Originally Posted by
Happy
There are many ways to skin a cat, and UR points certainly worth less than Membership Reward points based on the usefulness to our household. Of course this varies.
The bad thing about UR portal is you are NOT dealing with the Expedia consumer side - there is huge difference between the Expedia the general public sees it and the Expedia Chase contracted with to do the UR booking. The former is almost like another big OTAs because Expedia owns most of them just under different names, the latter is more or less like a corporate contract with lots of hidden restrictions that we the users have no clue until we run into issues, that includes the independent hotels do not confirm the reservations but you have NO WAY to contact them, among other perils we have encountered.
PYB let's you keep the 1.5x so you just use the cash to book whatever you need / want, thru better channels and earn more points in the process without losing the 1.5x benefit!
1) For hotel bookings, I would argue that UR are worth more than MR (Hyatt). I like and accumulate both though
2) I don’t get why you and others are saying PYB conflicts with booking via the Expedia portal at a 5x UR return. When you book through the portal with a Freedom Flex to earn 5x back, you are booking with cash - so you are not burning UR points, you are earning them. PYB actually complements booking through Expedia - If I book a $1,000 stay at a Mandarin Oriental via the Chase Portal on my Freedom Unlimited, I earn 5,000 UR points, which can then either be transferred to Hyatt or redeemed for $75 in value with PYB through a Chase Sapphire Reserve. If I booked the same stay on a Chase Sapphire Reserve directly on the Mandarin Oriental website, I earn 3,000 UR points, which can then be transferred to Hyatt or redeemed for $45 in value with PYB through a Chase Sapphire Reserve. In this situation, booking with a Freedom Flex rather than a Sapphire Reserve gives you at least $30 more value.