If you don’t feel like you know everything you need to know about Chase Ultimate Rewards, fret not as we will walk through it in this guide.

What are Chase Ultimate Rewards points?

Chase Ultimate Rewards points tend to be a popular option among those in the points and travel world. Arguably, they used to be more popular due to their prior ease in “churning” the cards. Since mid-2025, the company tightened up approvals considerably and now sign-up bonuses are typically once-in-a-lifetime.

Despite the diminishing value from sign-up bonuses, Chase cards remain popular due to their strong travel protections and high bonus category earning potential.

The points are popular because of their high floor value and a simple but effective list of transfer partners. However, recently that too is taking somewhat of a hit as their most useful partner (World of Hyatt) no longer transfers at a 1:1 rate from most cards. Still, the most popular transfer partner by volume is to United MileagePlus. And if you also have the Chase Aeroplan credit card, you can get better than 1:1 transfers to Air Canada Aeroplan.

The easiest ways to earn Chase Ultimate Rewards points

Credit card sign-up bonuses

Full disclosure: in this section are refer-a-friend links where I may earn some points for referring. There is no requirement to use the below referral links to apply but note your offer may differ when going directly to the card issuer.

Chase has a lot of personal credit cards that earn UR points:

• No annual fee cards like the Chase Freedom, Freedom Flex, Freedom Unlimited, and the regular Sapphire (the regular Freedom and regular Sapphire are not directly open to new applicants)
• The market-leading Chase Sapphire Preferred card ($95 annual fee)
• The ultra-premium Chase Sapphire Reserve card (with an ultra-premium $795 annual fee)

On top of that, Chase has a full portfolio of small business credit cards that earn UR points:

• No annual fee cards like the Ink Cash and Ink Unlimited
• The mid-tier Chase Ink Preferred card ($95 annual fee)
• No longer available options like the Chase Ink Bold or Ink Plus cards ($95 annual fee)
• The ultra-premium Chase Sapphire Reserve Business card (with an ultra-premium $795 annual fee)

But you’ll want to be aware of some things with Chase credit cards these days:

• The bank is still figuring out its new underwriting methodology with the ‘pop-up jail’ feature when signing up.
  • This means that if you’ve ever had the credit card before, you are very unlikely to get the sign-up bonus again even if you never received a sign-up bonus before.
  • This also means that even if you’ve never had the card before, Chase can determine it doesn’t want to give you a sign-up bonus for reasons.
• At this point, we consider it impossible to “churn” the card.
• There is rising evidence that Chase no longer honors a better sign-up bonus if the bonus increases shortly after applying for the card. Chase used to reliably match the higher offer.
• While Chase used to focus extensively on ‘5/24’ (only five approvals in a 24 month period), these days the methodology takes a back seat to the ‘pop-up jail’ feature.

Spend on the right credit cards

If you want to earn a lot of Chase Ultimate Rewards points quickly, you should be mixing up your spend across different cards. If you’re earning just 1x points on your purchases, you’re doing it wrong.

• You can earn 5x points on rotating categories with the Chase Freedom card.
• A popular option with small business owners is the Ink Bold or Ink Cash cards that earn 5x at office supply stores.
• Dining is a category where you’ll earn 2x or 3x depending on your card, or even 5x if it’s a rotating category with the Freedom.
• Flights can get you up to 4x with the Chase Sapphire Reserve.
• The Chase Freedom Unlimited or Ink Unlimited cards hand out 1.5x everywhere else.

You can take these categories even further if you purchase gift cards at the stores with bonus multipliers. This is exactly why the Ink Bold or Ink Cash is so popular. Stores like Staples sell gift cards to other merchants like Amazon, Disney, Target, and those multi-vendor cards that seem to be usable almost anywhere.

Chase Ultimate Rewards shopping portals

Chase operates its own shopping portal and wouldn’t you know it that the earn rate may vary depending on the card?

But let’s take a step back for a moment. Shopping portals are nice if you’re about to make a big online purchase. On top of getting the rewards from the spend directly on your card, you can also stack extra points on top if you first go to a portal. There are a mix of portals to consider (like Rakuten or the Capital One Shopping Portal). Chase just gives another option for you.

But the odd thing is that the portal payouts can vary depending on the card you have selected when you’re entering the portal. Choosing a Chase Sapphire Preferred card might give you a different payout than choosing a Chase Freedom card. And it’s not always that the one with the higher annual fee gives you a better payback rate.

To solve the mystery, we recommend checking out Cash Back Monitor, which fairly accurately tracks portal rates. Here, you’ll see which card might offer the better rate without having to jump back and forth between cards. In the example below for Macy’s, you’ll see that the Freedom cards offer the better portal rate currently.

You do not need to use a Chase credit card to earn credit using the Chase shopping portal. We also haven’t had any issues (yet) with purchases tracking properly using their portal.

Spending Chase Ultimate Rewards points

Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer partners

Chase currently has 10 airline partners and 4 hotel partners to choose from. Below is a list of those programs, along with our primers for each point currency. Surprisingly, Chase operates one of the smaller transfer programs despite being fairly well-established.

Airline programs (10), all transfer at a 1:1 ratio:

Hotel programs (4), all transfer at a 1:1 ratio except as noted below:

All of these transfer partners also partner with other bank programs.

Transferring your hard-earned points to partner programs can be the most affordable method to flying in first or business class.

Cashing out points as statement credits or directly in your bank account

All Chase Ultimate Rewards points have a floor value of 1 cent each when you move them into your bank account. We wouldn’t typically encourage people to convert points into cash as you can generally do better than 1 cent each point. However, sometimes there can be a rational reason why you might want more cash (perhaps you need the cash).

At the very least, having points with a high floor makes it so you don’t feel like you’re getting a bad deal when collecting them.

Chase Pay Yourself Back

The Pay Yourself Back feature used to be the way that people liked to extract higher-than-average value from each Chase Ultimate Rewards point. You used to reliably reimburse your travel purchases, with higher amounts for the Chase Sapphire Preferred and Chase Sapphire Reserve cards. However, Chase nerfed the original benefit.

These days, Chase defines the categories that work towards Pay Yourself Back. You can generally expect these to be either credit towards the annual fee (for the Chase Sapphire Reserve) or towards select charities.

Chase Travel

You could also use your Chase points in the Chase Travel portal. Just perform a search for travel as you normally would and take a look at the results. The standard redemption rate is only 1 cent per point–again, not all that appealing.

However, you can filter on “Points Boost” results where the value of your points could potentially be as high as 2 cents apiece under the right conditions. While the Chase Sapphire Preferred has access to “Points Boost”, the value of the points will not go as high as what the Reserve has access to. They used to make all hotels featured in The Edit have point redemption values worth 2 cents apiece. These days, it follows an algorithm that’s not exactly straightforward.

The “Points Boost” feature also can apply to flights booked in Chase Travel, but don’t expect 2 cents per point. Instead, you might end up around 1.5 cents per point if you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve. Just like with hotels, you’re not going to find it on all flights or on all fares. It’s subject to the whim of the system.

Given the unreliability of the option, we wouldn’t hold out hope that it magically works for our travel.

Chase Ultimate Rewards sweet spots

What are the best awards you can get with your Capital One miles? Here are some of the best redemptions to travel partners (in no particular order):

Virgin Atlantic: Book ANA First Class

Consider this a theoretical option for you, but ANA First Class is one of those options that everyone would love to experience. Add on top of that how popular Japan has been lately and the fact that ANA doesn’t release more than one first class seat at or near schedule opening, and you’ll find that it’s tough to take advantage of this. That said, if you’re persistent with checking options within two weeks of departure, you might find more seats open up.

Being able to book ANA First Class for as little as 57,500 points (via Hawaii) or 72,500 points (via West USA) is a treat. Unlike booking with the ANA program, which requires round-trips, being able to book one-ways gives you more flexibility. This is especially relevant if you only find award space in one direction but not the other or if you want to use different award programs to build your award.

Virgin Atlantic: Book Air New Zealand Business Class

Want another difficult-to-find award flight to find? If so, then you’ll love Air New Zealand’s cheap business class awards bookable with Virgin Atlantic Flying Club. Assuming you are successful in finding flights, you’ll be able to book flights for just 62,500 points. Or you could book Hawaii to New Zealand for only 45,000 points in business class.

Similar to ANA, this is an option that might become available at the last minute before the flight departs when they release how popular (or not) any given flight will be. And this is another award booking that will need to take place over the phone if you are lucky in finding award space.

Air Canada: Europe for as little as 60,000 miles in business (no fuel surcharges)

East Coast US to Europe only comes in at 60,000 miles in business. This includes the excellent Singapore Airlines on the JFK to FRA route. Of course, since award pricing doesn’t incur fuel surcharges, you can take any of the European carriers and not be stuck with a fee.

Pricing in first class could be as cheap as 90,000 miles on shorter hops, but more than likely a connection and other marginally longer flights (like IAD-FRA) will push you into the 100,000 mile range.

West Coast US to Europe is theoretically possible for only 10,000 miles more to either cost, but good luck finding the award space in advance.

Air Canada: Cheap stopovers and excellent infant pricing

One thing I absolutely love is when I can piece together multiple destinations on an award trip for an efficient price (5,000 miles). Sure, the old round-the-world style bookings were nice back in the day, but most programs got rid of those. Instead, I’ve been looking more for programs that offer a stopover along the way. Recall that a stopover is defined as a stay that’s longer than 24 hours on an international journey.

On top of that, Aeroplan only charges $25CA or 2,500 Aeroplan points for the lap child. This applies regardless of the cabin booked. Talk about a cost-effective way to bring along your pint-sized loved one! That ranks it as one of the absolute best programs for your infants and one that I would tell parents to go check out.

Aer Lingus: Off-peak business class between North America and Ireland as low as 50,000 miles

How about business class on the route? That’s also not a bad deal, assuming you can find the award space. You’re looking at only 50,000 Avios between the northeast section of North America and Ireland. Or, expand your horizon and travel from the west coast for only 62,500. The best part? There are no pesky fuel surcharges you have to worry about. That makes this pricing far more attractive than what sister program British Airways charges.

British Airways: Flying on Qatar in business class

If you’re flying on Qatar between the US and Doha, expect the price of the award to be a flat 70,000 Avios. I’m not sure why that holds, but it’s not an unreasonable price to pay. Some flights are operated by their Qsuites product, so it’s worth taking a look.

British Airways: Flying short distances nonstop in economy on some partners

This might sound anti-climactic, but the British Airways program offers a decent award price for economy flights. However, not all economy flights are made the same. The best options are going to be the shortest flights on flights other than British Airways, American, Alaska, Japan Airlines, or Cathay Pacific. Basically, you want the flights that price at 6,500 Avios or the Qatar flights at 8,000 Avios.

Examples of potential flights include Malaysia Airlines, Qantas, Sri Lankan Airlines, and China Southern.

Just keep in mind that ideally you don’t want to connect since the price of each segment is additive. So if you happen to take two short flights, the total price might double. Ouch.

Also, importantly for economy flights, please double-check the cash price of the ticket to make sure you’re getting a good deal.

Iberia: Flying off-peak long-haul Iberia in business class

Let’s take a look at some examples. You can find New York JFK to Madrid MAD for only 40,500 Avios in business class. Or maybe you want Los Angeles LAX to MAD for just 50,500 Avios in business class? Despite the devaluation, this is still an efficient way to get to Europe in lie-flat business class. Isn’t that the name of the game anyways?

United: Attend United MileagePlus dinners and parties

Do you prefer to attend nice dinners and parties instead of the usual flights? Of all the dinners we’ve attended, we’d say that United throws the best celebrations. These are typically events where United will buy out the restaurant and you have an opportunity to meet others. These can include like-minded attendees and those from the MileagePlus program. And sometimes you win prizes like the points you spent going back into your account, making it free.

If you’re interested in seeing if there’s a party or dinner near you, head to their Exclusives page to see what’s on sale.

World of Hyatt: Not as attractive these days but still Chase’s best hotel option

Despite the damage done to the transfer ratio, Hyatt is still the most viable hotel program with Chase Ultimate Rewards. That’s really just because the other options aren’t that inspiring as 1:1 partners.

If you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve, transfers will still move to Hyatt at a 1:1 rate. And despite the program’s recent devaluation, there still are decent redemptions–it’s just harder to find options that near the high value we were all previously used to getting.

Is there anything to look out for?

Points remain with each credit card but can easily be combined

Unlike programs like American Express and Bilt, the points you earn with one card remains with that card. However, you can easily transfer Ultimate Rewards points between eligible cards.

1. Just log into your Chase account here.
2. Go to the dropdown menu and choose Manage Rewards > Combine Points.
3. On this screen, you can choose which card is the donor and which is the recipient, and how many points to move. That’s it!

There are a couple of things to keep in mind:

• Before you cancel or close a card, make sure you’ve already moved off all Ultimate Rewards points first.
• You can transfer Ultimate Rewards points directly into an authorized user’s partner loyalty account. For small business cards, the recipient must also be an owner of the company. For personal accounts, the authorized user must reside at the same address.
• Alternatively, you can combine Ultimate Rewards with one other person residing at the same address, but this person does not need to be an authorized user. You may need to call Chase to add or change who the recipient is, have their account number and last name handy.

Only certain cards bestow the power to transfer to travel partners

Unlike some programs where you can transfer to partners if you earn the points currency, with Chase Ultimate Rewards, only certain credit cards have points that transfer to partners. These credit cards are:

• Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR)
• Chase Sapphire Preferred (CSP)
• Chase Ink Preferred (CIP), a small business card

Loosely, you can think of it as cards that have an annual fee also have the ability to transfer to partners, but there’s one big exception…

The oddball in the family is the Chase Ink Premier

“Ink” is the Chase lineup of cards that are intended for small business owners. All other Ink cards earn Ultimate Rewards points that can be directly or indirectly transferred to travel partners. But the Chase Ink Premier? Sadly, this one operates differently.

Ultimate Rewards points earned with the Chase Ink Premier can only be used towards cash back. To support this limited functionality, points can move into the Chase Ink Premier but cannot move off the card. It’s a one-way street or a black hole–whichever way you’d wish to describe it. It’s unclear why Chase created this card the way it did. It almost feels like a mistake because of how friendly the rest of the portfolio is.

For this reason, if you’re looking to pad your Ultimate Rewards balance for the purpose of transferring to partners, you need to ignore the Chase Ink Premier.

How else do you like to use your Chase Ultimate Rewards points?

Suggested reading:

• Destinations we’ve visited
• How to Travel with Kids
• How to Book Award Travel Like a Pro