Chase Ultimate Rewards and Airline Miles

[BronzeTrader]

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....

[mongstradamus]

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 

[BronzeTrader]

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@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 

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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.

[mongstradamus]

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@BronzeTrader wrote:

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@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 

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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.

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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. 

[UpperNwGuy]

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.

[BronzeTrader]

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.

[digitek]

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

[UpperNwGuy]

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.

[BronzeTrader]

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@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.

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Making sense to me.

[driftless]

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