There are several advantages to transferring your points to travel partners rather than
redeeming awards directly with Chase.
Not exact matches
Co-branded airline or hotel cards will allow you to
directly use your miles to
redeem award flights or stays through the loyalty program connected to the card.
Using points to obtain frequent flier miles that you can
redeem for
award airline tickets can yield a much higher point value than booking flights
directly with Membership Rewards points.
Because its
award miles are
directly credited to your KrisFlyer account, there are no additional fees or delays in
redeeming your miles like the way you do for essentially every other card in the market, including DBS Altitude.
It is possible to find higher redemption rates for your points, but in some cases (especially with lower cost flights or hotel nights), the 1.5 cents per point value can be better than
redeeming for an
award directly through the airline or hotel programs.
If you can get roughly equal value by
redeeming points
directly through Ultimate Rewards and not worry about
award availability or a limited number of partners, why would you waste your energies on transferring them to an external loyalty program?
Points can be
directly redeemed from American Express for
award travel or transferred to an airline travel partner on a 1:1 basis.
Or, you can
redeem them
directly through Chase for
award travel and receive a 25 % or 50 % travel redemption bonus.
The number of Avios needed to
redeem awards will be
directly linked to the cash cost of a fare on the flight you're looking to book.
As soon as they land into your account, you can begin transferring them on a 1:1 basis to the Chase Ultimate Rewards partners in 1,000 point increments or
redeem them for
award travel
directly through Chase.
When you
redeem your Ultimate Rewards for
award travel
directly through Chase, the 50,000 points are worth $ 750 (1.5 cents each) compared to $ 625 (1.25 cents each) with the Sapphire Preferred.
You can also
redeem your Ultimate Rewards points
directly through the Chase travel portal for
award travel, but they are only worth 1 cent each; the same value as cash rewards or gift cards.
Whether you
redeem your points
directly through Chase or transfer them to your frequent flyer program or hotel loyalty account, you might be able to pay the annual fee
redeeming your rewards points on your first
award trip each year.
These 60,000 Membership Rewards points can be
redeemed for $ 600 in
award travel
directly through American Express or transferred to an airline partner.
Iberia Plus and the British Airways Executive Club are both distance - based schemes so the number of Avios travelers need to be able to
redeem an
award is based
directly on the distance of the fight the
award encompasses.
Directly through Delta, customers can view the number of miles needed to
redeem award flights from partners.
When you
redeem points
directly for airfare, you will have much more flexibility compared to frequent flyer
awards.
Also remember, that both American Express Membership Rewards points and Chase Ultimate Rewards are partners with British Airways (Amex also transfers
directly to Iberia in case you don't have 3 months to wait to link with a BA account), so even if you don't have enough BA Avios, you can transfer points from either program to British Airways — preferably when they're running a big transfer bonus — and then transfer those to Iberia Avios in order to
redeem better - priced
awards to Europe.
Co-branded airline or hotel cards will allow you to
directly use your miles to
redeem award flights or stays through the loyalty program connected to the card.