Unlock Luxury Travel with Credit Card Points: Roam's CEO Tim Qin Shares Secrets

Rome is on a mission to simplify the complex world of points and travel for everyday Americans. As Tim, the co-founder and CEO, explains, the points ecosystem is incredibly intricate, with constantly changing credit card rewards, airline loyalty programs, and redemption options.

To address this complexity, Rome has built a flight search engine that instantly scans over 60 different airline loyalty programs, allowing users to find the best deals without having to manually search each airline's website. This saves users hours of time and can unlock significant savings, like booking a $15,000 first-class ticket to Japan for just 70,000 points (around $700).

Beyond flights, Rome aims to bring this same level of simplification to the hotel booking process and helping users manage their entire travel wallet, including credit card benefits and status perks. The goal is to empower everyday Americans to achieve their travel dreams by unlocking the hidden value in their points and miles.

To drive growth, Rome has focused on building a passionate community of points enthusiasts, engaging with them directly on social media and through a newsletter that surfaces the best deals. This organic, word-of-mouth approach has been key to the company's success so far.

Looking ahead, Rome is committed to continuously improving its product and expanding into new areas of travel. By putting the user experience first and leveraging technology to navigate the complex points landscape, the company aims to make travel more accessible and aspirational for all.

With Rome, we see tons of great deals every single day. We send a selection of those deals through newsletters to our users as well as on social media. You can just search on Rome, and I would say the best deal right now is a first-class flight from the US to Japan that's a $15,000 to $20,000 cash fare, which you can redeem for about 70,000 points or approximately $700.

The secret to the world of points is that while the vast majority of Americans have points, they don't really know the best way to redeem them. With Rome, we're helping to simplify the process and unlock the hidden value of credit card rewards.

Typically, booking a first-class ticket can cost around $5,000 to $10,000 per ticket. But with Rome, we can help you book that same ticket for just 50,000 points, which is approximately $500. This is the kind of value we want to help everyone take advantage of.

The points world is complex, with constantly changing credit card benefits, airline loyalty programs, and hidden redemption opportunities. We're taking that complexity and simplifying it for our users, so they can easily search across 60 different airline loyalty programs and find the best deals.

Our goal is to help users achieve their travel dreams by simplifying the world of points and travel. We want to bring this same level of simplification to the hotel booking process and help users manage their entire financial wallet, understanding all the benefits and hidden value they can unlock.

At Rome, our goal is to simplify the complex world of credit card points and miles redemptions. We understand that the manual process of searching across multiple airline websites, understanding transfer partners, and finding the best deals can be overwhelming for the average user.

That's why we've built an automated platform that does all the heavy lifting for you. Our flight search engine scans over 60 different airline loyalty programs in real-time, allowing you to instantly find the best redemption options for your desired route and travel dates.

No more juggling between airline websites or trying to decipher the intricacies of each credit card's transfer partners. With Rome, you can easily filter and sort through the available options to find the most valuable redemption, whether that's a first-class ticket to Japan for 70,000 points or a business class flight to Europe for 50,000 points.

Beyond just flights, we're also working to simplify the hotel booking process using points. Our goal is to be a one-stop-shop for all your travel needs, empowering users to maximize the value of their credit card rewards.

Through continuous innovation and a deep understanding of the points and miles landscape, we're committed to making dream vacations accessible to everyone, not just the most seasoned travel hackers. By automating the redemption process, we're unlocking a world of possibilities and helping our users achieve their travel aspirations.

Our goal is to help users achieve their travel dreams by simplifying the world of points and travel. Beyond our current flight search capabilities, we have plans to expand into the hotel space and wallet management.

For hotels, we want to bring the same level of simplicity and transparency that we've achieved with flights. Users often struggle to understand the best ways to redeem their points for hotel stays. We aim to streamline this process, allowing users to easily search and book hotel stays using their points.

In terms of wallet management, we recognize that credit card benefits and rewards can be complex and overwhelming. Our users often have points spread across multiple cards, making it difficult to maximize their value. We want to help users manage their entire financial wallet, providing insights and recommendations on the best ways to utilize their credit card benefits and points. This could include things like understanding status benefits, identifying hidden perks, and optimizing point redemptions.

By expanding into these areas, we're working to become a comprehensive platform that simplifies the entire travel and financial experience for our users. Our goal is to empower everyday Americans to unlock the hidden value of their points and achieve their travel dreams.

With Rome, we see tons of great deals every single day. We send a selection of those deals through newsletters to our users as well as on social media. You can simply search on Rome to find the best deals.

Right now, I would say the best deal is a first-class flight from the US to Japan. This flight typically costs $15,000 to $20,000 in cash, but you can redeem it for only around 70,000 points, which is approximately $700. This is an amazing redemption that most people never even dream of being able to access for first-class travel.

The key to achieving these types of deals is through credit card sign-up bonuses. These bonuses can range from 50,000 to 200,000 points, which makes booking these first-class flights very achievable with just one credit card.

The reason these deals exist is that airlines want to reward their loyalty members and fill up their planes. If they can't fill the seats with cash fares, they are willing to offer them at a discounted rate in points to their loyalty program members. This helps the airlines drive loyalty and fill their capacity.

The world of credit card rewards is extremely complex and constantly changing. Credit card providers are continuously tweaking their signup offers, benefits, criteria for earning points, and annual fees. On top of that, there are over 30 different airlines that these credit cards can transfer points to, and each of these airline loyalty programs is also constantly changing their terms and conditions for redeeming points.

To illustrate the complexity, let's take the example of booking an American Airlines first class flight from the US to Japan. This ticket would typically cost around $15,000 to $20,000 in cash, but can be booked for around 70,000 points, which is approximately $700. However, to book this flight, you need to know that:

1. American Airlines is part of the Oneworld alliance, which includes airlines like British Airways and Cathay Pacific.
2. The best way to book this flight is by using Virgin Atlantic miles, even though Virgin Atlantic is not part of the Oneworld alliance.
3. You can't book the flight directly on the Virgin Atlantic website, but instead need to call their customer service to make the booking.
4. To get the Virgin Atlantic miles, you need to know which credit cards transfer points to Virgin Atlantic, and then transfer the points, which can take a few business days.

This level of complexity is what Rome is trying to solve for its users. The team is constantly staying on top of the ever-changing credit card and airline loyalty program landscape, and building technology to automate the process of finding and booking the best redemptions.

Technically, this requires building robust data pipelines to continuously ingest and process information from various sources, as well as developing sophisticated algorithms to match users' preferences and points balances with the optimal redemption opportunities. It's a challenging problem, but one that Rome is tackling head-on to simplify the world of credit card rewards for its users.

I think the bulk of our growth has been organic and viral. Because we've created such a cool product that saves people tens of hours and thousands of dollars, there are bloggers and people of influence within the travel and points community who have just organically posted about us. They recommend us because it's a great product.

Additionally, the users themselves have been sharing it with their friends. It's really cool to be able to show your friend that you can fly from the US to France for 15,000 points, which is a $5,500 business class ticket.

In the future, we obviously want to explore more ways to tap into virality and create virality ourselves, as well as explore other avenues for growth. But I think the key has been knowing our customer, engaging them, and making them feel like they're part of our community. We talk to customers every day - I'm always on my phone on Instagram or TikTok, talking to people who are just starting their journey or are more advanced users, helping them figure out the best ways to redeem their points.

We're also engaging with our community where they are, whether that's Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, or elsewhere. Providing value is key - we don't just send out a newsletter for the purpose of marketing ourselves, but we provide real deals and insights that our users find valuable and want to open and click on.

Overall, it's been about focusing on the customer, providing value, and letting the organic growth and virality happen through word-of-mouth and community engagement. That's been the priority for us as we've scaled.

Our goal at Rome is to help users achieve their dream travel experiences by simplifying the complex world of points and miles. We recognize that the process of redeeming points and finding the best deals can be overwhelming for the average consumer, so we're dedicated to making it easier and more accessible.

At the core of our approach is a deep understanding of our customers' needs and pain points. We've heard from many users who feel frustrated by the lack of transparency and the sheer complexity involved in managing their credit card rewards and navigating airline loyalty programs. By listening to this feedback and putting ourselves in our customers' shoes, we've been able to develop solutions that truly address their challenges.

One of the key ways we're simplifying the travel experience is through our flight search tool that instantly scans over 60 different airline loyalty programs to find the best redemption options. This eliminates the need for users to manually search each airline's website and piece together the intricacies of transferring points between programs. We're also working to expand our capabilities beyond flights, with plans to tackle the hotel booking process and help users better manage their entire travel wallet.

Beyond the product itself, we're committed to fostering a sense of community and providing ongoing support to our users. Whether it's through our newsletters, social media channels, or direct customer interactions, we strive to be a trusted partner in helping people navigate the world of points and miles. Our goal is to empower everyday Americans to unlock the hidden value in their rewards and turn their travel dreams into reality.

As we look to the future, our priorities remain firmly focused on the customer. We'll continue to listen, iterate, and innovate in order to deliver the best possible experience. By keeping the user at the center of everything we do, we're confident that we can make a meaningful impact and revolutionize the way people approach travel planning and booking.

Our goal at Rome is to simplify the world of points and travel for everyday Americans. We want to help users achieve their dream vacations by unlocking the hidden value in their credit card rewards.

The points and miles landscape is incredibly complex, with constantly changing credit card benefits, airline loyalty programs, and redemption options. We've built Rome to be a one-stop-shop that searches across 60+ airline programs, finds the best deals, and guides users through the booking process.

Beyond just flights, we're also working to simplify hotel bookings, travel benefits management, and other aspects of the travel experience. Our mission is to empower users to maximize the value of their points and miles, so they can afford the trips of a lifetime.

Through organic growth, viral marketing, and a relentless focus on the user experience, we're steadily expanding our reach and impact. By continuing to listen to our customers and innovate on their behalf, we're confident that Rome will become the go-to platform for points-powered travel.