The Complete Guide To Chase Ultimate Rewards

You’ll get the most value for your Ultimate Rewards points – up to $0.03 each – if you transfer them to an airline or hotel partner and use them wisely. This feature is only available to Chase Sapphire Reserve®, Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card cardholders.

All transfer ratios are 1:1 and must be in 1,000-point increments.

Book travel through the Ultimate Rewards travel center to use your points for plane tickets, hotel stays, rental cars, cruises or experiences. When you redeem this way, the value of your points vary according to which Chase card you carry.

There are no blackout dates. Keep in mind, you won’t earn any hotel points or elite night credits if you book through the Chase portal. Most flights, however, will earn redeemable and elite-qualifying miles.

Your Ultimate Rewards will almost always be worth $0.01 per point when you use them for cash back, gift cards or Apple purchases. If you don’t travel much, these are your best redemption options.

Cash back. In the form of statement credits or direct deposits. There is no minimum to redeem.

Gift cards. Keep a look out for discounted gift cards, which will give you a slightly better value than $0.01 per point.

Apple purchases. This option lets you redeem your points for Apple merchandise via the Ultimate Rewards portal.

Trading in your Ultimate Rewards to shop on Amazon will get you just $0.008 cents for every point. For a better deal, pay for your Amazon purchase with your Chase card, then redeem your earned points for statement credits to offset the expense.

Looking for short-haul flights internationally? British Airways offers good deals on partner award flights within countries. For example, flying around Australia with Qantas or getting from Hong Kong to mainland China on Cathay Pacific. Another sweet spot is domestic flights with Japan Airlines. That way, you’ll avoid paying ridiculously high cash rates to get in and out of Tokyo.

The World of Hyatt program offers an award chart that’s very easy on your points, as you can see below:

To get the most value, book at the top category on the award chart.

This Spanish airline is part of the Oneworld Alliance and uses Avios, similar to British Airways Avios. While British Airways charges Avios based on segments flown, Iberia charges according to total distance. Plus, you won’t get ridiculous fuel surcharges on Iberia award tickets, like you would with British Airways.

Below are a few excellent uses for your Iberia Avios:

You can also use Iberia Avios for award flights on Royal Air Maroc, a non-Oneworld partner. For 46,000 Avios, fly business class nonstop from Miami (MIA) to Casablanca (CMN) on Royal Air Maroc’s new Dreamliner.

After its 2019 devaluation, the Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer program isn’t what it used to be. But you’ll still find some good deals when you use your miles for Singapore-operated flights. Especially if you fly its luxurious Suites class:

You’ll also find good deals hidden within the KrisFlyer’s Star Alliance partner award chart. Especially since a free stopover is included on roundtrip travel.

If you have your hands on a Companion Pass, you should transfer your Ultimate Rewards points to Southwest Rapid Rewards. For a single ticket, you’ll get about $0.015 per point, which is equivalent to Ultimate Rewards travel redemptions. But with the Companion Pass, it’ll double the point value to $0.03 each.

What’s more, there are no checked bag fees, nor fees to change or cancel your award tickets. You’ll have to pay taxes and fees for your award travel, but that will only cost you $5.60 per one-way flight.

The shift to dynamic award pricing in November 2018 put a huge dent in the value of United Airlines MileagePlus miles. But you can still get a pretty good deal out of its Excursionist perk and Star Alliance partner awards.

Excursionist perk. This feature lets you book a free one-way award within select multi-city itineraries.

Star Alliance partner awards. The best thing about booking Star Alliance partner awards is that you don’t have to worry about United’s new dynamic pricing. Plus, there are no fuel surcharges.