ROVE, founded by a 22 -year -old child, helps Gen Z to earn airline miles without credit cards

During his studies in the preparatory year abroad, Max Morganoth traveled to 30 countries, as he fly primarily in business and first period. Its jet preparation was almost fully funded through the airline points collected through strategic credit card requests and miles recovery.

Morganoth Techcrunch told every person who knows that he “beg” to teach them how to get free flights through airline programs, a term calling by travel penetration. However, most people in his circle, including his colleagues from students and Erton, were either eligible to get the best flight credit cards or lack time to increase tilt transfers to the maximum optimal flights.

By marketing credit cards and sharing fees with banks, it has become frequent traveler programs Great revenue generators For airlines. But according to Morganog, about 70 million Americans have no sufficient credit history to reach these reward plans.

During his trips, Morganrush discovered that in Hong Kong does not need people to open credit cards to earn miles in the Cathy Pacific Asia Miles. “The miles there is a deal like the second currency,” he said. “You go to 7-Eleven to buy a bottle of water; earn Asia miles. You can open a bank account and gain a cash benefit, as well as miles on your savings.

Morganroth saw an opportunity to create a similar program for ASIA MILES, where consumers can earn miles on different airlines when they shop in certain stores. His suggestion to airlines was that they can benefit from a larger group of consumers, especially the Gen Z, a generation that is keen to travel but still lacks firm credit.

After graduation, the 22 -year -old Morganroth, with Arhan Chibra, the last Harvard graduate, and the duo in the construction of Rove, a young woman claiming to be the first Mile loyal program.

Of course, not exactly the first and only. American Express rewards, for example, allows users Recover points with multiple airlines And sites like Expedia offer points that can be used on various flights. But multi -font programs are still rare.

Rove entered the Y Combinator batch in the winter of 2024 and began flying all over the world, shocking partnership with Mile programs that include 11 airlines, including Air France-KLM, Aeromexico, Finnair, and QATAR AIRWAIS.

These partnerships, which were only primarily available to the credit card exporters for the main banks, helped to raise two million dollars of investors including YC, General Catalyst and Soma Capital.

Rove loyalty allows airlines to expand The profitable works of Miles Millions of more consumers, Moganroth said.

But instead of allowing airlines to exchange fees using credit cards, ROVE gives them a way to earn money through marketing affiliated with more than 7,000 traders by extension of the ROVE shopping for Google Chrome. This is a business model similar honey And Rakuten.

Moganroth explained that the points gained from shopping can be converted into airlines miles, which bear more value than their equivalent in cash.

In addition to the marketing scheme, Rove also provides its users for miles for hotel reservations.

In fact, Mogranroth said that the points of a $ 1,000 hotel can deserve a back and forth ticket to Europe from the United States, a trip that can be used on the same trip, if the hotel’s reservation is not refundable. Hotel reservations are of great value because some hotels share up to 40 % of their sales as a body. Instead of this profit pocket, Rove gives all his share of this profit to the user in miles.

Users can combine Miles Rove Miles on hotel reservations with miles of shopping to the shopping card miles if they have a card that earns flights.

The startup company may seem complicated, but Mogranrush says that earning miles via ROVE is clear and direct, as long as users are reserving hotels on their platform or store using the ROVE shopping extension.

When users are ready to reserve flights with their miles, Roof travel gate helps them find the best flight deals. Although Rove is partnership with only 11 airlines, users of startups can book travel on about 140 carries because it is often possible to transfer miles from one airline to its subsidiaries in another region.

Rove is available to anyone, but Morganroth is believed to be the most attractive to young people.

He said: “Gen Z wants to travel more than any other population, yet they have less access to tools like this that makes them already cheaper,” he said. “They no longer have to wait until they are 28 years old, and they have five years of credit registry and 700 dollars free to get one of these cards; they can only download the extension of the vineyards, and reserve any of their current travel through us, and they will immediately in the game.”