Key Points

• Points Path's free tier is genuinely useful for Chase Points Boost decisions and comparing hotel prices, but the Google Flights award search really shines only with a Pro subscription.
• At $79.99 per year, the Pro tier pays for itself the first time you use it to spot a Flying Blue or Virgin Atlantic deal that saves you 20,000+ miles over a domestic program.
• The extension works best as a starting point for research, not a booking tool; always verify award availability directly with the airline program before transferring any points.

If you've ever stared at a Google Flights results page wondering whether that $450 fare to Paris would cost fewer of your Chase Ultimate Rewards points than a transfer to Air France, Points Path was built for you. The browser extension overlays award pricing directly onto Google Flights, calculates your cents-per-point rate inside the Chase Travel portal, and flags cheaper hotel rates across competing booking sites. It's a genuinely clever tool for the decision most points travelers face: pay cash or burn miles?

This review breaks down exactly what you get at each pricing tier, where Points Path beats the competition, and where it falls short, so you can decide whether to stick with the free version or upgrade to Pro.

What Is the Points Path Extension?

Points Path is a browser extension for Chrome, Safari, Edge, Brave, and Opera that sits quietly in the background while you search for flights and hotels. When you land on Google Flights, it adds a column showing the lowest award rate it found across supported loyalty programs. When you're inside the Chase Travel portal, it calculates the cents-per-point value of every Points Boost option so you can see at a glance whether you're getting a good deal or leaving value on the table. On hotel booking sites like Expedia, it flags when a lower rate exists elsewhere.

The extension launched its Google Flights integration in 2024 and has since added the Chase Travel and hotel comparison features. It supports five browsers, which covers the vast majority of travelers, and installation takes under 60 seconds.

Points Path Pricing: Free vs. Alerts vs. Pro

Most reviews gloss over the tier structure. Let's be specific about what you actually get.

The free tier covers the basics surprisingly well. You get the Google Flights overlay for five domestic programs (Alaska, American, Delta, JetBlue, and United), the Chase Points Boost CPP calculator, and the hotel price comparison tool. That's a meaningful toolkit for anyone flying primarily on domestic programs and using Chase Ultimate Rewards through a Chase Sapphire Preferred or Chase Sapphire Reserve.

The Alerts tier ($34.99/year) adds the ability to track up to 10 award price drop alerts. If you've ever set a manual ExpertFlyer alert for award space, you'll recognize the value here. You're not adding international programs at this tier, though, which limits its usefulness for anyone chasing business-class redemptions to Europe or Asia.

Pro ($79.99/year or $7.99/month) is where the extension earns its money. You get 30 simultaneous price alerts, access to 11 international programs including Flying Blue, Virgin Atlantic, Emirates, Etihad, Qatar Airways, Qantas, TAP Air Portugal, Avianca, Air Canada, Aer Lingus, and Virgin Australia, a 7-day points calendar for date flexibility shopping, the ability to account for Delta and United cardholder award discounts, and custom points valuations. If you regularly search for international award availability, the international programs alone justify the upgrade.

One discount worth knowing: TPG offers a 15% discount code (TPG15) for first-time annual subscribers. That brings Pro to around $68 for year one, which makes the math easier.

How the Google Flights Integration Actually Works

Here's what most walkthroughs don't fully explain: the award rates Points Path shows are aggregated estimates based on program pricing it has indexed, not live saver space pulled directly from the airline. This is an important distinction.

When you see "28,000 miles" next to a Delta flight, Points Path is pulling from its data about how Delta prices that route in SkyMiles. It doesn't confirm that specific award seat is available right now. Think of it as a research starting point, not a booking confirmation. Before you transfer a single point, open the airline's loyalty program directly and verify the seat exists at that rate. Our guide on transferring Chase points and what to expect during the waiting period is worth reading before you move anything.

That said, the tool is genuinely useful for quickly ruling out bad redemptions. If Points Path shows your 60,000 Chase points would be worth $900 in cash fares but only $480 through the Chase portal, you know to look at transfer partners instead. That kind of rapid comparison used to require multiple tabs and mental math. For a deeper look at how to get the most from those points, see our complete guide to maximizing Chase Ultimate Rewards for travel.

The 7-day points calendar (Pro only) is the feature I'd use most. Award pricing changes by date, and being able to see a week's worth of award rates on one screen makes flexible travel planning dramatically faster. It supports American, Alaska, Delta, JetBlue, United, Qantas, Virgin Australia, and Etihad in the calendar view.

The Chase Points Boost Feature Is Underrated

Most people focus on the Google Flights integration, but the Chase Travel Points Boost calculator might be the most immediately useful feature for a Chase Sapphire Reserve or Chase Sapphire Preferred cardholder.

Chase's Points Boost program lets you redeem Ultimate Rewards points for certain flights and hotels at elevated rates, but those rates vary wildly. Some boost flights deliver 1.5 cents per point (matching the Reserve's standard travel redemption rate). Others deliver 2.0 cents per point or more. A few deliver less. Without a tool that surfaces the CPP automatically, you're making these decisions based on rough mental math while reading small text in the portal.

Points Path adds a small overlay to each eligible result showing the exact redemption rate. You can see at a glance which flights are worth the Points Boost versus which ones you'd be better off transferring to a partner. For context on how Chase calculates what your points are worth in the first place, our article on how Chase points are calculated covers the mechanics clearly. This feature is free, requires a quick opt-in inside your Points Path account settings, and works on both flight and hotel searches in Chase Travel.

Hotel Price Comparison: A Useful Bonus

The hotel comparison tool works across 100+ online travel agencies and their international counterparts. In practice, you'll notice it most on Expedia, where it adds a small overlay showing if a lower rate exists somewhere else. Points Path says it only adds the overlay when it finds a better rate; no overlay means no savings found.

This isn't a replacement for manually checking Booking.com versus Expedia versus the hotel's own site, but it's a helpful passive layer that occasionally catches a meaningful rate difference without requiring any extra effort. If hotel points strategy is a priority for you, our Hotel Points Complete Guide walks through when to pay cash versus redeem across the major programs.

How Points Path Compares to Other Award Search Tools

Points Path isn't the only tool in the space, and knowing where it fits helps you decide whether to pay for Pro or stick with a combination of free options.

Point.Me is a dedicated award flight search engine that pulls live availability from multiple programs simultaneously. It's more accurate than Points Path on the availability question because it's searching actual inventory, not indexed pricing. The tradeoff: it's built for searching, not browsing. You use Point.Me when you know where you want to go. Points Path is useful when you're still in the exploration phase on Google Flights.

Seats.Aero specializes in premium cabin awards. If business class or first class to a specific destination is your goal, Seats.Aero's interface is purpose-built for that search. Points Path doesn't go as deep on premium cabin availability.

ExpertFlyer offers the most granular award availability data and seat alerts. It's the tool of choice for advanced travelers who want real-time airline inventory data, specific fare class lookups, and upgrade tracking. It costs more than Points Path Pro and has a steeper learning curve, but it's unmatched for serious award hunters.

The honest answer: Points Path and Point.Me are complementary. Use Points Path while you're browsing Google Flights to understand whether a route makes sense on points at all, then switch to Point.Me or Seats.Aero to confirm actual availability before transferring anything. ExpertFlyer fills the role for travelers who need deeper seat-level data. If you're doing serious award booking, you'll likely end up using at least two of these tools.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• The free tier delivers genuine value, particularly the Chase Points Boost calculator and hotel price comparison, with no payment required.
• Installing the extension takes under a minute and requires no loyalty program account linking, which means no privacy risk from credential sharing.
• The 7-day points calendar (Pro) is a legitimate time-saver for flexible date searches and isn't replicated well elsewhere.
• Active transfer bonuses are factored into award pricing automatically, which is a nice detail that saves manual math.

Cons

• Award rates shown are indexed estimates, not confirmed live availability; you must verify with the airline before transferring points.
• International program access and price alerts are locked behind Pro, meaning the free tier is genuinely limited for business-class award hunters.
• The Alerts tier ($34.99/year) has an awkward positioning: it doesn't unlock international programs, so most serious award travelers will find themselves choosing between Free and Pro with little reason to stop in the middle.
• Points Path doesn't support Firefox, which isn't a dealbreaker for most users but worth knowing.

Who Should Use Points Path?

Points Path's free tier is worth installing for any Chase cardholder who uses the travel portal. The Points Boost CPP calculator alone earns its place in your browser, and it costs nothing. If you're still figuring out which Chase card makes sense as a foundation, our guide on which Chase credit card to get first is a good starting point.

The Pro upgrade makes sense if you're regularly searching for international award availability on programs like Flying Blue, Virgin Atlantic, or Qantas, or if you want to track award pricing on multiple itineraries simultaneously without manually logging in and searching each time. At roughly $68 for year one with the TPG discount, you only need to find one meaningful award before it pays for itself.

Skip the upgrade if you primarily fly domestic routes on a single program. United MileagePlus and American AAdvantage users who only redeem within their home program get less from the international features, and the free tier may be sufficient. Or if you're already using a full-service award booking concierge like Roame Travel that handles the availability research for you, the overlap is significant enough that adding Pro might not add enough marginal value.

How to Get Started

Installing Points Path takes about a minute. Head to pointspath.com, click the download button, and your browser will walk you through adding the extension. To activate the Chase Travel overlay and hotel comparison features, log into your Points Path account, click "Additional Permissions," and enable each feature separately. Both require a quick permission grant to let the extension read the relevant pages.

If you upgrade to Pro, head to the account settings and enable the discount programs toggle if you hold a Delta SkyMiles card or United card. That small step unlocks cardholder-specific award pricing that isn't visible by default and can meaningfully change the miles math on routes where those discounts apply.

Final Verdict

Points Path earns a spot in your browser, full stop. The free tier is one of the few genuinely useful no-cost tools in the points and miles world, and the Chase Points Boost calculator is reason enough to install it today if you hold a Sapphire Preferred or Sapphire Reserve. The Pro tier is a reasonable spend for travelers who actively search international award space and want price alert coverage across multiple itineraries.

Just remember: Points Path is a research tool, not a booking confirmation. Treat the award rates it shows as directional, verify availability directly with the loyalty program before any transfer, and you'll find it makes the cash-versus-points decision significantly faster and more informed.

Install the free version at pointspath.com, use Point.Me alongside it to confirm live award availability, and check Seats.Aero any time business or first class is the goal.

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