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It’s March “Mayhem” (hey I don’t want to get sued, ya know)! Since this is one of my favorite times of the year, I thought I’d celebrate by running a bracket competition so we can determine the best miles and points tool out there.
You might remember a few months ago when I published my list of the Top 10 miles and points tools (and the honorable mentions!). Last week we had the 8 first round games
- Thursday March 17th – #1 Award Wallet vs. #16 Boingo Wifi and #6 Rome2Rio vs. #11 Check My Trip
- Friday March 18th – #8 FlyerMiler vs. #9 Seatguru and #2 Autoslash vs. #15 Osmand
- Saturday March 19th – #3 Google Flights / ITA Matrix vs. #14 Cashback Monitor and #5 Award Mapper vs. #12 Expert Flyer
- Sunday March 20th – #7 Hotel Hustle vs. #10 Flight Aware and #4 Airline Route Mapper vs. #13 The Flight Deal
That left us with the following bracket – down to the final 8 tools! Now it’s time for the quarterfinals!
Here’s our schedule for the quarterfinals
- Thursday, March 24th – #12 Expert Flyer vs. #13 The Flight Deal
- Friday, March 25th – #3 Google Flights / ITA Matrix vs. #6 Rome2Rio
- Saturday, March 26th – #1 Award Wallet vs. #9 Seatguru
- Sunday, March 27th – #2 Autoslash vs. #10 Flight Aware
Next Tuesday (the 29th) we will close voting in all 4 contests and announce the final 4 tools.
Travel Hacking March Mayhem Quarterfinal #2: #3 Google Flights / ITA Matrix vs. #6 Rome2Rio
Our second quarterfinal features 2 favorites that took care of business in the first round. #3 Google Flights / ITA Matrix won by the biggest margin of all the first round games, 87% to 13% over #14 Cashback Monitor. #6 Rome2Rio won comfortably as well, by a margin of 63% to 37% over #11 CheckMyTrip
Google Flights and ITA Matrix are two related tools (ITA is owned by Google) that help you determine the costs of flights as well as what airlines fly which routes (and times). I like to use Google Flights if I want to find out what times a given flight are. For instance, when I was trying to book my round the world trip, I used Google Flights to check the different first class options between the US and Asia (I ended up on Japan Airlines first class)
I’ve described Rome2Rio as “Google Maps Transit on steroids!” I’ve found it to be super useful in finding out different transit options especially overseas in cities where I’m not familiar with. Rome2Rio will give you the approximate time and cost of getting between places by bus, train, taxi as well as walking and fuel cost for a car. It will also give you links to where you can buy tickets in some cases. It’s been a lifesaver for me as I try to plan out how I’m going to get around in different places.
So which will it be? #3 Google Flights / ITA Matrix or #6 Rome2Rio? Vote below!
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
That is a tough one. I definately use google flights more often. But Rome2Rio is such a great and helpful tool even though I may not use it as often.