Frequently Asked Questions

PointsRoute is a road trip planner that builds your route around World of Hyatt hotel stops, optimized for points. Enter your origin, destination, and any stops you want to make — the app figures out where to sleep each night, finds nearby craft breweries and landmarks, and gives you a full interactive itinerary with estimated points costs.

The core experience — planning trips, exploring the map, and browsing hotels, breweries, and landmarks — is free and doesn't require an account. Creating a free account lets you save trips, share them, leave reviews, and sync across devices.

Honestly? PointsRoute started as a personal project for my family's road trips — we're World of Hyatt members and wanted a tool to plan routes around Hyatt properties. It turns out a lot of people travel this way, so I opened it up. Support for other hotel programs may come in the future, but Hyatt is the focus for now.

Same reason — I'm a craft beer enthusiast and breweries are a big part of how my family road trips. A great taproom near your hotel can make the difference between an okay stop and a memorable one. We have detailed data on thousands of US breweries including food, outdoor seating, dog-friendliness, beer styles, and ratings.

No. PointsRoute is an independent project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Hyatt Hotels Corporation in any way. Points estimates use the standard published award chart and may not reflect actual availability, dynamic pricing, or promotions.

PointsRoute is a passion project. If you find it useful and want to help cover API and hosting costs, you can leave a tip via Ko-fi. But the best support is just using it and letting me know what could be better.

Enter an origin, destination, and optionally add waypoint stops (cities, breweries, landmarks, or anything else). Choose your optimization mode and daily driving hours, then hit Plan. The algorithm optimizes your waypoint order using actual driving times, then places Hyatt hotel stops along the route so you never drive more than your daily limit. The result is a full itinerary with driving legs, hotel nights, and nearby discoveries.

Yes. When planning a trip, select "Round Trip" as the trip type and the planner will route you from origin to destination and back. You can also choose "Stay & Explore" for a basecamp-style trip where you stay in one area and take day trips.

Absolutely. Once your trip is planned, you can add or remove waypoints, swap any hotel for an alternative nearby, lock specific hotels you don't want changed, and adjust the itinerary on the fly. The route recalculates automatically.

This sets the maximum hours you want to drive each day (between 5 and 10). The planner uses this budget to decide when to stop for the night. A lower limit means more overnight stops and a more relaxed pace; a higher limit means fewer stops and longer driving days.

Points estimates are based on the standard Hyatt award chart for the selected room type (standard room, standard suite, or premium suite). Actual redemption rates may differ due to dynamic pricing, peak/off-peak dates, or availability. Use the estimates as a planning guide, not a guarantee.

PointsRoute includes hundreds of World of Hyatt properties across the United States, covering all brands from Hyatt Place and Hyatt House to Park Hyatt and Grand Hyatt. The data is updated regularly.

Yes. On the Explore map and in trip results, you can filter by amenities like pool, breakfast, spa, and more. You can also filter by brand, maximum points cost, minimum Google rating, and hotel category.

Hyatt categorizes properties from 1 (lowest points cost) to 8 (highest). Higher categories are typically more premium properties. PointsRoute estimates categories based on brand, so they may not exactly match Hyatt's official categorization.

Yes. Star any hotel to save it as a favorite. When you plan a trip, the algorithm gives a scoring boost to your favorites, making it more likely to include them in your itinerary. Requires a free account.

Not currently. The app shows estimated points costs based on the standard award chart, but doesn't check live availability or pricing. You'll need to confirm availability on the Hyatt website or app when booking. Real-time availability is something I'd love to add in the future.

Thousands of US breweries, each with details on food service, outdoor seating, dog-friendliness, beer styles, ratings, and more. We're constantly adding and updating brewery data.

When your trip is planned, the app automatically finds top-rated breweries near each hotel stop. Scoring factors in distance from your route, Google and Untappd ratings, available features (food, patio, etc.), and your preferences. You can also manually add any brewery as a waypoint.

PointsRoute also includes landmarks and attractions along your route — national parks, museums, historic sites, and more. These are scored similarly to breweries and appear on your trip map. You can filter by free/paid, kid-friendly, pet-friendly, and category.

Yes! On the Explore map, use the "Suggest a Place" button to flag a missing brewery or landmark. You can also report incorrect information on any existing listing. These suggestions go into a review queue.

No. You can plan trips and explore the map without signing up. Trips planned without an account are saved locally in your browser. Creating a free account lets you save trips permanently, share them with others, leave reviews, manage favorites, and access your trips from any device.

Yes. From any saved trip, you can generate a shareable link or invite specific people by email. You control the permission level — viewers can see the trip, editors can make changes, and you can revoke access anytime.

Yes. When multiple people are viewing a shared trip, you'll see who's active. Editors can make changes that sync in real time for everyone viewing the trip.

Signed-in users can leave star ratings and written reviews on any hotel, brewery, or landmark. Reviews display your Hyatt status if you've set one. You can also mark reviews as helpful or report inappropriate ones.

The Explore map lets you browse all Hyatt hotels, breweries, and landmarks across the US on an interactive map. Toggle layers on and off, filter by attributes, search for locations, and tap any marker for details. You can switch between map styles including outdoor and satellite views.

When viewing a trip, the map shows your full route with hotel markers, brewery pins, and landmarks. You can zoom into a specific day's area to discover nearby places, add stops on the fly, and see all available Hyatt hotels along your route — not just the ones the planner picked.

Hotel, brewery, and landmark data is compiled and enriched from multiple public sources. All data is pre-processed and kept up to date, so trip planning is fast and doesn't depend on third-party services at plan time.

Driving times and routes come from the Mapbox Directions API, which uses real road networks and typical traffic patterns. Waypoint ordering is optimized using a matrix of actual driving times between all stops, not straight-line distances.

PointsRoute works great as a web app on any device. There's also a native iOS app in development that wraps the web experience with native features like haptic feedback and deeper OS integration. You can add the web app to your home screen for an app-like experience on any platform.

Yes — PointsRoute is actively developed and new features are added regularly. Some things on the roadmap include real-time hotel availability, more hotel programs, gas cost estimation improvements, and CarPlay integration. If you have ideas, I'd love to hear them.