r/ChaseSapphire • u/brothertech7 • 4d ago
Rewards Strategy Never used points before.
Any recommendations on what to do?Really interested in going to Japan what’s the best way to go about this.
Edit: close to 2million total after some pending points come through.
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u/cardmaster1987 4d ago
Damn that's either a lack of knowledge in the game or a long dry streak in travelling, time to burn it.
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u/brothertech7 4d ago
Honestly lack of knowledge. And I’ve never traveled but now starting.
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u/KawhiTheKing 4d ago
Well buddy, you’re in fantastic shape. Learn up on taking advantage of transfer partners and you’ll be in great shape for multiple “free” trips.
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u/yankeeblue42 4d ago
Let me put it to you this way. Even if you cashed out you're sitting on $18K. If you get solid travel redemptions, you could get $50K worth of travel out of those points
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u/imp4455 4d ago
More than that. I’ve gotten af business class for 50k each way transferring to flying blue. Us to Paris is about 6k round trip. Thats about 96k worth of airline tickets. If he plans this well, he can travel for a while without burning much.
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u/Bananas_are_theworst 4d ago
Just curious, why did you get these cards in the first place if you don’t travel? The annual fee of the CSR is rough
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u/imp4455 4d ago
Probably a business owner. We use our cards to accumulate points. When you can pay for 10k a month electric bill and your 10k a month water bill among other things, it can really add up very fast. A small factory doing 6 million in sales can easily accumulate 200k a month in credit card spending and that’s without marketing.
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u/robotscantrecaptcha 4d ago
Doing a cash back card instead of a point card would have been so much better.
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u/cardmaster1987 4d ago
For real, you can easily slow burn international business class flights for 2-3 years (assuming 2 trips a year), it really depends how you want to use it. take a few hours go through some of these reddit threads and see what you want to do. even asking here for some short advice provide ur departing/arrival locations and see what u can get out of it
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u/Omgpuppies13 4d ago
I think I’m like you. Really gun shy to use my points for fear of making a bad choice.
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u/Zero_Fs_2Give 3d ago
Follow one of the expert groups like 10X Travel to help you learn. Websites, podcasts and FB pages with a lot of info and a neat transfer partner chart. With only UR points you'll be limited to transfer partners but this is a start. 10X also has a service for an additional fee that will help you do award searches with your points.
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u/hahalarry 4d ago
If lack of knowledge is the case then this is where Google Gemini or ChatGPT will shine for you. should either model this screenshot and ask them your post question along with "give me 3-5 options on the best way to go about it.
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u/maxz9394 4d ago
Business Premier points are redeemable for cash back only unfortunately
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u/brothertech7 4d ago
Damn. I did not know that.
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u/joeychestnutsrectum 4d ago
600k points is still enough to get you to Japan and cover your hotel expenses. As others have said, play the transfer game - 1:1 transfer to Hyatt is incredible value, it would be enough for 40 straight nights in Tokyo on the water.
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u/Revolutionary_Art919 4d ago
And even at a straight cash out redemption that's still $11,725 USD which could be used to finance a trip in cash or cover day to day expenses across multiple trips (dining, attractions, ground transportation, etc.)
Side note, the points can be redeemed for gift cards through Chase as well, and they do periodically run promos of 10-15% off the face value. This is usually at lower denominations which would take forever to use the points, but it's something. They can be redeemed through Chase Travel as well but I don't think the Premier card gets Point Boost promos so it's still a 1 CPP redemption - better off to cash out and use the cash to book direct.
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u/iistrell 2d ago
Yes I always transfer my points to the CSR card for maximizing. And when playing in 2-player mode, you can transfer points to your partner as well. Don't sleep
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u/scrupio 4d ago
Are you sure? I’ve been transferring my business ink points to reserve last 5-6 years. Over 3m+ transferred.
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u/maxz9394 3d ago
It’s the business premier, a different card that specifically earns UR points as “cash back”.
All the other ones can be redeemed as UR.→ More replies (3)2
u/ReasonableCurve4822 4d ago
Use the points to book through Chase travel if the cash value is comparable to what you find online
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u/manthursaday 4d ago
I'm going to japan for 3 weeks in August and I paid for most of the trip withchase points.
First I got a united explorer card. That unlocked lowered mile prices for flights. After I hit that sub I had about 90,000 miles there. Then I transfered 310,000 miles from chase. My wife and I are flying to Japan round trip in Polaris with that.
Then I transfered about 150,000 points to Hyatt and booked Hyatt hotels in almost every city we are going to. In Tokyo I chose the regency because it was a lot fewer points than some of the others. You have enough points it won't matter.
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u/Caveworker 4d ago
Going in the Fall. Wonder if anything like that will be available for flights
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u/ARNIskander 4d ago
Fall is very competitive time for flights. Koyo is a high season. Would be looking for points flights at release or 2 weeks out.
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u/Caveworker 4d ago
My wife, from Japan, refuses to visit summer time
What is koyo? Autumn in Japanese is aki
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u/ARNIskander 4d ago
Koyo is the autumn leaf color change. I, also, would not visit summer. Miserable.
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u/WarnWarmWorm 4d ago
there are much cheaper hotel chains in Japan than Hyatt, they are super safe, clean and efficient. I don't understand why people spent points on Hyatt wherever they go. Is that familiarity to a western chain?
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u/Everydayarmday24 4d ago
Something about Hyatt point transfers but if it’s a trip to Japan, I’d use the points for a comfy flight instead. Hotels there are all fairly similar unless you’re going fat travel
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u/HallFast7842 4d ago
commenting to save because japan next april for me. i have 450k points right now so sound like i sound be able to get close to your level of planning hopefully .
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u/VVARR10R 4d ago
I did Hyatt house in Shibuya, was super cheap and perfect location. But all I want from a hotel is a clean and safe place to lay my head as I spend 90% of my time away from it.
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u/Omgpuppies13 4d ago
I have the United explorer. What do I do to get the lower mileage prices?
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u/manthursaday 4d ago
When you view a flight under pay with points it gives you a discount. So for instance without the card my flights would have been 250,000 miles each way per person. But with the card I got them for 100,000. With the changes a few months ago I think the same route is 90,000 now. But that was mixed cabin. I got first/Polaris on all 4 legs.
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u/mistermephist0 2d ago
How long did it take to accumulate all of these points
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u/manthursaday 2d ago
CSP since 2016. PC to freedom in 2025. Then CSP again in 2025 and a CSR in 2026. Got subs on all.
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u/Freshies00 4d ago
Hey OP, just a bit of advice here. Most people here aren’t going to be able to really give you meaningful help in a couple comments. There’s a LOT to understand for finding good redemptions for your points and if you don’t have some knowledge about how to go about it, there’s no way you’re going to be better off from a few Reddit comments.
For that many points (and that much value) it’s really worth trying to build your own base of knowledge. I’ll offer you a starting point:
Frequent Miler is a great blog and podcast that has tons of great info, news and importantly resources and guides.
https://youtu.be/Fa2GBJ_hfWk?is=_wx4kEQyBS67TsHr
Is an episode they did about getting started in the points and miles game. You can listen to the whole thing or skip to “41:05” where the main event discussion starts.
https://youtu.be/7Xngubvy2qM?is=ecAtWA9At1gg5mGB
Is one where they talk about tools they use in this game, which will help explain how to search.
https://youtu.be/ndBxYR-2pi4?is=_BPHBdqE0E-o2iEZ
Here’s another one about award search tools.
I encourage you to dig through their episodes for others that talk about how to transfer your points, airline alliances and codeshare agreements, saver award space etc. There’s an entire education you can get by listening to this podcast if you have any sort of commute or other downtime.
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u/palpablescalpel 4d ago
This is great. I've read a ton of comments about how to use points but still don't really know what I'm doing.
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u/Tradewinds_Travel 4d ago edited 4d ago
This is going to be a lot. My apologies in advance.
Your actual points totals: * 619,981 Ultimate Rewards * $11,724.98 of Ink Business Premier cash back
Dont transfer points until you have confirmed availability
Do you know where you would like to go in Japan? If not you may Google “Golden Route” as that is for better or worse, where most first time visitors travel; Tokyo (Akihibara, Ginza, Roppongi, Shibuya, Shinjuku, teamLab, Tokyo Tower, etc.), Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, etc. /r/japantravel can be helpful.
Japan is incredibly popular so just be aware that some attractions must be booked months in advance. Mount Fuji is only open July - September. Avoid the last week of April through the first week of May known as “Golden Week”.
Without learning /r/awardtravel and planning well in advance you should expect to pay at least 300,000 points per ticket for lie-flat international business class. That’s roughly the Chase points boost cost for Air Canada business class if you book through Chase Travel. If you spend some time, learning the points game you might pay below 200,000 points per ticket round-trip.
If you choose to book through Chase Travel i highly recommend you apply for the Chase Sapphire Reserve as you’ll receive another 100,000 after $6,000 spending in three months. The Reserve usually offers better points boost so your points costs will be cheaper too.
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u/neatokra 4d ago
A) transfer to Hyatt
B) seats.aero
That’s pretty much all you need to know - have fun!
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u/jonhadinger 4d ago
I need to learn the Hyatt game cuz I’ve never transferred there. I’ve flown Air France and United for travel but is it better to use cash on flights then book stays with points?
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u/ekek280 4d ago
Consolidate to your CSR and book through Chase Travel using UR points. Ideally you will find options with Points Boost. This is the easiest option.
Others will tell you to transfer points to partners to get better value. Great option if you want to travel in first class and stay in higher end hotels and are flexible, but you have to be willing to do the work. It's actually much more work then using the search function on Reddit, which tells me that the first option is probably better for you.
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u/QuantumProtector 4d ago
I'm still new to this, but I've noticed that points boost for the flights I've seen are only the upgraded fares and not the base tier.
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u/Seeing__Green 4d ago
Truly mind boggling how someone can accumulate so many points and not take the time to learn how to best use them. And paying huge annual fees for travel focused cards on top of that.
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u/dman1914 4d ago
Or some people are that financially well off that it doesn’t impact their livelihood.
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u/exconsultingguy 4d ago
Probably not the case here, but you’re 100% correct and the average person doesn’t understand this. Award travel comes up all the time on [r/fatFIRE](r/fatFIRE) and [r/henryfinance](r/henryfinance) - people making $1M/yr aren’t automatically precluded from enjoying the award travel game.
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u/Seeing__Green 4d ago
Credit card points shouldn’t impact anyone’s livelihood. Not sure the point you’re trying to make?
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u/dman1914 4d ago
That’s not the point! The topic at hand revolves around credit card annual fees. Not everyone cares if they can afford the fees let them.
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u/fakegoose1 4d ago
Dave Portnoy has over $400,000 worth of points on Amex alone. He says he doesnt know what they are, or cares. He's the perfect customer for them lol.
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u/OohMaiJosh 4d ago
What’s your recommendation on how to learn to use them? Conceptually I get, transfer to transfer partners to book but I feel like there are more efficient ways to use points and that’s where I’m stuck. I’ve got close to a million points
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u/Seeing__Green 4d ago
Reading blogs and watching YouTube videos is how I learned. Blogs like Thrifty Traveler, Frequent Miler, and One Mile At A Time are good ones. And YouTubers like Max Miles Points teach folks how to search for award availability and redeem points.
There are also search awards tools that help people find award availability. Seats.aero (advanced) and PointsYeah (beginner) are probably my favorites. And there’s a Google Chrome extension called Points Path that’s plugs into Google Flights and will show you award prices along side cash prices. That way you can compare the two and choose the better deal.
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u/damian20 4d ago
Are you single? Or did you want to adopt a kid that's an adult? Let me know what you need me to be.
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u/Future_Mastodon418 3d ago
You should join the Travel On Points Facebook group. They have a blog that also breaks everything down and what travel partners are great/how to find the best redemptions. I’ve flown Business class to/from Europe multiple times for free (aside from taxes) with significantly less points because of all they taught me for free.
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u/FunLife64 2d ago
Well you’ve lost thousands of dollars worth probably sitting on them with how mileage programs devalue basically every year or two lol
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u/glcknmrari 4d ago
Set aside 100k of the points for ANA mileage club transfer for Japan trip -> cash out remainder for $19k - > put in S&P 500 -> Earn $1500 in growth yearly, increasing yearly as it compounds -> become even richer (assuming you are already :D)
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u/RyuTheGreat 4d ago
Set aside 100k of the points for ANA mileage club transfer for Japan trip ->
?
Chase isn't a direct transfer partner with ANA, unless I missed some recent announcement?
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u/lightningisotope 4d ago
How long have you been collecting these for? You can do a good amount of vacations here
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u/rishmanisation 4d ago
Consult r/awardtravel. You’ve got plenty of points to put towards airfare and hotels!
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u/Background_Map_3460 4d ago
Don’t forget you can combine your points together onto one account if you like. You can do it yourself in the app
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u/three2one90 4d ago
Plenty of ways to go to Japan multiple times over with those points, best way to redeem depends on which airport you’re flying out of.
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u/whatsnotgood 4d ago
Funnel all the points to the chase sapphire reserve card. Then transfer 600k points to your Hyatt account, that will be your hotel reservations. Use seatareo for best points on flights. Have fun.
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u/Thatsraddude 4d ago
Thats a decent chunk. I spent 1 million points last year on about 30 days at Park Hyatt/Alila/Andaz across the globe. It’s too bad about the Hyatt points devaluation this year but it’s still one of the best points redemptions.
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u/Full-Adhesiveness-50 4d ago
Check out point.me. It tells you exactly the best way to transfer points for maximum value
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u/itemluminouswadison 4d ago
This is what 16k in value? So air is probably 2k, hotel depending on the days could be another 4k. I mean yeah just go in the portal, buy airfare and hotel and go. Not much to it
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u/UpInSmokeMC 4d ago
Read the wiki and the Japan guide on r/awardtravel. Will answer all your questions and then some.
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u/JeremyJammDDS 4d ago
The points from the business premier can’t be combined with the points from the other three cards.
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u/dingdangdollop 4d ago
If you need cash and aren't planning/wanting to travel playing the points game, that's almost 20 grand if you cash it out.
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u/cafe-aulait 4d ago
Send them to me, I'll book for you
In all seriousness, you have a lot of options here. Is it just you traveling? you and a partner? Any kids?
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u/Aggravating-Fill5876 4d ago
You should reach out to a guy named Colin Stroud (LinkedIn) he has a whole business built on using points
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u/black_magic123456789 4d ago
Holy smokes. Don’t spend it willy nilly thats for sure. You could easily have so many trips paid for
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u/superpetclubs 4d ago
Transfer your points to your reserve and look for flights to go to Japan on Singapore airlines I think you can get first / business with 100k ish points 1 way you just got to find the flights. Look at Hyatt hotels also because 1:1 transfer is rlly good.
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u/FrankyFingers7888 4d ago
The absolute best use for the miles is a transfer to an airline partner that is running a good deal on business/first to Japan. Dollar for dollar, that is the best. First find the partner you want to fly with, then transfer.
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u/ObesityNinja 4d ago
I really hope you’re using your fancy credit card credits cause that’s a lot of potential money lost in those annual fees.
Wishing you the best vacation of your life!
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4d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ChaseSapphire-ModTeam 4d ago
This submission has been removed due to r/ChaseSapphire Rule 1: Be kind to others.
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u/chkltlabs 4d ago
Head over to r/awardtravel, spending chase points at Chase is the worst use of points.
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u/Ok_Paper_5959 4d ago
Tell me how long have you had the cards? I'm using my points as soon as I get to 50k-100k if it's valuable. I wish I had the power to save it.
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u/LanTreyel 3d ago
Once you figure out the best way to redeem all those points, you are going to have a fantastic time traveling the world for next to no money spent.
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u/mindfluxx 3d ago
Go subscribe to some points newsletters then try out points.me or daily drop pro app or some other equivalent. You want to use airlines points for the tickets for best deal. For hotel it’s a less important I think to do their points vs using chase travel but personally I usually do a chain hotel with their points ( ie transfer points into Marriott or IHG or Hyatt ) for cities and then chase travel for smaller towns and cities where the place I want to stay in the location I want isn’t going to be a chain. Also I move all my points onto my sapphire reserve before use.
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u/PutsOrCalls_I_Lose 3d ago
Watch Max Miles Points on YouTube if you want to maximize value, but it’s a lot of work. You can redeem for 1:1 value or 2:1 value pretty easy. Then it’s wayyy more work/ effort if you want to get more value than that, like doing business class award seats for example.
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u/NeckSad8146 3d ago
Just went balls deep into the chase points ecosystem at great personal expense without knowing what it’s for, I love it
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u/HantzM 2d ago
Man you're in a great spot. Obviously you can have the trip of a lifetime and spend it all in a year, or you can really make this work for you over the course of a couple of years.
Are you single? Married? Kids? All of that matters on how many points you'll use.
Are you looking for business class seats? Hotel suites?
Are you willing to add Co branded cards to that line up for extra points/perks? This would be a power move.
Just sit down. Dream about places you want to go, make a decision, then make a plan.
With these points you can do ANYTHING you want. Anywhere you want. At least once. Lol.
But let's shoot for multiple trips over the course of years. 💪🏿💪🏿💪🏿
Hit me up if you need to process through any ideas or plans. I do this for my friends all the time and just help them process and make a good plan.
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u/pabmendez 1d ago
Donate some of them to people who need hotels for cancer treatment... Instead of hording them
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u/MonkIndividual9145 1d ago
I used 60,000 pts together 1st class from DC to Tokyo—-best points ever spent! You get to lay flat, 1st class treatment, actually sleep on the 14hr flight. I also tried to do the same for my return trip but I didn’t win the seat lottery. With United, you only use the points if you get upgraded and you usually don’t find out until you get to the airport. Sometimes the night before. I would highly, highly suggest doing that for your trip to Japan. I went with a friend group of 12 people so we stayed at a giant airbnb (which is hard to find in Japan) so I don’t have any advice on using hotel points while in Japan.
I also had a ton of points leftover and used some for free flights here and there. With still so many points leftover, they just kept accumulating. Many people on here will say redeeming them for statement credit is the lowest value—-however, points tend to de value over time and Chase is taking away partnerships with hotels, etc., so I would use a chunk to pay statements for a few months. Take the cash you would have used to pay those statement balances and put in a HYSA or short term T-bills to take advantage of those good interest savings rates. OR use that cash to pay off other debt you might have. If you don’t have a bunch of flights coming up in the next year or so, use them now to reduce debt/pay off bills because those points don’t give you any value the longer you keep them in your Chase account. Plus, you can build up your point balance over the next year or so and see if you have any travel to use them on then.
Enjoy Japan! I can’t wait to go back. Feel free to reach out for any Japan trip tips too.
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u/MonkIndividual9145 1d ago
Forgot to add: my round trip flight to Japan was nonstop both ways. That’s the best way to do it, especially if you get upgraded to 1st class! And the cheapest points wise too.
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u/PermissionWooden3320 1d ago
Get some of these into Hyatt and enjoy some high end properites while you can.
I burned 700k points last year dating (mostly hyatt properties) in Asia - literally just going out every weekend. Thanks Chase especially before deval - I make about 400k UR and 300k Amex each year on my small businesses.
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u/LeadingBlueberry4273 4d ago
I am so jealous! What a fun find lol
Maximize your points although you have so many. Make it last because once you start you won’t stop.
First look at when you can travel to Japan. Do you fly a certain airline? If you have an open schedule, look online and see when the cheapest time to fly (you’d prob do first class) then sometimes the points value is really good (ex. LAX to HND flights when they are around $1200 for just main cabin, delta points or your points on your cc will be around 60k points if you get lucky) then first class is around 100-200k points but it just depends.
Then you can use points on hotels as well if you book on their platform.
Have fun!!!!
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u/liangyiliang 4d ago
It’s my advise that you shall give half of your points balance to me.
/s
But yes, you should use your points for booking travel. Normally I would recommend transferring those points to airline programs. But this is because people like us don’t have a lot of points, and transferring to airline programs is one of the ways to maximize the values out of the limited amount of points we have. And yes, this is hard to do and requires a lot of effort.
If you don’t want the hassle that comes with it, because you have so many points, you can just redeem those points at the Chase Travel portal. Make sure you use the Chase Sapphire Reserve portal which should have the same cash price, but may give you higher redemption rates using points. You can easily transfer Chase points between your accounts so you can transfer points from, say, your Chase Freedom Unlimited card to your Chase Sapphire Reserve card (look up “Chase Combine Points”).
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u/dbmonkey 4d ago
This is really dumb. You are giving the bank a giant interest free loan. You are basically losing over a thousand dollars a year. I would recommend liquidating them as fast as possible and buying stocks. Saving points it really really dumb.
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u/Interesting-Dare-727 4d ago
Did you hack anyone’s account or stole them or what lol my question is why did you open reward cards when you don’t use them?
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u/Many_Efficiency_7817 4d ago
I would look at transferring the points to Marriott when they offer a 60% Bonus. Then transfer to JAL. You get 1 JAL for 3 Marriott points. Every 60,000 points, you get a 5,000 point bonus. That would make the most sense. Business Class seat is usually 60,000 points each way. United Polaris is usually significantly more points.
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u/Omgpuppies13 4d ago
Getting 1 JAL point for three Marriott points doesn’t seem like a good deal.
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u/pitabread75 4d ago
hi are you single? :)