Many of my followers have started earning points and the next logical question is what to do I with this points and how?!
While you can redeems your flexible bank points in the bank's travel portal, this generally is at a fixed ratio of 1 points equal to 1 cent (there are exceptions to this, such as "Points Boost" with Chase when you hold a Sapphire card. Sapphire Reserve cards have a higher "Points Boost" than Sapphire Preferred. However, "Points Boost" is only applicable to select flights and hotels - not all.
Often you will find the most value, ie spend the least amount of points, by transferring your flexible bank points to airlines and hotels, to then book directly in the airline/hotels loyalty program. A quick example: Let's say you wanted to come to Vail for a few nights over Spring Break.
Grand Hyatt Vail is 35,000 points per night, when booked directly on Hyatt's website:
Logging into Chase Travel Portal (log into Chase, at the top of your accounts, click "Benefits and Travel" > "Travel". When I search the same dates, on Chase Travel Portal, I see that for one night (the same date as when I searched Hyatt website), Chase would charge 61,257 points; for the same room type, same exact night!
And note, that is the "discounted" points price for holding a Sapphire Preferred card. It's still 75% more points than booking direct with Hyatt!
This is why it's often better to transfer. You can check both the Chase Travel Portal and direct airline/hotel before booking, but odds are transferring will cost you less points.
In order to transfer points, you'll need to have a loyalty account set up with the airline/hotel you are transferring to. In most cases the name on the credit card you are transferring from needs to match the name on the loyalty account. (This is to say, you can't transfer points from your credit to your spouse's United account because he has United status).
This post is intended to show you how to transfer Chase points you've earned to Chase travel partners (which is to say select airlines and hotels that the bank partners with). Keep in mind that while airlines and hotels overlap banks, each bank has a specific set of travel partners.
This understanding is fundamental when considering which credit cards to open and from which bank. The posts linked below lists the airlines and hotels each bank partners each:
How to Transfer Points
I'm starting with Chase because I think Chase is the most beginner friendly bank when it comes to points. This is because there are low annual fee cards to earn points and many hotels and airlines that are domestic to the US and popular household names.
However, the caveat to Chase is that you MUST have a premium Chase card in order to be able to transfer points out of the bank to travel partners. Essentially this is a Chase card with an annual fee. The current options for this are: Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Sapphire Reserve, Chase Ink Business Preferred, or Chase Sapphire Reserve Business.
1. Log into your Chase account
2. Locate and click on your premium card (Sapphire or Ink Preferred)
3. Once the card details appear, locate your Ultimate Rewards. Click "Redeem".
4. This will load your Ultimate Rewards. Near the top right of your screen. Click "Travel" and select "Transfer points to partners" from the drop down.
5. This loads the Transfer page, where you can then access all of the travel partners:
6. Find the partner you want to transfer to. Click the ">" arrow and then click Transfer Points. This will direct you to 3-step page:- You'll be prompted to enter your account number/log in information for the travel partner. Link your Travel Partner Account to Chase (ie where you input your frequent flyer #; you only need to do this the first time. In the future, your account is already linked). Once your travel partner account is linked, click Next.
- You'll then be asked how many points to transfer. Points can be transferred in 1,000-point increments. Keep in mind that all points transfers are final! Input the number of points to transfer and click Next
3. Review transfer details and click Submit!
Transfers are often instantaneous (like United, Southwest, or Hyatt); if you log out and back into your travel partner account you should see the points. Although I've also seen others say it's taken 24hours - 5 business days to see the points appear (this is also come with other bank). The quicker the transfer, the better; as award bookings are limited availability and can increase in point-price or entirely go away.
I generally DO NOT transfer my points until I'm ready to book travel. This keeps my points flexible.
It's important to verify the booking is available on the travel partner immediately before you transfer points, then book as soon as the points have been deposited to your travel partner.
(Ie, if you have a specific United flight you want to book - log into to United and search for the flight paying with Miles. Once you've confirmed the flight is available with points; immediately log into Chase and follow the steps above to transfer to United. Then log out of your United account, log back in (the points should be there), and book your flight before it's gone!
A few reminders:
- Once universal points are transferred, they are stuck with the travel partner!
- The name on the Travel Partner account you transfer to, MUST MATCH the name on the card you are transferring too.
Have multiple cards and trying to figure out how to pool all of those points together? Want to combine points from your partner to your Chase account? Read this post!
Summary
Hopefully this post provided you with some insight as to why and how to transfer points from Chase to Chase's partner airlines and hotels!
Earning points is fairly easy, but learning how to redeem them can be tricky!
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Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here.
Wondering how I keep all of this information organized? Check out my Points Tracker!
Curious what cards I (and/or my husband) have, and why? Read here!
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