Travel Hacking Toolkit

AI-powered travel hacking with points, miles, and award flights. Drop-in skills and MCP servers for OpenCode and Claude Code.

Ask your AI to find you a 60,000-mile business class flight to Tokyo. It'll search award availability across 25+ programs, compare against cash prices, check your loyalty balances, and tell you the best play.

Quick Start

git clone https://github.com/borski/travel-hacking-toolkit.git
cd travel-hacking-toolkit
./scripts/setup.sh

The setup script walks you through everything: picks your tool (OpenCode, Claude Code, or both), creates your API key config files, installs dependencies, and optionally installs skills system-wide.

The 5 free MCP servers (Skiplagged, Kiwi, Trivago, Ferryhopper, Airbnb) work immediately with zero API keys. For the full experience, add at minimum:

Then launch your tool:

# OpenCode
opencode

# Claude Code
claude --strict-mcp-config --mcp-config .mcp.json

The --strict-mcp-config flag tells Claude Code to load MCP servers from the config file directly. This is more reliable than auto-discovery (known issue).

What's Included

MCP Servers (real-time tools)

Skills (API knowledge for your AI)

How It Works

Skills

Skills are markdown files that teach your AI how to call travel APIs. They contain endpoint documentation, curl examples, useful jq filters, and workflow guidance. Both OpenCode and Claude Code support skills natively.

The skills/ directory is the canonical source. The setup script either:

• Copies them to your tool's global skills directory (~/.config/opencode/skills/ or ~/.claude/skills/)
• Or creates project-level symlinks so they load when you work from this directory

MCP Servers

MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers give your AI real-time tools it can call directly. The configs are in:

• opencode.json for OpenCode
• .mcp.json for Claude Code

Skiplagged, Kiwi.com, Trivago, Ferryhopper, and Airbnb need no setup at all. LiteAPI is also a remote server but needs an API key configured in your settings.

The Travel Hacking Workflow

The core question: "Should I burn points or pay cash?"

1. Search award availability — Seats.aero across 25+ programs
2. Search cash prices — SerpAPI (Google Flights) or Skiplagged
3. Estimate portal value — Portal rates are dynamic now. Chase "Points Boost" (June 2025) offers 1.5 to 2.0cpp on select bookings, not a flat rate. Amex/Capital One ~1.0cpp. Check the actual portal for your specific booking.
4. Compare — Lower number wins
5. Check balances — AwardWallet confirms you have enough
6. Book it — Use booking links from Seats.aero or Duffel

Example Prompts

"Find me the cheapest business class award from SFO to Tokyo in August"
"Compare points vs cash for a round trip JFK to London next March"
"What are my United miles and Chase UR balances?"
"Find hidden gems near Lisbon"
"How do I get from Oslo to Bergen by train?"

Project Structure

travel-hacking-toolkit/
├── AGENTS.md -> CLAUDE.md          # OpenCode project instructions (symlink)
├── CLAUDE.md                       # Project instructions and workflow guidance
├── opencode.json                   # OpenCode MCP server config
├── .mcp.json                       # Claude Code MCP server config
├── .env.example                    # API key template (OpenCode)
├── .claude/
│   ├── settings.local.json.example # API key template (Claude Code)
│   └── skills -> ../skills         # Symlink to skills
├── .opencode/
│   └── skills -> ../skills         # Symlink to skills
├── data/
│   ├── alliances.json              # Airline alliance membership + booking relationships
│   ├── hotel-chains.json           # Hotel chains, sub-brands, loyalty programs, reverse lookup
│   ├── partner-awards.json         # Which programs book which airlines (alliance + bilateral)
│   ├── points-valuations.json      # Points/miles valuations from 4 sources (floor/ceiling)
│   ├── sweet-spots.json            # High-value award redemptions + booking windows
│   └── transfer-partners.json      # Credit card transfer partners + ratios
├── skills/
│   ├── duffel/SKILL.md             # Real-time flight search
│   ├── seats-aero/SKILL.md         # Award flight search
│   ├── awardwallet/SKILL.md        # Loyalty balances
│   ├── serpapi/SKILL.md            # Cash prices + hotels
│   ├── rapidapi/SKILL.md           # Secondary price source
│   ├── atlas-obscura/              # Hidden gems (+ Node.js scraper)
│   │   ├── SKILL.md
│   │   ├── ao.mjs
│   │   └── package.json
│   └── scandinavia-transit/        # Nordic trains/buses/ferries
│       └── SKILL.md
├── scripts/
│   └── setup.sh                    # Interactive installer
└── LICENSE                         # MIT

Credits

Built on these excellent projects:

• Seats.aero — Award flight availability data
• AwardWallet — Loyalty program tracking
• Duffel — Real-time flight search and booking
• SerpAPI — Google search result APIs
• RapidAPI — API marketplace
• atlas-obscura-api by @bartholomej — Atlas Obscura scraper
• Skiplagged MCP — Flight search with hidden city fares
• Kiwi.com MCP — Flight search with virtual interlining
• Trivago MCP — Hotel metasearch
• Ferryhopper MCP by Ferryhopper — Ferry routes across 33 countries
• mcp-server-airbnb by OpenBnB — Airbnb search and listing details
• LiteAPI MCP by LiteAPI — Hotel booking
• Entur — Norwegian transit API
• Trafiklab / ResRobot — Swedish transit API
• Rejseplanen — Danish transit API

License

MIT