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Ultimate Rewards

Video SRQ: Trying To Use Amex Points to Upgrade United Flights

June 9, 2013

TPG Reader Jonathan asks: “I was wondering if you had any tips on trading Membership Rewards points for either Chase Ultimate Rewards or United miles in particular. I have 75,000 American Express Membership Rewards points but I would like to score three upgrades on a United BOS-SFO flight in a couple months. My only other [...]

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Video SRQ: How Does the Ultimate Rewards Shopping Portal Work?

June 2, 2013

TPG reader Joseph would like some clarification on how the Ultimate Rewards Shopping portal works: “I just signed up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, but I’m a little confused about the Ultimate Rewards shopping portal. Is this like Ebates, where you try to click through from this website before making a purchase? I think [...]

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Video SRQ: How to Proactively Earn Points for a Future Trip to Ireland

June 2, 2013

TPG reader RJ wants to start accruing points for a future family trip to Ireland: “My family and I (5 total) want to take an anniversary trip to Ireland in about 3 years. I want to start building up points balances now that we can leverage them (probably for airfare). I have the Chase Sapphire [...]

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How Chase is Helping Me Be The Best Uncle in the World With Their American Girl Package

May 29, 2013

I’ve written in the past about using credit cards and points  special experiences and just this week I snagged one that is going to make my 5 year old niece/goddaughter a very happy girl. The Sapphire Preferred Ultimate Rewards.com page is offering “A Day at American Girl Place” for $255 or 25,500 Ultimate Rewards points. [...]

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Chase Ultimate Rewards Adds Virgin Atlantic As New Airline Transfer Partner

April 8, 2013

Over the weekend, Chase Ultimate Rewards announced it was adding a new airline transfer partner: Virgin Atlantic. So that means if you have a Sapphire Preferred, Ink Bold or Ink Plus card, you can now transfer to Virgin Atlantic in addition to British Airways, Korean Air, Southwest and United plus hotel partners Hyatt, Marriott, Ritz-Carlton [...]

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Amtrak Double Days Spring Promotion – Double Points and Partner Offers

March 18, 2013

Amtrak’s Double Days promotion is back for spring. Passengers will earn double points on qualifying Amtrak travel between March 18-May 18, 2013. In order to score the bonus points, you must be a member of Amtrak Guest Rewards (sign up here) and you must register for the promotion prior to travel. Remember, if you’re a [...]

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SRQ: How To Check Hyatt Award Availability Without Enough Points?

March 17, 2013

TPG reader Jason has a Hyatt question: “Is there a way to check Hyatt rewards rooms/suite availability without transferring points (for example, Ultimate Rewards points) to their program?  I transferred points into my Hyatt account and then realized the hotel I wanted didn’t have reward availability.  I just don’t want to make the same mistake [...]

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Maximizing Ultimate Rewards With The Chase Ink Credit Cards

March 13, 2013

Today, TPG contributor Jason Steele takes a close look at the Chase Ink family of cards and how you can maximize their huge earning potential by educating yourself about their category spending bonuses and annual limits. As readers know, the Chase Ink family of cards – including the Ink Bold, Ink Plus and Ink Cash [...]

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Maximize Monday: Ranking the Chase Ultimate Rewards Transfer Partners

March 4, 2013

Update: As of April 2013, Chase Ultimate Rewards has added Virgin Atlantic as a new airline transfer partner. Ultimate Rewards is the loyalty points program of Chase credit cards including the Sapphire Preferred, the Ink Bold and Ink Plus, as well as the Chase Freedom and Sapphire cards. However, there are actually two types of Ultimate Rewards points. Basic cards like [...]

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SRQ: Which Should Be My Primary Skyteam Airline, Delta or Korean?

February 17, 2013

TPG reader Eric is putting together a new Skyteam mileage strategy based on upcoming travel and the credit cards he currently has, and is wondering which would be a better choice to be his primary airline frequent flyer program, Delta or Korean Air. Here’s his question: “SkyTeam is the only alliance within which I don’t [...]

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Leveraging Credit Cards and Points for Concerts and Experiences

February 13, 2013

Although I personally prefer to use my points and miles for premium travel, going to the Grammy’s this past weekend made me reconsider when it might be a worthwhile idea to use points for experiences like when I considered redeeming points to attend the Conde Nast Visionaries Gala last fall (I ended up paying instead [...]

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Maximize Monday: Taking Advantage of New Southwest AirTran Codeshares With Ultimate Rewards and the Companion Pass

February 4, 2013

TPG contributor Jason Steele was booking tickets on Southwest last week when he came across an interesting new codeshare option on AirTran that he discusses along with how to maximize it in terms of Ultimate Rewards points and the Southwest Companion Pass. Last Saturday morning, January 25, 2013, I was surprised to find nine daily [...]

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Sunday Reader Question: Deciding Between Chase Sapphire and Starwood American Express

January 27, 2013

TPG reader Mark is in a situation where he needs to decide which card is best for his upcoming increase in travel: “I am trying to decide between getting the Chase Sapphire Preferred and the Starwood Amex.  I am going to start traveling and entertaining a lot for work so the idea of the 2x [...]

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Maximize Monday: Earning the Most Miles and Points on Car Rentals

January 21, 2013

TPG contributor Jason Steele looks at credit cards with category spending bonuses, travel shopping portals and at various airline and hotel partnerships as he plots out strategies to maximize points earning on car rentals. For many travelers, rental cars can be an unexpected huge expense, so it makes sense for road warriors to use a [...]

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Maximizing Chase Ultimate Rewards: My Ink, Sapphire Preferred and Freedom Gameplan

November 6, 2012

Update: As of April 2013, Chase Ultimate Rewards has added Virgin Atlantic as a new airline transfer partner. Maximizing credit card rewards is kind of like coaching a basketball team. You put certain players into action when it makes the most sense and pull them out when they just aren’t performing as well as others (or they simply [...]

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Upgrading on Korean Air Using Ultimate Rewards Points

October 25, 2012

Last week while I was  booking award tickets on Korean Air using Ultimate Rewards points, a friend of mine told me that he would be flying from New York JFK to Seoul this past Saturday. Originally, he had a flight on hold in business class for a round trip fare of $8,484.90, but in an unlucky [...]

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Is Chase Cracking Down on Ultimate Rewards Transfers?

October 24, 2012

Update: As of April 2013, Chase Ultimate Rewards has added Virgin Atlantic as a new airline transfer partner. Recently, Flyertalkers have reported having their Ultimate Rewards credit card accounts shut down and their points taken away for transferring points among Ultimate Rewards accounts as well as to frequent flyer accounts not belonging to them or their spouses. This [...]

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New Chase Ultimate Rewards Shop With Points on Amazon.com – Good Value?

October 24, 2012

Chase cardholders who earn Ultimate Rewards with their credit cards recently learned about a new partnership between Ultimate Rewards and Amazon.com that lets them link their two accounts and use points to pay for purchases directly on Amazon.com at a rate of 1 cent per point. The following cards are eligible for the Pay with [...]

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My Experience Booking Award Tickets On Korean Air Using Chase Ultimate Rewards Points

October 23, 2012

Booking an award ticket through Korean can be a grueling process as I experienced this past week – necessitating several phone calls, a scanner and even a fax machine. However, being able to book some premium award tickets on Korean was definitely worth the effort. Here’s what I had to do. I wanted to book [...]

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Catch The Points Guy Recap Week 2: Madrid

October 5, 2012

For the second week of “Catch The Points Guy” on the Chase Sapphire Facebook page, I headed to one of my favorite international destinations: Madrid. As you’ll see in the posts over on the campaign page, to get from Miami to Madrid, I transferred Chase Ultimate Rewards points to my British Airways Executive Club account [...]

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(Video) Sunday Reader Question: Best Strategy- Chase Ultimate Rewards vs Starwood Amex vs Hyatt

September 16, 2012

This week TPG reader John asks a question comparing the value of Ultimate Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest points as well as the Starwood and Hyatt programs: “Do you value Ultimate Rewards points or Starwood points more? Would it be beneficial to use Ultimate Rewards points for airline awards and Starwood for hotel or Ultimate Rewards for [...]

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Chase Ink Bold: Which Card Is The Best for You?

August 20, 2012

Credit card companies have a special ability to confuse customers by naming multiple card products similarly while tweaking the benefits of each offering, sometimes just minimally. To the average consumer, it can be very difficult to figure out the best product for their particular needs. Chase just recently revamped their Ink Bold business card offering [...]

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Maximize Your Points With Back to School Shopping

August 16, 2012

Back to school shopping can be a major expense, but if you play your cards right (literally) you can rack up a ton of miles and points by leveraging online shopping portals. What are these portals? Basically online retailers pay a commission to websites to refer them business – so these portals are simply intermediary [...]

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Travel Tuesday Top 10: Travel Points and Miles Business Credit Cards

July 31, 2012

Credit cards are the quickest and easiest way to rack up miles and points, especially if you open business credit cards in addition to personal cards. Most issuers will let you get a business credit card (often on the same day as a personal card, which means no extra credit inquiry) by applying with your [...]

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