My Chase credit card points just saved me $4,000 on airfare, and made a holiday trip to Cabo San Lucas possible
- It can be impossible to book saver-level award travel over the holidays, but certain points are better than others for doing so.
- Transferable credit card points lend travelers an extra layer of flexibility when it comes to redeeming for award flights and nights.
- Chase Ultimate Rewards points are some of the most useful rewards points available, and you can earn them with cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve and Chase Sapphire Preferred Card.
- By transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards points to British Airways Avios, I was able to book an award on American Airlines for far fewer miles than American would have required.
- See Business Insider's list of the best rewards credit cards you can get »
When it comes to booking airline award travel, the one attribute that will help you more than any other is flexibility. Being able to travel at off-peak times and on routes that might not have as much business or leisure traffic as others makes it much easier to book some airline award seats.
Holiday travel travails
Imagine my chagrin when my partner informed me that the only time he could take vacation was the week between Christmas and New Year's - one of the busiest travel times of the year.
After deciding that we would both like a beach vacation, I set about looking for inexpensive fares to Hawaii, Mexico, and the Caribbean. One after another, I crossed each possible destination off our list because of the exorbitant fares I was finding.
Even the short-haul flight from Los Angeles (LAX) to Cabo San Lucas (SJD) - just 900 miles and flown by over a half-dozen airlines - was showing round-trip fares of over $800 during the weeks surrounding Christmas.
Figuring it might not hurt to look for award availability, I searched on American Airlines' website and Alaska Airlines' site, since I have miles with both programs. They both have access to their own awards as well as to some awards on the other carrier (for now). For most of the days around Christmas, both sites were showing high-level awards of 25,000 to 50,000 miles. Each way. In economy!
An award appears
I was about to give up when I noticed that Alaska Airlines was showing a saver-level award on American Airlines. The outbound was on Christmas Eve, returning on New Year's Eve for a total of 70,000 miles and $248 in taxes for both tickets.
I resisted pulling the trigger, figuring it couldn't hurt to look at AA.com and compare. Sure enough, I could pull up the same award seats for a total of 60,000 miles and $198 in taxes and fees.
Thinking that might be my best option, I was about to book it when I had one more thought. American Airlines is a Oneworld alliance partner with British Airways. The fact that I could find these award seats using Alaska miles meant that British Airways should also have access to the same ones.
I logged into my British Airways Executive account and performed a quick search on the same dates. Sure enough, the award seats appeared.
Now for the interesting part. Unlike Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan and American Airlines AAdvantage, British Airways Executive Club has a distance-based redemption chart for award seats. The longer the flight, the more Avios (miles) you will need. Conversely, because this route was so short, I knew I would need fewer miles to book it than if I went through American AAdvantage or Alaska Mileage Plan.
Because the route is under 1,151 miles, which is the higher limit of one of British Airways' chart's bands, my seats would cost only 9,000 Avios per ticket each way.
Grand total: 38,000 Avios, plus the same $198 in taxes and fees American Airlines would have charged me for its own award.
Chase points to the rescue
Now there was one problem: I didn't actually have any Avios in my account. Here's where my transferable credit card points came in handy. British Airways is a transfer partner of several other points programs. If you have a card like the Platinum Card® from American Express or the American Express® Gold Card, you can transfer your Amex Membership Rewards points to British Airways at a 1:1 ratio.
The same is true if you earn Chase Ultimate Rewards points with a card like Chase Sapphire Reserve, Chase Sapphire Preferred, or Ink Business Preferred Credit Card. You can also transfer Marriott Bonvoy points to British Airways at a rate of 3:1, and for every 60,000 points you transfer, you get a 5,000-mile bonus, meaning you'd end up with 25,000 Avios instead of 20,000 Avios.
Amex and Chase points transfer instantly, while Marriott transfers can take a few days. I knew these seats would disappear fast, though, so I didn't want to take any chances. I have more Chase points than Amex ones at the moment, so I decided to use them. My only other consideration would have been if either program was offering a transfer bonus to British Airways - Amex periodically offers 25-40% ones, and Chase has offered a single 30% bonus - but neither was at the moment.
Within a minute, I had logged into my Ultimate Rewards account, transferred the points, and they were in my BA account. I refreshed the search page, pulled up the awards and booked them.
Curious, I decided to look at how much paid fares would have been on the flights, and to my shock, they would have been $4,025! By using points, I'd saved nearly $4,000, or between 22,000 and 32,000 miles.
Now, I never would have booked tickets at that price, but it was fun for comparison's sake (they went down to $900 each the next day).
Rewards reflections
Here are the things I keep in mind when thinking about my transferable points and the kinds of awards they open up to me so I make sure I get the best value each time.
First, try to consider all your options. In this case, it would have been quite simple just to book my award through Alaska or American. But taking a moment to think about which partners they had who might have access to the same awards at better prices ended up saving me not only money, but tens of thousands of miles.
Second, don't forget about transfer times and convert the points that will appear in your frequent flyer account fastest, since you don't want to transfer only to find out that the award you hoped to book has disappeared.
Third, remember to check if there are any transfer bonuses since they can save you even more points or miles when it comes time to book.
Finally, though it wasn't a factor in this scenario, don't forget that you can redeem Ultimate Rewards points directly for travel at fixed rates through the Ultimate Rewards portal. You get 1.5 cents per point in value with the Chase Sapphire Reserve, and 1.25 cents per point in value with the Chase Sapphire Preferred or Ink Business Preferred. You have to do the math to make sure you are getting a better value than booking a traditional award ticket, but a quick calculation might save you thousands of miles.
Bottom line
I was quite lucky to come across not one, but two saver-level award tickets on the flights that I wanted at a very busy time of year. But luck only gets you so far. By stockpiling transferable points, knowing my options, being decisive about a transfer, and booking quickly, I ended up saving huge on my holiday travel plans… and now I have a Mexican vacation to look forward to.
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