Chase is offering
80,000 Bonus Points ($1,000 towards travel) w/
$4,000 spent on purchases in the first 3 months of account opening for the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card. Annual fee is $95. Thanks Cappy123
Card Details:
- Earn 80,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That's $1,000 toward travel when you redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards®.
- 2X points on travel and dining at restaurants worldwide, eligible delivery services, takeout and dining out & 1 point per dollar spent on all other purchases.
- Get 25% more value when you redeem for airfare, hotels, car rentals and cruises through Chase Ultimate Rewards. For example, 80,000 points are worth $1,000 toward travel.
- Get unlimited deliveries with a $0 delivery fee and reduced service fees on orders over $12 for a minimum of one year on qualifying food purchases with DashPass, DoorDash's subscription service. Activate by 12/31/21.
- Earn 5X points on Lyft rides through March 2022. That's 3X points in addition to the 2X points you already earn on travel.
Original Post
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Edited November 9, 2020
at 11:50 AM
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Chase is offering 80,000 Bonus Points ($1,000 towards travel) w/ $4,000 spent on purchases in the first 3 months of account opening for the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card. Annual fee is $95.
Card Details:
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For example, if you met the minimum spend for the sign up bonus in the first month the card was opened, the statement closing date was probably October or November 2016. If you met the minimum spend in the 3rd month that the card was opened, then the bonus may have been awarded in January or even February - again, depends on the statement closing date. You can check your first few statements in that account to know for sure.
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https://www.bankrate.co
https://slickdeals.net/f/14276708-amex-pre-qual-125-000-points-on-american-express-platinum-with-5-000-spend-in-3-months-can-meet-spending-threshold-paying-rent-via-plastiq?
Also, award flights tend to be hard to grab, plus taxes make them kinda useless. So your $1000 flight that costs 60k points ends up costing you $380 in taxes. In the end, it seems like the 25% redemption bonus through the Chase portal gives a person nearly the best deal, with the most flexibility.
Am I wrong?
YES and NO.
You need to spend some time with Google and flyertalk site. Chase UR is one of the most flexible mileage program, especially with StarAlliance.
Here are the following factors, prior covid:
- departing city/final destination
-tax/fuel charge could range from $5 to several hundreds, my best was 40k one way business class intl and $32 tax,
Bottom line, need to do some HW, have as many different mileage program as possible on hand, One world, Skymiles, etc
Many of us hardcore travel guys/gals have not paid for air travel in many many yrs. Just reasonable amount in fuel charge if needed. Same thing applied with hotel points.
Also, award flights tend to be hard to grab, plus taxes make them kinda useless. So your $1000 flight that costs 60k points ends up costing you $380 in taxes. In the end, it seems like the 25% redemption bonus through the Chase portal gives a person nearly the best deal, with the most flexibility.
Am I wrong?
I've read about folks doing it, but I haven't bothered, I prefer to just fly economy and spend my money at the destination.
Also, award flights tend to be hard to grab, plus taxes make them kinda useless. So your $1000 flight that costs 60k points ends up costing you $380 in taxes. In the end, it seems like the 25% redemption bonus through the Chase portal gives a person nearly the best deal, with the most flexibility.
Am I wrong?
60k points + $3xx in taxes sounds like a round trip coach fare to the UK - absent special circumstances, that is a bad-to-horrible way to use airline miles and such flights should be booked cash or via the portal. That is the extreme case re taxes, though some (foreign) airlines like to add extra fees when redeeming through their programs. Round trip to Asia is <$100 in taxes/fees for points bookings on most major airlines, with Western Europe around $200 round trip (but just $5.60 for the outbound leg). Domestic travel is also only $5.60 each way in taxes/fees in addition to the miles.
If you are focused on booking the absolute cheapest flights and have the schedule flexibility to accommodate such travel, partner redemptions may not be the best use of points for you. If you have more focus on where you want to travel, and are able to plan ahead, then transferring points to miles can be a better value. Doubly so if you want to splurge on Business Class. Last minute travel can also be a significant advantage for using points (award flights aren't as hard to find as you think, barring high demand destinations/times).
Also, award flights tend to be hard to grab, plus taxes make them kinda useless. So your $1000 flight that costs 60k points ends up costing you $380 in taxes. In the end, it seems like the 25% redemption bonus through the Chase portal gives a person nearly the best deal, with the most flexibility.
Am I wrong?
It's also worth noting that travel partners are not all airlines. I've transferred to Hyatt and gotten great deals too. I stayed at a hotel in Savannah that was charging nearly $300 a night and it only cost me 12k points/nt. I stayed at a hotel just outside of Boston during graduation week (peak capacity pricing) and they didn't increase their cost in points (8k/nt, I can't remember the dollar pricing but easily over $200). Hyatts stay in the tier they belong to, even on weekends and peak capacity times, it's super valuable. Also if you plan to visit a high value area, the maxed out point value is lower than their peak rates. A friday night in December at the NYC Park Hyatt is $895/nt, but only 30k pts.
Of course I'm cherry picking two specific high value instances, but the points don't expire. Save them until you find great deals and you'll bank great rewards. This does assume that you travel frequently though. If you're banking points for one big vacation a year, you'll need to be flexible to use the points efficiently. If you travel somewhere every few weeks, you can always pay another way if there's a week you can't find a great deal instead of burning points just because you have them.
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We are talking about transferring your poiints from chase to an airline or hotel program- which is how you get much higher value out of the points.
Nope- see above- that's not what's being discussed.
You can't transfer to travel partners unless you have a paid chase card.
That's why the flex adding categories doesn't eliminate the need to hold a CSP or CSR (or the business equivalent) if you are wanting to maximize value of points for travel.
Also, award flights tend to be hard to grab, plus taxes make them kinda useless. So your $1000 flight that costs 60k points ends up costing you $380 in taxes. In the end, it seems like the 25% redemption bonus through the Chase portal gives a person nearly the best deal, with the most flexibility.
Am I wrong?
Yup- as covered pretty extensively by others already.
But I'll give you a REALLY easy example where it beats the portals 25% bonus (the math is closer with the CSRs 50%)
Southwest airlines.
Transfering to SW gets you more than 1.25 cents per point every single time. The minimum you get for a SW point is 1.28 cents (sometimes more).
And you avoid taxes that way too.
You can not transfer to partners with the free cards.
At all.
So your entire argument falls apart.
And this is the third or fourth time this has been pointed out in the thread (at least).
The ability to transfer to partners (as well as the portal redemption bonus), and thus get higher value out of the points (potentially much higher) is why holding a paid card is worth it, regardless of bonus categories for spend.
(Likewise the 5x via the portal benefit is pretty silly to use when the point is to pay for travel with POINTS and not cash)
You can not transfer to partners with the free cards.
At all.
So your entire argument falls apart.
And this is the third or fourth time this has been pointed out in the thread (at least).
The ability to transfer to partners (as well as the portal redemption bonus), and thus get higher value out of the points (potentially much higher) is why holding a paid card is worth it, regardless of bonus categories for spend.
(Likewise the 5x via the portal benefit is pretty silly to use when the point is to pay for travel with POINTS and not cash)
As for the last sentence though, I travel way too much to ONLY use points. Lots of people who have these cards do, that's the whole reason to get a travel card. It's important to strategically plan when to use points and when to not use points based on redemption value.
No they won't I tried that in the past where I saw 80k and thought I would get the 80k but they only gave 70k
I fly reasonably often and it's not super common cash beats points.
(full disclosure, I've got a reasonably flexible schedule most of the time when flying- and this is all pre-covid, I'm sure there's insanely good cash deals NOW but I've no intention of flying before a vaccine is commonly available)
And even when it does- 50% in the portal beats 5x on the spend.
For example lets say there's a domestic $49 flight you find... you can't beat that with a points transfer (as typically 5000 is the least you're gonna find a flight for).
You can either spend $49 actual cash via the portal on the "free" chase card and you're out $49, but get 245 points of rewards.
Or you can spend 3266 points to "pay" for it via the portal with a CSR....
Which is better?
Well given that if you ONLY had "free" chase cards, the points are worth no more than 1 cent a point, example B is very obviously better.
Example A you're getting $2.45 worth of points by spending $49 cash.
Example B you're SAVING $49 cash by spending $32.66 worth of points (at the same 1 cent value we used for A).
So when transferring is better value-paying cash is silly. (and this REQUIRES a paid Chase card to do)
Or when using the portal because it sometimes makes sense- the 50% bonus value on your points still beats paying cash and "earning" 5x on doing so. (and this, too requires a paid card- the CSR specifically).
The only persons for whom NOT having a paid chase card make sense are those who already don't travel hardly at all.
And who weren't gonna hold a paid chase card in the first place because of that (beyond a signup bonus year).
So again Chase doesn't really "need" to improve the CSR categories- because those categories aren't why people hold the card in the first place.
Now for people who hold BOTH.... and somehow find a situation where paying CASH via the portal ever makes any sense.... those people will indeed use their "free" chase card to make the charge instead of their paid one.
Remind me again why chase cares WHICH one- since they get the same swipe fee either way?
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