My favorite credit card
rewards point currency is still the Chase
Ultimate Rewards point. They are
extremely flexible and easy to work with.
Points don’t expire and can be easily shared with a spouse or domestic
partner.
Chase points transfer to the
following airlines: Southwest, United, British Airways, Korean Air, Singapore,
and Virgin Atlantic. Chase points
transfer to the following hotels: Hyatt, IHG, Marriott, and Ritz Carlton. Chase points also transfer to Amtrak. While I don’t recommend cashing them out, you
can do so at a 1 point = 1 cent rate.
I like to keep a healthy
stash of different credit card point currencies to have on hand for future
trips, emergencies or last minute travel plans.
I utilize these points as a travel fund.
Just like we diversify our investments, we diversify our point
currencies.
Free flight from Los
Angeles to Portland for my wife
I just booked a last minute flight for my wife to fly from Los Angeles (LAX) to Portland (PDX) so that she can attend her friend’s wedding. At first she wasn’t planning on going since she wanted to stay home with our son. Now that he is 2 months old and slightly easier to take care of, I feel comfortable watching the little guy while my wife gets away for a day.
I just booked a last minute flight for my wife to fly from Los Angeles (LAX) to Portland (PDX) so that she can attend her friend’s wedding. At first she wasn’t planning on going since she wanted to stay home with our son. Now that he is 2 months old and slightly easier to take care of, I feel comfortable watching the little guy while my wife gets away for a day.
The first thing I did was log
into my Southwest Rapid Rewards account to see how many miles I would need to
redeem for my wife’s flight preference:
The flight my wife chose
required 14,208 Rapid Rewards points
and a $5.60 security fee.
The cash price for the same
flight was $225. Using points for this flight provides a value
of 1 point = 1.58 cents.
The next thing I did was to
check how many points I already had available:
I had 5,867 points, not
enough to book a flight but a good starting point. These are leftover points from previous
bookings as well as deposits from e-rewards
surveys and e-miles offers.
In order to book the flight,
I needed 8,341 more Rapid Rewards points (14,208 – 5,867). Since Chase only allows you to transfer
points in 1,000-point increments, I needed to transfer 9,000 points from my Ultimate Rewards account into my
Southwest Rapid Rewards account. I
logged into www.UltimateRewards.com
to transfer the points. The process was
extremely easy and the points were immediately available for use in my
Southwest account.
Once I had enough Rapid
Rewards points in my account, I was able to book the flight for free (minus the
$5.60 security fee)!
I’m glad that we
keep points on hand for last minute travel situations like this. Otherwise, we would have to spend $225 for
the flight! Taking into account the $5.60 travel fees, we saved $219.40 on this flight!
For my wife’s return flight,
I took advantage of the American Express Premier Rewards Gold card’s $100
airline credit (x2) to make the booking.
I’ll write more about this once I get my statement credit.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments? Questions?