gaudym00se34

Hello, I am new to trying to use points to travel. I've read about transferring on UR to an airline's points program, but do not understand the benefit/how it helps.

I am trying to go to London around thanksgiving and wondering whether this is a smart option. Can someone provide some guidance? Thank you

mia

Welcome to Flyertalk.

There are two ways to use Ultimate Rewards points for travel.

1. You can use them instead of money to purchase a ticket from Chase's travel agency. If you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred card the points are worth $0.0125 each. To buy a $1,000 ticket you would need 80,000 points.

2. You can transfer them to an airline frequent flyer program. The program publishes a chart which specifies the number of miles or points required for a trip. The airline makes only a limited number of seats available for award redemptions. It may be rather late to look for award seats for Thanksgiving 2016, but you can try. The same $1,000 ticket might be available for 60,000 miles.

In this example you would need to redeem 20,000 fewer points for the same trip. The differences can become much larger if you redeem for business class tickets. For example, a $4,000 ticket would require 320,000 points, but might be available through a frequent flyer program for only 100,000 points.

To give you more help we need to know:

• Origin airport (where you start the trip).
• Dates you would like to travel.
• Number of passengers in your party.
• Cabin you intend to fly in: Economy, Premium Economy, Business, First
• How many Ultimate Rewards points you have

garykung

No unless you fly premium.

International airfares ex-USA are usually cheap.

blueman2

With the big devaluation last year for United in using partner airlines for premium cabin award tickets, it seems that transferring points to SQ would be a prime target. Far better redemption rates. What are people's experiences here in actually redeeming points for SQ saver premium cabin awards?

I guess there is a risk that an award shows up, you transfer points, wait a day or 2 for them to go through, and the award is gone by that time. You are then stuck with your points stranded in an SQ account.

mia

This type of question is better researched in the Singapore Airlines forum. It doesn't matter if you get your miles from American Express, Chase, Citi, HSBC, Starwood or elsewhere, the availability would be the same. Here are some threads to get you started:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/singa...ilability.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/singa...q-doesn-t.html

mia

Question about Combining points with another UR account has been moved:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chase...-accounts.html

AUDirt

Sorry if this has been answered: I've looked other places but want people's experience.

I live in the US Southeast (HSV) and fly Delta exclusively. Southwest doesn't serve my airport and I've been stranded by UA and AA too many times. I never travel internationally. I travel with little kids so upgrades don't interest me, either.

I'm tempted by the UR program because everyone seems to like it, but I'm not sure how well it would work for me.

Does anyone have much experience using KLM/Flying Blue for booking domestic DL flights?

And what do I do with my Hilton preference?

Thanks!

hedylarue

Transferred UR to Avios a couple of hours ago. Have done it before and it was always instant but still waiting on this one. Tried clearing the cache, using different browsers...no luck. I got an email from Chase confirming the transfer. I wonder if the fact that it's a Sunday means anything. Maybe they are only instant on weekdays?

sdsearch

First, you don't have jump on a bandwagon. Not everyone thinks UR points are the greatest thing on earth, it's just that the people who don't think that don't tend to post about it, and the people who love UR do tend to post a lot about it. Thus you can get a distorted view of how universally "everyone" loves UR because those who love it are the only vocal ones and those who don't have much use for it tend to be silent.

I would say in your case, if you already had UR points, I"d recommend you transfer to Marriott and/or Hyatt, since you only have a preference for Hilton, as opposed to not wanting to fly UA or AA at all. Keep in mind that you'll likely earn points for only a handful of nights at Marriott and/or Hyatt a year, so if you stay more than a handful of nights a year, you can still do mostly Hilton if you want.

But if you're not sure what you'd do with UR points, you might want reevaluate whether you need to collect them.

Meanwhile, some thoughts about HSV: There are very few nonstop flights from there. You can spend 3 hours at a connection airport, or you can drive just over 2 hours to BNA and get many more nonstop flights from there.

Relatives of mine wanted to fly to MSP from HSV a couple years ago, and all the connections were ridiculous. I got them award flights on Delta nonstop from BNA to MSP and they loved it.

And I thought of that because in Los Angeles, and when visiting my relatives in HSV, I got tired of waiting at connection airports in Texas or wherever and then having a regional jet be late at HSV. I found I actually save time by flying nonstop LAX-BNA and driving a couple hours to HSV, and at certain times of year those nonstops LAX-BNA are way more reliable than connections through Texas. (And Delta would backtrack me through ATL.) LAX-BNA is flown nonstop by both AA, DL, and WN (Southwest). So that one example illustrates just how much better the flight choice from BNA are compared to HSV.

AUDirt

Thanks for the lengthy reply. I think you're right -- UR is probably not the right program for me.

Also, since you have family in HSV, you may want to take a look at BHM. In my experience it's closer to HSV by about 30 minutes (give or take). There may be fewer directs than BNA, though.

As for me, I'm very aggressive with my connections in ATL. My family (3 kids under 7) have made a 45 minute connection. It was tight, but we did it

hedylarue

Update: It's been just about 24hrs and the points have still not posted to my BA account. I called Chase and they confirmed it should have posted instantly and were confused. They felt there may be an issue at BA. The rep said she would escalate my case and hopefully it will be resolved within another 24hrs. Hopefully I won't lose my flights...I have a plan B but still would be a bummer. I saw on the BA board that a lot of people are having technical issues on their site so hopefully it's a one off glitch.

hedylarue

My miles just posted to BA this morning. So it took about 2.5 days.

I spoke to Chase a couple of times and they told me it SHOULD be instant, but it can take up to 7 days if there are issues on BA's end. Luckily I was still able to get my tickets.

I guess the takeaway is that it is usually instant, but to be prepared that it may take several days and to have a plan B for the miles. It seems like others in this thread have said it took about 3 days when it was delayed for them as well so it's worth tracking if that ends up being the longest delay for most people.

I also wonder if it matters that I transferred on a Sunday...next time I would do it during the week.

joecool1885

TPG reports SQ transfer from UR should be same day. Im approaching 24 hours... nervously as the award I want still exists, but could disappear at any minute. Chase says 2 business days, which could potentially mean Monday for me. Anybody have experience with this?

dukerau

I think mine was in the 24-36 hour range, but it wasn't over the weekend.

extremeromance

Same here 24-36 hours, hang in there it will come through!