Difference between revisions of "Chase ultimate rewards"
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United is one of the few frequent flyer programs that never passes on fuel surcharges on award flights. Southwest and JetBlue operate fixed-price reward program, where you don’t need to worry about award availability, and can get around 1.5 cents per point whenever you redeem. Flying Blue, Singapore, and British Airways are all excellent transfer options, but they are also available from other programs. | United is one of the few frequent flyer programs that never passes on fuel surcharges on award flights. Southwest and JetBlue operate fixed-price reward program, where you don’t need to worry about award availability, and can get around 1.5 cents per point whenever you redeem. Flying Blue, Singapore, and British Airways are all excellent transfer options, but they are also available from other programs. | ||
| − | Remember that you can use points from any of these frequent flyer programs to book awards with any of that program’s partner airlines. | + | Remember that you can use points from any of these frequent flyer programs to book awards with any of that program’s partner airlines. For example, you can transfer your Ultimate Reward points to Air France and then use those points to fly Delta, any of the other major airlines that are part of the SkyTeam Alliance, or any of Air France's other airline partners. Between the different partnerships, you can use your Ultimate Reward points to book award tickets on over 100 airlines. |
=== Hotel transfer partners === | === Hotel transfer partners === | ||
Revision as of 11:53, 17 March 2019
Credit Card Reference, Introduction to 'Transferable' Reward Points
Chase’s reward program is called Ultimate Rewards. Ultimate Rewards homepage.
Ultimate Rewards is the most universally appealing of the transferable reward programs. You should never have problems finding good uses for your Ultimate Reward points. And on the earning side, they offer both generous signup bonuses and some of the best available ongoing reward rates.
If you are interested in redeeming your points for frequent flyer tickets, Ultimate Rewards has a small, but good, group of airline partners. If not, you can still get great value from your points by booking Hyatt award nights or using them (like cash) to pay for a broad range of travel expenses.
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Airline transfer partners
Most transfers to airline program happen instantly. However, it can take a day for points to show up at Singapore Airlines (KrisFlyer).
Unlike Membership Rewards and ThankYou rewards, Chase doesn’t offer promotions where you can temporarily get extra miles from your points.
| Star Alliance (United) |
SkyTeam (Delta) |
Oneworld (American) |
Other |
|---|---|---|---|
| United | Air France / KLM (Flying Blue) |
British Airways | Southwest |
| Singapore (KrisFlyer) |
Iberia | Virgin Atlantic | |
| JetBlue | |||
| Aer Lingus |
United is one of the few frequent flyer programs that never passes on fuel surcharges on award flights. Southwest and JetBlue operate fixed-price reward program, where you don’t need to worry about award availability, and can get around 1.5 cents per point whenever you redeem. Flying Blue, Singapore, and British Airways are all excellent transfer options, but they are also available from other programs.
Remember that you can use points from any of these frequent flyer programs to book awards with any of that program’s partner airlines. For example, you can transfer your Ultimate Reward points to Air France and then use those points to fly Delta, any of the other major airlines that are part of the SkyTeam Alliance, or any of Air France's other airline partners. Between the different partnerships, you can use your Ultimate Reward points to book award tickets on over 100 airlines.
Hotel transfer partners
The typical value that you can get from many types of hotel points is well under 1 cent per point. So, it will rarely make sense to transfer your points to a hotel partner.
The exception is Hyatt, where you can frequently get more than 1 ¾ cents per point in value.
| Hyatt | Marriott | IHG | Starwood (3:1 via Marriott) |
Cashing out your points
If you don’t want to mess with frequent flyer tickets, there are a few good options for using your Ultimate Reward points.
- Hyatt award nights. Hyatt requires fewer points for a comparable hotel room than any program other than Starwood. For example, a nice Hyatt hotel in most cities requires 8-12,000 points per night. You can frequently receive at least 1¾ cents in value per point, and sometimes more than double that. There are no limits to availability—if a regular room is available, you can book it with points. And because the average award night requires far fewer points than the average frequent flyer ticket, you can reward yourself more frequently.
- Southwest Airline flights. Southwest runs a “fixed-value” loyalty program, where you can use your points, like cash, to book any ticket. There are no concerns about finding award availability, and no worries about not getting good value from your points, but there is also no potential upside from particularly good redemptions. The number of required points is calculated on the base fare, but the award also covers most of the taxes and fees, so the exact value per point fluctuates a bit. You should expect about 1.3 – 1.8 cents per point, with higher rates on cheaper flights.
- Travel purchases through Chase. If you have a Sapphire Reserve card, you’ll will get 1.5 cents per point when you use them to purchase travel through Chase—regardless of which card you used to earn the points. While you’ll get better value by taking advantage of Hyatt hotel rooms and Southwest Airlines flights, you always have the option of unloading your points on any type of travel purchase. If you only have the Sapphire Preferred or Ink Preferred cards, your points are worth 1.25 cents, rather than 1.5 cents, when used in this way.
Ultimate Rewards credit cards
Points you earn from the no-annual-fee Freedom, Freedom Unlimited, Ink Cash and Ink Unlimited cards cannot be transferred to airline and hotel partners, unless you have the Sapphire Reserve, Sapphire Preferred, or Ink Preferred card. Having at least one of these annual-fee cards makes your points from the other cards much more valuable. Lua error in Module:Link at line 366: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
Targeted signup offers are sometimes available that are higher than the typical signup bonuses shown below.
| Card | Typical Signup Bonus | Bonus Categories | Effective Annual Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chase Sapphire Reserve | 50,000 | 3x travel
3x restaurants |
$150 |
| Chase Sapphire Preferred | 40-60,000 | 2x travel
2x restaurants |
$95, waived first year |
| Chase Freedom Unlimited | 15,000 | 1.5x on everything | $0 |
| Chase Freedom Flex | 15,000 | 5x on a rotating list of categories | $0 |
| Business Cards | |||
| Ink Preferred | 80,000 | 3x travel
3x telecom services 3x shipping, social media and search advertising. |
$95 |
| Ink Cash | 20-30,000 | 2x restaurants
2x gas stations 5x office supplies 5x telecom services |
$0 |
| Ink Unlimited | 50,000 | 1.5x on everything | $0 |
| Other | |||
| JP Morgan Reserve (customers with very large accounts only) | 50,000 | 3x travel
3x restaurants |
$150 |
The Chase 5/24 rule limits your ability to get all these cards. You will be automatically denied if you have signed up for 5 or more credit cards in the last 24 months, regardless of whether you got them from Chase, or from some other credit card company. In addition, there are other Chase cards that you may want, such as the United or Southwest Airlines cards, which are also limited by the Chase 5/24 rule, potentially leaving you less space for getting Ultimate Reward cards. Dealing with the Chase 5/24 Rule
There are additional rules that may stop you from getting some of these cards. You can only have either the Sapphire Reserve or the Sapphire Preferred at any one time. And, unless your business is on the larger side, Chase sometimes limits you to only one of their Ink cards.
You can get additional rewards by adding authorized users to many of these cards. But wait to do so until everyone has exceeded the 5/24 limit, because being an authorized user still counts against the limit, and reduces the number of cards the other person can sign up for. It is also often possible to earn extra points through referrals.
Bonus category opportunities
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The Freedom Unlimited and Sapphire Reserve combination is the best starting place for earning Ultimate Rewards from your credit card purchases. You’ll need the Sapphire Reserve (or one of the other annual fee cards) to be able to get full value from the generous 1.5x reward rate of the Freedom Unlimited card. Between the two cards, you’ll be earning perhaps your best possible general-purpose reward rate, plus the best reward rate on travel and restaurant spending. | |
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If you are willing and able to get a business card, the Ink Unlimited card is a better option than the Freedom Unlimited card. You'll get a better signup offer and primary car insurance (on business rentals). The card won't be added to your 5/24 count, and your account balance won't be included in the credit utilization calculation on your credit report. From an ongoing award earning perspective, you only need one of these two cards. | |
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The Freedom card provides a great way for you to earn extremely high reward rates on an ever-changing set of categories. However, you can only earn these rewards on $1,500 of spending each quarter. If you are no longer interested in one of the other personal Ultimate Reward cards, you can downgrade it to the no-annual-fee Freedom card, to eventually acquire multiple copies of the card. Earn 5-10% in Rewards with Rotating Category Cards. | |
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Of the two other business cards, the Ink Cash is more interesting for people who don’t have online advertising spending. However, the Ink Preferred has a far more lucrative signup bonus. The best strategy for most people is to get the Ink Preferred, and then downgrade, after the end of the first year, to the Ink Cash card. |
Earning additional points when you shop
- A good way to earn additional Ultimate Reward points is to “Shop through Chase”. To earn points, you need to click on the store name on the Shop through Chase website, rather than visiting the store directly. When you visit this merchant in this way, you’ll automatically get Ultimate Reward points for everything you buy (with some limitations and exclusions), on top of whatever you get from your credit card—there is no paperwork to file, or additional steps to take. You’ll typically earn 2x to 5x Ultimate Reward points per dollar, but promotional rates can get up to 30x points or more.
- You can also earn bonus rewards by enrolling your cards in Chase Pay. Chase has an online payment system that competes with Visa Pay and other electronic wallets. You can sign-in with your Chase credentials and choose a credit card, rather than entering your credit number during checkout. To encourage you to use their service, Chase frequently offers bonus points to purchases made with Chase Pay.
The other transferable points programs don’t operate shopping portals where you can earn extra points. However, savvy reward enthusiasts know that they can always take advantage of a number of other portals that will give you cash, rather than points. The value you get from Chase’s portal is competitive, but not always the most valuable rewards you can earn for any given store. However, nothing beats the convenience of just having your rewards deposited directly into your account, rather than having to take additional steps to register for and withdraw your cash, from a competing shopping portal.
Point transfers and expiration
You can transfer Ultimate Reward points to another person in your household. You can also transfer your points directly to an airline or hotel account of someone who is in your household, and is also an authorized card holder on at least one of your cards.
All your Ultimate Rewards points should accrue to a single account, even if you have multiple cards. As long as you have at least one active card that earns Ultimate Reward points, you won’t forfeit your points. There are some no-annual-fee options, but you need to pay a fee for the Sapphire Reserve, Sapphire Preferred, or Ink Preferred card to be able to transfer points to airline and hotel partners, and even to get more than 1 cent per point, when using your points, like cash, to buy travel.
