I have three active subscriptions to award booking tools (seats.aero.com, pointsyeah.com and awardtool.com) that help me find award space on flights (https://awardcracker.com/searching-for-partner-airline-award-space/). There are several other award search tools available, but I am only comparing the three programs in this review.
Premium Flight Award Search Engine Master Comparison
| Parameter | Seats.aero | Pointsyeah | AwardTool |
| Support for Domestic Connecting Flights | No | Yes | Yes |
| International Nonstop Flights | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Region-based search using the same search bar (e.g., USA or Europe) | Yes | No (regions allowed only under Panorama Search) | No (regions only allowed under Daydream Explorer) |
| Create custom region codes | Yes | No | No |
| Bookmark your favorite searches with preserved filtering criteria | Yes | No | No |
| "Search From" Airport Code Limit | Unlimited | 2 | 16 |
| "Search To" Airport Code Limit | Unlimited | 2 | 16 |
| Max Number of search days | Multi-Airport/Region: +/- 28 days. Single Airport/Region Search : +/- 180 days. | 8 days with next/prev option | 16 days (with 1+1 from/to airports); 4 days (with 2+2 from/to airports); 1 day with multiple from/to airport codes. |
| Ability to choose minimum number of seats | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Ability to choose flight duration | Yes (only after selecting "Show Individual Flights"). | Yes | Yes |
| Ability to choose number of flight connections | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Flight Connection Time Limiter | No | No | Yes |
| Ability to choose alliances (e.g., Oneworld) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Ability to choose Airline Programs (e.g., Aeroplan) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Ability to choose flight carrier (e.g., JAL) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Ability to choose Credit Card Transfer Partners (e.g., Amex) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Premium Cabin % Limiter | None | Yes | Yes |
| Ability to see ECO, BUS & FIRST Award Space next to each other | Yes. They appear in vertical columns next to each other. | Must select each class individually | Extensive with "give me all" option. |
| Max Taxes Limiter | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Max Points Limiter | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Choose Arrival & Departure Times | No | Yes | Yes |
| Select Type of Aircraft | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Max Number of Search Days with Daydream Explorer | N/A | 60 days with next/prev option | N/A |
| Max Number of Search Days with Panaroma | N/A | N/A | 90 days |
| True Calendar Result View | No | No | Yes |
| Number of alerts | Unlimited | 32 | 35 |
| Specialized Tools | ANA First Class finder, Delta One finder, Lufthansa First Class finder, Qatar Q-suite finder | None | None |
| Premium Membership Price | $9.99/month or $99.99/year | $12.99/month or $109.99/year | $10.99/month or $84.99/year |
| Hotel Award Support | Yes (Hyatt, Hilton, IHG & Marriott) | Yes (Hyatt, Hilton, IHG & Marriott); Mr & Mrs Smith and FHR properties. | Yes (Hyatt, Hilton, IHG & Marriott) |
| Region Based Hotel Award Search | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Discord Community | Yes | No | No |
| Discord Large Seat Releases | Yes | No | No |
Seats.aero
The biggest pros are unlimited alerts for flights/hotels and a wonderful single/multi-airport or region based search capability from the same search bar (without the need to click on separate function tabs like Daydream Explorer or Panorama). Seats.aero allows you to bookmark all your favorite searches and preserves the parameters like duration, connections, mixed cabin %, etc.,
The typical multi-city pair search function limits results to +/- 28 days (see image below).
Has the ability to add +/- 180 days to search results between two regions (e.g., USA to India)
Once you add more than one region (from/to), the maximum flight search days will decrease to +/- 28 days (see image below).
The biggest con of seats.aero is the inability to include domestic award connections in the search results.
PointsYeah
PointsYeah may not have any unique features compared to the competition, but it has the cleanest interface and should be the starter program for all points & miles enthusiasts (I recommend it to all my family & friends).
AwardTool
The biggest pros of AwardTool are the calendar view for results and flight connection time limiter (see images below).
Conclusions
All three competing premium award search engines each offer something unique over the other and I will continue to support the developers with their subscription. Whenever these programs improve their interface with new features, I will update the master comparison chart accordingly.