Originally Posted by
Caspavio
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i also find it a stretch that bank will shut down customers for this. dont forget that from chase's perspective, everything up until the transfer is legit.
Everything INCLUDING the transfer to the airline is legit - Chase has no restriction on transfer to airline and offers it as a welcome option for redemption as long as the account is in the primary or AU cardholder's name so I agree that Chase has no reason to get involved here.
Where the OP can run into an issue is (as has been previously mentioned) when those miles that are in their name are used to book flights for random people and their mileage account gets flagged and shut down for doing too many third party bookings. This is rampant with AA, Alaska, Virgin, and others, and I'm sure more airlines are going to crack down going forward.
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Still, I wouldn't upgrade from Sapphire Preferred to Reserve on speculation. Let the broker tell you if there is a valuation difference, and exactly what you would need to do.
I wouldn't upgrade based solely on points boost of the Reserve and then relying on a broker giving more $$ for that. Perhaps would have done it to lock in 1.5cpp value on the CSR but it's too late for that now.
The best value for the OP to liquidate their points without needing to go through a broker or getting into trouble and violating any T&Cs is to book travel for other people (friends, family, co-workers, etc) on their Preferred via Chase Travel at a value of 1.25 cpp (or up 1.75 cpp if they're lucky) and those people pay the actual price which they would have paid anyway when booking themselves. There is no rule against booking travel for others using Chase UR points and they have more than 2 years to cycle through the points.