3 ms·
Show HN: Travel Hacking Toolkit – Points search and trip planning with AI
I use points and miles for most of my travel. Every booking comes down to the same decision: use points or pay cash? To answer that, you need award availability across multiple programs, cash prices, your current balances, transfer partner ratios, and the math to compare them. I got tired of doing it manually across a dozen tabs.
This toolkit teaches Claude Code and OpenCode how to do it. 7 skills (markdown files with API docs and curl examples) and 6 MCP servers (real-time tools the AI calls directly).
It searches award flights across 25+ mileage programs (Seats.aero), compares cash prices (Google Flights, Skiplagged, Kiwi.com, Duffel), pulls your loyalty balances (AwardWallet), searches hotels (Trivago, LiteAPI, Airbnb, Booking.com), finds ferry routes across 33 countries, and looks up weird hidden gems near your destination (Atlas Obscura).
Reference data is included: transfer partner ratios for Chase UR, Amex MR, Bilt, Capital One, and Citi TY. Point valuations sourced from TPG, Upgraded Points, OMAAT, and View From The Wing. Alliance membership, sweet spot redemptions, booking windows, hotel chain brand lookups.
5 of the 6 MCP servers need zero API keys. Clone, run setup.sh, start
searching.
Skills are, as usual, plain markdown. They work in OpenCode and Claude Code automatically (I added a tiny setup script), and they'll work in anything else that supports skills.
PRs welcome! Help me expand the toolkit! :)
https://github.com/borski/travel-hacking-toolkit https://github.com/borski/travel-hacking-toolkit
- hkotcherlakota 7mo agoNice work :) There's such a huge world of agentic automation out there outside of the hype cycle that is OpenClaw. Glad to see you putting this out there
- zephyreon 7mo agoJust sent this to my partner. He’s super into travel hacking and this will be a nice add to his toolkit.
- jaeyoungkim 7mo agoExcellent stuff, excited to try it out for an upcoming trip.
- esafak 7mo agoClaude itself advertises this application. https://claude.com/resources/use-cases/create-a-daily-travel-itinerary https://claude.com/resources/use-cases/create-a-daily-travel...
- borski 7mo agoFor creating an itinerary, for sure! This is more about handling travel point hacking, credit card points and their transfer partners, comparing cash vs point prices, etc. Plus, I like Atlas Obscura more than general internet searches for 'what to do' :)
- callumprentice 7mo agoAs someone who do the whole mileage actual thing for many years (millions of Chase and Amex points) but also a family and a full time job - IE 3 seats vs 1 and can’t leave for a trip at the drop of a hat - I’m always astonished by how worthless my miles seem to be. I’m not convinced it’s all one big scam but a teensie bit hopeful your solution can help. Looking forward to trying. Thank you.
- borski 7mo agoOh man, do I hear that. I suspect you’ll like this; let me know what you think! Feedback greatly appreciated
- Aboutplants 7mo agoSpoiler alert, it’s basically a scam
- TrickyRick 7mo agoIt most definitely isn't, but it takes significantly more effort than the bloggers want to make it seem like.
- burnto 7mo agoYes it’s not technically a scam because it’s legal. But it has scam smells: layering, misdirection, lock-in, very fine print, gamification, adjacent complex social media apparatuses. I’d place it near MLMs, loot boxes, timeshares, robux, liquidity mining.
- SFO_SIN 7mo agogood idea, but would've been useful 10 years ago when points and the churning game were peak. in 2026, the optimal strategy is now: - "want first, buy first" (pay cash when you want business class) and, - "team cash back" for credit cards without playing the coupon book game not worth the effort to optimize 1.5 vs 2.0 cent redemption unless it's a hobby
- borski 7mo agoNope. I just booked biz class flights to Scandinavia in August for 140k pts. Cash was about $7k for the same flights. In part, the reason I built this wasn't exactly to optimize 1.5cpp vs 2cpp, although that can be useful too... but rather to help me make the choice between using points vs. cash. (which, yes, is based on the cpp value). But if you don’t find it useful, I’d love that feedback too!
- SFO_SIN 7mo ago> I just booked biz class flights to Scandinavia in August for 140k pts. > Cash was about $7k for the same flights. Cash price US$3,500 https://www.google.com/travel/flights/s/64QhvwAzsAGp8NUA7 https://www.google.com/travel/flights/s/64QhvwAzsAGp8NUA7 August 5 to 12, Turkish Airlines, lie-flat business class all legs, round trip, Los Angeles to Istanbul to Oslo points game is over, man. but again, if it's a hobby and you like searching, winning, and finding a good deal, then sure. that has value.
- borski 7mo agoThanks for proving my point, as I was booking for 2pax, which is about $3500/pax indeed. And the 140k pts was total for both (+ ~$1200 total for fees, etc., in the interest of full disclosure). I was booking over 3 weeks, late August to early September, and I booked on KLM/AF. I had specific date ranges I needed to hit. Again, you don't have to like it. That's fine. But consider that "I think points are nonsense" isn't the person this was built for. :)
- 7mo ago
- royschwartz 7mo agoNice! Can't wait to try it out!
- weiyong1024 7mo ago[flagged]
- yodahuang 7mo agoThis looks very nice and useful! While Trivago covers major hotel sites, I sometimes find “shady” small sites often times offer better prices for hotels. I’ve been using super.com and vio.com and they seems great. Another complication is credit card companies’ own portal. E.g. we need to take into account Amex’s FHR or Capital One’s premier collection. They offer credits and sometimes special “stay two nights, one night free” stuff. If we are in the credit card game, then there’s also “I have X credits in the first half of the year so it’s free” situation (e.g. Hilton resort credit). I like your inclusion of Obscura. I have a blog post of how I pick where to go to: https://blog.yanda.rocks/posts/how-i-plan-my-trips/ https://blog.yanda.rocks/posts/how-i-plan-my-trips/ and my hope is one day I could automate that.
- borski 7mo agoIn my personal instance I actually have added the list of Chase The Edit as well as AmEx’s FHR/HC hotels. The problem is there’s no easy way to to search AmEx/Chase for those. I’ve never booked on super.com usually because I’m not into the “any room, run of the house” that usually requires, but please lmk if I’m missing something! And please, I am very open to PRs that improve it. :)
- ryebread777 7mo agoThat’s incredible! Just having access to a list of Amex FHR/THC hotels alone is super helpful! Will check this out next trip I plan.
- borski 7mo agohey, check it out :) https://github.com/borski/travel-hacking-toolkit/pull/1 https://github.com/borski/travel-hacking-toolkit/pull/1 I don't know anything about capital one so can do that at a later point
- johnwhitman 7mo ago[flagged]
- johnwhitman 7mo ago[flagged]
- k__c 7mo ago[dead]
- Asuka-wx 7mo ago[flagged]
- tkel 7mo agodid you write comment this using AI ? lol
- johnwhitman 7mo ago[flagged]
- adamsilvacons 7mo ago[flagged]
- ava-travel 6mo ago[dead]