Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Rove Miles is a new travel rewards loyalty program that lets you earn cash back in the form of miles from booking travel or shopping online. These miles can be redeemed for travel including for hotels and flights on Rove’s travel portal, or can be transferred to one of Rove’s airline partners. Essentially, it’s pretty much the only reasonable way to earn transferrable points without needing a credit card. It’s also a useful tool for those with credit cards and interested in award travel due to their unique transfer partners, potential for high miles earn rates with their hotel platform, and earning 5x points on their Loyalty Eligible Stays.
I like to think of Rove as a combination between Bilt (loyalty program where you earn points booking travel or use the Bilt credit card) and Rakuten (earn points for shopping online).
How does Rove make money?
If shopping online, Rove gets affiliate commission for funneling traffic and selling shopping data to retailers (like Rakuten and other shopping portals). For travel, it is like an online travel agency (OTA) where Rove gets a commission for funneling traffic to hotels. Currently, Rove is not profitable but hopes to scale enough so they can buy miles in bulk at better rates which can lead to arbitrage.
How to earn Rove miles?
The two main ways to earn Rove miles is by 1) shopping online across over 13,000+ merchants or by 2) booking flights or hotels. Importantly, similar to other shopping portals, it can take some time for the miles to post. Booking a non-refundable and prepaid hotel will generally post the miles immediately while a refundable trip will only post after the trip ends. Shopping online through the portal can take a varying amount of time and could take 2-3 months to post. Rove in their FAQs says the merchant determines the payout time.
1) Shopping online
Similar to other cash back portals like Rakuten, you can earn miles from starting your shopping trip on Rove. Find the merchant you want to shop with and compare their earnings rates with other shopping portals (use Cashback Monitor to aggregate), then click on the merchant and it will redirect you to shop directly on the merchant’s website.
Interestingly, Rove added a feature that shows how long it expects for the miles to post. Like other cash back portals, the merchant needs to approve that the transaction was valid and met the terms. Some merchants may take longer than others and it also depends on the type of product purchased (gift cards dot com will probably take longer than buying something from CVS for example).
2) Booking travel
Now this is where Rove differentiates itself. Although general consensus is to avoid booking hotels and airlines through a third-party, the juice might be worth the squeeze with Rove. Like other third-party portals, you can earn elevated points back from using Rove’s hotel travel portal. Rates can be as high as 30-60x cash back in the form of miles.
Where it really gets interesting is Rove offering “Loyalty Eligible Stays”. You get Rove Miles, all your hotel benefits and points earnings, and credit card rewards – a triple stack.
When searching for hotels, some options may qualify as “Loyalty Eligible”, meaning you can book through Rove and can earn 5x Rove miles per dollar but have the booking essentially count as a “direct booking” where you get all your hotel benefits and will earn towards hotel elite status as well. Your credit card will be charged by Rove as the merchant of record though and should code as hotel/lodging. As always, compare the pricing between booking direct vs. Rove, even with Rove’s “Loyalty Eligible” stays. It could still be cheaper to book directly through the hotel program than Rove.
How to redeem miles?
There are two ways to redeem the Rove miles you earned. The first is using them to pay for your travel. I have found that Rove will generally let you redeem your miles for a minimum of 1.5 cents per mile but can be 2-5+ cents per mile as well for hotels.
The second, and arguably better way to redeem miles is to transfer them to one of Rove’s partners. Rove has a mix of familiar transfer partners such as Air France/KLM, Cathay, and Qatar Airways but some more unique ones such as Air India, JAL, Lufthansa, and SAS. If you’re new to points & miles, make sure to sign up to my newsletter or check out my Instagram for inspiration on how to better use your points & miles..
With these unique programs, there is a lot of opportunity to get outsized value. Air India for example is part of Star Alliance and you can book a United economy flight for as low as 3,500 miles one-way (<600 miles). For JAL, you can get increased access to business class awards and find a lot of US-Tokyo availability at 110k miles one-way but can be found as low as 55k miles one-way. Lufthansa is also another unique program where you can occasionally book an economy flight from US-Europe for as little as 1 point + $150-200 in tax/fees. SAS also has more availability to fly US-Europe on their own business class for 60k points each way.
Overall positive and negatives with Rove
Positives
1) Great earning rates on select hotels (up to 60x miles per dollar)
2) Loyalty Eligible Stays where you earn 5x Rove Miles + hotel points earn rate. You also get your hotel loyalty benefits
3) Great transfer partners. JAL, Lufthansa, Air India, and SAS are some unique ones as well
4) Some great portal redemption rates. If you don’t mind booking third-party you can get 1.5-4cpp redemption rates at hotels
5) Transfer bonuses rival Bilt’s early days (50% bonus to JAL for the entire month of March 2026). Hopefully this continues!
Negatives
1) It can take 2-3 months for miles to post after a shopping purchase (prepaid non-refundable posts immediately though) or non-prepaid hotel stay
2) Hard to find high-earn rate hotels and the ones that have high rates are usually hostels or are much more expensive than booking via other methods
3) Loyalty Eligible Stays may not be the best rate vs. booking direct
4) Newer start up so customer service is likely to be limited. However, the Rove Insiders Facebook Group is very useful!
5) With any new business, it’s hard to predict the longevity of the business (will it be like Bilt or Mesa?)
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