Confused about CSP points transfer vs booking with Chase directly

[medo]

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@jsucool76 wrote:
southwest companion pass rules all

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The SWA Premier card was my first Chase card.  I was very excited about this, but unfortunately I could no longer justify the card since I do not fly enough to come close to meeting the criteria of getting the companion pass.  

I wish maybe they offerred an even higher card with a free annual companion pass.

[jsucool76]

eh, two cards with 50k offers and then a few thousand in spend is a companion pass.

[medo]

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@Anonymous wrote:

The other point is that people rarely recommend transfers for domestic coach flights (using Avios for shorthaul flights on AA is an exception)  The times you see MR/UR/SPG are worth 5c per point etc is when people are often when people are booking premium cabin international flights.

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I actually do the opposite.  I fly domesticly about 2-3 times per quarter using points.  I'd much rather travel half a dozen times a year for vacation than blow them all on an international trip.  I'd much rather pay cash/charge the CC for an international trip.  

Everyone has their own value system though.  My value is experience.  I can get many more experiences traveling domesticly than I can in one international trip.

[jsucool76]

depends if you book a intl trip with a bunch of stopovers or not.

[Anonymous]

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@medo wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

The other point is that people rarely recommend transfers for domestic coach flights (using Avios for shorthaul flights on AA is an exception)  The times you see MR/UR/SPG are worth 5c per point etc is when people are often when people are booking premium cabin international flights.

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I actually do the opposite.  I fly domesticly about 2-3 times per quarter using points.  I'd much rather travel half a dozen times a year for vacation than blow them all on an international trip.  I'd much rather pay cash/charge the CC for an international trip.  

Everyone has their own value system though.  My value is experience.  I can get many more experiences traveling domesticly than I can in one international trip.

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The comparison more is if you are doing both, bunch of domestic coach trips and one premium cabin international flight (although I guess you would forgoe the premium cabin!).   Then (with the right planning) the total cash cost is less using the points for the international trip and paying for domestic than vice-versa.

But if you are accumulating points, and want to travel domestically, sure, it saves money that would be spent on the tickets.   But so does getting a statement credit with MRs etc, just not the "best" use of points, but might make sense depending on circumstances.

[deltatee]

My experience with United as. been that the award trip usually unavailalke and there are still relatively hefty fees on travel booked with points anyway. That's the reason I got rid of my United Explorer card. Hopefully you live somewhere with other options so you can make the most of your CSP.

[CraigHwk]

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@deltatee wrote:
My experience with United as. been that the award trip usually unavailalke and there are still relatively hefty fees on travel booked with points anyway. That's the reason I got rid of my United Explorer card. Hopefully you live somewhere with other options so you can make the most of your CSP.

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Yah I was just digging deeper into different dates and times and there's hardly any available awards trips.  The only one is at 8pm and arrives the next day.  No thanks.  Perhaps it's just the location I am trying to travel to, so Southwest seems to be the better option for that particular route.   

[bigbang91]

You must be confused. United doesnt charge fuel surcharge on its own flight, and even with its partner, the fee is lower than other us airline

[bigbang91]

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@CraigHwk wrote:

I am a new CSP card holder and I am trying to figure out the best value for spending UR points for flights.  From all I've read, transferring points to Airline partners is the best method, however I am not seeing that being the case, at least for United.  I think I'm probably missing something, so here's the scenario I came up with:

I'm on United Airlines website directly and I am searching for flights using Award Miles.  I figure this is where I'd book the flight once I've transferred miles to United. A round trip ticket from Denver to Baltimore is 25,000 points each way, so the total for the flight is 50,000 points.  If I use Chase's portal to book the exact same flight (Same Flight # and day), the round trip cost is 31,300 points.    Significantly lower. 

I haven't tried this comparison with other Airlines, so maybe this is just with United, but am I doing something wrong here?  

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Op, domestic flight within continental US is 25k points roundtrip. Also, you can transfer ur point to British airway and flight on AA for short haul flight. Save you alot of points, and certainly ur point will worth more than the minimal 1.2cpp if you were to redeem for ur travel

[CraigHwk]

It seems it's really an issue of where I am flying to.   To the Baltimore/DC area, there are practically no Saver Awards available, so everything is 50,000 round trip.  Philly has a couple more, so apparently you need to be ultra flexable when it comes to United.

Tried a flight from DEN to Tampa and there are a lot more Saver Award flights.  Oh well.   Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about United.  I just needed a better understanding of how their Awards system works.  Now I do.  Thank you.