@UpperNwGuy wrote:
Not sure I understand your point about killing the draw. The thought is that Chase would devalue or eliminate the transfer of UR points earned on Freedom and Freedom Unlimited to airline and hotel programs, with no change to the transfer of UR points earned on Sapphire Preferred and Sapphire Reserve. How would that kill the draw of Sapphire Preferred or Sapphire Reserve?
Because one of the big reasons for the UR scheme being so popular is the ability to transfer points from the Freedom cards to the Sapphire cards and use them as air and hotel loyalty points. The Freedom cards allow you to earn points at a much faster rate than with just the CSP/CSR by themselves. Removing this feature may not completely kill the draw, but it puts them at a somewhat more level playing field with the likes of Citi, where you can have free and fee cards that collect points but some points are more useful than others.
@UpperNwGuy wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@UpperNwGuy wrote:In two other discussion boards (Doctor of Credit and FlyerTalk), the view has been expressed that Chase is using the $.015 travel portal redemptions as a stalking horse and that a more important, but unstated, part of the devaluation would be to also eliminate or devalue the transfer of UR points earned on no-fee cards to Chase's partner airline and hotel loyalty programs. If you follow the point valuations of The Points Guy, One Mile at a Time, or The View from the Wing, their UR values are all higher than $.015 because of these transfers.
I've seen those discussions and I find it extremely unlikely that Chase would severely devalue or eliminate the transfer or UR points to hotel/airline partners. If they did so they would kill the draw of almost all of their travel credit cards. It's the nature of discussion boards to forecast worst case scenarios.
Not sure I understand your point about killing the draw. The thought is that Chase would devalue or eliminate the transfer of UR points earned on Freedom and Freedom Unlimited to airline and hotel programs, with no change to the transfer of UR points earned on Sapphire Preferred and Sapphire Reserve. How would that kill the draw of Sapphire Preferred or Sapphire Reserve?
Well it would kill the freedom unlimited that is for sure. I mean why would anyone ever use that card to get 1.5% back when you can use a 2% cashback card. In terms of the CSP and CSR it can harm those as well. for certain people. If someone has a lot of restaurant and/or travel spend then the CSR can still hold value. However, if there are people who do not spend a lot on travel and do not eat out often they may very well start looking at other programs where they can earn more points across all their spend. No matter how you cut it taking away the transfer ability of cards like the freedom into the same pool of points as the CSR will diminish the value. People will still churn those cards for signup but I think they will certainly take a hit in terms of getting long term spend on the cards once the signups are complete. Amex or Citi could simply up their game on the plat or prestige cards nd the gap in difference between the cards will narrow a lot. I like chase but in terms of cash back cards they are not even close to being one of the better lenders.
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Im currently Chasing Navy, Chase can Chase Chase for all i Chare