How to use points with Chase Sapphire

We recently opened up a Chase Sapphire Card. We are new to the points/reward system. We always just paid cash for everything before but then someone mentioned going about it this route so we can accrue miles/points/etc.

Anyhow, whats the best way to go about getting the most bang for your buck when it comes to Chase Sapphire card? I've heard there are ways to get more out of your points, just havent been able to figure out how?

We just booked our flights to europe as well as cruise. With the points we are accumulating, we plan to use them to hopefully book hotel.

Eventually, we will want to use the points to pay our flights.

What suggestions, tricks, etc do you know and would kindly share with new people like us?

Chase Sapphire is one of a group of cards that lets you transfer accumulated points into specific airline frequent flyer programs. Chase allows this with (top of my head) United, Southwest, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, and probably some others.

This is different from a specific airline-branded card like Citibank's American Airlines card, where the points automatically go into an AA account, and different from cards like Capital One where you redeem points for tickets without actually accruing any frequent flyer miles in any particular program.

With the Chase Sapphire card, you can "shop" for award availability among a couple of different airlines (depending on where you're going, whether you want coach or business/first class) and when you see something you like, transfer the Chase points to that airline's FF program, then redeem those miles for the trip. It adds a step to the redemption process, but it expands the range of options you have, since you can use the transferred points for any of that airline's partners, too. (For example, transfer Chase points to United, then redeem them for flights on United's partners such as Lufthansa or Air Canada.)

Many people swear by the Chase Sapphire for this benefit. A similar program exists with the Starwood hotel system's SPG-branded credit cards. SPG points can be transferred (often with a bonus) to many more airlines than with the Chase card, but not all the transfers are instantaneous, so you run the risk of seeing some seats available on X airline, transfer the SPG points in order to redeem them, only to find that the seats have vanished in the couple of days it took for the SPG points to get to the airline's FF account.

With the Capital One type cards, you can only redeem for coach seats, but don't have to worry about availability. The downside is that the redemption rates are lousy compared to the airline programs.

We recently opened up a Chase Sapphire Card. We are new to the points/reward system. We always just paid cash for everything before but then someone mentioned going about it this route so we can accrue miles/points/etc.

 

Anyhow, whats the best way to go about getting the most bang for your buck when it comes to Chase Sapphire card? I've heard there are ways to get more out of your points, just havent been able to figure out how?

 

We just booked our flights to europe as well as cruise. With the points we are accumulating, we plan to use them to hopefully book hotel.

 

Eventually, we will want to use the points to pay our flights.

 

What suggestions, tricks, etc do you know and would kindly share with new people like us?

The best bang for the buck is with airline tickets. You will see this when you compare how many miles you need for a Rt airline ticket to the cost of using miles to book a hotel. I never use miles for hotels, only flights. You can transfer miles to UAL and get a RT ticket in the US for as low as 25,000 miles. For europe, it can be as cheap as 60,000 miles RT. United usually has pretty good availability and flies to alot of places with partner airlines. I just saved over $1,300 booking a Rt ticket to Europe, even after paying fees.

I hope you got the 40,000 mileage bonus when you opened the card.

I have the Chase Sapphire card in my name and got a bonus of 40,000 points plus 5,000 for hubby with a charge of $3,000 (cruise down payment and cruise excursions for A cruise) and hubby has United card from Chase where got a 50,000 bonus plus 5,000 for me as 2nd user and meeting charge requirement (paid off O cruise) and with those plus the points in our United frequent flyer accounts were able to get free economy roundtrip flights from Washington DC to San Francisco overnight layover to United flight to Taipei with 3 day stopover then EVA (United partner) flight to Bali Indonesia. The cruise is 16 days Bali to Osaka and then week in Japan and flight home from Tokyo to Washington DC. I gathered the points in a period of 6 weeks and without spending money beyond what I would have had to pay for the cruises anyway. I took cruise only and got a $750 reduction in cruise fare arranged by TA. We did upgrade to Economy + (important to fly on United flights because economy + is much nicer and much more expensive on other airlines -- different class). 1 Bag flys free for United card. (Both users on card)

I was totally new to points and I found it very easy to do. Once we had paid the credit card bill and the points and bonus was showing in our account on Chase on-line just went to redeem and transferred the number of points needed to EACH of our frequent flyer accounts on United. Tickets is in the individual name not a set of 2 tickets together. Because of redemption tickets being one way -- several ways you can try to use the fewest points possible. If you transfer points from one United account to another there is a monetary fee from United. Transferring points from Chase Sapphire there is not a transfer fee. Our traveling companion was able to do the same procedure. We did pay United for telephone booking because of the very complicated route but that saved us thousands of points because the agent knew how to route us to a cheaper zone (Taipei instead of Tokyo as first stop in Asia)

I am a real fan. I will pay for most of my hotels with travel points from Chase or Venture card with the erase feature. I believe in using the points quickly and not chancing a change in value so if not another flight in immediate future then I use the points on hotels using the "eraser" feature. I find I can get better hotel prices on the hotel website (loyalty deals) and then pay at the time of the room occupancy. Occasionally I will prepay in the last 2 weeks or so before the trip when prices are probably as low as it will go on the reserved room.

Just do your tickets step by step and use the big stuff like cruise payment to get the bonus. Now that I have the United tickets I have gone to using the Venture card that gives out a slightly higher number of points on purchase -- I don't need lots of points in the United account. I use Sapphire for travel and eating out tabs as they are double points.

Good luck. I will see if I renew all these cards or if I apply for new ones to avoid yearly fees. For NOW call me a huge fan but attentive to changes and charges.

Thanks everyone! Def the type of asnwers I wanted. Makes it easier to understand and figure out now.

We did get our 40,000 points. Got the card about 2 months ago and have racked up about 60,000 points. We already purchased our flights to europe for our next cruise. Next thing is paying off the cruise which we will do using chase.

Playing the mileage game is not for the faint of heart. You have to be willing to be flexible and not have plans locked down months in advance. I just recently took a flight using my American miles. I studied the rules and learned that as long as my origin and destination didn't change then I could make endless numbers of changes to the itinerary. I wanted to fly in first class on a 3 class plane and found a very convoluted routing that got me to my cruise start point in time. I then religiously checked flights looking for better options. As the days ticked by slowly better flights opened up and the flights I really wanted opened up just a few days prior departure.

If you are traveling alone then the chances of your "perfect" flights opening up are pretty good, but if you are a party of more than 2 then you should really think about splitting up. I was traveling with a friend from Bali back to the US. We ended up on the same Bali to Hong Kong flight but ended up having to split up on the segments back to the USA. She flew to LAX while I flew to SFO. It really wasn't a big deal since we were both adults and sophisticated travelers who knew how to navigate an airport. It was totally worth it since we were able to both travel in Cathay Pacific First Class with Krug champagne and caviar service.

If you are the type of person that needs VERY specific routes and seats months in advance then you are better off just paying for your tickets (especially if you need multiples) than playing the award game. Airlines only release saver award seats if they expect those seats to go unsold. Your other option to pay "anytime" (name varies by program) for seats, but then the ticket is usually double in mileage price.