How You Can Squeeze More Value Out Of 100,00 Chase Points

 

One of the questions I get all the time is about the value of points and miles. Since the value changes for each type of points and miles, it's hard to figure out their worth. 

But with the new whopping 100,000 bonus offer on the Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card, let's take a look at the value of those points specifically to figure out what they are worth.  

I love Chase Ultimate Reward points because they are what I like to call flexible points. Flexible because you can use them in many different ways depending on where you want to travel. Chase advertises that 100,000 points are worth $1,250 of travel. 

But they actually could be worth much more. 

Let's take a look at the different ways you can use the points. 

You can: 

• transfer them to dozens of hotels and airlines
• you can use them in the Chase Travel Portal
• you can use them for statement credit or cash back 

If you choose to use the points for a statement credit or cash back, they are worth $1,000. Pretty good, right? 

But if you choose to use the points to purchase flights, hotels, car rentals, cruises and tours then your points are worth $1,250 because Chase gives you 25% more value when you use your points to book travel in the portal. The portal is similar to using Expedia. That's a pretty good deal. 

But the best deal could be transferring your points to one of a dozen different airlines or Hyatt, Marriott or IHG. You can read about how I used them to take my family to Ireland. 

• The sweet spot is transferring these points to FlyingBlue.com which is the loyalty program for Air France and KLM. You can see a one way flight is priced for just 20,000 points from Washington DC to Amsterdam. Recently, I was able to snag a flight from Athens to LAX for just 15,000 points and $90. This flight was being sold for more than $700. 
• Or transfer the points to Hyatt to snag a hotel room for as low as 3,500 points per night. 
• Or transfer the points to Jet Blue and fly from California to New York for just 13,500 points each way. Wow! 

Now you are squeezing thousands of dollars out of those 100,000 points. Plus the Chase Sapphire Preferred comes with an annual $50 hotel credit when you reserve through the portal. The annual fee on this card is only $95 so it's really a no brainer. 

The fine print, you can only get this bonus once every four years and you can only hold one Sapphire branded credit card at a time. This 100,000 bonus offer requires you to spend $4,000 in the first three months so if you have any big purchases coming up soon, you might want to think about applying. 

As always, if you need more guidance, please join our Travel Coaching Program, you can find out more about our personal coaching here. Use FREETRAVEL for $50 off the cost.