Hard Pass On Chase’s 2nd Ever Point Transfer Bonus

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Chase Ultimate Rewards has only had one transfer bonus in its history, a 30% bonus for BA Avios last year.

That’s by design.

Chase executives told me when they launched Ultimate Rewards point transfers to airlines that they decided to focus on strong partners with easy to understand transfer ratios and not on assorted transfer ratios and transfer bonuses.

But times change and Chase is back with another transfer bonus, this time a 60% bonus to IHG:

IHG recently switched from award chart based redemption to dynamically priced redemptions, which can mean there are some low redemption rates now, but also means that it will be harder to get outsized value from the program.

With a 60% bonus, you’ll get 1.6 IHG points for every Chase point.

IHG currently sells points for 0.5 cents each, so even with the bonus, that would value your Chase points at a paltry 0.8 cents each.

You don’t want to do that.

Other transfer options like Hyatt, United, and Virgin Atlantic offer opportunities to book awards worth 2 cents or more per point via redemptions such as Hyatt Suites, business class to Israel, and ANA First Class awards.

Indeed, you can redeem your Chase points at a value of 1.25 cents or 1.5 cents per point with the pay yourself back promotion, so that sets the baseline for Chase points value. You can even pay yourself back at 1.5 cents each and then buy IHG points at 0.5 cents each with those cash proceeds if you are after IHG points.

Thanks, but no thanks Chase.

HT: Eluzer K