Flight Award Travel

[Sizzler]

Does anyone use Amex Rewards or Chase UR to book flight travel (Economy / Business) by transferring to airline partners? Looking for suggestions to make good use of the points. Thank you! 

[keertana]

ltt

[bayarea]

I transfer CSR points to United to book award travel. I do lot of combination search in United website first and once I decide the flight, will transfer from chase website to my united acct

Never book in Chase website or redeem for cash etc. Best bang for buck is transferring to airlines and book there

[pandu123b]

simple anna

with points & direct cash ki enta redemption value vastundo chusuko.if you are getting more value than cash payment like more than 1:1.

after pandemic points ni baga devaluation chesaru like emirates etc..

domestic airlines like delta , aa you may get more value for points, just use accordingly 

 

[Sizzler]

11 minutes ago, bayarea said:

I transfer CSR points to United to book award travel. I do lot of combination search in United website first and once I decide the flight, will transfer from chase website to my united acct

Never book in Chase website or redeem for cash etc. Best bang for buck is transferring to airlines and book there

Thanks. Do you use any websites like Point.me etc to research or just check United airlines website and go from there ?

[Sizzler]

3 minutes ago, pandu123b said:

simple anna

with points & direct cash ki enta redemption value vastundo chusuko.if you are getting more value than cash payment like more than 1:1.

after pandemic points ni baga devaluation chesaru like emirates etc..

domestic airlines like delta , aa you may get more value for points, just use accordingly 

 

Thanks bro. I will check airlines and see if it makes sense to transfer there.
 

Edhina 3rd party site use check chestunnaremo to know… like good time to travel, where to travel the points etc ani chustunna. Point.me lo chusthunna 

[hunkyfunky2]

26 minutes ago, bayarea said:

I transfer CSR points to United to book award travel. I do lot of combination search in United website first and once I decide the flight, will transfer from chase website to my united acct

Never book in Chase website or redeem for cash etc. Best bang for buck is transferring to airlines and book there

Better than csr 1.5 times value for travel ? 

[pandu123b]

23 minutes ago, Sizzler said:

Thanks bro. I will check airlines and see if it makes sense to transfer there.
 

Edhina 3rd party site use check chestunnaremo to know… like good time to travel, where to travel the points etc ani chustunna. Point.me lo chusthunna 

i don’t follow any third party website . may be a good idea to follow some travel blogs for info. good luck 

[bayarea]

7 minutes ago, hunkyfunky2 said:

Better than csr 1.5 times value for travel ? 

It actually depends. Chase portal converts your points to cash and buys cash ticket with airlines. Cash ticket fluctuates a lot and gets expensive towards travel date so you might end up spending more CSR points when buying with Chase. Award travel with miles does not change majority of times and stay constant until the day of travel.

All in all, it depends when you buy the ticket. Buying ticket much earlier might work with Chase portal else transfer is better. It happened to me last time when buying a ticket from SF to Delhi. Cash ticket is freaking expensive but booked through award travel which costed less UR points 

[San_K]

1 hour ago, Sizzler said:

Does anyone use Amex Rewards or Chase UR to book flight travel (Economy / Business) by transferring to airline partners? Looking for suggestions to make good use of the points. Thank you! 

It depends on the destination. If it is India, you get best buck with chase sapphire reserve and preferred - 1:1.5 and 1:1.25 resp

For Europe, South america and other tourist places - check in Awardhacker or any other travel by miles websites. Also check out sub reddit  r/awardtravel 

[hunkyfunky2]

25 minutes ago, bayarea said:

It actually depends. Chase portal converts your points to cash and buys cash ticket with airlines. Cash ticket fluctuates a lot and gets expensive towards travel date so you might end up spending more CSR points when buying with Chase. Award travel with miles does not change majority of times and stay constant until the day of travel.

All in all, it depends when you buy the ticket. Buying ticket much earlier might work with Chase portal else transfer is better. It happened to me last time when buying a ticket from SF to Delhi. Cash ticket is freaking expensive but booked through award travel which costed less UR points 

Thanks, I get it.

If ticket is "usual rate" then csr travel is better... It also gives flexibility to get travel credit.

Also , need united account to convert to go miles and I don't travel by only that all the time

[keertana]

looks like american airlines and united giving best value for points for india flights 

[anandam2012]

On 8/17/2023 at 11:07 PM, Sizzler said:

Does anyone use Amex Rewards or Chase UR to book flight travel (Economy / Business) by transferring to airline partners? Looking for suggestions to make good use of the points. Thank you! 

you can transfer to british airways avios then you can link it to your Qatar Airways Avios account

then you can book the tickets in Qatar Airways, before you transfer the points check the award availability in British and Qatar. If there is availability then you can transfer and book tickets using miles.

[anandam2012]

On 8/18/2023 at 12:00 AM, Sizzler said:

Thanks bro. I will check airlines and see if it makes sense to transfer there.
 

Edhina 3rd party site use check chestunnaremo to know… like good time to travel, where to travel the points etc ani chustunna. Point.me lo chusthunna 

You can use Bilt Rewards portal to check availability, point.me is also good one, but subscription teesukovali anukunta

[phatposts]

Using miles for best value is a complicated and subjective process. 

In general the easiest ways to book may not yield the best value. In many cases the best values may not be the the routes you want to travel or sometimes it is not even available for your dates. 

For example w/Chase points 

Chase calls their rewards Ultimate Rewards (UR). Value of UR depends on the cards you have. 

Freedom family : 1c | Sapphire Preferred (CSP) : 1.25c | Sapphire Reserve (CSR) : 1.5c

Lets say you have Sapphire preferred and you have 100K UR. 

It means your 100K UR can be used to book travel up to $1250.00 value on the chase portal. 

Chase Portal is nothing but Expedia backed search engine. It is like booking on an online travel agency but using your points instead of cash. 

If you have CSR, the same 100K UR will be valued @ $1500 since CSR allows redemptions at 1.5c instead of 1.25c

This is called fixed value redemption. Many users prefer this as it gives certainty, flexibility etc. 

 

Then there is more complicated (not rocket science) stuff call Award redemptions on the airline. 

This involves a bit of understanding, go through several topics called transfer partners, award charts, saver space availability, routes permitted, alliance partners, non-alliance partners etc. 

I will give one example. 

For instance Chase UR transfer to United miles. Once you transfer to United, you get United miles. United miles CANNOT be used for fixed value redemptions. For example 100K United miles cannot be used to book a $1500 ticket on united.com

If there is saver space available (very imp to realize)  you can use 42500 United miles to book a ticket on United award redemption partners (Star Alliance + non alliance). For this you may have to search segment by segment. 

For instance I am Boston based. HYD does not have lot of Star Alliance flights making it tough. So I search only till DEL or BOM and later buy a cash flight to HYD or VTZ per my needs. 

42500 UR are worth $637.50 on the Chase portal if you have CSR. 

Lets say your one way ticket is $1000 and it is possible to book award ticket for 42500 for your dates - then you should go award redemption route. If your one way ticket is $500 then you should go the cash route. 

This is just a basic example. Airline award redemptions can be extremely complicated and challenging if you let them be. Its ones interests. 

I find tremendous value in these and strongly believe in the same. Its a hobby that helped me unlock so many things in life. 

Baaga ishtam unte enroll in this and go through the self paced free coursehttps://10xtravel.com/free-tools/

Of all the blogs, guides and tutorials I found that course to be the most comprehensive. Aaa course ayyaka - vaallaki 10x insiders ani oka FB group undi. That is a very helpful community. 

Inka interest unte in person seminars, local meetups ala chala unnayi. Idoka prapancham.

 

@anandam2012 @Sizzler @keertana