Hi, I tried searching for the answers but couldn't find any. I know that if you have a United Chase Visa credit card that you can redeem your mileage for a statement credit for a ticket you buy on United. So, if I found a round trip ticket for example to Europe for $450, I could buy it with my United Chase card and then use 45,000 miles to get a $450 statement credit which would be better than redeeming 55,000 miles for the same ticket as an award ticket. Now, my question is on United's website, it specifically states that you use miles earned from your United Chase card for these statement credits, so does this mean I can't use any of the miles that I have in my United Mileage Plus account that are earned through flying and other activities? Do they actually go through your miles and figure out which ones were earned from your credit card and only use those?
Also, I have another Chase card with rewards (not a United Mileage Plus card) and one of the rewards that I can redeem is for 5,000 United Mileage Plus miles. How exactly are these miles given? Is it a certificate that I redeem? Can I give these miles to a family member to redeem? Thanks for any help.
When you spend money with the credit card, the points go in as "choices". You can then use only these "choices" to redeem on your credit card statement. So if you already have some miles in your MP account and were thinking about using those they are off limits. For your example of $450 and assuming you get 1 "choice" for every dollar you spend, then you would need to spend $45,000 on the credit card to have 45,000 "choice" points to redeem for the $450. I like the choices program for this reason that you can redeem fewer miles for a ticket, plus you can earn miles on that flight.
Yes you can log into your account you can see a specific balance for your "choices". These "choices" can be used like regular miles and are in your total mile balance, but in order to redeem the "choices" you have to buy the ticket on your credit card and then redeem them from your balance.
Go to http://united.com/chase and click on "Check my program balance". After you log in there again, it will show you how many "choice miles" you have.
Not sure about the redemption question. I suspect it's probably just credited to whatever MP account you designate, if they permit you to designate somebody elses account, though I don't see why they wouldn't. What are the Terms and conditions of that award? Did you call them and ask?
Is the "choices program balance" number a separate account which I can use to redeem for award travel?
Say, for instance, my redeemable mile balance is 200,000 and the choices program balance is 100,000.
Does this mean I can redeem the 100k choice balance for a ticket worth $1k and my redeemable mile balance will still remain the same as before (ie: 200k)? And ... the miles earned on the $1k ticket credited to my 200k balance???
Programs: United 1P, Hilton Honors Gold, Hertz #1 Club Gold, Starwood Gold
Posts: 214
Quote:
Originally Posted by malgudi
Is the "choices program balance" number a separate account which I can use to redeem for award travel?
Say, for instance, my redeemable mile balance is 200,000 and the choices program balance is 100,000.
Does this mean I can redeem the 100k choice balance for a ticket worth $1k and my redeemable mile balance will still remain the same as before (ie: 200k)? And ... the miles earned on the $1k ticket credited to my 200k balance???
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but your RDM balance will still go down by 100K in your example.
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but your RDM balance will still go down by 100K in your example.
That's correct -- Choice Points should be thought of as RDMs with additional uses (as monetary credit toward a united.com flight purchases with the MP VISA).
And yes the the flight will earn additional RDMs (and perhaps EQMs)
Does this mean I can redeem the 100k choice balance for a ticket worth $1k and my redeemable mile balance will still remain the same as before (ie: 200k)? And ... the miles earned on the $1k ticket credited to my 200k balance???
I only wish it worked that way. The miles will be deducted.
I'm new to Chase and didn't really understand the Choices business, so this has been helpful. I checked my balance for the first time and it says 74,370 RDMs and 74,370 in the Choices program balance. About 46,000 are from the signup bonus and two tix, the rest are flight miles. I read WineCountryUA's primer (several times) and this doesn't seem to make sense. Am I missing something?
I'm new to Chase and didn't really understand the Choices business, so this has been helpful. I checked my balance for the first time and it says 74,370 RDMs and 74,370 in the Choices program balance. About 46,000 are from the signup bonus and two tix, the rest are flight miles. I read WineCountryUA's primer (several times) and this doesn't seem to make sense. Am I missing something?
Thanks
This does seem odd.
The sign-up bonus does appear to apply to Choice Points but flight mileage RDMs do not.
If you have done mileage redemptions, the Choice Points total is capped by the RDM total (but has been reported to recover). But you did not mention any redemptions.
Other than a potential capping due to redemptions, can not explain your counts.
I did upgrade with miles on IAD-KOA and DCA-LIH during the DEQM game but the miles for that were in the bank and the flights completed before the 46k from Chase even posted. (got 7/8 of the long legs!) So RDMs were always greater than Choice miles/points.
Thanks for confirming how I thought it worked. Either the rules changed and they didn't tell anyone, it's a mistake and I should keep my mouth shut, or I'm just really special
Pardon my ignorance, but how does one figure out what is counted towards the spending of $35K annually for the 5K EQM? For instance, are base purchase amounts ("Chase VISA Purchases") only counted toward the $35K or does this also include the bonus amounts that show up as "Chase Everyday Purchases"??
Pardon my ignorance, but how does one figure out what is counted towards the spending of $35K annually for the 5K EQM? For instance, are base purchase amounts ("Chase VISA Purchases") only counted toward the $35K or does this also include the bonus amounts that show up as "Chase Everyday Purchases"??
Thanks for any help on this.
Simply is the accumulative sum of purchases, the total $ value of purchases from the first of the year. Does not include the bonuses.
