Schnit

If you don't care about airlines you only option left is hotels. You are commiting to never transferring to Marriott or Hilton or IHG, which could be comparable value depending on transfer bonus if offered.

Would you downgrade your preferred card once you transfer? The code savings needs to be considered as well

philemer

Please define "code savings"
Thx

Schnit

Sorry typo. Cost savings.

I don't know how often you open cards etc. If you don't think you'll need transfer bonus for a while you may be better off downgrading, all depends on your habits and spend

Ilove2fly

Personally, I love Hyatt. However, I find Hyatt foot print to be limited and many times I pay cash for the rooms instead of points because cash/point is less than 1.25 cent. Plus frequently, while rooms are available for cash, they are not available for points. Unless you are canceling your card, it's best to keep UR points as UR currency. Once in a while I find a decent award deal on BA for flying AA domestic or on UA. We have Sapphire Reserve, there are times booking with UR points consumes less points than booking as UA award tickets.

Besides, usually FT will be all lit up when a partnership ends. UR and Hyatt partnership is very much loved. You should have plenty of warning.

Dr Jabadski

If by chance you’re a (snow) skier, it’s a no brainer to transfer to Hyatt. Hyatt has several properties at popular ski resorts including Vail, Park City and Keystone. 200K is enough for 6-8 nights at Grand Hyatt Vail in the middle of ski season, easily worth $700-$1200 per night or $0.03-0.04 per point OR 10-12 nights at Hyatt Place Park City during ski season worth ~$300-$400 per night.

(FWIW, same is almost true for Hilton at Whistler, Breckenridge, Park City and Vail. “Almost” because Hilton redemptions just never seem to be as valuable (points per $) as Hyatt awards.)

Hornetcoach

I find transferring to Hyatt to be the best use of my Chase points. However I only transfer as I need them, the transfer is almost instantaneous. I see no reason to transfer them all now, may as well keep all your possibilities open. With all types of points there is a devaluation over time so it probably a good idea to use them when you have them, not to store them into the future. I wish I would follow my own advice on that, I have a lot of accumulated points that I should have used.

worldspan

I get maximum bang for the buck by transferring Chase points to Hyatt. Even with the "subsidization" on the Sapphire Reserve card with all hotel bookings through their hotel portal Booking.com I still do much better off with the transfer to Hyatt. Just yesterday I was checking for a trip to Amman Jordan in March with stay at the Hyatt Regency a regular room was just 8000 points, club floor 12000 and premium suite for just 16,000 points. You just can't beat that.

guv1976

How soon would you expect to use 200K Hyatt points? At the moment, Hyatt points are far more valuable than IHG or Marriott points. But no one knows when (or if) there will be the next devaluation of the Hyatt program (or any other frequent-guest or frequent-flyer program).

While anything is possible, I would not expect Chase to end transfers to Hyatt overnight, with no notice whatsoever.

Duke787

The whole benefit of the Chase UR ecosystem is not having to commit your points to a specific program until you are ready to redeem.

Unless there is a transfer bonus, making a speculative transfer to any specific program can leave you with orphan miles and it also removes the flexibility to redeem them elsewhere if something else arises (e.g., transfer to Hyatt and then suddenly LH F is available for your dates on UA or AC and you no longer have UR to transfer for the booking -- yes you haven't wanted to use for airlines in the past but the point is you lose that option completely if you commit them over to Hyatt).

Given the longstanding ties between Hyatt and Chase (think co-branded card), no reason to think that option will disappear. Of course if you have a redemption in mind to make after you transfer, that's a different story, but for hypotheticals you are better off keeping the flexibility of UR.

HPN-HRL

Let me address some of your questions:

- Using Avios for Transatlantic flights: poor value on AA/BA due to excessive cash copays; can be OK to use Avios on Iberia (but IB doesn't fly to CLT)
- Using Avios for flights on AA out of CLT: OK to excellent value; best on nonstop itineraries.
- Will AA stop allowing the use of Avios under any circumstance? Very unlikely; the more likely downsides are BA devaluing by raising the Avios needed for redemptions and/or AA reducing the amount of award space that they release to partners like BA.

Speculatively transferring to BA enough Avios to cover your planned Mexico trip next summer is probably not a bad idea; even if you don't use them then you should have plenty of opportunities to use them for some flights out of CLT. I would definitely not speculatively transfer to BA on the hope that you will use those Avios to fly to Europe next summer - there are much better ways to get to Europe using UR.

As an aside, here are the best uses of Avios (IMHO):
- Nonstop flights in the Western Hemisphere on AA or Alaska
- Nonstop flights in Australia on Qantas
- Nonstop flights in SE Asia on Malaysia or Cathay
- Nonstop flights in Europe on BA (Reward Flight Saver)
- Nonstop flights on Iberia, either transatlantic or within Europe (transfer your Avios to IB and book from there)
- Nonstop flights on Aer Lingus, either transatlantic or within Europe

cidcock

Thank you so much for the thorough response! I'm just getting my feet under me and am always afraid to commit too many points on something that may not be great value.

I am going to check out Aeir Lingus and Ibera. As I said before, we aren't set on a location - just know we'd like to go somewhere in Europe.

I was thrilled that I just found a flight for our family of 4 for my 10 year old's birthday to NYC on AA thru BA, as it was the same points to fly direct from CAE (which is actually where I am located). The domestic travel for BA (AA) has some great options, so i may transfer some to cover a trip to CUN and possibly another trip next year.

Is the transfer bonus for Avios unusual?

mia

Historically Ultimate Rewards did not offer many Transfer bonuses, but by this time last year the pattern had started to change and this thread was created:

Latest Chase transfer bonuses

Avios tends to run one Transfer bonus per year with each partner card issuer.

cidcock

I'm just looking into the "Reward Flight Saver" option on BA for our potential Europe trip. It may be useful for LHR to AMS or CDG, but for some reason I don't see it showing up on my serach. I found this on TPG -
you must have earned at least 1 Avios in the 12 months before booking in order to take advantage of Reward Flight Saver.

I don't currently have a way (that I am aware of) in earning Avios as I have just transferred UR over, is there a way to earn without opening a BA card?

guv1976

If you just converted UR points to Avios, that will count as "earning" for RFS purposes. Recheck a day or two after the transfer actually shows up in your BAEC account.

Other ways for you to earn BAEC Avios include taking surveys

https://www.rewardsforthoughts.com/rewards

and shopping online

https://www.shopping.ba.com/us

cidcock

Thanks! I see the Reward Flight Saver on there, they are just a bit higher points than I expected. LHR to CDG for instance is 9250 avios, but the same flight is only $73 cash...