Ultimate Rewards Guide (2021)
Easily Earn Points for Free Travel, 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're not likely to have a problem finding good uses for your Ultimate Rewards 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 everyday expenses or a broad range of travel purchases.
Jump to
Jump to:
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 typically 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 |
| Air Canada (Aeroplan) |
Iberia | Virgin Atlantic | |
| Singapore (KrisFlyer) |
JetBlue | ||
| Aer Lingus | |||
| Emirates |
United is one of the few frequent flyer programs that never passes on fuel surcharges on award flights. Aeroplan, Flying Blue, Singapore, and British Airways are all excellent transfer options, but they are also available from other programs.
Southwest and JetBlue operate fixed-price reward program, where you don’t need to worry about award availability, and can get around 1.4 cents per point whenever you redeem. But for JetBlue, you are usually just better off using Ultimate Reward points or cash to just purchase tickets, rather than converting your Ultimate Rewards points to JetBlue miles.
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 Rewards 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 Rewards points to book award tickets on almost 100 airlines.
Hotel transfer partners
Of these, only transfers to Hyatt typically make sense.
| Hyatt | Marriott | IHG |
Cashing out your points
If you don’t want to mess with frequent flyer tickets, you should still be able to get 1.5 cents or more from your points.
- Hyatt award nights. Hyatt requires fewer points for a comparable hotel room than any other program. For example, a nice Hyatt hotel in most cities requires 8-12,000 points per night. When you convert your Ultimate Rewards to Hyatt points and book an award 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 should be able to book it. And because the average award night requires far fewer points than the average frequent flyer ticket, you can reward yourself more frequently.
- Pay Yourself Back. During the Covid pandemic, Chase started allowing cardholders to use their points to offset grocery store, restaurant, and home improvement store charges made on their Sapphire cards. With the Sapphire Reserve, points are worth 1.5 cents each. With the Sapphire Preferred, points are worth 1.25 cents. For example, if you charge $600 at on restaurant purchases, you can use 40,000 points to "erase" those charges from your bill. You'll even still earn the points on the original purchase.
- Southwest Airline flights. Southwest Rapid Rewards is 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 award 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 1.2 – 1.6 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 typically get better value by taking advantage of Hyatt hotel rooms and some 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.
The keep extending the end of the program (now March 31, 2022), but starting on October 1st, they have made it much harder to take advantage of, especially for Sapphire Preferred customers (who probably shouldn't be cashing out their points anyway). Moving forward, Sapphire Preferred customers can only offset Airbnb and Away purchases and charity purchases (through the end of the year). Sapphire Reserve customers, who get a more attractive rate, can also still offset dining purchases and the card's annual fee. Many people will spend enough on restaurants to be able to cash-out as many points as they want, without having to use the Chase Travel portal.
As long as Chase maintains the Pay Yourself Back feature, that is a better option for cashing out your points. There are always downsides to booking travel through Chase and you won't earn new points on those travel purchases. So, it is always better to just effectively use your points on erasing things like restaurant purchases.
The Chase portal doesn't always allow you to book the lowest fares to your destination. For example, they may not let you book a cheaper "basic economy" fare, book tickets with certain airlines, or include all flight options. If this is the case, according to this article from Frequent Miler, you might be able to book the flight by calling 866-951-6592. If the agent says they can't help, ask to be transferred to the "Help Desk".
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.
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 | 10x Hotel, Car Rentals, and prepaid Dining through Chase
5x Airfare through Chase 3x Other Travel 3x restaurants 10x Lyft |
$190-250 |
| Chase Sapphire Preferred | 60,000 | 5x Travel through Chase
2x Other Travel 3x restaurants 3x Streaming and Online Grocery Services Plus extra .1x anniversary bonus on all spend |
$45 - 95 |
| Chase Freedom Unlimited | 15,000 | 5x on travel bought through Chase
3x restaurants 3x drugstores 1.5x on everything else |
$0 |
| Chase Freedom Flex | 15,000 | 5x on a rotating list of categories
5x on travel bought through Chase 3x restaurants 3x drugstores |
$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 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 Rewards cards. Dealing with the Chase 5/24 Rule
And you can only have either the Sapphire Reserve or the Sapphire Preferred at any one time.
You can often 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
|
The Freedom Unlimited combination is the best starting place for earning Ultimate Rewards from your credit card purchases. The Freedom Unlimited earns 3x at restaurants and drugstores, 5x points on travel bought from Chase, and 1.5x points everywhere else. However, you’ll need one of the Sapphire cards (or the Ink Preferred) to be able to get full value from these points. If you get the Sapphire Reserve, you'll pay a higher fee, earn 3x points on other travel purchases, and get a bunch of valuable benefits (including lounge access). If you get the Sapphire Preferred, you'll pay less, only earn 2x on other travel expenses, and get fewer extra benefits. If you get the Ink Preferred small-business card, you'll also pay less, get the same 3x points on Travel as the Sapphire Reserve, but won't get a bunch of its other benefits such as lounge access, and you won't get the Sapphire Preferred's $50 hotel credit, 10% anniversary bonus, or streaming and online grocery service bonus rewards. | |
|
The Freedom Flex 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 Rewards cards, you can downgrade it to the no-annual-fee Freedom Flex Card and eventually acquire multiple copies of the card. Earn 5-10% in Rewards with Rotating Category Cards. | |
|
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. |
Earning additional points when you shop
- A good way to earn additional Ultimate Rewards 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 Rewards 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 Rewards points per dollar, but promotional rates can get up to 30x points or more.
- The other transferable points programs don’t operate shopping portals where you can earn extra points (although you can earn Membership Rewards points through Rakuten). 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 merchant. 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. Earn extra rewards using Shopping Portals.
Point transfers and expiration
Each of your credit cards has its own separate Ultimate Rewards account, but you can freely transfer points between them. That's how you can earn points with one card (like the Freedom Flex) and take advantage of the better redemption options of another card (like the Sapphire Reserve). Before cancelling a card, you can transfer the points to another one of your Ultimate Rewards cards (or to an account associated with a card you share in common with someone else).
You can also freely transfer Ultimate Rewards points to another person in your household or 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.
Unfortunately, Chase doesn't have any no-annual-fee cards that still allow you to transfer your points to partners. If you don't want to pay any annual fees, you can convert your card to a Freedom or Freedom Unlimited card and hold onto your points. You can still use them at 1 cent each, or you can eventually convert back to a Sapphire card and regain access to the better redemption options.
