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How Much are my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points Really Worth?

September 15, 2014 by Brad 10 Comments  Richmond Savers has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Richmond Savers and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers.

Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities. Disclosures.

chaseOur absolute favorite travel rewards points are Chase Ultimate Rewards points. They are extremely flexible since you can transfer them to 10 different travel partners including some of our favorites like: United, Hyatt, Southwest and British Airways.

Recently a travel coaching member emailed me and said, “I have 50,000 Ultimate Rewards. What does that equate to approximately in travel? Is there an easy way to understand how that conversion of rewards to $$$ works?”

This is such a common question, as these transferable points can be rather confusing with all the possibilities; here’s what I responded:

“There is no simple way to say it is worth an exact amount for many of the partners, but for some mental accounting you could say that for Southwest redemptions it is 70 points to the dollar, so 50,000/70 = $714.

So if you want to look at it this way, $714 on Southwest is the absolute least the 50,000 Ultimate Rewards should be worth to you.”

Here is a quick look at the potential value of some other transfer options.

United Airlines

United LogoIt costs 25,000 United miles for Saver Level award tickets to fly round-trip anywhere in the continental United States, so the 50,000 transferred UR points would be worth two round-trip flights in the continental US. Depending on where you are traveling to and from and how much the flights cost, this could be worth anywhere from approximately $500 to $1,000.

For another example, 40,000 United miles would get you round-trip to “northern South America”, including an additional ‘free stopover’ (basically an extra flight to another location on your trip).  That could easily be worth over $1,000 right there!

Hyatt Hotels

Hyatt LogoHyatt charges 5,000 points per night for their Category 1 hotels, so you could get 10 nights for 50,000 points.

If you assume these Category 1 hotels are somewhere around $100 per night then 10 nights would be worth $1,000.

If you wanted to stay at a luxury Category 6 hotel like we did at the Andaz 5th Avenue in New York City, at a rate of 25,000 points per night you could get two nights for your 50,000 UR points. This hotel normally costs somewhere around $500 per night, so this would be approximately a $1,000 redemption.

British Airways

British Airways LogoThese redemption values get more complex, but I’ll give you some real-world examples we’ve personally used:

It is important to point out that using British Airways miles is actually one of the best ways to fly American Airlines, US Airways and Alaska Airlines in and around the United States. Here’s our article on maximizing British Airways Avios points.

It only costs 4,500 British Airways Avios points to fly one-way anywhere under 650 miles in actual distance. We often fly from Richmond, VA to New York City, and since this is under 650 miles, it costs 4,500 Avios one-way or 9,000 Avios total round-trip.

This flight almost always costs at least $400, so we could take 5 round-trip flights for 45,000 Ultimate Rewards points transferred to British Airways. This would be a $2,000 redemption!

When we flew from New York City to Bermuda, it cost 15,000 Avios round-trip. You could get 3 of these $450 flights for 45,000 Avios, so the redemption value would be at least $1,350.

13 Chase Ultimate Rewards Transfer Partners

For the sake of simplicity I only focused on our top four transfer partners above to give you an understanding of the potential value, but here’s the full list of 13 current transfer partners:

  • Aer Lingus AerClub
  • British Airways Avios
  • Flying Blue AIR FRANCE KLM
  • Iberia Plus
  • JetBlue TrueBlue
  • Singapore Airlines Krisflyer
  • Southwest Rapid Rewards
  • United MileagePlus
  • Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
  • IHG Rewards Club
  • Marriott Rewards
  • The Ritz-Carlton Rewards
  • World of Hyatt

Conclusion

Chase Ultimate Rewards points are extremely valuable because of their 13 different transfer partners and the flexibility all those options allows you.

While we couldn’t go through every single transfer partner or option in one article, I hope it gave you a solid understanding of the potential value of your Chase Ultimate Rewards points.

We personally have found great value transferring the points to Hyatt, Southwest, United and British Airways, and we love how easy it is to transfer these points instantly exactly when you need them.

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Richmond Savers has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Richmond Savers and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers.

Filed Under: Travel Rewards

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Comments

  1. Free Money Minute says

    September 15, 2014 at 9:37 am

    Would you travel a lot if you did not have these reward points? Curious why you would not just cash out the reward points and travel when you want/need rather than be constrained by any rules around using your reward points?

    Reply
    • Brad says

      September 15, 2014 at 12:12 pm

      We love to travel, but using points make it dramatically cheaper and honestly it is a lot of fun!

      To your point, maybe people get turned off by the complexity and frustration of using rewards points, but I personally think that it just requires a bit of a re-think on how you travel. If you can be flexible with your timing and destination, this concept with potentially save you many thousands of dollars! If you insist on fitting it into your normal travel life by trying to book 1-2 months in advance with very specific dates and destinations then you absolutely will hate this.

      We’re able to get much more value out of the points than just cashing them out for statement credits (in this case 50,000 UR points = $500 of real cash), so it doesn’t make sense for us to do it that way. There are cards like the Barclaycard Arrival Plus and the Capital One Venture that offer that type of flexible travel and we’ve made good use of them too.

      Reply
  2. Syed says

    September 15, 2014 at 10:41 am

    It’s always tough to put an exact value on UR points since there are so many redemption options, but if you do your homework and pick the appropriate transfer for your trip, it can be pretty darn valuable. And while not recommended, if you just can’t make heads or tails of it and don’t want to travel anywhere, you can always get a nice $500 check from Chase 🙂

    Reply
    • Brad says

      September 15, 2014 at 12:15 pm

      Hey Syed — thanks for stopping by! Yeah, it is always difficult to put an exact value on these points, especially within the constraints of one article like this, but hopefully I painted a picture of some potential options that people could take.

      My goal with these type of articles is to bring this concept to regular people who might be turned off by the complexity, so I’m really making it as simple as I can.

      My inclination is to always give as much detail as possible, but that can overwhelm, so I tried to keep it straightforward 🙂

      Good point about the $500 cash, or another option (which I’ll add to the article above) would be to book through the UR portal for 1.25 cents per point. Not recommended for either, but not terrible like you said

      Reply
  3. Kim says

    September 15, 2014 at 10:45 am

    I have had some really cool UR redemptions for that amount of points. 50,000 UR points got us two nights in a suite at the Grand Hyatt Kauai before the Hyatt devaluation, which was worth about $1500. We just booked Boston to Dublin on Aer Lingus via British Airways Avios for next summer. 50,000 UR points got us 2 business class tickets that retail for $7128!

    Reply
    • Brad says

      September 15, 2014 at 12:16 pm

      Hi Kim! That’s fantastic about the Avios on Aer Lingus — that’s some nice value for sure 🙂 I’ve been meaning to comment on your recent article where you discussed that trip; really cool it all worked out for you and I can’t wait to see the trip report on that one.

      Reply
  4. Claudia says

    September 15, 2014 at 10:58 am

    Great post! My favorite transfer partner is BA for shorthauls and positioning flights!

    Reply
    • Brad says

      September 15, 2014 at 12:18 pm

      Thanks Claudia, glad you liked it and I appreciate the comment!

      I agree, we use BA for those shorthaul flights all the time. If we’re feeling like a little luxury, we’ve been known to splurge on a nice Hyatt every now and again too 🙂 Not sure that’s the smartest use of the points, but it sure is nice to spend a night in NYC at the Andaz.

      Mostly, I love the flexibility of these points and how you can direct where you need them when you need them. Tough to beat that!

      Reply
  5. Andrew@LivingRichCheaply says

    September 16, 2014 at 10:58 am

    Haven’t really flown anywhere and don’t know if I want the hassle with a little one, but I love my Ultimate rewards. Hyatt points really provide great value…went up to the Boston area to visit family and the Hyatt Place was only 8000 points. Would have cost about $200 a night. More affordable hotels in the surrounding areas are around $120 to $150. I used to have the same mindset as Free Money Minute because the redemptions were horrible. It would take forever to accumulate the points and there were so many restrictions in using it and it would require so many points. But certain hotels/airlines are better at providing value with their redemption…you just have to know how to play the game…or get a good travel coach!

    Reply
  6. David Ryan says

    February 15, 2015 at 9:36 am

    Wow. I didn’t know they can be valuable. This is great. Now I’ll make sure to earn points.
    David Ryan recently posted…The CalculatrMy Profile

    Reply

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