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@kekrre wrote:
@kwinks wrote:Sorry I wasn't clear.
I meant that I can only buy discounted airfare through ultimate rewards, which is always more expensive than say orbitz...figures
And on top of what ryanbush said, you can buy airfare through other discounted providers through the rewards mall.
I bought tickets through Travelocity at 1 point/dollar (base), 1 point/dollar (travel bonus), plus 2 points/dollar (UR Mall through Travelocity) for a total of 4 points/dollar spent.
Right now, bonuses for discount travel providers are:
Expedia - 1 extra point/dollar
Hotwire - 2 extra point/dollar
Priceline - 1 extra point/dollar
Travelocity - 2 extra point/dollar
Orbitz - 1 extra point/dollar
I don't know if all of these qualify for the base 2x for travel, but Travelocity did.
I confirmed with chase that you do get the 2X on travel when using these sites. I just booked a 3,000 hotel stay using hotels.com and got 6X by going through the UR Mall (2X + 4X) 18K point in one transaction really helps build the points cache!
@FutureBillionaire wrote:Is there a newer version of the trifecta? Or is it completely gone if you aren't grandfathered in?
Yes; instead of the extra 10 pts per transaction, it's a straight 10% annual bonus on all points earned that year on Freedom
@daybreakgonesXe wrote:
@FutureBillionaire wrote:Is there a newer version of the trifecta? Or is it completely gone if you aren't grandfathered in?
Yes; instead of the extra 10 pts per transaction, it's a straight 10% annual bonus on all points earned that year on Freedom
Thanks. I appreciate it.
@Omri wrote:
@kwinks wrote:Sorry I wasn't clear.
I meant that I can only buy discounted airfare through ultimate rewards, which is always more expensive than say orbitz...figures
You are right that you only get the 25% bonus on points if you book travel with points through UR. So, say, if you have 40k UR points, you can book $500 through UR.
What I'm doing, however, which is frequently better, is transferring a ton of points to United frequent flyer miles through the "points transfer" option with CSP. My 60k UR points become a free round trip ticket to Europe (well, I have to pay like $60-70 in airport fees and such) that would normally cost at least $1,200 if I paid cash. So I essentially am getting 2 cents value for each point. Points transfer to partner airlines is definitely the way to go with CSP!
oh this is interesting but I don't get it how do you do this? Would be super helpful as I am planning trip to Costa Rica and always travel first class on international flights
Anyone?
Sorry, hadn't checked this thread:
To transfer points from Freedom to Sapphire:
To transfer points from Sapphire to mileage account:
If you have the Sapphire Preferred, Ink Bold, or Ink Plus card, you can transfer UR points 1:1 for any of the following:
British Airways, Korean Air, Southwest, or United frequent flyer miles. You can also transfer them to hotel loyalty programs including Hyatt, Priority Club, Marriott, and Ritz-Carlton.
For this example, I'm going to focus on United miles. First, if you don't have one already, go to united.com and create a frequent flyer account ("MileagePlus" is the name of their frequent flyer program - look for somewhere to "Join Now" on the main page).
From your chase.com main page, for your Sapphire Preferred, select "Go to Ultimate Rewards" from that card. On the menu bar, the third from the left should be "Point Transfer." You simply select United MileagePlus, choose how many points to transfer, and put the MileagePlus number and person's first & last name. The point transfer is nearly instant, so you should have the points in your account ready to use in about a minute. You are technically only supposed to transfer these points to either your MileagePlus account, or your spouse's, as I understand things.
From there, you can book travel on United through their website. Go to united.com, and select "Award Travel" under "search by." To see how many miles a particular trip would cost, use the following tool: https://www.united.com/web/en-US/apps/mileageplus/awards/travel/awardTravel.aspx
Note that one cool thing about United is that they allow a free stopover and an open jaw (i.e. you arrive in one city and depart from another) on award flights. So, for example, it costs 60,000 miles for a coach round trip to Europe from the US. My wife and I are planning a trip to visit her family in Germany. Our first plan was to use a stopover in Paris, and then fly Paris to Frankfurt, and Frankfurt back to the States. This still costs 60,000 miles per person round trip. Then, we decided to also take advantage of the open jaw in addition to the stopover. So now, we're flying from the States into Paris for a stopover, and then from Paris to Frankfurt as our destination, and then departing from Rome (we'll use Air Berlin or a train to separately and pretty cheaply get from Frankfurt to Rome). US -> Paris -> Frankfurt, and Rome -> US is all STILL costing us only 60,000 miles per person. If you plan to use a stopover or open jaw, from united.com, select "Award Travel" under "Search by" and click "Multiple Destinations" at the top, and then you can enter all the criteria. Feel free to play around with their award flight search system, it's how I learned to do all this stuff. All kinds of other things you can do, you can learn about here: http://milevalue.com/master-thread-free-oneways-on-united-awards/
Hope this helped! Sorry if I was a bit slow on the reply.
don't forget the Chase Ink for 5x on cellphone, landline, cable, and internet! anyone can get it if you know how to apply. average $300 a month would net you 18,000 points a year.