# Build brief — a focused alternative to Point.me

> **Verdict:** Not faithfully · **Buildability:** 23/100 · **Category:** Travel
> **Source:** https://www.canitbevibecoded.com/point-me
> Independent editorial assessment from Can It Be Vibe Coded? Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or derived from Point.me. Verify current pricing and capabilities before acting.

## Context

**Point.me** — Store manually researched award options and compare user-entered points values. It currently costs $10.75/mo.

A consolation build is possible, but the paid product's decisive value sits outside a solo rebuild. For Point.me, store manually researched award options and compare user-entered points values. The hard boundary is live award inventory search, airline program integrations, data operations, and concierge expertise, plus proprietary live data and network coverage.

This brief describes a focused, single-operator replacement for the part of Point.me that is genuinely reproducible. It is deliberately narrower than the product it replaces, and it says so in writing. Build the useful core; do not pretend to have rebuilt the rest.

## What you are building

Store manually researched award options, compare user-entered points values, map places and reservations, and keep an offline itinerary without claiming live proprietary availability.

- Build a focused single-user workflow with real persistence, search, and export.
- A responsive interface with real empty, loading, success, and error states.

## Requirements

### Functional

- Modern browser.
- User-entered reservations.

### Data and integrations

- MapTiler or compatible map key.
- Optional public transit or weather API.

Each of these needs a real account, credential, or quota. Set them up before writing feature code.

### Non-functional

- Accessibility: semantic markup, labelled controls, visible focus, and reduced-motion support.
- Security: server-side secrets, validated input, and no credentials in the client bundle.
- Reliability: retries with backoff on external calls, and a clear failure state when a provider is down.
- Portability: the operator can export their data and leave without losing it.

## Implementation brief

Build a closest honest personal substitute for Point.me in an empty repository.
Use Next.js 15, TypeScript, SQLite, MapLibre GL, and user-supplied map and travel APIs; do not offer alternative stacks.
The core loop is: store manually researched award options, compare user-entered points values, map places and reservations, and keep an offline itinerary without claiming live proprietary availability.
Make the first run work locally with one documented command.
Store all user data locally by default and make export straightforward.
Put secrets in .env, ship .env.example, and never commit credentials.
Create trips, days, places, reservations, notes, documents, packing items, and emergency contacts.
Geocode only user-entered places and display them through MapLibre with cached trip-area tiles where allowed.
Parse forwarded reservation text locally into editable fields without logging message content.
Build a day timeline, route overview, conflict warnings, timezone display, and offline printable itinerary.
Allow manual updates for delays and reservations and label all external data with source and timestamp.
Export a complete trip bundle as JSON, calendar file, Markdown, and PDF.
Include clear empty, loading, success, and recoverable error states.
Add input validation, safe filenames, and graceful handling of unavailable APIs.
Write focused tests for the core transformation and one end-to-end happy path.
Create a README with setup, architecture, permissions, data location, and backup steps.
Do not add accounts, billing, telemetry, analytics, or a hosted control plane.
Do not claim to reproduce proprietary data, network liquidity, regulated access, or frontier infrastructure.
Deliberately leave out live flight, hotel, award, or ticket inventory.
Deliberately leave out commercial turn-by-turn navigation and global offline maps.
Deliberately leave out booking guarantees, disruption rebooking, and traveler support.
Finish by running the tests and listing the exact commands used.

## Delivery standard

- Inspect the repository first, then write a short implementation plan before writing code.
- Deliver the smallest complete end-to-end workflow first; every primary control must work against persisted data.
- Use real validation and storage; never substitute fake dashboards, decorative controls, hard-coded success states, or mock integrations.
- Include responsive layouts plus genuine empty, loading, success, validation, and failure states.
- Keep secrets server-side in environment variables, provide .env.example, and never commit credentials or user data.
- Add structured logs around every external call and return actionable errors without leaking sensitive details.
- Write unit tests for the core logic and one automated test of the main user journey.
- Finish with a README covering setup, architecture, data location, backups, tests, deployment, and known limitations.

## Acceptance criteria

- [ ] A clean install starts the app using only the README and .env.example.
- [ ] The primary journey works from first visit through saved result, reload, edit, export, and deletion where applicable.
- [ ] Invalid input, missing configuration, provider failure, and an empty database each have a usable state.
- [ ] The interface works at 390px and 1440px, is keyboard navigable, and shows visible focus on every control.
- [ ] Tests, type checking, linting, and a production build all pass with no ignored failures.
- [ ] No part of the interface implies a live integration, security guarantee, or scale capability that was not actually built and verified.

## Non-goals

Do not build these, and do not claim to have replaced them:

- Live award inventory search, airline program integrations, data operations, and concierge expertise.
- Live fare and inventory data.
- Global routing dataset.
- Crowdsourced trail intelligence.
- The useful dataset is owned, accumulated, or expensive to reproduce.
- Connectors, OAuth flows, and vendor API changes require constant upkeep.

## What you still own after launch

- Secure credentials, rotate secrets, and handle provider rate limits.
- Run migrations, backups, restores, and dependency updates.
- Test the critical journey after every model, API, or hosting change.
- Monitor failures and fix the edge cases a first prompt will miss.
- Maintain every third-party integration as APIs and OAuth rules change.

## Risk

**Operational risk.** The code is achievable; dependable data, integrations, and ongoing operations are the real cost.

Editorial confidence in this assessment: high. No independent one-shot implementation is linked yet.

## Prior art

Working open-source software you can read, fork, or borrow from before starting:

- [Wanderer](https://github.com/Flomp/wanderer) — Open-source self-hosted trail database and route explorer using open map data

---

Generated by [Can It Be Vibe Coded?](https://www.canitbevibecoded.com) · Full report: https://www.canitbevibecoded.com/point-me