Review: Daily Drop Pro – The One Reward Travel Planning Tool to Rule Them All!

Our favorite award travel newsletter just launched the award search tool we’ve always wanted! Daily Drop Pro is going to save us so much time finding flight (paid and award) flight deals and hotel deals.

We’re grabbing the launch deal to lock in a lifetime discount on the annual Daily Drop Pro plan ($99 instead of $149/yr). The price goes up after this week.

(If you check out Daily Drop, please consider using our referral links from this email, which allows us to earn affiliate commission at no additional cost to you.)

In this post, we’ll talk about what Daily Drop Pro is, tips on how to best utilize it, answer whether or not it’s worth upgrading for the paid version, and talk about some features we hope they will implement in future versions.

Quick Summary: Daily Drop Pro Review

For a newly launched platform, Daily Drop Pro is an exciting new travel planning tool that is user friendly for Travel Hacking novices and helpful enough to satisfy the needs of long-time travel hackers.

Though there’s still some tiny kinks to work out and features we wish it would have, it’s impressively polished for a 1st version, and we’re excited about where it will go from here.

Pros of Daily Drop Pro:

– Beautiful and easy-to-use interface
– Solves for a lot of problems and annoyances by providing a one-stop solution
– The wallet view allows you estimate how your points from different sources can be pooled and redeemed
– There’s a limited free version that lets you test aspects of the upgrade version 
– Includes flight deal alerts from their original “Fare Drop” subscription
– Solid foundation at launch. You can see the potential.

Cons of Daily Drop Pro:

– Not all airline programs are part of the initial launch (Aeroplan, Virgin Atlantic, Southwest have yet to be added. Unsure if they will be.)
– Can’t trust the search results 100%
– Some searches can be slow…
– Needs a partner/points transfer calculator built into the search results
– Does not have a clean/easy ability to show how to combine points from different sources

What is Daily Drop Pro?

Daily Drop Pro is an online tool to help travelers find the best deals for flights and accommodations. Specifically, it helps travelers see options on how they can best utilize rewards points earned from credit card and frequent flyer programs. It’s an upgrade/add-on to the original Fare Drop site that used to only focus on deals (RIP). They’ve built upon that original platform, added the point redemption search features for flights and hotels and rebranded under a new brand, Daily Drop Pro.  

Instead of logging in to multiple websites and using searches from each system, Daily Drop Pro will aggregate that information. It’s similar to a Google search. Provide it with a search inquiry and get results.

A more specific and relevant example is using it similar to the Google Flights online tool where you can put in search parameters for a flight and it will provide you with a list of possible options from every airline. The same goes for hotels.

Here is a list of all the main features:

• Deals page/search (the first page of the site)
• Flight Points Search
• Hotel Points Search
• Wallet and Points (place to see all your points in one view – manually added)
• Pro Lounge (for paying members) – online community
• Flight deal alerts for low non-award fares from your home airport(s)

Why This Matters

Over the past decade since we started our journey as the “Intentional Travelers”, we’ve traveled to 30+ countries. However, for almost all of our big, overseas international flights, we’ve paid out of pocket for NONE of them.

Well, to be technical there are taxes and fees, but ALL of the airfare has been covered by points.

Thanks to the hobby of Travel Hacking (utilizing credit card incentives and bonuses), we’ve been able to use award points strategically for the most expensive part of traveling: airfare.

Here are a few of our favorite flights that we’ve covered recently (again, all paid with points):

• Seattle to Singapore in business class (a 17 hr flight!)
• Tokyo (Haneda) to San Francisco in premium economy
• Honolulu to Tokyo in business on Hawaiian Airlines

I recently spoke to my brother on the phone and he was talking about an upcoming house project he was planning and how expensive it was going to be. I mentioned that this kind of situation was the perfect time to open a credit card with a big bonus so you can meet the minimum spend and get the welcome bonus points. But he was unmotivated. Why? Because to him (and the majority of folks) they don’t know how to use their points. 200,000 points sounds nice but you may have no idea what you can do with them. 

And they (airlines and banks) do not make it easy to understand how to utilize these points. That’s not their goal. Each bank and airline has their own portal and search system. Each, of course, requires their own login and learning curve on how to get the most out of their sites. For people like my brother, it’s not worth it. 

For experienced travelers like myself, even if it is worth it to look for best value redemptions at each of these websites, it’s a pain.

If only there was a solution?! Enter the latest travel tool that just took off…. Daily Drop Pro.

We’ve been following travel hacking news from sources like The Points Guy and One Mile at a Time for awhile, but the Daily Drop has become our go-to source for this kind of information. The daily newsletter if helpful and personable, way less commercial than the other previously listed brands.

So we were excited when we heard that the Daily Drop team was developing a tool, Daily Drop Pro, that would aggregate information from other award sites to provide travelers with search results to help best utilize award points. It also highlights deals and has a helpful interface that makes trip planning for flights and accommodations fun.

How to Use Daily Drop Pro

The first thing you’ll be asked to do when visiting the Daily Drop Pro site is to create an account so the information can be tailored to you (i.e. you’ll be able to save information like your self-reported reward point totals, create an online profile to use use in the online community section, etc.).

The next step is to choose whether to use the free version or upgrade to the paid version. We’ll go into more detail later about whether or not Pro is worth it. 

The free version gives you a limited number of point searches (5) so you can test out the Pro functions.  

Deals Listing and Search Page

After you create an account and choose which version you’ll use, you’ll land on the first page which is the Deals page. Remember, this is the original functionality that came from Fare Drop. In the “Settings” you customize your preferences of what kind of deals you want to be notified about. Note this is only for flights. 

In the settings you choose:

• Which airport(s) you want deal notifications from. For example, we set Portland (PDX) as our home airport but also added Seattle (SEA) as we sometimes fly from there.
• Set the destinations you’re interested in seeing deals for. You do this via continent regions. This helps narrow down the kinds of deals notifications you’ll receive. 
• Set your seat/ticket preference type. Choose from budget seats all the way up to first class. You can also leave them all selected.
• Choose what months you’re interested in deals. By default all months are selected which they suggest as you never know when a deal might come up. If you deselect months, it will show you less deals. 

In addition to seeing deals on this page, Fare Drop will also email you personalized deals that look like this:

Flight Points Search Page

The next menu item is the Flight Points Search tool where you can start looking for possible reward flight options.

The user experience is straight forward. Enter the route you are interested in taking, choose how many passengers, and how you want the initial results to be sorted (by lowest amount of miles needed, shortest duration, etc.).

Once you hit search, the system will look across different airline programs and pull that information into a results view.

Here’s an example I did looking for a reward flight from Paris to Eugene (Oregon), a route that we plan to take in the near future. We’ve already booked our flights but I was curious to see if there were any amazing deals atm. (There was not, lol.)

From these results, you can sort and filter out results as needed. For example, in this image, you’ll see that the AAdvantage (American Airlines) points is listed first because it has the lowest amount needed for this route in business class – 57,500 miles. However it has a huge fee because it routes through London Heathrow, which is known for it’s high surcharges. So to take those results out, I could remove American Airlines from the filter.

For any of the listings, you can expand it to see more details about the actual flights on the route and more information about each leg:

The value of this search is you can get a sense of how many points you would need to fly a certain leg at a specific fare type (economy, premium, business, and first).

I cannot tell you how nice it is for this information to be pulled together in one view instead of going to different airline websites and trying to figure this out on your own. 

That being said… there are some important things to note with this current launch version.

Notes about the point search for reward flights:

• This is only for one way routes. (I think this intentional, as the best value redemptions for flights are one-way because of flexibility.)
• This is not a booking site. Whatever route/result you find that you want to act on, you’ll still need to go to the airlines own rewards portal (like Chase, Capital One, or United) and book the flight there.
• Results should not be trusted 100%. There were a couple of times where the information on the Daily Drop Pro site did not match the results at the airline site. For example, I thought I found a great deal for a 1-stop route from Europe back to Oregon on international business and domestic first class. Turns out only the international segment was in business class and the domestic leg was in economy. 
• Find a great deal? Act fast! The information is dynamic, always changing. You may find a great deal initially but it could be gone in minutes.
• It’s pulling info from some (not all) of the airlines.  You can see how this will be an amazing tool if they can add more airlines. Additionally, it’s not pulling redemption options you would find on travel portals from credit card companies like Amex, Capital One, and Chase.
• Don’t leave your search! Unless you want to start the process all over again and get dinged for another search (free version), don’t navigate away from the search.

Hotel Points Search Page

Let’s continue with the Paris back to the US search. We currently have an early morning flight so we’re thinking about getting a hotel the night before, near the Charles de Gaulle airport. Because we have IHG points, we can once again set the search parameters and sort to display hotels near that airport.

The information from this search result is helpful. We can see that there are two IHG hotels near the airport and what it would potentially cost paying with cash or by points for a night.

Similar to the flights search tool, all results must be verified and ultimately booked at the hotel’s website, but it is nice to see these options along with other hotels that use points in the same interface. 

One difference from the flights point search tool is that in the hotel search, you can actually include bank reward programs. For example, if you have Chase Ultimate Rewards (UR) points, you can search for hotels with that filter on. Really helpful.

Notes about the point search for hotel accommodations:

• The search function is quirky. Say you want to find a hotel near Charles de Gaulle airport but you only entered the city of Paris. You can first go to Paris and then move the map to the airport area, but all of your filters and search parameter will disappear instead of moving with you. I’m sure they’ll get that sorted.
• Colored points on the map. These are meant to represent the different hotel brands. Helpful. However, they don’t match up with the list view results. Not helpful. Again, they’ll probably fix this in future updates.
• Current search is saved. Unlike the flights, if you navigate away from the hotel search and then go back, your last search will still be there.

Wallet and Points Page

Of all the pages/sections of the Daily Drop Pro site, this one could use the most work. 

This area has some promise but needs some help. The idea here is that most of us have different credit cards and are part of different frequent flyer and hotel programs. At each of those, you earn points. This is supposed to be a section where you can see all of those values on one screen so you know what you’re working with. However, there are some major features missing:

• You self-report your point values and you have to manage those balances as you use/lose points. It would be nice if you could link your programs/accounts to this section and see real time information – sort of a long shot but we can hope.
• “My Awards” should only show you the programs you have points with. Currently when you click on “My Awards” it links to “Banks”. Could be a feature that’s coming.
• Next level: Points from your wallet should be incorporated in search results using the filter functions. It would be nice to filter hotel and flights based on points I have, or show me the difference of what I need to make a flight or hotel stay possible.

The Pro Lounge (Paid Version Only)

The final section worth noting in Daily Drop Pro is the Pro Lounge area that serves as a community board. Now you may wonder why they would put such a feature behind a pay wall but of course, there is power in community!

The lounge is not only a great place to ask “how-to” questions regarding the search tool, but it’s mean to also connect and ask any travel related question.

There is incredible value to access to a global travel community on a travel-focused site where there are actual human beings (not bots or AI). Humans that are answering questions and helping one another out. It’s very much a community board at the moment so there’s a ton of posts but I’m hoping in the future you can tailor what you see by making friends (following their posts), creating alerts, etc…

I totally understand why they have put this community behind a paywall and can see this being a valuable tool as long as no one uses it for promotion and solicitation. We’ll see how they handle that because it’s inevitable.

The Real “Value” of Daily Drop Pro

Like any tool, I don’t care how fancy or expensive something is. What matters is how well you can take advantage of it as a user. Take a kitchen knife for example. People can spend thousands of dollars for a beautiful and extremely sharp knife. But for most people and their daily use (and comfort) there are a ton of great affordable options that are a much better fit than a fancy knife.

A good tool should:

Make a task easier/solve a pain point. You can turn a screw using a pliers but it’s much easier with a screwdriver or even better, an electric driver. With Daily Drop Pro, we like that we don’t have to login to different websites to search options for our reward travel. This ultimately saves us some time, energy, and diminishes some of the annoyance of the travel planning process.

Save you money. Saving time is saving money. But tools like Daily Drop Pro provide good information that can actually help you find better bookings that literally save you money. Using the search results, you might find a better flight or hotel that allows you redeem fewer points, or helps you save on taxes and fees. You might even luck out and use one of their travel deal alerts that you wouldn’t have found elsewhere.

Some information is better than no information. Some of the critics and naysayers will probably say things like, “it’s not 100% accurate” or “what’s the point if you still have to search and book the same thing at the hotel or airline”. But planning is all about knowing what’s possible and what to expect.

When direction search tools came out (like Mapquest and then Google Maps), there was so much value in having a sense of what to expect. It wasn’t always 100% accurate but the technology got better. Even today, I use Google Maps on a daily basis to get a sense of how long it will take to get from point A to B, what’s the current traffic situation, what’s the street look like and where to potentially park when I arrive, etc…

Daily Drop Pro gives really helpful initial information about reward options to help inform:

• What are the current redemption amounts needed for flights and hotels. I can see trends. 
• Whether it would be worth opening a credit card with a certain bonus if that can’t get me the flight/hotel I’m looking for.
• If I want to aim high for my dream trip and pay on points, how much would I need to accrue?
• What are my accommodation options at my desired destinations?

Not a Perfect Solution… But I See the Potential

As you’ll note in this review, we pointed out several features and quirks we wish the site had to make it better. But we are already impressed by its initial launch. As with most technology – especially great products and services – things should get better with more use.

Since the time of this writing, we’ve already used it to see what a future return trip to Asia looks like and what hotel options there are near the Charles de Gaulle airport before our early morning flight. These are searches I could have done with multiple individual sites, but it was faster and easier to do all at once through Daily Drop Pro.

Is the Paid Version of Daily Drop Pro Worth it?

At the time of launch there are currently two user options, the Limited Plan (free) and the Pro Plan (paid). To sum up the most important differences between the two:

• The paid version offers an unlimited usage experience. Especially helpful if you like to constantly search and see what’s out there.
• Access to a community of dedicated travelers. Real human beings (probably).

Free vs. Paid: What’s the Better Option?

As with most of our reviews the answer will be, “it depends”. But overall we absolutely recommend the paid version because of it’s value, even in it’s current launch version state.

First of all it should be noted that the Pro version (though billed annually) during their launch is only $99 and that price is locked in for life. That’s only $8.25 per month.

More often that not, a good travel deal can be worth tens of dollars in savings. And for savvy users, hundreds of dollars in savings. Especially over a year’s worth of travel.

Because this site is basing its entire model on helping travelers find the best deals and reward redemptions, it absolutely pays for itself, in our opinion.

Here’s our quick breakdown of who we think Daily Drop Pro is best for.

Upgrade to Daily Drop Pro’s paid version if you:

• Understand the value of information as a tool that can help you make better informed decisions that save you time and money.
• Love to plan travels and have a bunch of points/miles banked and you are unsure how to use them. This is a no-brainer tool for you. 
• Value being a part of an online community and know how to utilize these communities to get answers you need.
• Like checking out what’s possible whenever you like. I.e. You’re someone who likes to scour the internet for great deals.
• Are an early adopter and love locking in a price (I’m still on a grandfathered plan from T-Mobile and don’t ever want to lose it)
• Have unlimited resources. Also a no-brainer.

Stick with Daily Drop Pro’s free version if you:

• Have a points but don’t travel often. You just want to see every now and then what’s out there. 
• Want to test the site out. Remember you only get 5 searches for reward flights and 5 for hotel point searches. 5 each. Total! It helps you understand how the search works. Remember, travel information is dynamic and a query you run today may not be valid tomorrow. In some cases, it may be invalid within hours/minutes. 
• Are not a travel planning enthusiast.

Don’t Forget: Lock in a lifetime discount on the annual Daily Drop Pro plan ($99 instead of $149/yr). The price goes up after this week.

Daily Drop Pro Review: Final Thoughts

Do you remember the 1st iPhone and how smartphones have changed our world? The Daily Drop Pro tool is not on this level. That being said, for a newly launched service, this platform addresses a lot of pain points and the interface is user friendly, slick, and – most of all – helpful enough that travel enthusiast will love and appreciate. Especially if they continue to listen to their users, iterate, and make it better.

We like that it’s a tool made by travel experts for the travel community which means they are incentivized by our experience and not beholden to the travel industry (airlines, hotels, banks…).

And with all the noise out there, having good, helpful information right at your finger tips is extremely valuable. Don’t forget, Google’s humble beginnings started as a search a results tool.