Points redemption - Chase Sapphire Preferred / United

[Susie]

I have over 400k points accumulated on my Chase Sapphire Preferred, hoarded since the beginning of the pandemic, that I'm now planning to use to book airfare on United for our winter trip to Costa Rica.  United is pretty much a lock, since they have the nonstop route we want (EWR-LIR).

What are the pros/cons of booking the travel through Chase's Ultimate Rewards portal vs. transferring the points to my United Mileage Plus account and booking with United?  

My 411,770 points are worth $ 5,147.12 via Chase if spent to book travel through their portal.  It seems that United doesn't publish an award chart anymore.

[Susie]

Hmm.  I just checked United to see what it would be to hypothetically book with points.  For the 4 of us, it's 320k miles/points + $313.84.  I have a few miles in my United account that I can apply, so I only need 306k transferred from Chase.

If I book through Chase, the same flights are 329,332 points.  Seems basically the same, except I can use more of my hoarded points/no cash.

I guess it boils down to, is there a customer service benefit to booking with the airline vs. Chase?

[wanderingback]

I’ve always booked directly with the airline. But I accumulate on Amex and typically transfer points to delta and it’s a 1:1 ratio. I have never seen it be an advantage if you need to change something with your flight to book it 3rd party.

[chpmnk1015]

There's a chase rewards fb page you could ask on.. I'm a fan of booking direct so I'm not help. I always think w customer service it's better...niy no experience Going through sapphire yet

[RockNVoll]

I had a horrible experience with Chase the one time we booked flights through their portal. Pro tip: avoid flying Aerolineas Argentinas if at all possible. The jist of it is that the airline changed one of our flights and the new times didn't work for us. On any other airline that's pretty much a guaranteed refund. But with this one it literally took us MONTHS of arguing to get our money back, which was partly the airline's fault because--get this--they would only communicate via email. They literally don't take phone calls AND would only deal with the "agent" that booked the tickets.

But Chase was definitely part of the problem too because they never provided us updates. I spoke to probably half a dozen different Chase agents, re-explaining the situation each time, and each time they'd promise to give me an update the next day even if they hadn't heard back from the airline yet. It was a ridiculous situation and I burnt so much time following up. I really should have canceled my card over it and this is reminding me to look into the Amex card instead, LOL.

Long story short, Chase's customer service blows.

[Susie]

Fair enough!  I nominally would have preferred to pay in all points instead of points + $300ish, but customer service is a good point.  We're flying nonstop both ways, but it's international, and with two kids.  Points transfer to United and book directly - DONE.

I'm sure I can find other things to spend remaining Chase points on that are lower stakes, like airport hotels/etc.

[ellipses84]

I see how much it would cost to buy a ticket vs. purchase points from the airline to pay for a ticket via the airline and use that for a comparison to the credit card points. Some airlines I have to login to my mileage account and click a specific link to see the pay with points option.

I do prefer to buy tickets directly through airlines and hotels whenever I can.

As far as international travel, I never used to buy insurance beyond emergency medical but in these post covid times traveling with kids, I always buy insurance. I don’t get “cancel for any reason” travel insurance because I’d only cancel for good reasons that the general insurance will cover. If you want the better coverage, it has to be purchased close to when you book the first travel item (like a few days or 2 weeks).

[Mushe]

We tend to transfer and book with points, but we’ve also hoarded points and then done business class at least on the way over. We had a trip (for four) booked to Europe for summer 2020 that we obviously cancelled and got the points back, but apparently the awards went up, so it’d cost us a lot more to rebook when we’re ready to try that trip again. It sounds like a rebooking in case of emergency might be easier on points, with all other things being equal.

[flygirl]

Sometimes Chase offers transfer bonuses to their partners. I had points that I transferred to Marriott and got a 50% bonus which allowed me to get enough to get the free night I needed.

[Susie]

Oct 13, 2023 8:54:56 GMT -5 flygirl said:

Sometimes Chase offers transfer bonuses to their partners. I had points that I transferred to Marriott and got a 50% bonus which allowed me to get enough to get the free night I needed.

They're doing a 30% bonus on Virgin right now.  Too bad they didn't have the route I needed!

[mrsGreeko]

I personally avoid third party bookings at all costs. Chase portal is just a third party booking like hotels dot com or Priceline or whatever. We have used chase/United/southwest points to travel for free for more than 10 years now, I’ve always moved my miles out of chase and booked directly with the airline. That’s a lot of points for Costa Rica, but if you are set on destination and dates and airline it is what it is.

[mildop]

Oct 13, 2023 11:25:12 GMT -5 mrsGreeko said:

I personally avoid third party bookings at all costs. Chase portal is just a third party booking like hotels dot com or Priceline or whatever. We have used chase/United/southwest points to travel for free for more than 10 years now, I’ve always moved my miles out of chase and booked directly with the airline. That’s a lot of points for Costa Rica, but if you are set on destination and dates and airline it is what it is.

This is what we do as well. Generally United, but I’d also do southwest if it made sense for us. We always transfer the points to use as needed, as generally it’s almost an instant transfer. When we had flight issues this last summer, it was nice to go directly to the United counter than have to call chase travel.

[Susie]

Oct 13, 2023 11:25:12 GMT -5 mrsGreeko said:

That’s a lot of points for Costa Rica, but if you are set on destination and dates and airline it is what it is.

We had a lot of constraints to work within.  We're meeting friends from the west coast there, and we have one week that both families' school districts are off.  Then it's high season in CR, and we didn't want the 19+ hour flight leg options with 1-2 layovers even though they were half the price.  With two kids in tow that sounds very much unlike a vacation.  Mid-week to mid-week didn't work out well because we needed to more or less align with the school break.  (We're doing Mon to Mon to miss only 2 days of school.). We could have gone somewhere else, but somewhere that's warm... that's midway for east and west coast families... when we were all excited for CR... it was complicated.

It's fine.  I just want to do it in the smartest way I can.

[steamboat185]

I would move the miles to United. If you book a flight on miles directly through United it is much easier to cancel and get all your money/points back. You can also rebook if the points to take the flight drop.

[steamboat185]

We’ve also used the Reserve to book flight through the portal a few times when the cost of the flight is low so the 1.5 redemption rate is a really great deal. It’s been 100% fine. The travel insurance on the card made it worth any risk.

[sillygoosegirl]

It's been some years since I had that card/points, but it always seemed pretty random where I'd get the better deal. It didn't seem like the Chase Sapphire travel booking thing had anywhere near as many flight options as elsewhere. Not surprisingly, of course...

[wildrice]

You may have already moved forward on this, but I will just add - I've been booking flights through Chase for years and I have never had an issue. We have had flights severely changed/cancelled by the airline and Chase has been helpful in assisting us with getting a refund and rebooking. If all things were equal I'd say just book with the airline, but since it costs less to book via Chase I don't see any reason to avoid that.

[IndiaInk]

I will chime in with another positive review for Chase customer service. I've booked many flights directly through Chase's travel portal and had to do several last minute rebookings and found their customer service to be super helpful.
There have also been more than one occasion (as recently as last week!) when I've had to cancel a hotel reservation that was clearly represented as non-refundable, and Chase has been a huge help in getting it cancelled and fully refunded. They'll state the policy for the room I booked, but then offer to put me on hold while they call the hotel directly to try to get the refund. I've never had them come back without good news. Honestly, it's surprised me because I've had HORRIBLE experiences with Expedia and other similar travel portals' customer service.