Company Name: mileBlaster
Official Website: https://www.mileblaster.com/
What do they do? Tool to track frequent flyer programs – how many miles/points you have, when those miles/points expire (as well as how to keep them from expiring), how to best use them, and how to earn bonus miles/points. Currently available as an online widget, an Adobe AIR widget, and an app for some mobile devices.
Are they a business-to-business (B2B) company, or business-to-consumer (B2C)? B2C
Founder(s): mileBlaster is the first product from CTM Holdings, LLC, of which Jack Costello is CEO. The company is based in Cambridge, MA.
Date Founded: [unable to find this information]
Presentation Notes: Jack Costello, mileBlaster CEO, gave the presentation. It’s a way for travelers to use their frequent flyer goals as part of the decision-making process when booking a trip. It’s a widget that goes onto travel search engine sites and incorporates someone’s frequent flyer program information into the search results – each result will show a traveler how many miles it would take to get that flight for free, if you have enough miles to get that flight for free, if there are bonus miles available for a particular flight, and whether that flight would get you to a free trip with that program. Users could also track their status as an elite flyer and see whether certain flights would get them to the next level of elite status with an airline, show users partner airlines and whether miles could be earned with a different airline, and whether a hotel booking or car rental (or other travel bookings) would earn you miles as well.
Why should/shouldn’t travelers care? If frequent flyer programs are difficult for you to track, and if you’d like to be able to add potential frequent flyer implications to the flight searches you’re doing, then mileBlaster sounds quite useful. It does seem to add yet another layer of things to think about when booking a flight, a process that’s already fairly busy, so it feels like this would depend quite a bit on whether a traveler was focused more on frequent flyer information than other search factors.
Author: Sean Keener