Description: The following article is mainly going to talk about the best and worst ways to use the Chase Sapphire Reserve, it is related to its sign-up bonus, points to maximize value and some benefits we can get if we use it.
Today we’re going to talk about the best and worst ways to use the points that you get from the chase.
The best way to use your points to maximize value is to transfer partners, you transform the points and chase to one of their transfer partners at a one-to-one raised and then redeeming the points for either hotels or flights.
They offer the real advantage here, you get two or three x the points normally was converting it to cash, you’re getting to the three cents per point which has a lot of value, there are two ways that people use to transfer partners.
I cover both of them. The first way is the baller, first-class approach, the second way is economy nerdy approach, so the ball around has a lot of normal people who are able to fly first-class and get these once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
I would consider it, when you’re going on a honeymoon, parents 60th anniversary or a wedding anniversary would make a lot of sense, special occasions where you want to go above and beyond, what you would do in a way is still reasonable and free or relatively free of recoup.
There are other approaches that we mentioned later on, then use the tape portal which might make more sense than the example that I mentioned, so it still works, it requires homework and unless you’re someone who really likes to plan out their trips and optimize around things.
I wouldn’t recommend it, it’s for most people, it’s too much work, so the best way to user points is through the taste travel portal here, you’re getting 1.5 X pass on your points, so for 100,000 points, you’re getting $1,500 in travel.
What you should do is to transfer your points from your freedom unlimited, if you had an old Chase Sapphire Preferred or Chase Sapphire, you can transfer those as well and then use the points from the reserve in order to book on the portal to get the 1.5 X value.
In terms of price, you’re effectively getting a discount, you have to be careful with the area, you have to spend out 1 minute to check the price, so I’ve had times where the price on Google flights says 1,000.
The price on the portal says 1500 and in that case it’s like the price on the portal, it is higher price, so you’re not getting a discount, because it’s an inflated price, so you have to make sure that the price on the portal is accurate, you’re getting a discount.
Otherwise, it makes sense to use cash or find a different flight where you are getting that value, because if you’re using your points, you want to make sure you’re getting more than one cents per point, you’re trying to get at least 1 point 5 cents per point.
The reason I like this approach is that it’s straightforward for people to use it and for people who don’t want to spend too much time researching, they can do this and spend 1 minute checking Google flights to make sure that I’m getting a good discount on it.
The next good way is to use your points through statement credit, you’re getting 1 cents per point, meaning that your points are equivalent to thousand dollars in cash. I’ll explain, the good part is that you get cash.
If you have a balance on your credit cards, you can’t pay off soon, if you need the cash, it’s great, it’s only in Ocampo, you’re leaving a lot of money on the table, so instead of $1,500 and travel, you’re getting only a thousand dollars in cash, so you’re losing $500, it works if it were in a bind.
I think it’s a waste, so a bad way to redeem our points by getting gift cards, so you can do this on chases portal again where you’re redeeming it for one point, let’s say Chipotle or Sears or Best Buy would be 100,000 points.
This is worse than the previous approach, because you could have bought the gift card with a credit card, you’re effectively spending the points in order to get the same exact result, the only real reason that we consider doing this is that if you’re getting it, it’s a gift card for your friends or a family member.
But if you’re looking to get a gift card, you can go online, there’s a bunch of different resources where you can get gift cards for 80 or 90 cents on the dollar, so gift card granny ABC gift card, there are all these trusted places where you’re effectively using a big discount on gift cards.
Why would you pay effectively full price for it, so the worst way to use our URL points is through Amazon checkout, so when you’re buying stuff on Amazon and checking out, if you have your chase card links to give you an option to apply your points towards the purchase, the problem here is that you’re only getting 80 cents on a dollar, you’re buying something on Amazon for $800.
You would need a hundred thousand, you are points in order to do it, you can see why it doesn’t make sense, especially if we looked at the previous two examples where you could redeem 100,000 points for a dozen dollars, so I’m not sure why they did this.
I think it used to be one hundred thousand to one thousand dollars, but recently fell over eight hundred, there’s literally no reason to do this, if you did the approach to redeem, you could have bought something on Amazon, you could have got an Amazon gift card using the bad approach that we mentioned.
You still get hundred dollars better off, so if you do this approach, you’re effectively throwing away $200 and it feels bad that they make it so simple and that they even recommend it, they like to use this process, it’s a lot easier.
When it forces you to lose out all of your money, if you ever see anyone trying to do this, I’ll save you 20%. I think part of this is that it’s like a casino approach where people view points as points and play money basically and not as real money. It’s basically what your emails use when they eat chips, you realize this trip is worth $100 instead of it being a piece of plastic.