Guide to Using Chase Travel℠ Portal

For many credit card strategists, Chase Ultimate Rewards is the best credit card rewards program out there. Chase has some of the best personal credit cards available on the market today in every price range, including the no-annual-fee Chase Freedom Unlimited®, the hugely popular Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card ($95 annual fee) and the premium Chase Sapphire Reserve® ($550 annual fee). Chase also offers several business credit cards that are great for separating your business expenses and for complementing the earnings from your personal credit cards.

However, one thing that separates these Chase credit cards from credit cards from other issuers is the value bonuses that they offer for points redemptions made through the Chase Travel℠ portal. Both the Chase Sapphire Preferred and the Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card ($95 annual fee) offer a 25% value boost for redemptions made through Chase Travel℠ and the Sapphire Reserve card offers a 50% value boost for redemptions through Chase Travel℠.

Let’s suppose you wanted to book a $1,000 flight through the Chase Travel℠ portal, it would require 100,000 Chase points without any of the aforementioned cards, it would require 80,000 Chase points if you had the Sapphire Preferred or Ink Preferred an it would require 66,667 points if you had the Sapphire Preferred.

These kinds of value bonuses aren’t offered by any other credit card issuer for their respective travel portals, which means that Chase Travel℠ offers more value for certain Chase cardholders than any other credit card travel portal out there.

So, for travelers who already have a Chase credit card or are thinking of signing up for one, this article is going to explain everything you need to know about the Chase Travel℠ portal.

How to Earn Chase Ultimate Rewards Points

Of course, the main way to earn Chase Ultimate Rewards points is to sign up for a points-earning Chase credit card and spend money on it.

Chase Credit Cards

These credit cards offer welcome bonuses of tens of thousands of points for new cardmembers who spend a certain amount of money on their cards within a given period of time after account opening.

Additionally, Chase Ultimate Rewards credit cards offer at least 1X Chase points per dollar spent any time you use your card as well as elevated spending bonuses as high as 10X points in certain spending categories. Here is the current roster of Chase credit cards that earn Ultimate Rewards points:

• Chase Freedom Flex®
• Chase Freedom Rise® Credit Card
• Chase Freedom Unlimited®
• Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
• Chase Sapphire Reserve®
• Ink Business Cash® Credit Card
• Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card
• Ink Business Premier® Credit Card
• Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card

As previously mentioned, all of the cards listed above offer welcome bonuses to new cardmembers who spend a certain amount of money on their card in a certain period of time after account opening. These welcome offers change frequently, so make sure you check the most updated welcome offer before you sign up for any credit card.

For example, here’s the welcome bonus currently being offered by the Chase Sapphire Reserve:

Likewise, all of these cards earn at least 1X points on all purchases made. And, in certain categories with certain cards, you can earn significantly more than 1X points per dollar. For example, here are the spending bonuses offered by the Chase Sapphire Reserve:

• 10X total points on hotels and car rentals booked through the Chase Travel℠ portal (after earning the $300 travel credit)
• 5X points on flights purchased through the Chase Travel℠ portal (after earning the $300 travel credit)
• 3X on other travel worldwide (not purchased through Chase Travel℠, after earning the $300 travel credit)
• 3X on dining, including eligible takeout and delivery
• 1X on all other purchases

As you can see, by signing up for Chase credit cards, you can quickly rack up Chase points and through welcome bonuses and spending bonuses.

Maximizing Points Earned with Cash Back Cards

While many of the cards listed above are technically cashback credit cards, they earn Chase Ultimate Rewards points. However, if you only have a cashback credit card, then these points can only be redeemed as cash back. The Freedom Flex, Freedom Rise, Freedom Unlimited, Ink Business Cash, Ink Business Premier and Ink Business Unlimited cards are all cashback cards.

Luckily, if you have a cashback card as well as either the Sapphire Preferred, Sapphire Reserve or Ink Business Preferred, then any Chase points you earn with your cashback card can be transferred to one of these accounts and those points can be redeemed through the Chase Travel℠ portal.

For instance, if you have the Freedom Unlimited card alone, then you can’t spend the points you earn through the Chase Travel℠ portal. However, if you have the Freedom Unlimited card as well as the Sapphire Preferred, then any points you earn with the Freedom Unlimited can be transferred to your Sapphire Preferred account and then redeemed through the Chase Travel℠ portal.

Refer a Friend

Apart from credit card spending, the only other way to earn Chase Ultimate Rewards points is to take advantage of Chase’s Refer a Friend program. To use this program, you need to be a current Chase cardholder and send a personalized application link to one of your friends or family members. Then, if they get approved for the card and complete the required spending on their card, you’ll receive a bonus of Chase points. The size of the bonus that you receive will depend on the type of card that you’re referring for.

How to Book Travel Through Chase Travel

Now that you’re familiar with how to earn Chase Ultimate Rewards points, let’s take a look at how you can spend those points on flights, hotels, rental cars, cruises and more through the Chase Travel℠ portal.

In order to access the Chase Travel℠ portal, you can either go to chasetravel.com and log in using your Chase account credentials or you can go to your Chase credit card’s main dashboard and click the “Earn/Use” button where you’ll see the number of points you have listed. Then, you can choose “Travel” from the options listed.

From there, you can choose whether to book a hotel, flight, rental car or experience.

Booking Flights

If you want to book a flight through the Chase Travel℠ portal, you can search for your flight by your origin and destination, cabin class and dates of departure and arrival. You can also filter for cost, airline, departure/arrival time and departure airport.

Once you’ve found the flight that you want to purchase, you can choose whether to use points to pay for the entire fare or a portion of the fare (and the rest of the fare with cash). Chase points will be worth the same amount whether you use them to pay for the entire airfare or only a portion.

Unfortunately, the Chase Travel℠ portal doesn’t market flights from certain low-cost carriers such as Spirit Airlines, Frontier Airlines or Allegiant Air.

It’s also worth noting that you earn miles and elite credits on flights booked through the Chase Travel℠ portal whether you pay with cash or points. However, you’ll need to enter your frequent flyer number when checking into your flight.

Booking Hotels

To book a hotel through the Chase Travel℠ portal, you can either search for a specific hotel or you can search for a geographic region. You’ll also need to enter your desired travel dates and the number of guests. You can also filter your search for price, amenities, ratings, type of property, number of bedrooms, neighborhood and more.

Once you find the hotel stay that you want, you can choose to pay entirely with points, entirely with cash or with a mixture of points and cash.

Booking Rental Cars, Cruises and Other Types of Travel

You can also use the Chase Travel℠ portal to book rental cars, cruises, experiences and other travel-related purchases. To book a cruise either with cash or points, you’ll need to call Chase customer service.

When booking a rental car, you can filter for the number of seats, car type, price per day and options such as transmission types or air conditioning. You should also be sure to book points that are connected to your Chase Sapphire Reserve or Chase Sapphire Preferred so that you can take advantage of car rental-related perks of these cards such as primary rental car insurance.

Chase Travel Portal vs. Transfer Partners

If you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve, Chase Sapphire Preferred or Ink Business Preferred card, then you also have the option of transferring your points to any of Chase’s 14 transfer partners. These partners include:

• Aer Lingus AerClub
• Air Canada Aeroplan
• Air France-KLM Flying Blue
• British Airways Executive Club
• Emirates Skywards
• Iberia Plus
• IHG One Rewards
• JetBlue TrueBlue
• Marriott Bonvoy
• Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
• Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards
• United Airlines MileagePlus
• Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
• World of Hyatt

Oftentimes, you can find outsized value redemptions through these transfer partners that offer far more than 1 cent per point in value, and often considerably more than 1.5 cents per point (which is the value of Chase points when you redeem them through the Chase Travel℠ portal with the Chase Sapphire Reserve).

For example, one of Chase’s transfer partners that consistently offers good value is World of Hyatt. By transferring 35,000 Chase points to the World of Hyatt program (at a 1:1 transfer ratio), you can book a night in a 1 King Bed room at the Andaz Maui at Wailea Resort.

If you were to book the same room on the same night with cash instead of points, it would cost you $990 at the World of Hyatt member rate.

Thus, by booking this hotel stay with points through the World of Hyatt program rather than with cash, you’d be getting an excellent value of nearly 3 cents per point.

So, in many cases, you can get far more value by redeeming Chase points through transfer partners than through the Chase Travel℠ portal.

However, transfers from Chase Ultimate Rewards to transfer partners can often take several hours or even days, which can be inconvenient. Plus, finding redemptions through transfer partners often takes some time and research. At the end of the day, redeeming points through the Chase Travel℠ portal is far more simple than making transfers to partners. Plus, when booking hotels and flights through the Chase Travel℠ portal, you won’t have to deal with blackout dates or limited award availability.

If you’re interested in getting the maximum value out of your Chase points, you can do so by transferring to partners and redeeming for flights and hotel stays through those rewards programs. However, if you’re looking to make your points redemptions easily and simply, then the Chase Travel℠ portal is probably a better option.

The Bottom Line

Compared to other credit card travel booking portals, the Chase Travel℠ portal has a lot to offer. If you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred or Ink Business Preferred, your Chase points will be worth 1.25 cents apiece through the Chase Travel℠ portal and 1.5 cents apiece with the Chase Sapphire Reserve. Plus, this portal makes redeeming points for travel simple with no blackout dates or limited award availability.

However, as with most major credit card rewards programs, you can get more value out of your points by utilizing Chase’s transfer partners such as World of Hyatt, Air Canada Aeroplan or Air France-KLM Flying Blue. With that said, redeeming points this way can often be much more time-consuming and confusing than redeeming through Chase Travel℠.

So, for travelers who prefer the simpler route, redeeming Chase points through the Chase Travel℠ portal is a great option, especially if you have one of the Chase credit cards that offers a 25% or 50% value boost.