topic Re: Chase Ultimate Rewards and Airline Miles in Credit Cards

Chase Ultimate Rewards and Airline Miles

BronzeTrader — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 02:37:04 GMT

Just booked a Spain trip next spring with the Chase Ultimate Rewards. There are various forum postings on point transfers etc. But the best I've seen is through Chase Travel. I believe Bank America Travel is about the same. Both convert points to $, at $0.01/point. But the point converion at airlines seem arbitrary. They are flight specific, not based on $$. For AA flights, I used 56,000 UR points, or about $850 total. But I'll have to use 130,000 AA or United points.

I figure we all need to reserch before we book any travel....

Re: Chase Ultimate Rewards and Airline Miles

mongstradamus — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 02:50:27 GMT

You probably could have done Avios and flew on Iberia but the fuel surcharges are a bit steep so you didn’t do too badly I assume.

For the record from east coast us, jfk, it’s 34000 Avios but 400 dollars in surcharges which is not too cool

Re: Chase Ultimate Rewards and Airline Miles

BronzeTrader — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 03:26:46 GMT

@mongstradamus wrote:
You probably could have done Avios and flew on Iberia but the fuel surcharges are a bit steep so you didn’t do too badly I assume.

For the record from east coast us, jfk, it’s 34000 Avios but 400 dollars in surcharges which is not too cool

I have to book the flights on the non-stop flights, or on the school specific flights. It is school trip. The school estimate is $770 + all taxes. But I got the total airfair at $850, all in. The same United flights cost $1,400. Both AA and United jacked up the reward miles for the non-stop flights.

Re: Chase Ultimate Rewards and Airline Miles

mongstradamus — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 03:38:34 GMT

@BronzeTrader wrote:
@mongstradamus wrote:
You probably could have done Avios and flew on Iberia but the fuel surcharges are a bit steep so you didn’t do too badly I assume.

For the record from east coast us, jfk, it’s 34000 Avios but 400 dollars in surcharges which is not too cool
I have to book the flights on the non-stop flights, or on the school specific flights. It is school trip. The school estimate is $770 + all taxes. But I got the total airfair at $850, all in. The same United flights cost $1,400. Both AA and United jacked up the reward miles for the non-stop flights.

Did you look at British Airways since they own Iberia too . You can use Avios to fly Iberia . You can fly nonstop from us not sure about exact cities that fly nonstop . I know jfk Madrid is non stop there are two flights a day.

Re: Chase Ultimate Rewards and Airline Miles

UpperNwGuy — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 09:46:51 GMT

I fly from the US to Spain often, and I always use United miles, because I have a lot of them and need to use them. An award ticket in economy class is always 60,000 miles no matter what the season. The cash price of a United flight varies depending on the season and the state of the economy.

If I didn't already have United miles, I would use Ultimate Rewards points. If the cash price of the ticket were $900 or more, I would transfer 60,000 UR to United miles and get an award ticket for 60,000. If the cash price dropped below $900 (which it has for March 2018), I would use the Chase travel portal and use less than 60,000 UR to buy the ticket.

With American, you don't have the option of transferring UR to AAdvantage, but you can still make the same comparison, assuming you already have enough AAdvantage miles to get the award ticket. Award tickets to Spain for March 2018 are currently listed at 45,000 AAdvantage miles, but the price of a cash ticket is over $1,000. In this case, unlike United, the awad ticket is a much better deal than using the Chase UR portal.

Re: Chase Ultimate Rewards and Airline Miles

BronzeTrader — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 10:12:22 GMT

mongstradamus and UpperNwGuy. I got what you two are saying. The situation is that, this is a high school trip from US to Spain. The school has booked quite a block, like at least 50 on each flight on the specific trip. Both AA and United jacked up the miles requirement. Now your 60k point trip has increased to 130k points.

I spent a total of 56,000 UR points. Happy about it.

Re: Chase Ultimate Rewards and Airline Miles

digitek — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 11:08:56 GMT

Thanks for sharing BT, points to miles to flights can be quite confusing lol, wish it was more uniform =D

Re: Chase Ultimate Rewards and Airline Miles

UpperNwGuy — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 11:18:45 GMT

Now I understand. The size of your group is so large that it exceeds the award seat availability on the United flight, so United is offering you the "everyday" (full price) award fares rather than the "saver" fares that most people get. They didn't "jack up" the fare. They ran out of the "saver" awards on your flight. The higher number is in their published award table.

Re: Chase Ultimate Rewards and Airline Miles

BronzeTrader — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 12:12:19 GMT

@UpperNwGuy wrote:
Now I understand. The size of your group is so large that it exceeds the award seat availability on the United flight, so United is offering you the "everyday" (full price) award fares rather than the "saver" fares that most people get. They didn't "jack up" the fare. They ran out of the "saver" awards on your flight. The higher number is in their published award table.

Making sense to me.

Re: Chase Ultimate Rewards and Airline Miles

driftless — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 12:55:48 GMT

Next spring is pretty far out, the fares tend to be full price that far out as well.

Re: Chase Ultimate Rewards and Airline Miles

BronzeTrader — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 12:59:08 GMT

@digitek wrote:
Thanks for sharing BT, points to miles to flights can be quite confusing lol, wish it was more uniform =D

Booking with miles requires more micro management. Airline rules change often. For folks who have time to research and have more flexible schedule, miles plans work better. Also, I believe miles plans also work well with last minute premium seat when they are not filled to the last days (or hours).

It seems most of the on-line blogs are for the last minutes premium seats.... I'm booking more than 6 months ahead.

Re: Chase Ultimate Rewards and Airline Miles

Anonymous — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 13:20:39 GMT

@BronzeTrader wrote:
mongstradamus and UpperNwGuy. I got what you two are saying. The situation is that, this is a high school trip from US to Spain. The school has booked quite a block, like at least 50 on each flight on the specific trip. Both AA and United jacked up the miles requirement. Now your 60k point trip has increased to 130k points.

I spent a total of 56,000 UR points. Happy about it.

Flying with miles/points is generally a lot better when you're relatively flexible with destinations and dates. Seems like you got a decent deal though.

Re: Chase Ultimate Rewards and Airline Miles

iced — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 13:55:08 GMT

@BronzeTrader wrote:
@digitek wrote:
Thanks for sharing BT, points to miles to flights can be quite confusing lol, wish it was more uniform =D
Booking with miles requires more micro management. Airline rules change often. For folks who have time to research and have more flexible schedule, miles plans work better. Also, I believe miles plans also work well with last minute premium seat when they are not filled to the last days (or hours).

It seems most of the on-line blogs are for the last minutes premium seats.... I'm booking more than 6 months ahead.

Agree that you must have flexibility on dates and do some research to use miles effectively. United opens up inventory at around 330 days out, but it can and does often fluctuate, and unsold premium can open up last minute. The bigger problem is if you're trying to travel from one elite-heavy city to another, the chances of available last-minute premium inventory is basically zero. The day I score a pair of United business saver awards on SFO-FRA, SFO-LHR, EWR-BOM, or EWR-TLV is the day I buy a lotto ticket.

When it comes to redeeming miles for flights, I follow 3 rules that make sure I get more value from miles:

1. Never use miles for economy tickets. Economy is often discounted and I have often found I can rarely get better than 0.01 to 0.015 per mile on economy tickets.

2. Never book standard award tickets. Value is cut in half and you're often better off using cash instead unless youre desperate to travel on a specific airline on a specific flight/date and you have no money for a ticket.

3. Never use miles for a premium cabin on a complimentary upgrade-eligible flight (mostly domestic routes). These are often marginal upgrades from economy for twice the mileage, whereas you often can buy these tickets for 1.5x or less of the economy fare. For United domestic, I'll only consider miles on a PS route or IAD/EWR-HNL. Even then, if saver inventory is there there's also likely upgrade space too, so I can also just book the economy ticket and throw a RPU at it instead.

When I follow these rules, I usually get 0.025 to 0.04 per mile in value. In all other cases, I'll just buy the ticket with cash. This approach does require some flexibility on dates and planning. I can spend half a day researching routes.

Re: Chase Ultimate Rewards and Airline Miles

BronzeTrader — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 16:15:21 GMT

So we all agreed then. Look for the retirement, so I can board a last-minute first-class flight to some exotic country and not spending many points...

Re: Chase Ultimate Rewards and Airline Miles

MJ-san — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 21:29:07 GMT

***AND*** don't forget, when you "buy" tickets with Chase UR points ... you will earn your usual airline miles, just as if you purchased the ticket through any other travel agency. I cashed in Chase tickets for a Cathay flight and will earn all of my normal American miles on top of it.

Re: Chase Ultimate Rewards and Airline Miles

iced — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 21:43:54 GMT

@MJ-san wrote:
***AND*** don't forget, when you "buy" tickets with Chase UR points ... you will earn your usual airline miles, just as if you purchased the ticket through any other travel agency. I cashed in Chase tickets for a Cathay flight and will earn all of my normal American miles on top of it.

With airlines like United that earn miles based on dollars spent, this barely moves the needle. For instance, and assuming you value 1 UR to 1 MP mile:

- To buy a $500 ticket on United with UR points, you'll spend 33,333 UR points. After taxes, the ticket will likely result in a PQD of around $400. For a general member, that's 2000 miles earned from the flight (ramping up to 4400 miles earned for a 1K). For that same general member, the regeneration of the 2000 miles bumps the net total mileage down to 31,333 for a $500 ticket, coming to a value of about $0.016 per point, a gain of $0.001.

- A $5000 ticket would cost 333,333 UR points with around a $4500 PQD and thus a net spend of 310,833 or also $0.016 earned, though if you can get a PQD multiplier this can help somewhat. Even at 1K earning, the return isn't great - that $5000 ticket is now 283,833 or $0.018 value per point.

If you book a ticket with UR points where mileage accrual is mileage-based, then the needle will move more since you could buy a $1000 economy ticket for 66,667 UR points and potentially get a 20,000 mile return, shifting the value to $0.021/point. Not great, but it is an improvement.

Re: Chase Ultimate Rewards and Airline Miles

UpperNwGuy — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 21:46:38 GMT

@driftless wrote:
Next spring is pretty far out, the fares tend to be full price that far out as well.

That's true for American, but United's price is several hundred dollars lower than normal. I checked both airlines websites this morning for a March 7-14, 2018 trip to Madrid, looking at both cash prices and award ticket prices. I'm not sure why there's such a difference between the two airlines.

Re: Chase Ultimate Rewards and Airline Miles

UpperNwGuy — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 22:00:34 GMT

@iced wrote:

When it comes to redeeming miles for flights, I follow 3 rules that make sure I get more value from miles:

1. Never use miles for economy tickets. Economy is often discounted and I have often found I can rarely get better than 0.01 to 0.015 per mile on economy tickets.

Not me. My rule is to ALWAYS use my miles for economy tickets! I enjoy European travel, and I've been going to Europe twice a year since I retired. I would not be able to go as often if I used my miles for business class tickets. My success metric for redeeming miles is "how many European trips can I squeeze out of my stash of miles" not "how can I redeem miles for $.02 each."

And, believe me, I know exactly what I'm missing in business class. Before I retired, I was a true road warrior with elite status on United, American, and US Airways. But my travel was on company money. Now that I travel with my own finite resources of points, miles, and money, I want to stretch those resources as far as they will go.

Re: Chase Ultimate Rewards and Airline Miles

BronzeTrader — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 23:39:59 GMT

@UpperNwGuy wrote:
@driftless wrote:
Next spring is pretty far out, the fares tend to be full price that far out as well.
That's true for American, but United's price is several hundred dollars lower than normal. I checked both airlines websites this morning for a March 7-14, 2018 trip to Madrid, looking at both cash prices and award ticket prices. I'm not sure why there's such a difference between the two airlines.

For the same flight, UA costs $1,400 and AA costs $860. No brainer.

Also, in my unique situatioin, my only options are to spend $860 or $1,400, use 56,000 UR points, or use 130,000 either AA or UA points. So the point transfer won't work. I do not want to spend $860 cash with my having 175,000 UR points. Happy to take the CSR 1.5x UR value. The points are earned to spend.

Re: Chase Ultimate Rewards and Airline Miles

mongstradamus — Thu, 28 Sep 2017 01:31:07 GMT

@BronzeTrader wrote:
So we all agreed then. Look for the retirement, so I can board a last-minute first-class flight to some exotic country and not spending many points...

lol for me i had to book business class and upgrade with points to first last second at least thats why i did for cathay in 2016 the value was just too good. 67.5k aa for first class on cathay from Bkk-HKG-JFK.