I just made a mistake using my Chase Ultimate Rewards (UR)
points. One of the best features of this currency is its flexibility. Usually
the best value from these points is to transfer to one of their many travel
partners at a one-to-one ratio, then use those transferred points from within
that partner system. That’s exactly what I did. I transferred 25K UR points to
United for a flight from Chicago to Anchorage.
There were no saver awards left,
and there were no saver awards for +/- one day of this date. So I decided to
book with the standard award of 25K United miles.
What I should have done was to call UR travel services and
used my points at a value of 1.25 cents per point to book this flight. That
would have cost me 24,680 UR points. Yes, that is only a savings of 320 UR points,
and even valued at 2 cpm (cents per mile), that would have only saved me the
equivalent of $6.40. But the bigger loss was that by booking through UR travel,
I would have been onboard as a revenue ticket, and I would have earned close to
4K United miles, or about $80 of value. In total, I could have come out about
$87 ahead if I had used my UR points more wisely on this occasion.
I'll have to remember this lesson for the future. I count this as a cheap lesson in use of my miles.
