RedSun

Sure, what is the value of UR??? No one knows. It is meaningless to discuss it. We all get different answers. I'm 100% happy with what I get.

If someone wants to make a card decision based on the pure value of the point value, good luck with it....

Here is the recent discussion. Enjoy reading it.

What are your Ultimate Rewards points worth to you?

mia

Agreed, but that does not make the answer meaningless. If the value of a UR point for me (not for everyone, not for most people, not for you, just for me) is greater than $0.015 it means that I can discard the option to redeem at $0.015. It doesn't mean that you should make the same decision, but it does mean that my decision is correct for my situation.

RedSun

Even your own decision can give you different answers. Look at any miles reward chart and ticket price chart. Your redemption rate changes with fare class greatly. Very likely the redemption rate is much higher with high fare ticket and redemption rate is much lower with low fare ticket. Would the redemption rate persuade you to redeem for high fare ticket? Would you say 4 cpp redemption is better than 1.5 cpp redemption for the same trip? Not really. So what is your own correct decision? Chasing redemption rate?

This varies even more for different people, different travel styles etc.... Many more variables. High point value alone does not mean anything.

jags86

RedSun

I already made my points. No more reply. Good luck to you all....

linglingfool

Whoops, that was an unfinished sentence -- should've said 3x on hotels. I don't have a ton of travel spend that codes as such outside of hotels, airfare, and meals, so don't feel that I'm missing out on a ton here.

krazykanuck

This thread feels very much like this (now locked) thread: AMEX Platinum vs Chase Sapphire Reserve

Can we not let each other earn and burn our points in peace?!

Happy

Well said.

As another example, I simply cannot see 30K UR pts at 1.5cent = $450 would buy you the Park Hyatt Sydney (30K Hyatt pts).

Numbers do not lie. Those who ignore the hard calculation of numbers so can make educated decision are the reasons why banks would use the marketing gimmick such as instead of a $150 AF, it would be $450 AF with $300 credit, plus the tiered travel redemption that in reality is hard to achieve for many cardholders. But it sure does the trick to "brainwash" those who fall for the marketing gimmick because they are either lazy or not capable, to do the hard analysis.

Not to mention that the few times I tried this touted 1.5 cents redemption, UR portal failed miserable, both for international flights (Scandinavia and Lot) and for international independent hotels (said confirmed but the owner of the property refused to honor the booking). Way too much hassle and way too much follow up needed to ensure it would work. For those who only use it for redeeming domestic flights / hotel bookings that can readily verifiable (so they would not risk not having booking at check in!) more power to them.

Personally the "cash value" of the UR pt remains to 0.01 regardless which genre it comes from. It is the transferred ability that lifts the value, and CIP fits the bill just fine. We still keep one CSR in the household, purely because a Chase mistake last year that it issued a $450 check to a canceled CSR regardless being told it made a mistake. So that went to pay for another year's AF to the remaining CSR and we will revalue in 2020.

Seriously CIP has replaced both CSR and CSP for the travel earning and good portion of the benefits. For any household it only needs ONE Chase card that has the transfer ability.

Happy

Or put it another way, for the $4000 value ticket it would cost you 70K to 80K pts transfer to airline programs. The same 70K to 80K pts if used to buy ticket on UR Portal, at the argument of 0.015 cent per point, can only buy you a ticket worth $1050 to $1200.

RedSun

I chose to move on and you brought this up again.

Sure, this poster has his or her own way of thinking of point redemption. I never set a mechanical redemption rate I'm chasing. For the same flight, a 4 cpp with a $4,000 ticket does not make it better than a 1.5 cpp redemption rate with a $1,000. The same destination. You are just fooled by the blindly chased redemption rate.

I maintain almost all main reward systems. When I redeem for travel, or spend the points, I look at all my points, MR, UR, TY and BofA cash travel portal etc.

But Cash Remains the King! Points are worthless just sitting there. I'll be happy to spend the points and save the cold cash and let the cash working again and again.

This is the about the similar talk we had before about earning SPG points for miles. A lot people were doing it and it was not even good way of using the points are the best rate. I do not know why people did not chase reward rate with that.

It is just interesting to see some of the nemesis hanging around buzzing. I've chosen to move on and they won't stop.

APeverell

I have a centurion from Europe, US plat both personal and biz, all three SPG cards, and is planning to get the pink gold card next Jan when I retire the biz plat. I also have JPMR and various airline and hotel cards from Chase. And I have both Citi Prestige and Premier, and AA Executive card. And various airlines card from BoA, Barclays, and TD. And the $95 AF version Diners.

I travel extensively around the world, so every card makes a bit of sense to me and the benefit I get would definitely outweigh the AFs paid. I use JPMR for all the dinings, Amex personal plat for airline tickets and fees, Citi Premier for gas, parking, and commuting, Prestige mainly for the 4-for-3 hotel nights benefit. Hotel stays I use respective affinity cards that yield best point offer. Everything else now goes to the new Chase Hyatt card, as every $5000 spend would net me 2 nights toward keeping my Globalist status.

What kind of cards make sense to keep depending heavily on your spending pattern, and if you are like me that love staying at Park Hyatt Tokyo when visiting Tokyo, you'll find saving your UR points for Hyatt stay invaluable (30000 points or 60k~70k yen per night). But if you mainly fly coach and do not stay in high-end hotel much, then I guess 1.5 cpp makes perfect sense for you!

RedSun

Totally agreed. We all get our own life styles and different point valuation. In economics, this is called Utility Function. F=F(x1,x2,x3... Xn). There are many variables. We certainly respect each one's economic valuation.

With family members, we keep like 50 to 60 credit cards. I pay more than $3,000/year AFs alone. We are happy to pay that since we get positive returns from all the cards we keep. Chase CSR is one of them and it anchors our UR system.

When I book any air or hotel, I have several weapons I can pull. AmEx MR for airfare, hotel points for hotel. Then Chase UR and its travel portal is always there if we need it.

If I get $1,000 out of the system, I'll be happy to pay a $68 cost. It makes me happy.

Super Mario

No disrespect intended. However, with all of the AFs you pay, I wonder what quantifiable benefits are you receiving, vs it being a status symbol or perceived benefit. We can debate it back and forth all day with some fact, and some subjectivity. The amount of overlap seems pretty high. I wonder if I removed 5, maybe even 10 cards from your portfolio, what you would really miss out on.

But this is the greatness of it all. Everyone has a different profile and there is a card for everyone. Assigned valuations have become too much of convoluted topic IMO. To me, who mainly travels domestically, I use my UR for cruises with a lowly 1.5 cent valuation. A cruise is a big expense that I have no other way of eliminating its charge. Hotels are paid for by Hilton or IHG points from work travel unless it is cheap enough to just buy. The wild card for me is flights. I can't get over spending more than I need to there, no matter how "good of a deal" it is. $200 coach works. My upcoming trip has a roughly $2000 price tag, paid in points, with plenty of points left over, and a $200 flight out of pocket. Minimal out-of-pocket expenses for frequent trips that interest me is my best valuation.

thomasengland

I think the fallacy is that you equivocate the "$1,000" ticket to the "$4,000" ticket. The point of the game is to obtain the highest return on your points while maximizing value. If at the end of the day all you do is economy travel, I'd suggest looking into deals with KrisFlyer or even before Korean Airlines with Chase. I was getting 25k roundtrip redemptions on Delta via Korean with a free stopover. Even if you priced that out with the 1.5 return it didn't match the 0.03 - 0.04 redemptions you could get on economy through this redemption.

When you move up to business / first for international travel, the rewards can be even greater.

If at the end of the day you are happy with a 1.5 cash return, that's fine. However to state that it's irrelevant is not only ignorant but also misleading to people.

Happy

@super Mario

I am glad you have mentioned about booking cruises a while back.
Cruises may be the only option that we would get real use of the 1.5c CSR travel value. We cruise 2 to 3 times a year, inevitably on the very cheap rates for certain periods of the year and certain type of routes. It is always a real out of pocket expenditure with no other way to offset it except earning 3x, and the occasionally $100/$500 AMEX offers which now have "devalued" to $150/$750 and no more multiple cards allowed.

We have not yet utilized the CSR travel to book a cruise, may be this December may be next Spring - we will then see how Connexions compares to our usual booking channel (a top agent with all lines), or VacationToGo's pricing (they seem to see some deals nobody else has, nor available from cruiselines direct. I tend to check theirs first and emailed our cruise agent to see if she has it. She always seems to be able to find it though.)

Otherwise, a flat bed on international long haul is not a luxury but a requirement - that is, if we dont have the points to spend, we would buy the tickets with money - therefore it is no brainer for us that the transfer value is the highest to us. For that matter, membership reward points have been winning the game because Chase is losing desirable partner(s) and the rest are either redundant (all kinds of Avios) or the same as other programs, while AMEX has some desirable transfer partners.
Of course if one does not do international travels, the transfer value is largely moot. Or if one only flies coach, it is far better to buy tickets than redeem miles.