Reply to Ontheroad's message:

You're right, CitiFi does sound like a good option compared to the startups. However, you're missing a few points:

1) Citifi is "powered by" Yodlee, which is a startup. Citifi did not develop the service on its own. It is a co-branded site, just like Amex Rewards and Excite are co branded from MaxMiles.

2) If you simply want to see your balances, use Citifi. But that's just the numbers, in other words plain data. MilesDirect converts that data into rich information. It analyses your miles in realtime, tells you your elite status, next elite status, number of stays or miles Year to date, lists all the airline alliances you belong to (oneworld, skyteam, star etc), shows you new offers and bonuses based on which programs you belong to (including flight and non-flight offers), and best of all, it includes the AwardFinder tool, which displays a searchable list of all the the awards you can claim right now, based on how many miles you currently have - which is a great way to plan your award travel from one centralized location (instead of figuring out award charts on many different airline or hotel websites).
MilesDirect is also developing a technology called MileageReconciler, which lets you easily enter your mileage earning activity on the website, and then reconcile that with the activity fetched automatically from the airlines. If you're a serious frequent flyer, need tons of automation and number crunching, and some truly innovative features use MilesDirect. If you just want to see a list of numbers, use Maxmiles. If you want to see a list of numbers along with your banking or investment accounts, use Citifi. MilesDirect does one thing and does it well. Thanks.

Mel www.milesdirect.com
(Disclaimer: I work for MilesDirect.)


[This message has been edited by mel (edited 07-19-2000).]