Category Archives: Chase

Chase Ultimate Rewards: Versatility Matters!

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(This is a data recovered post, originally published on July 5th, 2015.)

How my Ultimate Rewards points have bailed me out 3 of the 4 times I have been short on points/miles

My first major credit card sign-up was the Chase Sapphire Preferred (see my full review here). I had heard and read about how great Chase Ultimate Rewards (UR) points were, and if you’re a regular on points blogs you’ll know that UR points are consistently touted as the most valuable points out there. The most commonly cited reason for this value is their versatility. I didn’t really understand why this was such a big deal until I booked my first flight with rewards.

Ultimate Rewards points can be transferred, with no penalty (i.e. a 1:1 ratio), to 11 different partner programs. This means if you are short points for a purchase with one of these programs, you can back-fill your balance with transferred UR points. Or, like I did with my first ever award flight, you can fund your whole purchase with transferred UR points.

I used UR points to fund my United Mileage Plus account for a trip to Europe before I had ever earned a single United Airlines mile. My Southwest Rapid Rewards account balance was only 750 points when I discovered that Southwest was the only airline that worked with my schedule for our Jamaica trip earlier this year. For yet another flight booked through United, my wife’s United Mileage Plus account had enough mileage for the award ticket but mine was a few thousand miles short, so once again UR points saved the day as I was able to back-fill miles from my Chase UR account to book my ticket.

In each of these cases there was very limited award seat availability and the ability to quickly get the points/miles where I needed them (I should mention the transfer only takes a matter of seconds!) probably saved my travel plans.

This versatility to transfer to partner programs, $0.01 cash redemption value, and discounted travel booking redemption make Chase Ultimate Rewards a strong contender for the most valuable type of points or miles out there.  And if things didn’t already seem too good to be true, they are also some of the easiest to get.  All Chase Sapphire and Ink products earn UR points and these cards consistently have great sign up bonuses, like the current 45k bonus for the Chase Sapphire Preferred.

All the Ultimate Rewards earning cards we’ve had over the years

All the Ultimate Rewards earning cards we’ve had over the years

Building up UR points is a valuable tactic to accomplish your overall miles and points strategy.

My Last Round of Credit Card Applications – Overview

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The last weekly update mentioned I was going to do a mini app-o-rama. I applied online for 2 cards that night: the CitiBusiness Platinum Select American Airlines AAdvantage World MasterCard (what a mouthful!), and the Chase IHG Rewards Club card. I’ll post full reviews of each card later, but for now I’ll just mention each card’s bonus offer.

  • CitiBusiness American Airlines AAdvantage card: 50k miles after $3k in 3 months spend
  • Chase IHG card: 70k IHG points after $1k in 3 months spend

Here’s how my online applications fared:
Citi biz AAdvantage pending_sm
IHG pending_sm
Boooo… No one likes to get the “Application Pending” message. It’s so anticlimactic compared to the “Congratulations! You’re awesome enough to get our great rewards card! Great job, sport!” message you get when you’re instantly approved. Alas, I got two ‘pendings’ so I called both reconsideration lines the next day.

I got through to a live person with Chase after 1 ring. After I asked about the application he quickly put me on hold so he could find someone to review my app. When he came back after 3 minutes and told me to hold again I asked him if my total credit limit with Chase was the reason my application was pending. He said it was over the limit he’s authorized to approve, but he had recommended a credit increase (meaning I would get the new card) based on my credit report. Before he could get me on hold again I asked him if he could just transfer some credit limit for the new card from one of my existing Chase cards. He quickly told me that it would work, he asked which card I wanted the credit limit transferred from and how much, and put me on hold to finalize it.

When he came back after another 3-4 minutes the application was approved, pending identity confirmation. He added Rachel to the call (same person I talked to last time I needed to verify my ID) and after a few questions she verified that it was really me. Everything went quickly, smoothly, and most importantly, the way I wanted it. I’ll chalk this call up to another example of Chase’s excellent customer service.

The next call was to Citi’s application status hotline. After hearing that my app was still in process, I followed the prompts to speak to customer service. This may have been a mistake since I already had a direct phone number to the CitiBusiness recon line. I think all I got for my laziness was an extra 20 minutes on hold. When I finally got a real person on the line, it went very smoothly. He checked on my application and verified my income and identity. After 2-3 minutes on hold he informed me I was approved and would get the card in the mail within 5-7 business days. It arrived a week later (today). Overall the Citi customer service was good, but the hold time was annoying.

Why only 2 card applications, bro?
Good question. A friend of mine questioned my choice and number of cards for this latest round, and I don’t blame him. Conventional wisdom says “App 3 cards; make each app-o-rama count, son!” While I usually agree with that wisdom, there are several reasons for my decision to only get 2 cards this time around.

  1. We may be applying for a mortgage or mortgage pre-approval within the next few months.  While my high 700s credit score probably won’t suffer enough to make a difference on a loan application, I don’t want to push it.  My logic may be a bit off, but it makes me feel better to tone it down a bit for the time being.
  2. There are no *spectacular* offers out there at the moment.  All the standard “good” offers that are available right now are already in my wallet or in my safe.  And the really good cards I still have yet to get (Chase Hyatt, Southwest Rapid Rewards to name a few) don’t fit into my timing strategy at this point.

Overall, this nice little app round gets me 50k AAdvantage miles (currently my favorite airline miles) and [at least] 70k IHG points, which fills a weak point in my overall points and miles portfolio.  Stay tuned for more details on the offers, as well as full reviews on my new cards!

In the meantime, here are the links to the flyertalk wikis for the cards in this post.  The wikis contain links to the card offers; and the most recent forum posts contain data and reports on people’s recent applications and bonus offers.
Flyertalk IHG Card wiki
Citi American Airlines cards/offers

Card Review: Chase Sapphire Preferred

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Our well worn Sapphire Preferred cards (pre- chip+PIN)

Our well worn Sapphire Preferred cards (pre- chip+PIN)

Basic Stats
– Issuer: Chase
– Logo: Visa
– Points earned: Ultimate Rewards
– 1 pt per dollar on all purchases
– 2 pt per dollar on travel & dining
– 3 pt per dollar on dining (1st Friday of every month)
– Foreign transaction fee: no
– Chip + PIN: yes
– Annual fee: $95

Current sign-up bonus
– 40,000 (50,000 as of 11-17-15) bonus points after $4000 spend in 3 months
– 5,000 bonus points with addition of authorized user
– 1st year annual fee waived

The Chase Sapphire Preferred is the gold standard in premium credit cards.  It’s been around a long time and has remained a good deal for years.  Chase has a reputation for excellent customer service and Chase Ultimate Rewards (UR) are the single most valuable points out there.  Besides being incredibly versatile, UR points do not expire and they can be transferred among your accounts, any business accounts you may own, and your spouse’s account for free.  Besides the sign-up bonus and regular spending, you can also rack up UR points be using Chase’s online shopping portal, which will get you at least 1 extra point per dollar at most major online retailers.

And remember, the minimum bonus spend also counts towards regular points accrual, so by the time you get the bonus for this card, you will have earned at least 44,000 54,000 UR points.  Add an authorized user when you apply and make one purchase with the second card for another 5,000 bonus points.  Make some of those purchases at restaurants or hotels and you can get to 50k 60k quite easily.

Here are some examples of how you could use the UR points you earn from this card:

  • 3 nights at Hyatt Andaz Peninsula Papagayo Resort in Costa Rica; $1695 worth of lodging for 45k Ultimate Rewards transferred to Hyatt Gold PassportHyatt Andaz Peninsula Papagayo in Costa Rica
  • One-way business class on Canada Air 787 Dreamliner, Minneapolis to Zurich; A $5006 flight for 57.5k Ultimate Rewards transferred to United Mileage Plus

    Business class on Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner

    The lie-flat business class mini-suite in Canada Air’s 787 Dreamliner

  • Round trip from the continental U.S. to the Caribbean in economy class; 35k Ultimate Rewards transferred to United Mileage Plus
  • Depending on where and when you fly, 49k Ultimate Rewards transferred to Southwest Airlines could get you 2 round trip flights.Southwest map
  • 49k 59k from your bonuses & required spend gets you $588 $708 in travel from the Ultimate Rewards Travel Booking service
  • 49k 59k from your bonuses & required spend is also worth $490 $590 credited to your account.  This is the least efficient redemption method, but you could use it if you really want the cash.

My experience with the Chase Sapphire Preferred
This was the first “premium” credit card I applied for, way back when I was starting out and mainly focused on getting my debt on to 0% interest cards.  I figured as long as I was apping cards, I should go for one with a nice bonus and points program.  Creditkarma says the average credit score to get approved for the Sapphire Preferred is 730.  I was right around 760 and got instantly approved online.  My wife applied at the same time and was also approved online.

metalcards

The metal core of the Chase Sapphire Preferred

When we got our cards in the mail, we were pleasantly surprised at how cool they looked!  (Trust me, once you’re a full blown card fanatic you’ll care about how they look, too).  The unique thing about the Chase Sapphire Preferred is that it’s metal.  That’s right, not only will this card get you some valuable points, but it may save your life someday if you ever get shot in the wallet.  We still enjoy the comments we hear when handing the card to a cashier to pay for something.

We both hit our bonus spends and the points earned eventually funded my very first points redemption, airfare to Europe with UnitedPlus miles transferred from Ultimate Rewards.  UR points have bailed me out several times since then, with their incredible versatility (Ultimate Rewards can be transferred to 11 different partner programs.)

My wife ended up downgrading her card to the regular Chase Sapphire to avoid paying the annual fee after the first year, but I have paid the fee twice on my Sapphire Preferred (a rarity in this game).  It hasn’t left my wallet in 3 years and is still my go-to card for dining purchases.

GET THE CHASE SAPPHIRE PREFERRED
I’m not cool enough to have credit card affiliate links but I can get bonus points of my own if you apply through my referral link.  If you got some value from my review, I would appreciate it very much if you applied through the link, which has the same terms and bonus as the public offer.

Click here to apply for the Chase Sapphire Preferred!

Even if you don’t use my link, I highly recommend this card to anyone as it offers a nice pile of Ultimate Rewards, no foreign transaction fees, 2x points on travel and dining, and no annual fee for the 1st year.