When people ask advice about starting in travel hacking, I almost always recommend they start with Chase Ultimate Rewards (UR). Our clients and ourselves have taken some amazing bucket list trips using UR. Let’s take a quick look at why people should almost always start here.
Chase Ultimate Rewards are easy to obtain
There are seven main cards (four business and three personal) to gain Ultimate Rewards, including four without annual fees. Sign-up bonuses alone could get you over 300,000 points! For the personal cards, they include the Chase Sapphire Preferred or Chase Sapphire Reserve (these are basically sister cards, you can only hold one at a time and they have similar benefits), Chase Freedom Flex and the Freedom Unlimited.
On the business end there are the three Ink Cards; the Ink Business Preferred, the Ink Business Unlimited and the Ink Business Cash. In order to fully unlock the value in these points, you will need the Ink Business Preferred or either the Sapphire Preferred or Sapphire Reserve (we will get into this in just a bit).
With the right combination of cards you can really maximize your ongoing spend as well. You will be able to earn a minimum of 1.5 points per dollar on any purchase up to a maximum of 5 points/dollar! Depending on how you use these points, that could be a value of 3-10 cents back in travel for every dollar spent (I value UR at 2 cents a point). Between my wife and I, we have 12 different Ultimate Rewards cards to help us rack up UR points each and every month.
Chase Ultimate Rewards are easy to redeem
While the Freedom, Freedom Unlimited, Ink Cash and Ink Unlimited are billed as cash back cards with points worth one penny each, if you have either of the premium Sapphire cards and/or the Ink Business Preferred their potential is much higher.
With a premium card they are worth either 1.25 (Sapphire Preferred and Ink Preferred) or 1.5 (Sapphire Reserve) cents per point. This is when you redeem for travel through Chase’s own travel portal. Through the portal you can book flights, hotels, rental cars, and even cruises or tours. While this is nice, it is always the bare minimum for which you should redeem them. But if you want simplicity, it doesn’t get any easier than this.
Chase Ultimate Rewards has some great partners
The real value with UR (as well as any transferable points) is with their transfer partners. Points can transfer to 10 different airlines all at a 1:1 rate. They are Aer Lingus, British Airways, Air France/KLM, Emirates, Iberia, JetBlue, Singapore Airlines, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines and Virgin Atlantic. Each of these programs provides value in different ways ranging from cheap domestic flights to outlandish international premium redemptions. Personally, we’ve booked using United, British Airways, Singapore, and Southwest. I’ve also used the others to help clients book amazing trips.
Some of our favorite flights booked with Ultimate Rewards 
Some of our favorite flights booked with Ultimate Rewards 
Some of our favorite flights booked with Ultimate Rewards 
Some of our favorite flights booked with Ultimate Rewards 
Some of our favorite flights booked with Ultimate Rewards 
Some of our favorite flights booked with Ultimate Rewards 
Some of our favorite flights booked with Ultimate Rewards 
Some of our favorite flights booked with Ultimate Rewards 
Some of our favorite flights booked with Ultimate Rewards
Chase also has three different hotel partners; Hyatt, IHG and Marriott. Out of these three the only one I would transfer to is Hyatt. The other two will most likely cause a loss in value by transferring rather than booking through the portal. Using Hyatt points we have helped our clients book $850+/night rooms for 30,000 points, a value of over 2.8 cents per point!
Why Ultimate Rewards to Start
Chase Ultimate Rewards are the best points for beginners, because of their ease of use. Between the travel portal or some of the simpler transfer partners, it is almost always easy to get great value out of the points. United may not have the best value for transferring, but they have an easy to use search tool and low taxes and fees on flights for themselves and their partners. Southwest and JetBlue are fixed value and extremely easy to redeem. They also have the only truly useful hotel transfer partner, Hyatt. Some of their foreign airline partners are where you can really find crazy value. These redemptions are always a little more difficult to unlock, which is where Peak Award Booking can help. Through the month of June, we are offering half-off all award bookings to help you get your amazing trip planned and booked!
How to start collecting Ultimate Rewards
The first card I recommend to beginner travel hackers is the Sapphire Preferred. It is the best way to get your feet wet and get you on your first rewards based trip. The current sign-up bonus is 100,000 points after $4,000 spend in the first three months (the $95 annual fee is not waived the first year). These 100,000 points would be enough for three nights at some of the nicest hotels in the world (values of over $1,000 per night), a round-trip business class flight to Europe, or $1,250 in travel on Chase’s travel portal. If you would like your own personalized plan, based off of your goals and individual circumstances, please reach out to us and we will develop your own very own credit card application strategy.
If you are a Chase Ultimate Rewards expert, what were your favorite redemptions? Share in the comments below