Points are basically a secondary currency. Most people sitting on a pile of credit card rewards or airline miles have absolutely no clue how much that digital gold is actually worth. This was the exact problem Jon Lalush set out to solve when he walked into the tank. He pitched RewardStock Shark Tank fans might remember as the tool that promised to make "travel hacking" accessible to folks who don't want to spend forty hours a week staring at spreadsheets.
It was a classic Shark Tank moment. A smart founder with a complex algorithm.
The Pitch That Caught Mark Cuban's Eye
Lalush walked into the set seeking $200,000 for 5% of his company. It’s a steep valuation for a startup that, at its core, helps people book vacations. But RewardStock wasn’t a travel agency. It was a search engine designed to automate the agonizingly manual process of finding the best way to use points.
If you've ever tried to book a flight to Europe using Chase Ultimate Rewards vs. United Miles, you know the headache. You're constantly toggling between tabs, checking blackout dates, and trying to calculate if a 1.2 cent-per-point redemption is actually a "good deal." Honestly, it’s exhausting. Lalush’s algorithm did the heavy lifting. You put in where you want to go, and it tells you exactly which cards to open and how to shuffle your points to get there for nearly free.
The Sharks were skeptical, as they usually are with "middleman" tech. Kevin O'Leary, predictably, went after the customer acquisition cost. But Mark Cuban saw something different. He saw a data play. Cuban ended up striking a deal for $200,000 in exchange for 10% equity. He didn't just want a travel tool; he wanted the tech behind the points optimization.
Why RewardStock Was Different (And Why It's Gone)
You can't find the RewardStock website today. Not in its original form, anyway.
If you try to navigate to the old URL, you’ll find yourself redirected. That’s because, in a move that actually proves the tech worked, RewardStock was acquired by Experian in 2020. This is the part of the RewardStock Shark Tank story that most people miss when they're looking for a "Where are they now?" update.
Experian didn't buy it to keep it as a standalone travel site. They bought it to integrate it into the Experian Consumer Services ecosystem. Think about it. Experian already has your credit data. They know what cards you have. By plugging in the RewardStock algorithm, they can tell you—with terrifying accuracy—which credit card you should apply for next based on your specific travel goals.
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It’s a win for the founder, sure. An exit to a multi-billion dollar credit bureau is the dream. But for the original fans of the "pure" RewardStock experience, it felt a little bit like the soul of the project was swallowed by the corporate machine.
The Evolution of Travel Hacking Tech
Before this acquisition, travel hacking was a niche hobby for "nerds" (and I say that with love) on forums like FlyerTalk or Reddit’s r/churning. You had to learn about "transfer partners" and "alliance networks."
RewardStock tried to democratize that.
- The Algorithm: It calculated the real-time value of points across dozens of programs.
- The Roadmap: It didn't just say "use points"; it told you the sequence of credit card applications needed to reach a specific goal, like a honeymoon in Hawaii.
- The User Experience: It was clean. It looked like a modern SaaS product, not a legacy airline site from 1998.
When the deal went through, it signaled a shift in the industry. Big Finance realized that "rewards" weren't just a perk—they were the primary driver of customer loyalty and new account openings.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Deal
There is a common misconception that every Shark Tank deal that "disappears" is a failure. That’s just not true here.
While many companies featured on the show crumble under the weight of "The Shark Tank Effect"—where a massive spike in traffic crashes servers and breaks supply chains—RewardStock handled the scale. The acquisition by Experian was a strategic move. It allowed the technology to be seen by millions of people instead of just thousands of travel enthusiasts.
However, the "free" aspect of the original tool has shifted. When it's owned by a credit bureau, the "product" is often you. The recommendations are geared toward cards that Experian has a relationship with. Is the advice still good? Usually. Is it as unbiased as a scrappy startup? That’s up for debate.
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The Competitive Landscape in 2026
Since the RewardStock Shark Tank episode aired, the market has exploded. If you're looking for what RewardStock used to do, you're now looking at a very different world.
- Point.me: This is arguably the spiritual successor to RewardStock. It’s a real-time search engine for award flights. You pay a small fee (or a monthly sub), and it shows you exactly which airline to book through. It’s slick. It’s fast.
- MaxRewards: This app focuses on the "what card do I use at this restaurant" side of the equation. It manages your activations and tells you how to maximize every dollar spent.
- Awayz: A newer player focused specifically on hotel redemptions, which was always a weak point for the original RewardStock.
The tech has gotten better, but the complexity of the points world has increased too. Airlines are moving toward "dynamic pricing," which means a flight doesn't cost a fixed 25,000 miles anymore. It might cost 22,400 today and 68,000 tomorrow. This makes the "set it and forget it" roadmap that Lalush pitched much harder to maintain.
Expert Take: Was Cuban Right to Invest?
Honestly, Mark Cuban’s investment in RewardStock was one of his most "on-brand" moves. He loves companies that reduce friction.
The friction in travel is rarely the flight itself; it's the booking process. By investing in a tool that bypassed the confusion of point valuations, he was betting on the "efficiency" of the consumer. Even though the brand "RewardStock" isn't a household name like Scrub Daddy or Bombas, the exit to Experian likely provided a massive return on investment for Cuban.
He didn't need it to be the next Expedia. He just needed the logic to be valuable to a bigger fish.
How to Use This Knowledge Today
If you came here looking for the RewardStock app, you're out of luck for the original version, but you can see its DNA in the Experian app's "Personalized Offers" and "Rewards" sections.
If you want to replicate what Jon Lalush pitched on Shark Tank, here is how you do it manually or with modern tools:
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Step 1: Audit your current "Wallet."
Stop thinking about your points as "freebies." They are assets. Use a tool like AwardWallet to track every single point you have in one dashboard. If you don't know what you have, you can't use it.
Step 2: Define the Goal, not the Point.
The biggest mistake people make is earning points without a destination. Do you want to fly Business Class to Tokyo? Or do you want five nights at a Hyatt in Florida? The "best" card for one is the "worst" for the other.
Step 3: Check Transfer Partners.
This was the core of RewardStock’s logic. Never book through a "travel portal" (like the Chase or Amex mall) without checking if you can transfer those points directly to an airline first. You can often get 2x or 3x the value by transferring rather than "spending" points like cash.
Step 4: Use Modern Search Engines.
Since RewardStock is gone, use Point.me or Roame.travel. These are the current gold standards for finding where your points will go the furthest.
The legacy of RewardStock isn't a defunct website. It's the fact that millions of people realized they were leaving money on the table. Lalush proved that travel hacking wasn't just for people with too much time on their hands; it was a data problem that could be solved with the right code.
Whether you're a casual traveler or a points pro, the lesson from the tank remains: the value isn't in the points themselves, but in knowing how to move them.
Actionable Next Steps
- Download a tracking app: If you have more than three loyalty accounts, stop tracking them in your head. Use AwardWallet or similar to see expiration dates.
- Research "Transfer Partners": Spend ten minutes looking at a "Transfer Partner Map." Seeing how Chase points become United miles or British Airways Avios is the "aha!" moment Lalush sold to the Sharks.
- Stop using "Cash Back" for travel: If your goal is travel, a 2% cash back card is almost always inferior to a card that earns transferable points. The math just doesn't favor cash when a $4,000 flight can be had for 60,000 points.
- Check your credit report: Since Experian owns the tech now, if you use their service, look for the "Rewards" tab to see if the integrated RewardStock algorithm is suggesting cards that actually fit your spending habits.