AwardWallet is

frequent flyer A frequent-flyer program (American English) or frequent-flyer programme (British English) is a loyalty program offered by an airline. Many airlines have frequent-flyer programs designed to encourage airline customers enrolled in the program ...

miles and points tracking site. It is considered to be the first in the genre, founded in 2004, and tracked more than 400 sites as of 2011. AwardWallet is based out of

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania Bethlehem is a city in Northampton and Lehigh Counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 census, Bethlehem had a total population of 75,781. Of this, 55,639 were in Northampton County and 19, ...

. As of 2021, it has 700,000 users, despite some airlines blocking access to the app citing privacy concerns. In 2012, AwardWallet was involved in a series of disputes with several airlines companies which denied access to AwardWallet's tracking software on their websites.

History

AwardWallet was established in 2004 by Alexi Vereschaga and Todd Mera, two former employees and software engineers from the Aelita Software Corporation. The company began with reward programs by tracking transactions of frequent flyer users and later expanded its services by adding a variety of customer loyalty programs AwardWallet added a companion mobile application for

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

and Android devices circa 2010/2011.American Airlines News: American Airlines and AwardWallet Offer New Reward Tracking Technology for AAdvantage Members
/ref> As of 2021, AwardWallet had over 700,000 members. AwardWallet software has been discussed and cited in travel and technology sections of the media outlets such as

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

, Bloomberg,

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

, Entrepreneur, Vox

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sho ...

and

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

, among others.

Technology

AwardWallet's software is equipped with several APIs related to the travel space including an AwardWallet Email Parsing API, AwardWallet Web Parsing API, and AwardWallet Account Access API. For example, Email Parsing API retrieves travel reservations from confirmation emails. Travel reservations are then parsed by the API to return the reservation data in a structured

JSON JSON (JavaScript Object Notation, pronounced ; also ) is an open standard file format and data interchange format that uses human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and arrays (or other ser ...

format The AwardWallet Account Access API operates via

OAuth OAuth (short for "Open Authorization") is an open standard for access delegation, commonly used as a way for internet users to grant websites or applications access to their information on other websites but without giving them the passwords. T ...

protocol. The AwardWallet Web Parsing API retrieves account balance, membership tier, expiration date and more from online accounts. It also provides access to travel itineraries and historical account activity. A number of sources indicate that the AwardWallet software is a part of an emerging API economy.

Airline companies tracking controversy

AwardWallet was a part of controversy related to the denial of the airline companies to have tracking software programs in their

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standa ...

systems. In late 2012, AwardWallet (along with TripIt and MileWise) received a number of

cease and desist A cease and desist letter is a document sent to an individual or business to stop alleged illegal activity. The phrase "cease and desist" is a legal doublet, made up of two near-synonyms. The letter may warn that, if the recipient does not dis ...

letters from

American Airlines American Airlines is a major airlines of the United States, major US-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, within the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is the Largest airlines in the world, largest airline in the world when measured ...

Delta Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), a letter of the Greek alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * D (NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta") * Delta Air Lines, US * Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19 Delta may also re ...

United Airlines United Airlines, Inc. (commonly referred to as United), is a major American airline headquartered at the Willis Tower in Chicago, Illinois.

and

Southwest Airlines Southwest Airlines Co., typically referred to as Southwest, is one of the major airlines of the United States and the world's largest low-cost carrier. It is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and has scheduled service to 121 destinations in the U ...

, demanding that AwardWallet discontinue accessing their websites for tracking clients' miles rewards programs. In August 2013, American Airlines resumed its use of the AwardWallet by integrating its software in the company's API.

References

{{reflist Financial technology companies American companies established in 2004 Travel management Software companies based in Pennsylvania Software companies of the United States