As you know, earlier this year I received the 100,000 Ultimate Rewards point bonus by opening a Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card and meeting the minimum spend requirements.
(Courtesy of Chase.com)
With 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points, there are a number of great things you can do. I always look for the best ways to 1) maximize, and 2) optimize my points usage — but ONLY on trip experiences that I really want to take (not just ‘book the best deal’). This requires some major leg work, but it’s totally worth it when you can build one of your dream “bucket list” trips.
In this case, Ultimate Rewards points can be used by either transferring these points of travel partners like Singapore Airlines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Hyatt Resorts, etc. You probably also know that you can book travel directly through Chase Ultimate Rewards. The best part of doing it this way is that you can take advantage of the Chase Sapphire Reserve’s ability to give you “50% more value” when booking travel on the Ultimate Rewards website.
So what does this mean? Simply that my 106,525 Ultimate Rewards Points were worth $1,597.50.
The Taj Mahal (Copyright Flying High on Points)
Now the really important question: What did I use it on?
India has been on my list for a long time, I had to figure out the best way to get there. To complicate things (as I’m prone to do), I was doing a  side-trip “on my own” to Varanasi, India on the front end, a side-trip to Sri Lanka on the back end, and a guided tour of India in the middle. Oh, did I also mention I’d be flying into New Delhi, India (DEL) and flying out of Colombo, Sri Lanka (CMB) on the return flight?
The first thing I did was check the flight pricing on Google, Expedia, etc. Next I checked the travel partners and their ‘award charts’ to see how many miles they would charge and what kind of availability they had on these flights.
Travel Codex has a great tool for this, the Award Maximizer.
(image courtesy of travelcodex.com)
As you can see, the standard economy award charts for One World Alliance partners are 40,000 miles each way (may vary upon availability) and the standard Star Alliance one-way award is 42,500 miles.
How did Ultimate Rewards measure up?
Ultimate Rewards redemption
106,525 UR Points * 1.5 Chase Sapphire Reserve benefit = 159,787 [effective] UR points
or $1,597.88 in value
Here, you can clearly see the value of Ultimate Rewards points: Two tickets for two people (LAX-DEL, and CMB-LAX) on Qatar Airways (the world’s current #1 airline according to SKYTRAX) – a One World member – would only require [effective] 160,388 points – – but only 106,925 Ultimate Rewards points (with the Chase Sapphire Reserve) vs. 160,000 miles on One World Alliance! And, with Ultimate Rewards redemptions (when you pay something (anything) in cash, here $5.98) you can also earn One World miles for these flights on your favorite One World airline.
$1,603.88 2 round-trip tickets = 160,388 UR Points;
160,388 [effective] UR Points / 1.5 Chase Sapphire Reserve benefit =106,925 UR points
(The Departing Flight LAX-DEL)
(The Return Flight CMB-LAX)
The bottom line:
Booking this dream round-trip on the world’s #1 airline with Ultimate Rewards was only 26,731 UR points per person, each way! That saves 13,268 miles per person, per leg (or 53,072 points total) over transferring to a One World airline (and being subjected to their availability and pricing)!
You can clearly see in the example above that booking on Chase Ultimate Rewards – with a Chase Sapphire Reserve – can potentially save you a massive amount of points while allowing you to earn miles on the airline and itinerary of your choice.
Cheers!
