Chase Sapphire card vs 2% cash back?

[BlueberryPie]

I just purchased a flight from Frontier to visit my MIL but then realized I won't be getting 5x ponts for travel because I purchased directly from Frontier, not through the Chase portal. Just too much hassle to maximize the points. I don't want to have to think about it every time i make a purchase.

[Sunset]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlueberryPie I just purchased a flight from Frontier to visit my MIL but then realized I won't be getting 5x ponts for travel because I purchased directly from Frontier, not through the Chase portal. Just too much hassle to maximize the points. I don't want to have to think about it every time i make a purchase.

Sure, but you still get the 1% plus the travel benefits, so if your flight is severely delayed or luggage lost, etc, you are covered by insurance.

[sengsational]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scuba I got this Chase Sapphire card because of the great bonus to sign up, but now I’m not even sure how to take advantage of it. I wish I could just tell them I want the $1,250 cash and be done with it. It may have other great benefits but I’m not sure what I’d really use. We do travel and dine out a lot so before I cancel, I need to make it a priority to read up on the details and figure out if we should keep this card and if so, for what purpose.

I will be / am in the same boat as you (haven't hit my spend target yet, but will). The Elan is so easy to use points, and I'm kind of dreading figuring out how to spend the Chase Sapphire points to get the most out of them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by calmloki So here's the deal - it's all about the bonus bucks. Pick a decent points back card to carry and use as a default card (we use the no annual fee 2% cash back into a Fidelity savings account card). Hit the banks a couple times per year for nice $500-$1000 bonus amounts. Maybe get separate husband and wife cards if the bonus is big enough - and cancel the cards before the annual fee hits. I can focus efforts on meeting a required spend and putting everything possible on one card but don't have the desire or mental acuity or energy to chase a couple extra percent by using a fistful of cards for a few extra months (rotating bonus categories!) on different picayune individual bills . Or maybe that's just me being lazy.

Agreed 100%. Not the lazy part, just the signup bonus and 2% Elan card for simplicity.

[explanade]

Here's an example of a current redemption with Chase Sapphire Preferred UR points.

https://viewfromthewing.com/chase-trasnfer-bonus-avios/

[PaunchyPirate]

Quote:

Originally Posted by explanade Here's an example of a current redemption with Chase Sapphire Preferred UR points. https://viewfromthewing.com/chase-trasnfer-bonus-avios/

Thanks. This is helpful. I just met the $4000 requirement to get the 100,000 point bonus (with 10 days to spare!). I primarily joined for the bonus. I will look for deals like this to maximize those points. I may or may not used the card much as the year goes on. I will continue to learn what I like or don’t like about it and go from there.

[Chuckanut]

I think a lot of the usefulness of the Chase card for me will be the travel insurance it comes with. I don't need to insure against every little thing that happens when I travel but if I lose $4000 in deposits it would be nice to get most if not all back. Same goes with the car rental insurance. I despise the overpriced 'insurance' sold by the rental car companies. It is a true ripoff as well as an insult to my intelligence.

So, whether I keep the card depends on how much I travel over the net 10 months. If Covid continues to raise its ugly head and I limit my traveling, then the card is not of much value. OTOH, if we get a handle on how to live with this virus, and my health stays good I'll be on the road or in the air, and my poor kids may forget what I look like. :-)

The ability to transfer points seems good, if one cares to find the best point deals and then transfer points to get the deal:

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If you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, Chase Sapphire Reserve®, or Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card, among other options your points can be used towards statement credits or transferred to: Airlines: United, Air Canada, Virgin Atlantic, British Airways, Singapore Airlines, Air France KL< JetBlue, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Emirates, Southwest Hotels Hyatt, Marriott, IHG

As far as the not using the points for flights and hotels rooms goes, can't they also be applied to the amount due on the CC? One will only get 1¢ per point instead of 1.25¢ and I suppose those who play the CC game will get apoplectic over that waste. But, that is still money in the bank for me.

[sengsational]

If paying the credit card bill gives me $0.01, that's fine.

I looked at transferring and getting 30% more points (in a different 'currency') and did not get too excited about missing out on that. But if a $3,000 businesses class ticket can be had for 56,000 points? Yeah, that has my interest! I'm thinking that's a cherry picked example, but definitely worth a little finagling. Of course a specific trip would have to be in the planning stages, and that ain't happening for at least a little while.

[BlueberryPie]

Does anyone know if you must have enough points to cover a trips (when going points for dollars, not miles) or can you apply points then pay the rest on the CC?

[Scuba]

Has anyone had to make a claim on the travel insurance Chase provides? I’m just wondering if it’s really good coverage and easy to get claims processed or not. We recently cancelled a Galapagos trip and luckily we were insured through TravelGuard. The claim filing process was a bit cumbersome but we were fully reimbursed within a week to ten days.

[Sunset]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuckanut I think a lot of the usefulness of the Chase card for me will be the travel insurance it comes with.... As far as the not using the points for flights and hotels rooms goes, can't they also be applied to the amount due on the CC? One will only get 1¢ per point instead of 1.25¢ and I suppose those who play the CC game will get apoplectic over that waste. But, that is still money in the bank for me.

I'll probably use it mostly for travel.

Including the $50 hotel credit currently if I can get traveling somewhere ...

As for using the $$ towards the CC, right now until Sept 30th, you get 1.25 when applying it towards grocery store purchases you made, and Home depot type stores and 2 other things I forget.

Try to redeem some points you have and it will show you the extra bonus values currently available.

I've redeemed over $188 on grocery shopping so far, still working on my $4K spend.
This does not count the $50 they gave me for spending at grocery stores.

[sengsational]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlueberryPie Does anyone know if you must have enough points to cover a trips (when going points for dollars, not miles) or can you apply points then pay the rest on the CC?

The way that works (in my limited experience) is you buy points with real money (at an inflated rate) in order to make up the difference. Again, I'm no expert, but my rather old experience indicated that it only made sense if you could cover 90+% of the ticket with points.

[Chuckanut]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sengsational The way that works (in my limited experience) is you buy points with real money (at an inflated rate) in order to make up the difference. Again, I'm no expert, but my rather old experience indicated that it only made sense if you could cover 90+% of the ticket with points.

+1

I looked at buying points once. Buying a few thousand points(assuming you can buy that little) may make sense to get that free night in the a fancy suite with more room, nice view of the beach, etc. But, mostly, its a rather expensive way to acquire points. My fear is that I spend real money to get points and in a few months they are devalued by the hotel chain, airline, whatever.

The best overall deal is still 2% cash back, IMHO. And if you don't mind juggling a few cards every quarter, take advantage of the 5% cash back promotions if you will shop those stores anyway. Show me the money.

[BlueberryPie]

I know that buying "miles" to get enough to cover a miles award is usually not worth it.

What I am asking is if I go on their travel portal and want to book a $500 flight, but have only 30,000 UP points, worth $375 at 1.25c/pt can apply my 30K points for $375 credit and then pay the remaining $125?

[sengsational]

^Right. But I don't think that's possible because buying a flight with miles is "priced" in miles. So, maybe all domestic cattle class "miles designated seats" are 75,000 miles. That includes short hops and longer hops and if you bought the ticket with money, the price might go from $100 to $500.

ETA: I see you actually want to buy with dollars after "cashing-in" your miles. I don't know the answer. Sorry for misinterpreting your question twice, lol!

My related question is about shopping with miles. Until you have your miles in the airline site, you can't know for sure if you can get the flight you want for the points you expect.

tl;dr: Let's say I notice I can transfer points to Iberia. Obviously I can go into Iberia site or select Iberia in Kayak.com and find flights priced in dollars. But it would seem I'd need to read and interpret the rules on the public Iberia site to kind of guess if I could use points to get the ticket I wanted and kind of guess at the number of points the ticket I wanted would cost (in points). Then I'd transfer the points over and have the ability to actually shop for flights on the web site, and at that point, I might see that my interpretation was correct, or I might see that my interpretation was incorrect, or that no seats are available, etc. I could research on the travel guru type sites to increase my chances of having the airline miles purchase align with my expectations, but it sounds like quite a lot of work, and includes some risk of failure.

[BlueberryPie]

It looks like the Chase portal lets you buy flights with points-as-dollars, not miles (not going through the airline miles redemption). I could pretend I'm buying a round trip to somewhere expensive to exceed my current $1400 of credits and see it it'd let me pay the difference, but I'm scared about accidentally consuming point as part of the experiment, and there is nowhere I want to fly for over $1400 at the moment

[walkinwood]

Its been a while since I've done that, but yes - you could use your points towards a purchase on their portal & cover the rest with your credit card. And you get 25% of the points used back into your account (plus whatever you get with the credit card purchase) with the Preferred card.

[Sunset]

Years ago , I could on the Delta site, buy a flight in cash or miles + cash, or just miles.
It was very flexible, and seemed fairly priced.

I have no idea about Chase, but looking forward to finding out

[explanade]

I have to admit I've never used the Chase portal.

One reason is the airlines have tightened rules on elite qualification so I've usually bought plane tickets directly.

I've only transferred Chase UR points to miles.

Also I've looked briefly at booking hotels through Chase. Prices are higher so that is how that works.

[Markola]

Yikes! Due to some good fortune recently with a large monthly payment I no longer have to make right now, it’s going to be a challenge to meet Chase Sapphire’s $4,000 spend in 3 months requirement to get the 100,000 points. I’m definitely not increasing our spending just to meet a credit card loyalty requirement, however.

[Chuckanut]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Markola Yikes! Due to some good fortune recently with a large monthly payment I no longer have to make right now, it’s going to be a challenge to meet Chase Sapphire’s $4,000 spend in 3 months requirement to get the 100,000 points. I’m definitely not increasing our spending just to meet a credit card loyalty requirement, however.

Any chance you can pre-pay some ongpiong bill. My utility company allows me to pay via a credit card with no additional fee. So I prepaid about 5 months worth of electrical usage to help get me over thee $4000 mark.

Frankly, I would rather pre-pay my utility bill than buy $1000 in gift cards from the local Supermarket.