jk2

I am confused with the rules to whom I can transfer my UR points to. My wife has Chase Freedom, I have CSP. She usually transfer her Freedom UR points to my CSP account. Is it forbidden?

mia

Transfers between spouses are explicitly permitted. Read the terms:

https://chaseonline.chase.com/resources/RPC0444.pdf

jk2

Thanks, mia. Good to know that I'm safe (I hope, that the fact that my wife has different last name, but we live in the same address).

fetchercity

I don't know about tufasttt, but I have done the same thing for what I feel are legitimate reasons.

Example: Last month my friend booked flights for him and me on SWA. Therefore, I owed him 16k UR points. At the time of booking, I didn't have 16k points to book the flight myself, I was waiting for my next statement to post. After my statement posted, I had enough to repay him. Instead of transferring these directly to his SWA account, he asked me to send them to his UR account to provide him more flexibility.

I have done the same in reverse - booking a flight/room for a friend who didn't have UR points at the time but could repay me at a later time once their statement posted.

Didn't know this would cause such a fuss with Chase. FWIW, I still haven't been shut down.

mia

Banks know much more about us than the information supplied on an application. Marriages are public record.

lkar

Believe it or not and for what it's worth, there are still many people in the United States who are married under common law -- common law marriages (private marriage contracts between two people not formalized with a religious or civil ceremony or license) are recognized in about a dozen states. And if you move to another state, the state must constitutionally recognize your common law marriage even if that state itself doesn't have common law marriage.

In most of these situations, a bank would have no way to know. (Most credit card issuers' standard applications do not ask.) There're no publicly recorded documents. The IRS will have a document that common law spouses file if they chose to file as married, and states and employers and insurers might have various documents, but most of these wouldn't be public.

Just a minor point I'm making, but the bottom line is that for any two people, a bank really has no way to definitively say they are not lawfully married. One can often, through public records, prove that two people are married. But one usually cannot, through public records, prove that two people are not married.

(Parenthetically, if you're not asleep yet, this is a common problem for lawyers attempting to prove two people are not married (e.g., in a life insurance case) -- it essentially requires proof of a negative. The non-existence of a marriage license doesn't prove the matter.)

kenbo

Would this type of activity contribute to earnings that would increase the 7% annual dividend? If it does, then I can understand why Chase would shut it down.

smedleyb

My thoughts exactly.

lkar

Last year, transfers in did not appear to generate 7 percent on my account.

smedleyb

I know for certain transfers between Chase accounts into Sapphire accounts have generated the 7% in the past. I think the temptation to move account balances around to manufacture points was too great for some newbies. You get a point junkie controlling 3,4,5 or more family member accounts and the potential for abuse is insane.

Maybe I missed a post somewhere which states otherwise, but my sense is Chase will always tolerate reasonable exchanges between non-spousal accounts. This feature is one of core strengths of the UR program and I doubt it goes away.

Just my two cents.

lkar

Interesting. I transferred tens of thousands of points from my ink accounts last year into my Sapphire (all legit combinations) and did not receive the 7 percent bonus on the transfers. (I also bumped the bonus last year to get the extra 50k and did not receive the 7 percent on that.)

tufasttt

I have many similar transfers. Most common example: A family friend found a great award flight with star alliance and wanted to book it right away not to lose that seat availability (awards on airlines are very time sensitive so if you find something good, you need to secure it right away). They don't have enough miles, so they borrow miles from me, transfer to their UA account (or at times I would transfer it for them directly). When they get miles posted for the last statement, they send the miles back to my account. I travel a few times a month for my business, so the the fact that I have an above than average knowledge how to make the best use of the UR points made me a 'go to' person for help in points redemtion in my circle of family and friends. Like I said before, I do probably have many transactions that made me a target for my account closure and I don't deny it, but I strongly believe that chase could have handled this issue more delicately. It's never a good idea in any business to lose your loyal customers and give them no other option but to take their business elsewhere.

infamousdx

I also did not receive the 7% on transferred points in either mine or my wife's account last year.

CFFrost

As alluded to earlier, Marriages are not always public record. I cannot speak about other states, but at least in CA you can obtain a confidential marriage license that is not made available to the public, and is only released to a non-party by court order. While I agree that banks may have a way to discern whether two people are married - especially when they make that marriage a matter of public record, change their names, and live together - that conclusion is far from assured in a case where the two parties are in a confidential marriage, don't live together (or have multiple addresses), and don't share a last name. While this might be less common than most people believe, it is still an outlier and I imagine a Chase CSR would be utterly unable to comprehend how to proceed given a customer presenting this sort of scenario. I also suspect that Chase would hesitate before walking down a path that might lead a customer's account being closed when they may
in fact, be married.

All of this leads me to the conclusion that this has more to do with other behavior that is deemed to be "abusive" (or unprofitable) by Chase. How many of these transfers were from one party who only has a Freedom card to another party that has a CSP card? Increasing the value of your points by transferring to a card that (through the ability to transfer to travel partners) increases the value of the points without the original card member ever paying for that transfer ability. As someone else mentioned - imagine a family (or group of friends) of six people with six Freedom accounts and one CSP account. Do you think Chase wants to leave all of that money in annual fees on the table? This is only one (possible) scenario. Increasing your CSP dividend is another.

My guess is that Chase is looking at people who have made a number of transfers to people who appear to be unrelated. If you've transferred to more than one person, the probability is extremely high that at least one of those people was not your spouse. If you've made constant transfers back and forth between one person, who does not share your last name or your address, there is a decent probability that you are not married. If they look at that transfer activity and decide it is unprofitable, they terminate your account and tell you it was for violation of T&Cs. My guess is that if anyone actually challenged this rationale by producing a marriage certificate their account would remain closed, this time citing "business reasons" or some other arbitrary rationale. Chase made moves like this before, and it only shows us that it is better sometimes to do things conservatively and avoid being noticed rather than risk having a problem.

I personally have a Freedom card with +/- 40k points as well as a CSP count with +/- 80k. I have hesitated to combine these points, but I am afraid that Chase may rework their entire transfer policy without notice. Now I need to decide if I should transfer those Freedom points to my CSP account.

DC777Fan

Is a girlfriend whom I share an apartment a "domestic partner?" Trying to be as PC as possible, I don't know if that's a "code word" for a same sex couple and Chase doesn't want to be sued for discrimination, or if they're OK with non-married couples transferring points...