Introduction to transferable points - Revision history

Editor: /* Comparing the credit card reward programs */

2021-10-28T23:02:06Z

‎Comparing the credit card reward programs

Editor: /* Comparing the credit card reward programs */

2021-10-28T23:01:44Z

‎Comparing the credit card reward programs

Editor: /* Comparing the credit card reward programs */

2021-10-28T22:59:18Z

‎Comparing the credit card reward programs

Editor: /* Earn lots of points with signup bonuses */

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‎Earn lots of points with signup bonuses

Editor: /* Earn lots of points with signup bonuses */

2021-10-28T22:52:46Z

‎Earn lots of points with signup bonuses

Editor: /* Capital One points */

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‎Capital One points

Editor: /* ThankYou Rewards */

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‎ThankYou Rewards

Editor: /* Ultimate Rewards */

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‎Ultimate Rewards

Editor: /* Comparing the credit card reward programs */

2021-09-23T03:39:19Z

‎Comparing the credit card reward programs

Editor: /* Earn lots of points with signup bonuses */

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‎Earn lots of points with signup bonuses

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 |{{Value|Venture}}
 {{/Table}}
 Because there are so many credit cards, it is easier to build up large quantities of Membership Rewards points by taking advantage of signup bonuses. For everyday earning, Membership Rewards is a probably a little better. But Ultimate Rewards has a few extra options for earning 5x rewards. The following table compares the highest earning rates for the three major transferable point currencies

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 |1.5 - 1.75
 |1
-|1
+|1.5
 |.7
 |1
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 |{{Value|Venture}}
 {{/Table}}
 Because there are so many credit cards, it is easier to build up large quantities of Membership Rewards points by taking advantage of signup bonuses. For everyday earning, Membership Rewards is a probably a little better. But Ultimate Rewards has a few extra options for earning 5x rewards. The following table compares the highest earning rates for the three major transferable point currencies

@@ Line 300: / Line 300: @@
 |Good
 |The Best
-|Good
+|Better
 |Good
 |-
@@ Line 342: / Line 342: @@
 United
-|JetBlue (lower rate)
 |American
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 |Hyatt
 |No
-|No
+|Choice
 |Marriott
 |Wyndham, Accor

@@ Line 242: / Line 242: @@
 <ul>
-<li>'''If you highly value premium-cabin travel and you are comfortable using your points for frequent flyer tickets, you'll want to prioritize points based on their usefulness for booking premium-cabin award tickets'''. For most people, Membership Rewards are clearly the most valuable. Among the other big three, the same number of  ThankYou points are probably more valuable than Capital One miles, which are somewhat more valuable than Ultimate Rewards points. If your particularly situation favors or unfavors Capital One's 1:1 airlines, they will be more valuable (but not more than the same number of Membership Rewards points). If you favor United, both Ultimate Rewards (for non-saver redemptions) and ThankYou points (for 1:1 Turkish Airlines redemptions) become more valuable. </li>
+<li>'''If you highly value premium-cabin travel and you are comfortable using your points for frequent flyer tickets, you'll want to prioritize points based on their usefulness for booking premium-cabin award tickets'''. For most people, Membership Rewards are clearly the most valuable. Among the other big four, Capital One miles are the next most valuable, followed by Thank You rewards, and with Ultimate Rewards at the bottom of the pack. I If you favor United, both Ultimate Rewards (for non-saver redemptions) and ThankYou or Capital One points (for 1:1 Turkish Airlines redemptions) become more valuable. </li>
-<li>'''If you have difficulty using (or getting value from) frequent flyer tickets, you'll want to prioritize earning points that can be effectively used in other ways'''. You'll want to focus any extra spending on earning Ultimate Rewards points,  Capital One miles, Bilt points, or cash back. The choice between these options will depend on how often you get a good opportunity to redeem for Hyatt and Wyndham awards. You'll have plenty of Membership Rewards and ThankYou points from bonuses with Membership that you can struggle to use for frequent flyer tickets, and don't need to earn any more from your spending. </li>
+<li>'''If you have difficulty using (or getting value from) frequent flyer tickets, you'll want to prioritize earning points that can be effectively used in other ways'''. You'll want to focus any extra spending on earning Ultimate Rewards points,  Capital One miles, ThankYou points, Bilt points, or cash back. The choice between these options will depend on how often you get a good opportunity to redeem for Hyatt, Choice, and Wyndham awards. You'll have plenty of Membership Rewards from bonuses and promotions that you can struggle to use for frequent flyer tickets, and don't need to earn any more from your spending. </li>
-<li>'''Otherwise, you'll should still probably prioritize earning Ultimate Rewards points, Capital One miles, Bilt points and cash back'''. It is slow going to earn points through spending. Most people find it more rewarding to get more frequent rewards through hotel and other travel redemptions, rather than adding incremental points to their Membership or ThankYou Rewards balance. But if you can get a better earning rate through Membership or ThankYou rewards, you probably want to take advantage of it.</li>
+<li>'''Otherwise, you'll should still probably prioritize earning Ultimate Rewards points, Capital One miles, ThankYou points, Bilt points and cash back'''. It is slow going to earn points through spending. Most people find it more rewarding to get more frequent rewards through hotel and other travel redemptions, rather than adding incremental points to their Membership Rewards balance. But if you can get a better earning rate through Membership Rewards, you probably want to take advantage of it.</li>
 </ul>
 </ul>

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 <li>'''Ultimate Rewards'''. Most people will want to keep a bunch of Ultimate Rewards around to use for free nights at Hyatt hotels. This is perhaps the easiest high-value redemtion options across all the programs and the best way to earn extra hotel points on top of the ones you collect from hotel-branded cards. Depending on where you live, you may also want to save a bunch of your Ultimate Rewards points to use on United Airlines. If you wind up being able to collect lots and lots of points (with multiple Chase Business applications), you might start also using some your Ultimate Rewards points with frequent flyer programs that also partner with the other transferable points programs.</li>
-<li>'''ThankYou Rewards'''. Since ThankYou Rewards doesn't have good hotel partners, you'll wind up using your points for frequent flyer tickets.  If you have any opportunity to fly United domestically, to Hawaii, or to Europe, you'll want to reserve a bunch of your ThankYou points to use on Turkish Airlines. If not, you'll typically want to use your ThankYou points whenever one of their airline programs offers a good redepmtion, so you can conserve your more flexible Membership Reward points for future trips.</li>
+<li>'''ThankYou Rewards'''. Many people should use ThankYou points whenever they can find an attractive hotel redemption through Choice. Otherwise, you'll wind up using your points for frequent flyer tickets.  If you have any opportunity to fly United domestically, to Hawaii, or to Europe, you'll want to reserve a bunch of your ThankYou points to use on Turkish Airlines. If not, you'll typically want to use your ThankYou points whenever one of their airline programs offers a good redepmtion, so you can conserve your more flexible Membership Reward points for future trips.</li>
-<li>'''Capital One Miles'''. If you like to rent vacation houses in the United States, particularly for shorter lengths of time, you'll want to reserve a bunch of your Capital One Miles to transfer to Wyndham. If you have lots of Capital One Miles or aren't really interested in this option, you should use then whenever you have a good redemption opportunity with one of their 1:1 programs, like Cathay Pacific, Avianca, and Etihad.</li>
+<li>'''Capital One Miles'''. If you like to rent vacation houses in the United States, particularly for shorter lengths of time, you'll want to reserve a bunch of your Capital One Miles to transfer to Wyndham. If you have lots of Capital One Miles or aren't really interested in this option, you should use then for frequent flyer miles.</li>
 <li>'''Bilt Points'''. The Bilt program is much like the Chase program. You're likely to want to primarily use your points for free nights at Hyatt hotels. Assuming that Citibank's short-term transfer opportunity to American Airlines is indeed short-term, you may also want to use your Bilt points to supplement the American Airlines miles you earn from their co-branded cards. Or if you don't have ThankYou points to take advantages of Turkish Airlines sweetspots.</li>

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 {{Logo|Venture Logo|320px}}
-In 2018, Capital One expanded its points program to allow for point transfers to over a dozen airline partners. {{Link|venture points}}.
+In 2018, Capital One expanded its points program to allow for point transfers to over a dozen airline partners. Then in 2021 they greatly increased the value of the program by allowing transfers on a 1:1 basis {{Link|venture points}}.
 <ul class="bulletlist">
 <li>'''Like the Ultimate Rewards program, the Capital One program doesn't effectively lock you into using your points for frequent flyer miles'''. With Capital One, you can still receive 1 cent per point, or 2 cents per dollar, when you use your points to purchase any sort of travel. You don't need to buy on Capital One's travel portal, you can use your points as a credit against any travel purchase made with the card. Of course, like the other transferable points programs, you have the opportunity to get higher value by converting your points to miles or hotel points.</li>
-<li>'''Capital One points DON'T always transfer on a 1:1 basis'''. With many of their programs, you only receive 750 miles for every 1,000 points, and with a couple programs, you only receive 500 miles.  But because you earn 2 points per dollar, you are still receiving 2 or 1.5 miles per dollar spent on most airlines, which is the same or better as the Chase Freedom Unlimited or Amex Everyday Preferred card.</li>
+<li>'''Capital One probably has the second best program for redeeming frequent flyer rewards''', after Membership Rewards. They have a better selection of airline partners than either ThankYou or Ultimate Reward points (unless you highly value the ability to transfer to United Airlines).</li>
-<li>'''One potentially great option for Capital One Points is to use them for short-term vacation rentals through Wyndham'''. Wyndham allows you to rent many Vacasa and other vacation rentals at 15,000 points per bedroom per night (including all of the high fees and taxes) and Capital One points can be converted to Wyndham points on a 1:1 basis.</li>
+<li>'''Another potentially great option for Capital One Points is to use them for short-term vacation rentals through Wyndham'''. Wyndham allows you to rent many Vacasa and other vacation rentals at 15,000 points per bedroom per night (including all of the high fees and taxes) and Capital One points can be converted to Wyndham points on a 1:1 basis.</li>
-<li>'''Capital One's program isn't quite as attractive as the other transferable points programs'''. Capital One has a lower transfer rate for many airlines, makes it difficult to get new cards, and doesn't offer many bonus category options. If you want to primarily avoid the hassles of frequent flyer tickets, Capital One will give you more value per dollar than Membership Rewards or ThankYou Rewards, but usually not as much as Ultimate Rewards.</li>
+<li>'''They offer a great rewards rate on everyday purchases'''. You can earn 2x points on everything you buy and can earn even more on restaurant purchases. Ultimate Rewards doesn't offer a general-purpose 2x card and American Express only offers one as a small business card.</li>
 </ul>

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 {{Image|TYPartners.jpg}}
-<li>'''Like the Membership Rewards program, frequent flyer tickets are the only option  for redeeming your points at more than 1 cent each'''. You are unlikely to be able to get good value redeeming points with their hotel partners.</li>
+<li>'''While ThankYou points can be used at good values for hotel stays (unlike the Membership Rewards program), the Choice hotel program has far fewer really nice hotels than the Hyatt program''' (which is available through Ultimate Rewards). They do have plenty of solid hotels in good locations and some fantastic independent luxury hotels through the Preferred Hotel and Resorts program.</li>
 <li>'''It can be hard to earn lots of points through signup bonuses'''. You can only earn a single significant signup bonus every two years. With both Amex and Chase, you can earn bonuses from a bunch of different cards. But, unlike Chase and Amex, you won't be blocked from future signup bonuses by the "5/24" or "once in a lifetime" rule. Even so, it is hard to get that excited about a program where you can only earn around 50,000 points every two years from signup bonuses.</li>

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 <li>'''The Ultimate Rewards Program has a small, but good, group of airline partners'''. Their partners include United Airlines (for Star Alliance awards without fuel surcharges), British Airways (for low-award-cost short-distance Oneworld flights), Southwest, and JetBlue.</li>
-<li>'''But what really differentiates the Ultimate Rewards program is that you can redeem your points for good values on something other than hard-to-take-advantage-of frequent flyer tickets'''. With Ultimate Rewards points, you can always get good value for your points (with very little effort) by booking award nights at Hyatt hotels or purchasing any other travel through the Chase website. In contrast, the only normally good options with Membership Rewards or ThankYou points is booking frequent flyer tickets.</li>
+<li>'''But what really differentiates the Ultimate Rewards program is that you can redeem your points for good values on something other than hard-to-take-advantage-of frequent flyer tickets'''. With Ultimate Rewards points, you can always get good value for your points (with very little effort) by booking award nights at Hyatt hotels or purchasing any other travel through the Chase website. In contrast, the only normally good options with Membership Rewards is booking frequent flyer tickets. And while ThankYou rewards lets you get good value by transferring points to the Choice hotel program, most people don't find that nearly as useful as the Hyatt program.</li>
 {{ImageX|HyattHotel.jpg}}

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 Here's how the main programs stack up against each other:
-{{Table|Basic|6.75in}}
+{{Table|Basic|7.5in}}
+!
 !style=width: .75in;"|Chase Ultimate Rewards
@@ Line 269: / Line 269: @@
 !style=width: .75in;"|Marriott
 !style=width: .75in;"|Capital One Rewards
 |-
 |style="background-color: ghostwhite;" {{c|6}}Acquiring Points
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 |Great
 |Poor
 |Good
 |-
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 |Great
 |Okay
 |Poor
 |Poor
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 |Good
 |The Best
 |Good
 |-
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 |35
 |16
 |-
 |Time it takes to transfer points
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 |Usually 2-14 days
 |Instant or 1-2 days
 |-
 |US Partners
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 United
 |JetBlue (lower rate)
 |-
 |style="background-color: ghostwhite;" {{c|6}}“Cash” Value per point
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 |0.33
 |1.00
 |-
 |With the right card
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 |0.33
 |1.00
 |-
 |style="background-color: ghostwhite;" {{c|6}}Other
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 |Marriott
 |Wyndham, Accor
 |-
 |Cheapest card to keep points alive (and transferable)
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 |$0<br/>(No card needed)
 |$0<br/>(Venture One)
 {{/Table}}

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 <li>'''Capital One Miles'''. If you like to rent vacation houses in the United States, particularly for shorter lengths of time, you'll want to reserve a bunch of your Capital One Miles to transfer to Wyndham. If you have lots of Capital One Miles or aren't really interested in this option, you should use then whenever you have a good redemption opportunity with one of their 1:1 programs, like Cathay Pacific, Avianca, and Etihad.</li>
 </ul>
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 <ul>
-<li>'''If you highly value premium-cabin travel and you are comfortable using your points for frequent flyer tickets, you'll want to prioritize points based on their usefulness for booking premium-cabin award tickets'''. For most people, Membership Rewards are clearly the most valuable. Among the other three, the same number of  ThankYou points are probably more valuable than Capital One miles, which are somewhat more valuable than Ultimate Rewards points. If your particularly situation favors or unfavors Capital One's 1:1 airlines, they will be more valuable (but not more than the same number of Membership Rewards points). If you favor United, both Ultimate Rewards (for non-saver redemptions) and ThankYou points (for 1:1 Turkish Airlines redemptions) become more valuable. </li>
+<li>'''If you highly value premium-cabin travel and you are comfortable using your points for frequent flyer tickets, you'll want to prioritize points based on their usefulness for booking premium-cabin award tickets'''. For most people, Membership Rewards are clearly the most valuable. Among the other big three, the same number of  ThankYou points are probably more valuable than Capital One miles, which are somewhat more valuable than Ultimate Rewards points. If your particularly situation favors or unfavors Capital One's 1:1 airlines, they will be more valuable (but not more than the same number of Membership Rewards points). If you favor United, both Ultimate Rewards (for non-saver redemptions) and ThankYou points (for 1:1 Turkish Airlines redemptions) become more valuable. </li>
-<li>'''If you have difficulty using (or getting value from) frequent flyer tickets, you'll want to prioritize earning points that can be effectively used in other ways'''. You'll want to focus any extra spending on earning Ultimate Rewards points,  Capital One miles, or cash back. The choice between these three options will depend on how often you get a good opportunity to redeem for Hyatt and Wyndham awards. You'll have plenty of Membership Rewards and ThankYou points from bonuses with Membership that you can struggle to use for frequent flyer tickets, and don't need to earn any more from your spending. </li>
+<li>'''If you have difficulty using (or getting value from) frequent flyer tickets, you'll want to prioritize earning points that can be effectively used in other ways'''. You'll want to focus any extra spending on earning Ultimate Rewards points,  Capital One miles, Bilt points, or cash back. The choice between these options will depend on how often you get a good opportunity to redeem for Hyatt and Wyndham awards. You'll have plenty of Membership Rewards and ThankYou points from bonuses with Membership that you can struggle to use for frequent flyer tickets, and don't need to earn any more from your spending. </li>
-<li>'''Otherwise, you'll should still probably prioritize earning Ultimate Rewards points, Capital One miles, and cash back'''. It is slow going to earn points through spending. Most people find it more rewarding to get more frequent rewards through hotel and other travel redemptions, rather than adding incremental points to their Membership or ThankYou Rewards balance. But if you can get a better earning rate through Membership or ThankYou rewards, you probably want to take advantage of it.</li>
+<li>'''Otherwise, you'll should still probably prioritize earning Ultimate Rewards points, Capital One miles, Bilt points and cash back'''. It is slow going to earn points through spending. Most people find it more rewarding to get more frequent rewards through hotel and other travel redemptions, rather than adding incremental points to their Membership or ThankYou Rewards balance. But if you can get a better earning rate through Membership or ThankYou rewards, you probably want to take advantage of it.</li>
 </ul>
 </ul>