travel-hacking-toolkit

What to do when a tool fails, an API hits a rate limit, or a site blocks scraping. Maps every primary tool to its best fallback so a single failure doesn't block the search.

Guided trip planning workflow. Asks destination, dates, travelers, class, and flexibility, then runs parallel flight/hotel search with cpp math and booking plan.

Deutsche Bahn train schedules, journey planning, and departures across Germany and into neighboring countries (Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands, France, Belgium). Use for ICE/IC/regional rail planning and airport ground transport (FRA, MUC).

Discover destinations served from any airport via Wikipedia. Sanity-check whether an airline flies a specific route, find regional service that fare tools miss, identify late-split-return airport options.

Query AwardWallet for loyalty program balances, elite status, and transaction history. Use when checking points inventory, airline status, or planning trips on points.

TripAdvisor Content API for hotel ratings, restaurant search, attraction reviews, rankings, and nearby locations. Use when evaluating hotels or researching destinations. 5K calls/month.

Airline alliance membership (Star Alliance, oneworld, SkyTeam) and cross-alliance booking relationships. Maps which loyalty programs book which airlines, including bilateral partnerships outside alliances.

Check American Airlines AAdvantage balance, elite status, and loyalty points via Patchright. Handles email 2FA with 6-box code entry. Uses persistent browser profiles to skip 2FA on subsequent runs.

Search Amex travel portal for cash prices, MR points pricing, IAP discounts, and FHR/THC hotel benefits via Patchright. Use when comparing pay-with-points portal pricing to award alternatives.

Search Atlas Obscura for weird, wonderful, and hidden gem places near any destination. Find the interesting stuff, not boring plaques. Search by coordinates, get full details with descriptions and images.

Find the cheapest award dates for a route over a date range. Searches seats.aero across all programs, groups by date, and shows a calendar grid of the best deals. Use when dates are flexible and you want to find the sweet spot.

Per-program rules for placing award flights on hold before transferring points. Covers programs with holds (AA, Lufthansa, Flying Blue, Cathay, Turkish, Virgin Atlantic) and those without. Includes transfer-speed reference.

Catalog of high-value award redemptions where points dramatically outvalue cash. Tiered by legendary/excellent/good with current rates, devaluation history, and booking caveats.

Search Bilt Rewards travel portal for cash and Bilt Points pricing on hotels and flights. Public REST API, no auth required. Includes Home Away From Home (HaFH) properties with $300+ benefits.

Step-by-step guidance for booking award flights. Covers the hold-before-transfer rule, phone numbers for major programs, and partner award booking workflows.

IATA cabin codes (F/J/W/Y) and saver fare class codes (X/I/O) for reading award inventory and determining partner-bookable availability.

Search Chase UR travel portal via Patchright for cash prices, points pricing, Points Boost offers, and Chase Edit hotel benefits. Use for pay-with-points portal comparison on Sapphire Reserve/Preferred.

Unified flight comparison across cash (Duffel, Ignav), award (seats.aero), and portal (Chase, Amex) sources in parallel. Outputs one table with transfer partner optimization and recommendations.

Unified hotel comparison across Chase Edit, Amex FHR/THC, metasearch, and Airbnb. Highlights premium program benefits, stacking opportunities, and benefit-adjusted pricing.

Real-time GDS flight search via Duffel API. Accurate per-fare-class pricing, cabin selection, multi-city, time preferences. Primary cash price source. Does not include Southwest.

Canonical multi-source flight search strategy. Source priority (Duffel, Ignav, Google Flights, Skiplagged, Kiwi, Seats.aero, Southwest), parallel workflow, market selection for international price arbitrage.

First-run setup. Detects configured API keys, points to the local setup-keys script for secure key entry, and shows sample prompts scaled to available tools.

Browser-automated Google Flights search via agent-browser. All airlines including Southwest. Cash prices, schedules, economy/business comparison, market selection.

Maps hotel brand names (Westin, Sheraton, Holiday Inn, etc.) to chain families and loyalty programs. Use when hotel results contain branded properties or deciding whether to check award rates.

Fast REST API flight search via ignav.com. Cash prices, booking links, market selection for price arbitrage. Include in every flight search alongside Duffel and other sources.

Mandatory pre-flight-search reference. Contains the Seats.aero workflow (pull ALL programs first), source accuracy hierarchy, Southwest/Companion Pass specifics, small-market caveats, and Duffel limitations.

Loyalty program airline ticketing partnerships (alliance + bilateral). Cross-references credit card currencies to booking programs for award reachability checks.

Cents-per-point (cpp) valuations across major loyalty programs from four publications. Floor/ceiling rules for deciding if a redemption is good or exceptional.

Search Amex FHR/THC and Chase Edit hotels by city. Compare credits, benefits, and find stacking opportunities across card programs.

Google Flights Live and Booking.com Live search via RapidAPI. Secondary source for cash flight prices and hotel availability when SerpAPI needs a second opinion.

Round-the-world, Circle Pacific, and distance-based award products across alliances. Covers Star Alliance RTW, oneworld Explorer, Lufthansa M&M, Qantas, Cathay, JAL, Aeroplan, and Iberia charts.

Search trains, buses, and ferries in Norway (Entur), Sweden (ResRobot), and Denmark (Rejseplanen). Intra-Scandinavia ground transport with schedules and Danish fare pricing.

Aircraft seat maps, cabin dimensions, and seat recommendations via SeatMaps.com and AeroLOPA. Search by flight number or airline+aircraft via agent-browser.

Search award flight availability across 27 mileage programs via Seats.aero Partner API. Find cheapest award flights, compare programs, and get booking links.

Google Flights cash prices, Google Hotels, and Google Travel Explore via SerpAPI. Use for award-vs-cash comparison, hotel search, and destination discovery.

Search Southwest Airlines fares and points pricing via Patchright browser automation. SW is not in any GDS or API. Covers all fare classes, Companion Pass value, and fare drop monitoring.

Status match and status challenge rules for airlines and hotels. Covers free direct matches, paid concierge via statusmatch.com with fees, card-granted status, and critical lifetime/once-per-N-years restrictions that make wasted matches expensive.

Per-program stopover rules for award redemptions. Which programs allow free stopovers, how many, how long, and which don't. Covers Icelandair, Aeroplan, Alaska, Flying Blue, Singapore, Cathay, JAL, and the negative space (BA, AA, Delta).

Search TicketsAtWork (EBG corporate perks) for hotels, theme park tickets, attractions, and rental cars via Patchright. Often beats portals by 10-30%. Use when comparing hotel or ticket prices for a trip.

Active credit card transfer bonuses from Amex, Chase, Capital One, Citi, Bilt, and Rove. Weekly-refreshed data with confidence markers. Use when pricing an award booking that involves a points transfer or deciding whether to wait for a better bonus.