mia

Chase offers two distinct ways to move points.

One is to transfer to an airline or hotel frequent flyer account. That is the subject of this policy announcement.

The other is to combine balances by moving points from one Ultimate Rewards account to another. I don't see anything in the announcement which changes the rules for combining.

ohmark

Just to be clear; the Chase CSR told me, in respect to the Chase Ink Plus card, that today's "secure message" verbiage did NOT change the policy in respect to the ability to directly transfer UR points from a cardholder's UR account to a spouse's awards account at a UR transfer partner such as Marriott, British Airways, etc. She said this type of transfer is still permitted.

DaveInLA

In that case, I'm unclear what the changes are.Just addition of business partners/owners?

DaveInLA

Ah, good point. Is there a way to combine UR balances online without calling?

izzik

When you read the fine print.. this particular sentence stands out even more. Choose your authorized user very carefully!

You can transfer points in 1,000 point increments, but only to participating frequent travel program accounts belonging to you or one additional household member who is listed on your account as an authorized user. Once you transfer points to an authorized user, that person will be the only authorized user eligible to receive point transfers through this program.

beltway

I assume that's from the Chase Sapphire Preferred program agreement. (If so, please post a link.) The Ink Plus agreement reads very differently.

Happy

Good catch. The Ink's agreement does not have such prohibitive language as on CSP. Still, the business owner must be an AU on the Ink account. it is not clear to me if it is limited to ONE or not. The CSP seems to only allow one AU.
Ink family has always been more useful than CSP and the change of UR program makes it even more so. I only wish Ink Cash would go 0 forex fee as it is a MC which has much better forex rates than Visa.

Online, UR own website. Have you gone to that website to explore all the tabs and submenu?

Doubt anyone here call to combine points, even during the long stretch when the site had horrible glitch on this function. 10 second Search on google you will find enough how to links.

beltway

On a closer reading, I noticed that the Ink Plus rules for combining (UR to UR) and external transfers (UR to travel partner) are different(!). I've posted relevant extracts in the wiki.

Happy

Saw it. Combining is limited to household member AND business owner but transferring is limited to business owner ONLY. Is this what you have found?

In other words, you can do the combine function to move your Ink pts to another eligible UR account, but in order to transfer the pts you need an AU that is defined as "business owner".

Do you interpret the same way as above?

DaveInLA

If Ink cardholders can combine with household members, then I'm guessing all this fuss is over nothing. I would certainly my be happy.

Brendan

Well, at least Chase is satisfying those who posted in the thread of #13 Mia's link that they wished they might transfer to their AU who is not a spouse/ DP!
So today is the last day under the old rules to transfer to a (pretended) DP, whose name will be erased from your account tomorrow!

beltway

Yes. I read new rules as saying that starting tomorrow, my DW & I can move UR between my Freedom UR account & her Ink Plus UR account (in either direction), but that transfers out to partners from her Ink Plus account can only go to a) her own partner accounts or b) partner accounts belonging to an AU who is also a business co-owner.

And no, I have no idea how Chase plans to determine who satisfies that last criterion. I'm a bit concerned they may be evil enough to prohibit "co-owner" account transfers where the Ink Plus was opened under a business described in the application as a sole proprietorship. The potential for [verb]ing over spouses with linked accounts would be disastrous for many of us.

ohmark

If your question has to do with spouses, the Chase CSR told me there is no change, as reported above. Of course, one can never absolutely rely on verbal assurance from a CSR, but this one told me she is 100% certain--and that the Secure Message was just poorly worded.

beltway

Well, the program agreement says the same thing. It seems to me entirely possible that the CSR was conflating intra-UR transfers with outbound transfers to travel partners. As discussed above (in thread & wiki), the rules are worded very differently.

ohmark

I explicitly discussed the different transfers with the CSR (i.e. transfers to a spouse's account with a Chase transfer partner, and transfers to a spouse's UR account). I explicitly discussed the wording of the "secure message." She took the time to read the message and told me that she understood exactly what I was talking about. She then left the conversation to speak to her managers. Upon return, she told me that the "secure message" could have been better written, but there was no intent to change the rules in respect to outbound transfers to a spouse's account with a Chase transfer partner. As noted above, she said she was 100% confident of this. She said that the secure message was intending only to deal with the ability to transfer to an owner of the business's account at a Chase transfer partner and the failure to mention the continuing ability to transfer to a spouse's Chase transfer partner account was simply an oversight.
That being said, this was a CSR, so there is not 100% assurance that she is right, but you would think that if Chase's intent was to eliminate the Chase Ink ability to transfer outbound to a spouse's account (at a Chase transfer partner), then this would have been explicitly stated in the "secure message," but it was not. We will see. (In either case, the continuing ability to transfer to a spouse's Chase UR account, eliminates any problem for me.)