Points Panda has partnered with a variety of financial companies including CreditCards.com for our coverage of credit card products. Points Panda and CreditCards.com may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more.
The content on this page is accurate as of the posting date; however, some of the offers mentioned may have expired. For more information please read our full Advertiser Disclosure.
Travel Freely vs. Award Wallet vs. Card Pointers, Which Is The Best App For Managing Points? Well, each one has its strengths and weakness. And depending on your travel goals and points and miles earning and spending patterns, one may be better for you than another. So read on to find out which one is best for you, or do you want to use more than one application to maximize your points and miles returns.
- Travel Freely: Best For Managing Credit Cards
- Getting Started With Travel Freely
- Travel Freely Overview
- Who Is Travel Freely For
- Award Wallet: Best for tracking point balances
- Getting Started With Award Wallet
- Award Wallet Overview
- Who Is Award Wallet For
- Card Pointers: Best For Optimizing credit card earning
- Getting Started With Card Pointers
- Card Pointer Overview
- Who Is Card Pointers For?
- Honorable Mentions: WalletFlo
- Final Thoughts: Which Is The Best App For Managing Points?
Travel Freely: Best For Managing Credit Cards
Travel freely is a website/app that will keep track of your credit cards and all the signup bonuses available on the market today. The site works as a concierge service aimed at maximizing your travel gaols and savings by using credit card points. One thing to note is that even though you input the names and account opening dates of your card. The app does not have any access at all to your financial details.
Getting Started With Travel Freely
Setting your Travel Freely account up is relatively simple. All you need to do is sign up for an account for free. You will then be prompted to select whether you are a beginner or a novice points and miles user.
Once you have signed in, you will be asked do you want the app to include business credit cards in its recommendations and monitoring?
And finally, you will be prompted to enter the details of the cards you hold. Bear in mind the site only asks for the name of the card. (Chase Freedom, American Express Platinum, etc.) and the date of account opening.
You do not need to input any of the actual card details, name, card number, expiration date, etc. As you will see later, the account opening date is used to keep track and prompt you about upcoming changes.
Travel Freely Overview
Once you have entered your card details, and you will be taken to the home dashboard, you can always click on Home in the left navigation pane to get there.
In the dashboard, you get an overview of your account, including the following:
- A list of your credit cards with any alerts about them, including their account opening date.
- A calendar view with important dates highlighted, including card renewal, bonus spending deadlines, and so forth.
- A card tracking feature highlighting upcoming events related to your credit cards.
- A task list oriented towards the next steps you need to do to meet our travel goals. The list includes everything from card renewal dates to reminders to apply for a new card.
- You also get a quick view of any credit card bonuses you are in the process of getting, referral bonuses, completed trips, and what your position is regarding Chase’s 5/24 rule.
From your dashboard, you have multiple options, including Card Genie, which shows you the optimum next card you should apply for.
Who Is Travel Freely For
Travel Freely works on different levels for experienced points enthusiasts as well as beginners. For beginners, it delivers a comprehensive solution to keep track of bonuses, what you need to do to hit your next objectives, and the card genie function gives you excellent options on which card should be your next one.
For experienced point fans, Travel Freely delivers a centralized solution for you to keep track of all your various credit cards. If you continuously have multiple cards open, and you are constantly in need of meeting spending limits to trigger your next signup bonus, then Travel Freely is a very helpful tool. Also, if like many points and mile experts, you are applying for multiple cards per year and have a long-term strategy. Then the app can take care of a lot of the planning and organization required to keep on top of your points and miles.
One thing to keep in mind is that Travel Freely does not track your loyalty program points balances. So, if you want to track your Alaska Airlines, Delta SkyMiles, or America Advantages miles, other apps are much better suited for that task.
Award Wallet: Best for tracking point balances
Award Wallet is one of the original points and miles tracing apps and is still king of the hill when it comes to keeping track of all your various loyalty program account. Award Wallet can keep track of a vast number of programs. In fact, according to them, they track a massive 686 loyalty programs across the world, from the well-known Delta Airlines and British Airways to the much less known Moby Lines and Airblue! Award Wallet is our go-to tool for monitoring point balances.
Read More: Don’t save your points. Use them!
Getting Started With Award Wallet
Getting started with Award Wallet is free and straightforward, simply head over to Award Wallet and click on the sign up for free option.
You will then be prompted whether you want to sign up to Award Wallet as a standalone vial your email address or through one of your other accounts (google, outlook, etc.)
Once you have registered and logged into your Award Wallet account, you will then have to start adding the details of your various loyalty program accounts. To do so, simply click on the “Add Award Program to Track” button and then select the program from the vast list available. For the purpose of this article, we have chosen British Airways as an example.
Once you have selected a program, a new window will open, and you will need to enter your login details. At this point, you have to enter the actual login details of your loyalty program account (in our case, the username and password to our BA executive Club account).
You repeat the process to add all your loyalty account to Award Wallet.
Award Wallet Overview
Once you have entered the details of all of your accounts and the app has had a minute to retrieve all of your information from the various programs, you will have a quick overview of it all from the home screen.
The account overview displays all the critical information that you need at a glance. You can quickly access the following information:
- Account Number- is convenient when booking online, and you need to retrieve it quickly without pulling out your card, etc.
- Your points balance: Accessing all your points balances is highly convenient, especially when you are making future travel plans and need to know when you stand pointwise across the board.
- Upcoming Expiry events: the deadline for the expiration of your next points or other item is also displayed. This reminds you to take action, if possible, to prevent your points from expiring.
If you want to dig down into one of your accounts, simply hit the Plus button next to the account, and a window will open with much more information. The window has multiple tabs, including
- Summary- gives you a more detailed overview of your account
- History- your account history is available only to Award Wallet Plus members.
- Elite Levels- details about elite levels available only to Award Wallet Plus members.
- Balance Chart- shows a chart of your balance but is only available to Award Wallet Plus members.
- Card Image- you can upload images of the front and back of your cards to Award Wallet.
- Promotions- when available a tab with current promotions may be available.
Read More: What is it like Flying Qatar Qsuites during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bear in mind this is just the tip of the iceberg with Award Wallet, and the software has incorporated a host of invaluable features, including:
- Calendar integration: have important events (miles expiration deadlines) appear in your calendar; this helps you stay on top of your account.
- Notifications: the ability to receive an email and push notifications about important events on your account, such as when you hit specific points/miles balances.
- The ability to set travel goals in the account, so you can monitor your progress.
- Exporting your Data as an excel file: this is invaluable when you want to grab a pot of coffee and spend a few hours planning the next couple of years of travel awards.
Who Is Award Wallet For
Everyone is the simple answer. Points and miles aficionados with multiple airline and hotel accounts. They will find the ability to monitor their accounts quickly and efficiently in one place invaluable. The ability to see the “big picture” of your points and miles situation is invaluable when planning your travel goals and trip. In addition, the ability to see important events from your points and miles account in your calendar feed is priceless and is a very useful tool in the fight to keep any of your miles from expiring.
On the other hand, If you have one loyalty program account or more, Award Wallet is a precious tool. While keeping track of your balance of points across one account is relatively simple, keeping track of expiry dates is not. To do so, you would have to log in regularly and note the next date of expiry. You would also have to develop a system to store this information and make it easily retrievable. With every account, you add the difficulty and effort involved increase, and before you know it, you are dedicating a lot of resources to tracking your points instead of planning your next trip!
Read More: Make the most of your credit card points by transferring them!
Card Pointers: Best For Optimizing credit card earning
Card Pointers is an app designed to help you maximize your points and miles earning whenever you make a purchase on your credit cards. The app offers you “pointers,” hence the name on which card to use to pay for a specific good or service. This enables you to earn the absolute maximum amount of points and miles for every single hard-earned cent you spend! The app is available as a web/android interface, as well as iOS. Being mobile is one of the keys to the usefulness of the Card Pointers application. The next time you are in the checkout line, you can quickly glance at your app to see which card will earn you the most points.
Getting Started With Card Pointers
Getting started with Card Pointers is relatively simple. Either download the app to your mobile device or head over to your web browser (we used the browser) and click on the android/web button. You will then be taken to a page and prompted to login or sign up.
You then enter a username, and password and you are done. The app will then take you through to the web interface. On the left-hand side, you will have the option of adding your credit cards, and on the right, you will have card pointers and tips.
You are now ready to go with your new card pointers account.
Card Pointer Overview
At this point, you need to enter the credit cards you curtly hold by clicking on the add card button. This then opens a window where you can start to type in your credit card name. once you have selected the card you want, you can choose to add it as an existing card if you already hold it or apply for the card. (In our case, we simply added some of our cards)
Once you have added one card, you will be prompted to add another card or close the window. We added 5 cards to the app, including:
- The American Express Platinum Card
- Chase Freedom Flex
- IHG IHG Rewards Club Premier Credit Card
Obviously, no one is going to remember all the features and benefits of all their Credit cards. Especially since more premium cards can have a substantial list of benefits that are simply too long to remember. If you want a quick overview of your card features and a list of its features and benefits, click on the card name, and its section will expand, showing all that information
At this point, the app starts to demonstrate its value, and on the left-hand side, you have the list of your cards, while on the right-hand side, you have the pointer to maximize your earnings.
A quick look at your card list on the left and the pointers on the right, and you can clearly see which card you should charge purchases to. Currently, you should use your Chase Sapphire Preferred card for travel purchases to earn 2X points. At the same time, entertainment purchases should be put on your Chase Freedom Flex, which will earn you 5% back on streaming services. Finally, your Amex platinum should be your go-to card for restaurants with its 10X earning.
One thing to note is that the mobile interface is far more colorful and interactive than the web version. It also has a somewhat deeper level of functionality, showing offers that maximize your points and miles returns.
Who Is Card Pointers For?
Card Pointer is another one of those apps that can be useful to beginners and experienced points and miles fans. If you are new to the points and miles world and only have one or two credit cards. Then having a quick and easy app that helps you choose the right card to pay with to maximize your returns is invaluable. There is nothing more frustrating than paying for something then realizing you could have earned 4X instead of the measly 1X you earned by selecting the wrong card.
Read more: Is airline elite status worth it!
Honorable Mentions: WalletFlo
Walletflo is a relative newcomer and works in a very similar way to Card Pointers. Once you have signed up (for free), all you need to do is input the names of the cards you hold and when you opened your credit accounts.
once it has all the information, WalletFlo will populate your profile with all the information you need to maximize your earnings. The app will highlight the best card to use for each spending category, as well as other perks that may be available with your credit card.
The app will also stay on top of things like your annual renewal fees, notifying you when they are coming up, and new cards on the market that may be of interest to you based on your profile. WalletFlo also stays on top of changes to terms and conditions to ensure you are always using the right card to maximize your returns. WalletFlo is available for iOS and Android, and desktop and supports most major credit cards on the market today.
Read more: Earn travel rewards for your everyday business spending!
Final Thoughts: Which Is The Best App For Managing Points?
So, the million-dollar question Travel Freely vs. Award Wallet vs. Card Pointers: Which Is The Best App For Managing Points? has a pretty simple answer, even though all the apps all excel in their areas of specialty, and they may be some areas of overlap, each app is a powerhouse in its own right. However, our winner without a shadow of a doubt is Award Wallet! with its ability to track everything including credit card point balances and much more.
if you were only going to have one app then Award Wallet is the one to use to keep track of all your balances, especially if you have lots of accounts and don’t want to spend the time involved staying on top of things manually. Whether it’s Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards or Alaska Miles, or World of Hyatt points Award wallet can keep track of it all for you. It is the ultimate one-stop-shop for staying on top of all your points and miles.
You may also want to consider another app aimed at optimizing the return on your credit card spending. Using an app like Card Pointers or WalletFlo in conjunction with Award Wallet makes for powerful points and miles pairing. Now not only are you staying on top of balances, but you also have a perfect resource at your fingertips to remind you or confirm your information that using a specific card for a particular transaction will maximize your earnings. So no one app rules the points and miles world. Fans will use multiple tools depending on their goals, and like many things, when you combine two tools, you end up with something greater than the sum of their parts!
Advertiser Disclosure
PointsPanda Deal of the Week!
Looking for the best flight deals? Each week we'll send you updates with the best deals on flights and hotels both using points and cash.
Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser’s responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.