Chase Transfer Partners Guide

Chase’s Transfer Partners

Chase has 11 airline and 3 hotel transfer partners. However, despite the smaller overall number of transfer partners, Chase has some of the most valuable partners out there. For example, only Bilt can also transfer to Hyatt or United, but Bilt points are significantly more difficult to acquire compared to Chase Ultimate Reward points. Consequently, Chase points are considered high value in nature given the exclusivity of some of their transfer partners and the value most of their partners provide.

What Card Do I Need To Earn and Transfer My Points?

All Chase cards earn Ultimate Rewards points, but not all Chase cards have the ability to transfer points. You need to have one of the following cards to transfer and unlock the full value of your points:

Chase Sapphire Reserve® ($550 annual fee): Earn 3x on dining, receive up to $300 in annual travel credit, gain complimentary lounge access, up to $100 in TSA Precheck/Global Entry credits every 4 years//Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card ($95 annual fee): Earn 3x on dining, 2x on travel purchases, receive up to a $50 annual hotel credit//Chase Ink Business Preferred ($95 annual fee): Earn 3x on the first 150,000 spent in combined purchases on shipping purchases; advertisements (social media sites & search engines); internet, cable and phone services; and travel per account anniversary year

Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card

Earn 75,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening

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What About Chase’s Cashback Cards?

Chase has many cards that are advertised as earning “cashback” but actually earn Ultimate Rewards points that can be transferred to partners IF you also concurrently have one of the three active cards listed above. We’ve listed some of the best ones below:

Cashback earned is accrued as Ultimate Reward points. To make them transferable to airlines, you must use Chase’s “combine points” feature to move your points from one card to the other.

Examples of High Value Transfer Partners

With a variety of transfer partners, it can be tricky to figure out which one is the best to move your valuable points to. We’ll go through some examples of good and bad uses of points so you can best maximize your points.

Air Canada Aeroplan

Chase transfers 1:1 to Air Canada, meaning 1,000 Chase points can become 1,000 Aeroplan points. Chase historically runs a few transfer bonuses to Air Canada every year, enabling you to get even more out of your Chase points for a short period of time. Air Canada has a fixed reward chart, where their flights are priced based off of distance and four “zones” defined as North America, Atlantic, Pacific, and South America.

What’s interesting is that some smart flyers have identified high value “sweet spots” based off the award chart. For example, on partner flights (e.g. Star Alliance carriers like United Airlines or Singapore Airlines), you could find business flights flying between the North America and Pacific zones that cost only 87,500 Aeroplan points—that’s incredible for a flight that can sometimes cost over $3,500 one way.

This Singapore/Los Angeles flight is among the longest in the world (~8,500 miles flown) serviced by one of the best airlines in the world, but only costs 87,500 Aeroplan points. That’s nearly ~4 cents per point in value for a flight normally seen as unaffordable by many. The only challenge is finding that flight, but that’s where Roame comes in to help. With our SkyView tool, you can set alerts to monitor for when rare award opportunities might arise.

Chase Sapphire Reserve®

Earn 125,000 bonus points after you spend $6,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening

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World of Hyatt

A hotel partner? Aren’t hotels typically poor redemption oportunities for points? World of Hyatt stands against the norm, offering tremendous value for its points. Many trustworthy sources price World of Hyatt points at around 2 cents per point, putting them in the upper echelon of redemption opportunities out there.

A good rule of thumb is to always compare the cash price of the booking versus the point cost. Let’s go through an example together; say I want to book a stay at this Hyatt Regency based in Hawaii for sometime during the 2024 summer.

For a random night in May 2024, the price of a standard Waikiki city view room is $388 after all taxes and fees. However, the price of the room is only 20,000 points, giving us a 1.94 cents per point valuation. All things considered, this is a really good use of points.

What if you have Hyatt Globalist status?

The math becomes a lot more interesting when you’re a Globalist since we get resort fees waived. Resort fees at this particular property are $49 (before taxes!), so if we remove that, we are comparing ~$339 vs 20,000 points—only 1.69 cents per point now. The thing is, as a Globalist, we also earn quite a bit of points from our spend. ~$339 of spend would earn you ~2,200 Hyatt points. That pushes down our CPP calculations a bit, but even so, we’re at a CPP of 1.51, suggesting that transferring points still is the best way to go in terms of maximizing value. This becomes more apparent if you need parking, since Globalist award bookings (before January 1, 2024) waive parking fees, which are about $60 per day in Hawaii to date.

Examples of Low Value Transfer Partners

IHG One Rewards

Unfortunately, not all hotel programs are built like Hyatt’s. While Chase offers a 1:1 transfer to IHG, IHG points are certainly not valued exactly the same as Chase points are. For example, in looking at this incredible hotel in Japan, we can see an immediate disparity in the valuation of points:

To be clear, in comparing a refundable, cancellable room vs a comparable room booked with points, IHG is suggesting that we can pay either $382 USD or 55,000 points. This comes out to a 0.7 cents per point valuation (yes, less than 1 cent per point). If we take the floor value of a Chase point to be 1.5 cents per point when used for Hyatt, this is a terrible use of Chase points.

Long story short, always compare the number of points agains the cash price. 

Conclusion

Chase points have significant value when used properly. Point use cases vary considerably and it’s important to consider the breadth of options you have versus the cash cost to ensure you aren’t losing out on the value of your points. Accumulating Chase points isn’t too hard, but to transfer your points to Chase’s valuable partners, you need to have one of the Sapphire cards or the Ink Business Preferred.

Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card

Earn 75,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening

Learn more