s an interesting information, but do you advice me to do this even if I fly only a couple of times /year? I’ve heard many people using miles but I think it worth if you fly at least once/month? Or maybe I am wrong?
Absolutely. As you can see I earn very few of my miles from flying
seems like a great site for those into using points to fly
That definitely takes some of the guessing game out of it doesn’t it? Useful site for sure. I’ll have to use this the next time we’re booking flights. THanks!
I have never heard of this site before reading your post. I always struggle with how and where to book with points in mind. I will definitely be checking them out for the future!
I haven’t tried the site yet, but I am always trying to make sure I maximize my points. I have a few big flights coming up, so I will be careful to watch out for how many miles each one can earn me.
This seems like an interesting alternative! I’ll have to give it a shot! I usually just use Expedia, but I’m going to give this a try. I’m so bad about keeping track of my miles – which is just plain silly because I fly a decent amount!
You can download a free version of Award Wallet To track your miles for you. I rarely use Xperia this days as I usually find them to be more expensive. On this occasion though, they it shows how prices can change.
Interesting. Being able to understand the miles earned is definitely worth the small uptick in price. I’ll bookmark and test it myself.
Hi Lee, let me know what you think. It would be great to see what experience you have