Yet Another Reason Why I LOVE Chase Ultimate Rewards

 

I've used Chase Ultimate Rewards to travel all over the world for FREE. The points came in very handy to erase Airbnb reservations (this promotion ended) and for flights when we visited the Perito Moreno glacier in Patagonia, Argentina. 

I love CUR rewards because they are so flexible. If you don't know where you want to stay or where you will be traveling, then these points are for you. That's because you can transfer them to dozens of different airlines and three hotel chains, Hyatt, IHG and Marriott. 

Sometimes the deal is even better transferring CUR than using the points in the travel portal and sometimes the portal is a better value. 

Yet Another Reason Why I LOVE Chase Ultimate Rewards 

Here is an example that happened just last week. 

I had my eye on the Hyatt in Evanston, Illinois, just outside of Chicago for an upcoming trip. 

The cash price was showing $350 per night, ouch! 

In the Chase Travel Portal, it was showing $320 per night or 48,005 points. I get 50% more value for my points in the portal because I have a Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card. The Chase Sapphire Preferred gets 25% more value in the portal.  

But when I checked the Hyatt website, standard rooms are just 12,000 points per night. 

Woohoo! That means by transferring CUR to Hyatt at 1:1 cuts the number of points needed in half and has a value of $740. Nice. 

It's simple to transfer CUR points to dozens of airlines and hotel chains. When you log into your Chase.com account and click on redeem points

Then click on the menu in the top left hand corner and choose transfer to travel partners. 

CUR points transfer immediately to Hyatt and you must transfer in 1,000 point increments. Sometimes Chase will offer a bonus when you transfer. 

You will need to create an account with the EXACT name on your Chase account BEFORE you attempt to transfer the CUR points. 

Once you submit, you cannot get the CUR points back so be certain this is what you want to do. 

When I transferred to Hyatt, the points showed up immediately in my new Hyatt account and I could book the hotel in Evanston. Amazing! 

Yet Another Reason Why I LOVE Chase Ultimate Rewards 

Right now, the Chase Ink Business Preferred credit card is offering a 100,000 CUR bonus with a $8,000 minimum spend. It's a hefty minimum spend, but usually it is set at $15,000 so you might say this minimum spend is a bargain. If you have a big expense coming up or can handle the minimum spend, this bonus can be worth thousands of dollars. 

We are hearing this bonus may end September 23rd. 

Unveiling the Chase Ultimate Rewards: Why 23,363 Points in 2023 are Worth Celebrating

 

I love when I see my rewards summary in my inbox. Now you may look at this Chase Ultimate Rewards summary and say, wait, you only earned 23,363 points in 2023. But let me explain. 

This summary is for my Chase FREEDOM FLEX credit card. It's a no annual fee card with 5x points rotating bonus categories. 

What does that mean? FREE money! Woohoo! 

Unveiling the Chase Ultimate Rewards: Why 23,363 Points in 2023 are Worth Celebrating

I earned those 23,363 points on purchases that I was going to make anyway like gas, groceries, Amazon, Paypal etc. 

But I intentionally used this credit card when Chase offered 5x points on those types of purchases. 

Chase rotates the categories every quarter. This quarter the categories are groceries and gyms. You can activate the offer in your Chase.com account.

The secret here is to earn the points on the Chase FREEDOM FLEX credit card and then transfer those points to your Chase Sapphire Preferred or Reserve account to squeeze more value out of them for incredible trips like this one in Chile. 

Unveiling the Chase Ultimate Rewards: Why 23,363 Points in 2023 are Worth Celebrating

The reason is that when you spend the points from your Chase Sapphire Preferred or Reserve account, you get 1.25% or 1.5% more when you book travel through the Chase Travel Portal and you can transfer the points to a dozen different airlines and three hotel chains. You can click here to find out how we use Chase points to book insanely cheap nights at Hyatt. 

 

The Chase FREEDOM FLEX is offering a $200 or 20,000 CUR points on $500 minimum spend. This no annual fee card earns 5x points on rotating bonus categories and 5x points on gas and groceries for the first year up to $12,000. Please use my referral link if you decide to apply for this card. 

Unveiling the Chase Ultimate Rewards: Why 23,363 Points in 2023 are Worth Celebrating

If you don't have a Chase Sapphire Preferred or Sapphire Reserve credit card, you can read about these cards here. They are the key to our success, we love the flexibility of the Chase Ultimate Rewards points for almost FREE travel. 

Again, if you decide to add any of these card to your strategy, please use our referral links and if you would like support with your travel goals, join our Travel Coaching Program. 

90,000 Chase Ultimate Reward Bonus on No Fee Ink Cards - Wow!

Small Business Saturday just passed and in honor of that, let's talk about one of the best offers I've ever seen for the Chase Ink Business credit cards. The two FREE cards are offering 90,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points as a bonus and the $95 annual fee card is offering a whopping 100,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points as a bonus. Wowza! 

I'll run down the difference between the cards in a minute, but first, I have to share with you why I love Chase Ultimate Reward points and what you can do with all those bonus points. 

This past summer, I took my family to Ireland, you can check out my blog to read all about this amazing country and people. 

But I used Chase Ultimate Reward points to erase the cost of all of our Airbnb stays during the trip, much of our dining and one plane ticket. I love these points because of how flexible they are. You can transfer them to dozens of airlines, Hyatt, Marriott and IHG. You can erase purchases just like a Capital One card. You can buy travel with them in the Chase Travel Portal. Plus if you have a Sapphire Preferred or Reserve card, you can combine your Ink CUR points and get even more value. 

So what's this new offer all about? and which card should you choose? 

The Chase Ink Business Unlimited  - No annual fee! 1.5% cash back or 1.5x points on every purchase. 

The Chase Ink Business Cash  - No annual fee! 5% cash back or 5x points at office supply stores, phone, internet, and cable. This is the card I have had for years! 2% or 2x points at gas stations and restaurants and 1% or 1x points at everything else. 

The Chase Ink Business Preferred  - $95 annual fee. 3% cash back or 3x points on shipping, advertising on social media sites, internet, cable and phone services and travel. 1% or 1x points on everything else. 

Look at the types of purchases your business makes to determine which credit card makes sense for you to leverage your spending for maximum points. And remember, your "business" doesn't have to be a Fortune 500 company. A business can easily be selling items on Etsy or Ebay, freelance services, property management, vacation rentals and more. 

You can hold all of these INK cards at the same time, but you can't get the bonus on any of these cards more than once every 24 months. 

And you can transfer your the CUR points from your INK account to your Chase Sapphire Preferred or Reserve card and bam, almostFREEfamilytravel. 

Amazing! 

Please consider using our referral ink if you apply for any of these credit cards. Thank you for your support. 

Unlocking the #1 Hyatt Points Sweet Spot

 

You already know how much I love flexible points like Chase Ultimate Reward points and Capital One points. You can use them in the portal, transfer them to dozens of airlines and hotel chains or just use them for a statement credit. 

One of the sweet spots is transferring Chase Ultimate Reward points to Hyatt. I wrote about an awesome redemption in Chicago last year, but here we go again. 

I was looking at Hyatt Place in Raleigh Durham and found one for just 5,000 points per night. Check out the cash price of $280 per night. Can you believe it? I couldn't. Now I didn't have any Hyatt points, but I had Chase Ultimate Reward points. 

Unlocking the #1 Hyatt Points Sweet Spot

So I transferred 20,000 CUR points to Hyatt. The transfer happened almost instantly. And then I could book four nights in the hotel at 5,000 points per night. 20,000 points = $1,140. Amazing! Remember, once you transfer the points, you cannot transfer them back to Chase, but you can cancel the reservation and the points will be returned to your account, in this case, to my Hyatt account. 

There are quite a few ways to earn CUR points, but the easiest is to open a Chase Sapphire Preferred or Reserve credit card. The Chase FREEDOM UNLIMITED OR FLEX are no annual fee cards that are great to pair with the Sapphire cards. 

This is just one of the reasons why I love flex points like Capital One and Chase. 

If this interests you, but seems confusing, let me help you. Enroll in my travel coaching program. We will explore your travel goals, review your credit cards and make a plan. Then you can join our monthly live coaching sessions for more support. 

Should You Hang Onto Your Chase Sapphire Reserve?

 

The Chase Sapphire Reserve has been my favorite credit card for quite awhile. Even when the annual fee increased to a whopping $550 a few years ago, I held onto it. But today Chase announced that the annual fee is going up again, this time to $795. So now the question is should you hold onto it? I'll tell you right now, the answer is yes!

Should You Hang Onto Your Chase Sapphire Reserve?

But let's break down the benefits and dig deeper. 

Now worth and value are very personal. What's treasure for me, maybe trash for you. But let's see if we can investigate the changes and benefits and see if it's worth it for me and that might help you decide if it's worth it for you. 

How do I use this card right now? 

• I charge all of my travel and dining to this credit card. Why? 
• Currently, it earns 3x points on dining and travel. It also has amazing travel cancellation, rental and interruption insurance. I made a claim a few months ago and though it took several times uploading the same documents, they eventually reimbursed me. I always charge rental cars to this card because it earns 3x points and has awesome car rental insurance so I can pass on the insurance offered by the rental agency. 
• Moving forward, it will continue to earn 3x points on dining and 4x points on travel booked directly with airlines and hotels. But other travel like car rentals, Airbnbs, and tours will only earn 1x points so that's disappointing. 
•  I combine all of my Chase points onto this card to use them in the Chase Travel Portal. Why?

• Currently, when you book in the portal, you earn 5x points on airlines and 10x points on hotels. When you use your points to purchase, the points are worth 1.5 in the portal. 
• Moving forward, when you book in the portal, you will earn 8x points on all travel purchases booked through the portal. Current cardholders will still be able to get 1.5 value for points in the portal for a two year grace period. But the card is moving towards a "points boost" up to 2x points on certain travel purchases marked with a rocket ship. We are unsure right now how much travel will be eligible for a boost. 
• $300 Travel Credit - I use this credit every year since it is automatically applied to travel purchases. Though it's not really a benefit, it does bring down the annual fee by $300. 
• Moving forward, this credit will remain so it brings the annual fee down to $495. 
• Global Entry credit - you can use this once every four years so it's valued at $30 per year as a benefit. 
• Moving forward, this benefit remains. 
• Priority Pass Lounge and Sapphire Lounge Access - remains a benefit on the Sapphire Reserve. 
• Moving forward, there's no change 
  
• Earns 5x points on Lyft and 10x points on Peloton. 
• Moving forward, there's no change. 

Should You Hang Onto Your Chase Sapphire Reserve?

Other changes: 

• Authorized users - price is going up from $75 to $195 per user. I don't recommend adding authorized users to any cards, but if you want to, Capital One Venture X allows you to add authorized users for free and let's them use the lounge access, but we hear this benefit may be ending. 
• You could only hold one Sapphire card at a time. 
• Moving forward, you can hold both cards at the same time. This could be huge! The Sapphire Preferred has an annual fee of $95 and is one of my favorite cards. I usually advise my couple clients for one person to hold the Chase Sapphire Preferred and the other to hold the Reserve. Now one person could hold both. Instead of downgrading, you can just apply for the other Sapphire card and get the welcome bonus again. 

• Other new credits:
• $500 credit to use on Edit Hotels (Chase curated list).(split in two $250 credits) A quick search showed most properties were 5 star and came with perks like breakfast and $100 property credit. 
• $300 credit on StubHub or Viagogo
• $300 in monthly Doordash promotions 
• $300 credit at Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables (split in two $150 credits)
• $250 annual credit for Apple TV and Music 
• $120 Doordash membership 
• $120 Peloton Membership 
• $120 Lyft in app credits 

If you spend more than $75,000 on the Reserve card annually, then you will earn some added benefits  like status at IHG and Southwest, $500 Southwest travel credit, and $250 credit at The Shops at Chase. 

Chase says the refreshed Chase Sapphire Reserve will offer $2,700 value of benefits, but the question is how many of these benefits will you actually benefit from? 

It's enough to make your head spin, but rest assured, if you already have this card, the new benefits will kick in June 23rd and you won't get charged the increased annual fee until after October 26th 2025 when your annual fee is due.  

So if your annual fee is due July 1st like mine, you will end up in the sweet spot. You will get to enjoy the new benefits until July 2026 and the old benefits until October 26th 2025, but only pay the old annual fee of $550. Then you can decide if you want to pay the increased annual fee next year. 

If you don't have this card yet, you could apply before June 23rd to lock in the $550 annual fee. Right now, it offers 60,000 bonus points for a $5,000 minimum spend. 

Want more personal help using points and miles for almost FREE travel? Join my Travel Coaching Program and we will design your personal strategy to travel for almost FREE and guide you through the process. Right now, you can use the promo code "FREETRAVEL" to get $50 off the program. Or book a 1:1 consulting call.  I would love to help you make priceless family memories affordable. 

*For every new client, we will donate 10% of the proceeds to one of our favorite charities. 

Got My 100,000 Chase Bonus, Now What?

 

Woohoo! Thank you Chewy. That one purchase put me over the $5,000 minimum spend for the 100,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards bonus on the Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card. 

This was the incredible bonus offer that ended May 15th. You may still be working on reaching the minimum spend or you may see the bonus pop up in your account soon!

It is interesting that I have not even made the second payment on this card yet, but they gave me the bonus points. It used to be that Capital One was the only issuer that would award the points before you paid the bill. 

• This means that you could actually put the points towards a statement credit on this payment so you knock $1,000 off your credit card bill. Pretty cool. 

But we can actually squeeze a lot more value out of 100,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points. 

How can you squeeze more value out of your CUR points? 

• One way is to transfer them to an airline that usually gives fantastic points redemption on flights like Flying Blue (KLM, Air France loyalty program) and Iberia Avios. 
• But you can also find some great surprise redemptions on airlines like Emirates like this 7,500 points for a flight from Malta to Cyprus. 
• If you were to buy this flight, it would cost you $284.  
• I like to use the tool seats.aero to find out what award flights are available. The tool is FREE unless you want to search more than 90 days out.  

Another way to squeeze more value out of CUR points is to transfer them to Hyatt. You can find Hyatt Place and Hyatt House hotels for as low as 3,500 per night. Incredible. 

And you can also transfer the points over to a Chase Sapphire Reserve account and use them in the Chase Travel Portal for 1.5:1 or use them in the Chase Sapphire Preferred Travel Portal for 1.25:1 value. 

This is why I love flexible points like CUR, Amex and Capital One. 

If you don't have a Sapphire card yet, you could apply for the Chase Sapphire Reserve before June 23rd to lock in the $550 annual fee. Right now, it offers 60,000 bonus points for a $5,000 minimum spend. 

The Chase Sapphire Preferred is back to its regular offer of 60,000 points for a $5,000 minimum spend and $95 annual fee. We hear that some better offers might be announced next week so you may want to hold off for a few days. 

Want more personal help using points and miles for almost FREE travel? Join my Travel Coaching Program and we will design your personal strategy to travel for almost FREE and guide you through the process. Right now, you can use the promo code "FREETRAVEL" to get $50 off the program. Or book a 1:1 consulting call.  I would love to help you make priceless family memories affordable. 

*For every new client, we will donate 10% of the proceeds to one of our favorite charities. 

Find Out If You Qualify for a Business Credit Card!

 

Chase just dropped the minimum spend for the Ink Business Preferred credit card to $8,000 in the first three months. This sounds high, but it is half of what it was at $15,000. So for business owners, this could be an easy 100,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points. You can read here about why I love these flexible points and how I use them for FREE travel. 

Do I Qualify For A Business Credit Card?

So the question is what qualifies as a business? You might be surprised. 

Obviously a business with lots of employees qualifies, but what about small businesses? 

Actually, most small side businesses can qualify. If you freelance, sell things on Etsy or Ebay, tutor, babysit, consult, blog, those all qualify for businesses. 

Plus Chase does not care if you use the credit card for personal or business expenses.

Do I Qualify For A Business Credit Card?

You can apply for a business credit card with an EIN number OR if you are a sole proprietor, then you can enter your social security number as your tax ID number. You do not need to become an LLC or Corporation. 

But you will need a credit score between 670-850. 

A few tips when filling out the application:

1. if you are a sole proprietor, your business name is your name. 

2. your business address can be your home address

3. type of business - Corporation, LLC or sole proprietorship

4. tax ID number - an EIN number if you have it, otherwise, use your social security number

5. annual business revenue - how much does your company make in a year

6. age of business - how long have you been in business

7. number of employees - you count as one employee

Do I Qualify For A Business Credit Card?

You can hold more than one Chase Ink credit card at a time so even if you already have one, you can still apply. 

This offer is for the Chase Ink Business Preferred credit card with an annual fee of $95. It comes with a few perks including 3x points on shipping, travel, advertising on social media and search engines and internet, cable and phone. CUR points are worth 25% more in the Chase travel portal so it's still better to combine points to your Chase Sapphire Reserve. 

What are 100,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points worth? Approximately $1,250 in the Chase Travel Portal and possibly much more if you transfer the points to an airline or hotel. You can learn more about the value of Chase Ultimate Reward points here. 

If you decide to apply for the Chase Ink Business Preferred, consider applying through my referral link here. You get the same great offer and I get a small bonus for referring you. 

How I Just Got Five FREE Flights To South America

You could say that I am so ready to travel that the next year is going to be awesome or a bit crazy. 

Days after the world started to shut down back in March 2020, my family of 5 were supposed to leave on an epic adventure to Santiago, Chile, surf near Vina Del Mar, hike the glacier in El Calafate Argentina and tango in Buenos Aires.

How I Just Got Five FREE Flights To South America

The entire 2.5 week trip was free. The flights, most of the very inexpensive airbnb’s, the car rental, even the hike on the glacier. Yep, all booked with points, miles or erased with our Capital One Venture card. 

And poof, in a matter of days, instead of us going on an epic adventure, my daughter who was studying in Chile came home and finished her semester abroad in our living room. 

How I Just Got Five FREE Flights To South America

Two years later, it’s time to resurrect the trip. So the question, things have changed, the world has changed, airline alliances have changed, so could we do it again! 
The answer is yes. And I'm going to show you how I did it. Hint, it has to do with Marriott Bonvoy points. 

One of my big secrets to flying a family of 5 is to fly when no one else wants to. Think overnight flights. Think holidays. The biggest holiday Christmas. Yep, no one wants to fly on Christmas Day except us. So the deals are there to be had. 

I was able to score 5 one way tickets with points from Los Angeles to Santiago, Chile without too much trouble. For 25,000 American Airlines points each, all of us on the same flight booked directly on the American Airlines website. Very straightforward. I had collected more than enough American miles to buy these tickets. No problem. 

You may be thinking to yourself that scoring one way tickets is silly. You may be right. I am betting on the fact that I can find a return for five people with points. 

How I Just Got Five FREE Flights To South America

Now my second tip about flying over the holidays. Even though no one wants to fly on Christmas Day, they sure want to fly over the holidays. So you need to be ready. Flights open approximately 330 days in advance. You want to be ready to book with your points in hand when that happens. You can actually watch the calendar advance day by day on the website so you will know exactly when the flights will open. 
The hardest part is to figure out exactly how many points you will need. That's why I love flexible points like Chase Ultimate Rewards just in case I need to top off a few more points. 

How I Just Got Five FREE Flights To South America

For this trip, I checked American return flights and they were outrageous, more than 90,000 miles per ticket. I started looking at other airlines and it turned out that Delta seemed to offering return trips from Buenos Aires for 25,000 miles each as consistently as the days were being released. So I decided to go for it. 

Now I didn't have very many Delta Airlines miles, but I had a lot of Marriott Bonvoy points. Marriott Bonvoy points transfer to dozens of different airlines at 3:1 and for every 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points you transfer, you get an additional 5,000 airline miles. So for every 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points, you get 25,000 airline miles. Follow me?

With the devaluation approaching this past March, I decided to cash in. For 5 return flights from Buenos Aires, I would need 300,000 Marriott Bonvoy points. Once I transferred these points to Delta Airlines, it would total 125,000 Delta miles enough for all the flights. You can check out a video that shows you exactly how to transfer the points here. I do recommend doing the transfer in 60,000 point increments and the names on both accounts need to match exactly. 

Allow up to 2 weeks for the points to transfer, but in my experience, it only takes a few days unless there is a problem. 

Once the points settle into your account and the flights open up, bam! It's that easy. 

If you do not have any Marriott Bonvoy points, there is a new 100,000 bonus offer available with the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant. It has a $5,000 minimum spend and a $450 annual fee. BUT it also has a $300 Marriott credit, $100 Global Entry/TSA Precheck credit and Priority Pass Lounge Membership. If you decide to apply for this card, please consider using my referral link. 

By the way, AlmostFREEFamilyTravel has teamed up with Families Fly FREE to bring more value to you. If you would like to check them out, click here and let Lyn know I sent you. :) I'll be sharing testimonials from some happy members and I'll let you know when I'll be offering webinars. 

How To Score The Best Travel Deal With Points And Miles

 

Sometimes the best option for using your points and miles is not the most obvious one and as always I am going to make another plug for why I love flexible points like Chase Ultimate Rewards.  

The most obvious is using your points and miles to book directly with the airline or hotel. But we always recommend checking multiple options before you book because you may be surprised. 

Sometimes it's a better plan to transfer miles or points to a transfer partner that may offer the same flight for less miles or use the points in a travel portal. 

Let's take a look at an example: 

We are looking to book a one way flight from San Diego to JFK in New York. 

• First, we check google flights to see what options are available. Then we check seats.aero to see what points and miles options may be available. Seats.aero is free for search 60 days out and $9.99 per month for search one year out. 

We see on Seats.aero that there are flights available on Jet Blue, Delta and American. Jet Blue is a new transfer partner with Chase so we check Jet Blue. Delta is offering flights from 15,900 points so then we hop over to Delta to see what's available. 

We see a few good options Jet Blue for 13,100 points and Delta for 14,900 points. 

The Delta flight has better timing so we check the Chase Travel Portal just to see if any of these flights are listed there and we can get an even better deal. 

Bam! We find that the Delta flight is being offered for just 11,900 points through the Chase Sapphire Reserve travel portal. CUR points are worth 1:1.5 so we can get the same flight for even less points than if we booked right on the Delta website. 

That's how we do it here and that's why we love flexible points. 

Want more personal help using points and miles for almost FREE travel? Join my Travel Coaching Program and we will design your personal strategy to travel for almost FREE and guide you through the process. Right now, you can use the promo code "FREETRAVEL" to get $50 off the program. 

Or you can book a consulting call with us for just $100. I would love to help you make priceless family memories affordable. 

***In honor of every new paid client, we will make a donation of 10% to one of our favorite charities. 

Time To Activate Your Q2 Chase Bonus Categories

 

So it's that time, time to activate your Chase Bonus categories for the second quarter. Several Chase credit cards offer rotating bonus categories. They are Chase Freedom (no longer available) and the Chase Freedom Flex. You can register from March 15th - June 14th. The 5x bonus is retroactive, but I recommend registering your cards now. If you have both cards, register both and you can earn the bonus twice. 

Q2 Bonus Categories

This quarter the bonus is for gas and home improvement purchases. It is 5x points per dollar so you can rack extra Chase Ultimate Reward points pretty quickly. 

The bonus maxes out at $1,500, but that's a lot of gas. 

If you are planning a bit of road tripping for Spring Break, why not earn some bonus points while you are at it. 

Why I love Chase Ultimate Reward Points

Chase Ultimate Reward points are one of my favorites due to their flexibility. You can transfer them to more than a dozen different airlines and three hotel chains. You can also use the points in the Chase travel portal if you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred or Reserve card. Chase is also still offering the pay yourself back feature so you can cash your points out. If you do that, your points increase in value to 1:1.25 or 1:1.5. Pretty sweet! 

If you don't have the FREEDOM FLEX card yet, you can get a $200 bonus when you reach the $500 minimum spend. This card has no annual fee and earns 5% cash back on the rotating categories plus 5% back on travel purchased in the Chase Travel Portal, 3% on drugstore and dining and 1% everywhere else. Please consider using my referral link if you decide to apply for this card.