JourneyGenie

Multiple Flight Options
Around the world
Special Air Canada Stopover

Inspiration

JourneyGenie Our inspiration comes from our personal frustration with the time and complexity involved in booking award travel. As frequent travelers who regularly fly using points, we realized how difficult it is to piece together multi-stop trips and maximize value without spending hours searching. We wanted to create a tool that simplifies the process and makes these strategies accessible to everyone, not just the insiders. Our goal is to make award travel easier and more enjoyable for all travelers.

What it does

We’re building a tool that aims to change the game for award travel, making it easier for anyone to get the most out of their points and miles. Right now, tools like Seats.aero are helpful but fall short when it comes to more complicated itineraries like Air Canada Aeroplan stopovers or ANA Round-the-World (RTW) trips. Planning those kinds of trips can feel like a full-time job, requiring manual searches, calculations, and lots of patience.

Our tool solves this problem by automating the process. It will let travelers build complex itineraries all in one place, from finding award availability to figuring out repositioning flights and comparing whether it’s cheaper to use points or pay cash. No more jumping between multiple tools and websites—we bring everything together in one platform to save time and frustration.

We’re integrating advanced tech like LLMs to make the user experience even more intuitive. Imagine being able to ask, “What’s the best way to fly to Tokyo with my points?” and getting personalized answers that not only show you the flights but also consider stopovers, availability, and the best value for your miles. Our tool will make that a reality.

How we built it

We built our product, JourneyGenie, using a carefully selected technology stack to ensure a seamless and efficient user experience. For the frontend, we utilized Reach and Tailwind CSS to create a responsive, intuitive, and visually appealing interface. The backend is powered by Python and Flask, providing a robust and scalable framework to handle complex routing algorithms and user interactions. We chose Supabase for our database solution, offering real-time data management and seamless integration with our backend services. Additionally, we integrated various external APIs to enrich JourneyGenie with up-to-date travel information and resources. This combination of Reach, Tailwind, Python, Flask, Supabase, and external APIs allows JourneyGenie to deliver optimized, personalized itineraries that cater to the unique needs of each traveler.

Challenges we ran into

One of the biggest challenges we faced was optimizing the backend to handle the complex routing rules and constraints of round-the-world trips, especially with the sheer number of variables and regions involved. We had to ensure that everything—from award availability to mileage requirements—worked seamlessly together, which required careful coordination across multiple systems. Scraping flight availability data on a tight budget while ensuring accurate results was also difficult, but we made it work. Scaling and parsing through massive amounts of data in a short time-frame was another major hurdle, but achieving successful searches was a big win.

What's next for JourneyGenie

Our next steps involve increasing product-market fit by refining the tool based on user feedback and talking to customers to better understand their needs. We’ll focus on scaling the business by expanding our award program integrations and enhancing the user experience with smart features. Our ultimate goal is to become the go-to flight planning app for award travelers, making it easier for everyone to unlock the full value of their points and miles.