I’ve been journey hacking for over a decade and normally rack up round a million miles per yr. Journey hacking — the artwork of amassing factors and miles that you should utilize free of charge journey or journey perks — is hands-down the easiest way to rework your on a regular basis spending into free flights and lodge stays so as to journey extra, with out spending extra.
However, whereas maximizing incomes factors and miles is one thing I get pleasure from, for many vacationers, it could possibly come off as sophisticated and time-consuming. Managing totally different factors and miles packages and discovering one of the best redemptions might be overwhelming in case you’re new to journey hacking.
Enter level.me.
Level.me goals to streamline the method of discovering one of the best redemptions so that you simply don’t need to spend worthwhile time trying to find them. It helps you get essentially the most bang on your buck with the factors and miles that you’ve.
However is it definitely worth the value? And does it truly work?
What’s level.me?
level.me is a search and reserving engine that helps you discover one of the best methods to make use of your factors and miles. It searches 30+ loyalty and 100+ airline packages to search out one of the best worth doable.
Listed here are simply a few of these airways, bank cards, and loyalty packages:
Level.me works like airline reserving instruments like Skyscanner: you place in your required flight particulars (location, dates, and so on.) and it brings up all of the accessible award flights that you would e-book for that journey.
The interface is modern and simple to make use of, and it walks you thru each step of the reserving course of, making it nice for brand spanking new journey hackers.
How Does level.me Work?
Say you need to e-book a flight from New York to Paris.
An elective first step is syncing your awards packages with level.me. You do that by connecting level.me with AwardWallet, a free factors and miles monitoring instrument that syncs with virtually 700 rewards packages, from airline to lodge to automotive rental packages.
In the event you already use AwardWallet, all you do is hit a button and also you’re all set.
In the event you don’t already use AwardWallet, you’ll have to enroll (it’s free) and join all of your award packages there first. To do that, you’ll have to permit AwardWallet entry to your accounts.
Word: In the event you don’t really feel comfy doing that, you possibly can all the time manually filter by your awards packages or most popular airways. You may select to manually filter by just a few packages or solely a selected program:
In the event you do select to attach your award accounts to AwardWallet, you’ll see them listed within the drop-down menu like this:
Subsequent, it’s time to seek for flights.
As soon as your outcomes are up, you would possibly need to mess around with filters and sorting, to get a superb take a look at your choices. Right here is the completed search from above, sorted by “level.me picks” (once more, which makes use of an algorithm to ship one of the best general flight):
Nonetheless, you’ll discover that whereas the variety of factors required is sort of low (simply 10,000 factors), the charges are fairly excessive ($147 USD). That is the place you in all probability will need to begin enjoying round with dates. There is likely to be higher choices on different days, as reward flights can differ drastically by day.
On this case, this was the following day’s end result:
You’ll discover that whereas the factors required are larger, the price is decrease. To see which is a greater deal, you would possibly need to use a factors calculator such because the one supplied by The Factors Man, which is consistently up to date with present level valuations.
The proper selection additionally depends upon your private scenario. For instance, you may need tons of Chase factors however not many Citi factors (or vice versa). For this instance, let’s assume you’ve got a ton of miles and like to make use of much less money. Which means the second choice is clearly the higher one for you.
When you’ve picked your redemption choice, hit “view reserving choices” and also you’ll see this:
Select your most popular choice, and it’ll deliver you to a web page that offers you an outline of the three most important steps within the reserving course of and what you want to do:
Subsequent, level.me walks you thru every step of truly reserving the flight, with screenshots and even movies on the right-hand facet that present you precisely the place you want to click on. Right here you possibly can see the step for studying find out how to switch from a bank card (American Specific Membership factors) to an airline rewards program (Flying Blue):
All it’s important to do is observe the steps and e-book your most popular flight. Skilled journey hackers which are already conversant in the method can merely click on to skip via these steps.
Now that we’ve gone over the method, you will have already found out a few of the professionals and cons of level.me. However this wouldn’t be a complete assessment and not using a full breakdown, so let’s have a look!
Execs of Level.me
1. The flexibility to go looking throughout many packages directly
The obvious professional of utilizing level.me is pulling up all accessible award flights on your desired journey. With out this instrument, you’d have to go looking throughout all of the packages wherein you’ve got factors and miles. That includes logging into every web site, discovering the award charts, factoring in any charges, and evaluating throughout all packages. It’s not that tough, however it does take time.
2. Enhanced search options
level.me additionally contains enhanced search options that aren’t accessible elsewhere. These present mixed-cabin flights (which means that you simply’ll be in several courses on totally different legs of the route, similar to financial system on one leg and enterprise on one other). These might be nice choices in case you’re taking an extended journey and need to pay for the longest leg in a extra comfy (and dearer) class however nonetheless get monetary savings by touring in financial system class on shorter legs.
There may be additionally a “level.me picks” filter, which ostensibly makes use of an algorithm to search out the very best choices throughout the board. It reveals you essentially the most comfy flight accessible (i.e., the fewest transfers and shortest layovers) for one of the best level redemption. Generally this is identical as sorting by “factors low to excessive” (that’s, from the bottom to the best variety of factors required), however not all the time. It’s good to see at a look what you’re working with.
Lastly, it highlights packages which are at present providing switch bonuses, which is when packages supply extra factors in case you switch between packages earlier than a sure date.
3. You may join your awards accounts
I like the flexibility to attach all of your awards accounts to level.me by syncing with AwardWallet. For our function of monitoring airline factors, you solely want to attach your airline and journey bank card packages, however if you wish to use it to trace all the things, go wild!
4. The interface is simple to make use of
The web site could be very simple and simple to make use of, and for newer journey hackers, it walks you thru each step of the method, with screenshots and suggestions.
Cons of Level.me
1. The subscription price
level.me has a month-to-month price: $12 monthly, or $129 a yr (there’s a ten% low cost while you pay yearly). You may also pay for a one-time day-pass for simply $5, so you possibly can test it out and even e-book a flight.
Nonetheless, in case you’re new to journey hacking and haven’t fairly memorized the ins and outs of every program, $12 is a cut price when you think about the potential financial savings level.me presents.
And, as a Nomadic Matt reader, you will get your first month for simply $1 with the code NOMADICMATT.
It’s additionally price noting that when you have the Bilt card, you should utilize the purpose.me search engine integration proper throughout the Bilt app (it solely searches for Bilt switch companions although, so when you have playing cards apart from Bilt, you’ll possible need to make the most of level.me’s full capabilities.)
2. The search choices want some enchancment
One other downside is that, as of the time of writing, you possibly can solely search by particular airport, with no skill to go looking by metropolis.
For cities with only one most important airport, this isn’t a problem, however in case you’re seeking to fly between cities with a couple of airport, like in our instance search from NYC to Paris, for instance, there are numerous airport combos that you simply is likely to be open to. Proper now, you have to search individually for JFK to CDG and JFK to ORY, and probably even embrace EWR (Newark) to cowl all of your bases.
You can also’t use versatile dates or a date vary to go looking, one thing that’s key when reserving award flights, as they’ll differ drastically relying on the day (that is even a tip that time.me highlights within the pointers supplied when you wait). For now, it’s important to search by particular person dates, which might get tedious.
Who’s Level.me For?
level.me is very geared towards vacationers which are newer to redeeming factors for award flights. If that’s you, utilizing it’s a no-brainer, because it makes your complete course of simple, saving you time (and cash) within the course of.
However even skilled journey hackers can get numerous worth out of the web site, because it actually does pace up the method of discovering award flights. In the event you’re a professional that already has a course of down pat for reserving award flights, then you definately won’t see the advantage of utilizing a web site like this.
***
level.me is a robust reserving instrument that streamlines the award-booking course of. It helps you discover one of the best award flights, together with some that you simply won’t have even thought-about. It’s an incredible addition to any journey hacking arsenal, particularly in case you’re a more moderen journey hacker seeking to maximize your factors and miles with out spending tons of time taking place the factors rabbit gap.
And whereas it’s a paid service, you possibly can simply recoup the value on one flight alone, making it nicely definitely worth the month-to-month price.
Get your first month for simply $1 with the code NOMADICMATT.
