MileWise unveils travel search engine with a loyalty scheme twist

TLabs Showcase on travel startups featuring US-based MileWise, a travel search engine based on loyalty scheme points.

Who and what are you (including personnel and backgrounds)?

MileWise is a search engine that tells you whether you should pay with cash or rewards.

We’re three MIT guys, a BCG guy, and an ex-Northwest airlines executive.

What financial support did you have to launch the business?

We started the company over two years ago using our own money. Then, last year, we raised $1.5 million in funding.

Investors:

• Venture Capital: Atlas Ventures, Founder Collective, General Catalyst, High Line Venture Partners, iNovia Capital.
• Angel Investors: Nivi Babak, David Cohen, Geoff Judge, Mitch Kapor, David Kidder, Josh Kushner, Alex Lloyd, Tom McInerney, Jacob Pechenik, Keith Rabois, Naval Ravikant, David Tisch, Kal Vepuri.

What problem are you trying to solve?

It’s difficult to use rewards – especially for travel:

• Time-consuming: many searches and phone calls to find the award prices
• Frustrating: complex rules & options to figure out the actual price
• Confusing: unclear whether its better value to pay with cash or rewards

It usually takes people several hours to figure out whether to pay with cash or rewards. We’re trying to help people do it in less than 30 seconds.

Describe the business, core products and services?

At a high-level, we’re building a smart engine that helps people quickly decide the best way to pay for something.

Our approach involves aggregating & calculating prices across various currencies (cash, miles, points, etc.) and then applying advanced rules to determine what those prices are really worth in a common currency – in order to make the best decision.

Components of our solution include:

• Track reward program balances, status, expiration dates, etc. in 1 place.
• Search all the ways to pay – cash, frequent flier miles, hotel & credit card points, etc.
• Analyze prices with personalized algorithms to recommend the best way to pay.

Who are your key customers and users at launch?

Frequent fliers initially, but soon we will also offer hotels and car rentals.

Did you have customers validate your idea before investors?

Yes. We built an early working prototype that users loved and couldn’t wait to use.

What is the business AND revenue model, strategy for profitability?

Several revenue streams*:

• Advertising –  extremely context sensitive
• Fare Commissions
• Credit Card Signups
• Aggregated Data / Analytics Insight

*Maintaining clean UI & protecting consumer privacy will guide how we pursue revenue streams. User experience & trust are the most important objectives.

SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?

Strengths:

• Patent-pending solution
• Displaying and ranking real-time prices across multiple payment methods
• Comprehensiveness and accuracy of prices
• Value analysis
• 1-click booking across payment methods
• Easy to use

Weaknesses:

• We’d like to appeal to more people than just frequent fliers.

Opportunities:

• Our users are always giving us great ideas for new features
• Expand search to include other types of redemption including merchandise
• Partnerships with travel and payment providers (e.g., airlines, credit cards)

Threats:

• Competitive space

Who advised you your idea isn’t going to be successful and why didn’t you listen to them?

Some people thought travel providers may not welcome this type of price transparency.

However, we spoke with many industry insiders and did a lot of analysis (economic & otherwise) that suggested that our product & approach could be a win-win-win for the entire ecosystem: consumers, travel providers, and payment providers.

What is your success metric 12 months from now?

100,000 very happy, registered users.

Here is a clip:

NB: TLabs Showcase is part of the wider TLabs project from Tnooz.